Talkin about a revolution

And they said I would never use my major after college... 

Yet here I am, going to work every day to sit in the grass with young revolutionaries and leading discussions on how to create a social movement without involving homemade bombs.  

Since the school buildings have been blockaded in protest against the Ley 30 (an education reform), my classes have taken on a new flavor.  I call it “Educanarchy” to convince my students that their attendance and participation is, in fact, an act of rebellion against The Man.  We meet every afternoon outside in the campus to have special meetings (in English) about how to overthrow the regime--sort of.  So far, activities have included reading the Ley 30, analyzing picket sign slogans from the Occupy Wall Street marches, interpreting Bob Dylan lyrics, listening to Martin Luther King Jr speeches, discussing Karl Marx, and debating the true meaning of feminism.  In other words, the content of my entire college education.  Boo yah.

"Against the education system, Pro learning."

Even though I started this little project just for kicks, I’m unsettled by how few students take advantage of this opportunity.  I have more than 50 students who all claim to be desperate to learn English.  The students of the language department hold protests against the poor methodology of their Colombian professors who don’t speak native English.  The entire student body is up in arms about the fact that the government will not pay for their bachelors degree and they are willing to spend all day painting signs that say, “Education is a right!”  But when they have the chance to learn--not for a grade, not for a certificate, not for a resume--but for the sake of acquiring knowledge, there are on average about six people that show up. 

I can’t exactly judge them... I remember checking for the attendance policy in the syllabus the first day of class to calculate how many classes I could skip without effecting my GPA.  Every person who has ever gone to college has taken short cuts and ultimately cheated themselves out of what could have been a much richer learning experience.  That is simply the reality of academia.  But this generation (or maybe all young people since the beginning of time) seem to have lost all sense of our true objectives.  Why do we go to school?

To become self-sufficient autonomous individuals capable of producing our own prosperity. 

The students demanding free and universal education remind me of a son demanding that his father buy him a car so that he can be independent.  Initially, it will enable him to go where he wants on his own schedule but it will also make him reliant on his father to pay for gas and insurance.  There are certain societal contexts created by the State that are necessary to create favorable conditions for quality education.  But at the root of the problem of an undereducated country is a cultural paradigm of entitlement.  If the individual will not take the initiative to improve his own condition, there is no law or reform that will make him smarter. 

The students at La Universidad Nacional want to be a part of a revolution, they want to paint their faces and pump their fists.  Mass movements make us feel important and empowered.  But the excess of youthful passion combined with a lack of adult foresight leaves us all blind to the forest for the trees.  

("Taking your education into your own hands instead of waiting for the government to educate you: Priceless")