HW 42 - More Research and More Thinking (Significance)

What is school for? Parents made the decision to send their kids to school without putting too much thought into this question. Kids have no idea what they are doing at school other than being shape by the system. Then most of us learned that school is good for us, is for our future. Is it true that the first 20+ years of our life at school is simply for our future? We barely can see our future, perhaps predictable through patterns, but what is the “future”? If it is, why we complained so much about school? School suggests such a vague answer to the students that most of us will sure believe it and take it without a question.

Many of us including myself always think school is for our future, as John said like “stepping stones”, but we don’t know where we are going. Is life really predictable? Maybe by following such pattern, having good grades, leads to another good school, then maybe a high chance to graduate in a good college, lastly maybe having good job, great life pursuing happiness. It seems everything is predictable by going to school, and is easy for schools to trick us that school is really for our future. Then what about the present? Do we live our lives just looking at what is in front of us, but not questioning ourselves “what are we doing NOW?” I believe that if we keep looking forward to what is going to happen later; we are not living at the moment most of the time. School is there to tell us instant happiness will not last? We should not enjoy life until we get to the future? If keep stepping these stones, is it an endless trail due to human desire? Or we will get to the last stone, and have no idea what to do but just land on it until the stone sink? School taught me to look forward to the fruit without guarantee, but never teach me how to value these experiences in the institution.

As a student, I go to school and still at school. Future, my future, same - school. This pattern sure is predictable, and sure is for my future. But I barely see this happening in my own life. School seems to provide me a blur image that is waiting for me to remove the fog. I don’t know and have no idea why I am at school. Moreover, I always imagine what happens if I don’t go to school. Although my parents never pressure me to get good grades but supportive, they also do understand that grades do not determine my future in terms of getting a good job. If spending so many years at school might not lead us to anywhere but only left us with some worthless experience memories, why are we at school? Why don’t we learn something until we find our interest, and work hard on that to find a job and be an expert? Why after having these basics, we are still encouraged to go to school?

Not being able to answer why I am at school even if I don’t like it gives me a complex feeling. If I have no idea what I am doing right now, but seeing some blur image of my future, life seems like joke to me every day. I don’t know what I am doing right now; I also do not know what I am doing in the future with some bubbles dreams of different possibilities. If this is the case, will I ever have a clear thought or answer of my own existent other than going with the flow? I don’t want answers like I go to school because my mom told me to, or is for my future. I want something that can satisfy my question, something that is clear and certain. Simply future, is just too vague for me, at least. Especially when I know my parents sacrifice so much for three of us (brother, sister, me) to move to the U.S. for better education, going to school better not be a joke for me. Why my parents chosen to have such a hard life in the U.S. for us to have better education instead of having a stable upper middle class life in China? Was this changed for school really worth it? What is school for?