Can I call myself a non-conformist?

I used to call myself a non-conformist in high school, yet one of the largest things I claimed to not conform to was high school. I called high school out on all of its bullshit but I stayed and completed my diploma. I did not even want to go to university just because of credentialism and conforming to society's requirements of me. But I am at university.

So now I ask myself, am I even a non-conformist? I kind of dropped this description for myself a while ago.

I don't think it is necessary to declare oneself as practicing a certain philosophy like non-conformity, but I like to be sure of myself. I like to be able to find myself to be easily defined. I don't know. I am precise and weird like that.

So am I a non-conformist?

I am following all of society's conformities but I recognize that I am doing so. The difference between a university student attending university passively because they were told to go and myself is that I made the choice to attend an institution recognized in society as a credible way to get an education.

I do think that most people that are able to recognize the words conformity and non-conformity automatically drift towards non-conformity just because it seems like the more creative... that's not the word I'm looking for... it seems like the more liberal way to go. Not even liberal. It just seems like the choice one should make, I suppose.

Conformity does have its place. Chaos can occur in a non-conformist society but, I don't necessarily fear chaos, although, my character and background do suggest that I do like order. It is nice, but that is because I am in a structured society so I think it is expected.

I don't know. It's a hard call to diagnose myself as a non-conformist. I know that it is weird diction to call this a "diagnosis" but it feels like that is all I am really doing anymore. Trying to find what is wrong with me and what is right. I am just trying to figure out myself, still. I always am.

Whether or not I am a non-conformist is actually pretty irrelevant considering the fact that I consider myself a skeptic. I think. Maybe I am not a skeptic? Any philosopher/skeptic will get that joke. I hope. Please? Come on! That was solid.

Okay now I am just being dorky.

In general I would lean towards saying I am a non-conformist over being a conformist, although I feel like I obviously do not exude the qualities of a non-conformist. I don't refuse to do everything in society but I am aware of conformities in society and have a tendency to avoid them. I think that being a non-conformist is horrible for myself since I am still choosing to live in society. I hate doing assignments and studying in university because I don't think I am learning what I personally want to learn from it. Sure, I am studying subjects I like but I am not studying exactly what I want and not learning what I want either because university is structured learning. What I learn is dictated to me, which I hate. Therefore, my grades have a tendency to suffer since I am not enjoying myself as much and it takes me longer to get around to doing things I don't want to do.

It is not overly crucial for me to analyze whether or not I am a non-conformist, I just thought it was an interesting thought I had and went with it in this blog post. As I said, I just really like figuring myself out. I feel super dorky writing this post because I feel like it was what I blogged about close to a year ago. Not that I was dorkier then (well I was), I just feel like I have moved past a few things in my life and so it feels weird writing this post. I don't know. Here's me, just analyzing and over-analyzing every little detail of what I am writing and my life.

Dear University, I hate you.

I hate university.

I absolutely and positively hate university.

Why? I have learned nothing of value yet. I am at midterms in my second semester and I have learned nothing that has any value to me whatsoever. It is not that I am in the wrong program or at the wrong school, I love philosophy and psychology. It is just I am surrounded my professors who do not care about us. I am in an environment that does not support learning.

High schools and primary schools have a pretty good grasp on engaging students but just because we are paying thousands and thousands of dollars every year to learn, doesn't mean we are automatically engaged.

Sitting passively in a lecture hall isn't helping anyone. The material is dull, the professor isn't engaging and the slideshow really isn't helping anything.

I am bored. This is boring.

What I have learned about university is:
1) You learn EVERYTHING about one course from ONE book. This makes no sense. You have one textbook, maybe a few other books for one class and you are expected to learn everything about that one area or subject of study from those few materials. This doesn't seem very fair. The courses could be better constructed without following the textbook, or better than that, write the textbook to be tailored to a better course, Mr. Doctor.
2) Professors pretend to know everything. Sure, they know everything about their own subject but they assume this makes them better than most others. Of course, this is a generalization, there are some professors that aren't like this but, the truth is many of my professors and others I have met just seem to act like they know all.
3) You need a degree to do anything of value to earn money. I am in university and I can't even get a part time job at the mall. I've been searching for months.
4) Your program is not in the slightest bit tailored to you like high school was. High school had levelling to help you adjust to the material. University doesn't have this. Of course, you are expected to have a degree of intellect if you are in university. There is academic support for people who need tutoring. But what about me? I do not learn by reading or sitting in lecture, which is what university is. I learn by self-teaching myself. I learn with assignments. I learn with experience and actually doing things. But I can't learn that way to get my BAs in psych and philosophy.
5) You are an undergrad. Not a genius. You don't have a BA or BSc, or whatever you are aiming for. You are practically a child compared to people with PhDs.

I hate this. I have learned nothing, yet I hold around a 75% average. This tells you what university is like. There is the odd lesson or lecture that naturally engages me but for the information that is dull and needs to be learned, there has to be an alternate way.

Everyone hates studying. It is literally suffering for me. I feel like I am going to die. I go into mental breakdowns almost every time I try to study.

It is just not my cup of tea.

What is a "good" educator?

Right now in Ontario there is a huge waiting list for educators before they get a teaching job. After this year all BEd students have to do two years of the degree rather than one which most believe is due to the government trying to slow down the process. I think the two year style is a better one. It doesn't seem to be deterring too many people though. Especially since in my year, people who chose concurrent ed only do 1 year (after this year they must do 2).

I am in my first year of university with plans to go into education. I want to teach high school for a while but then I want to do something higher, possibly in the school board or even the government. Education itself is my greatest passion. I want to actually teach but I also have a desire to learn about education philosophy, study and perhaps test education methods and to learn how learning takes place psychologically and test that as well.

But not all educators have to have my passion for education.

My whole point with this "blah blah blah" intro is too many people are going into teaching because they don't know what else to do, they were told to, it is in the family, they have a pointless degree otherwise, etc. I'm sure there are many educators furious at me because they fit into one of these, which of course you can, but you should be a good educator and you can be.

So what is a "good" educator?

In grade 11 I did a research essay/presentation on the student-teacher relationship and the most important aspect of that said relationship.

One of the most important discoveries of mine was that there needs to be a relationship, period. So many teachers distance themselves from their students. Share your lives (obviously not too much), ask about the students. Don't develop just a relationship with the whole class, develop individual relationships with each student. Instead of scaring the students with grade reviews individually in the hall or after class, first, scare them with that because they'll think that is what is happening but then get to know them.

Getting to know each other establishes trust. Trust is another element I found important in the s-t relationship as well as in the classroom environment. Learning cannot occur until trust has. The student should feel comfortable in their learning environment. Comfortable with the teacher, with their classmates, etc. Then they will be able to forget their worries and focus on the lesson.

Caring was an important aspect that many students in the class I was giving the presentation to identified as important. A caring relationship also establishes trust and enables the student to feel truly... well cared for. You never know the students' home lives. You might be the closest thing they have to a stable life.

My teacher in that classroom identified communication to be important. Obviously all of these things have to occur with communication. But from perspective as a teacher it was more from the idea of she can't guess what is going on if the students do not tell her. I would also argue trust has to be here for the students to tell the teacher what is going on.

I think many teachers also act as guidance and support, both educationally but also emotionally/psychologically. I have had teachers (in high school) assist me with emotional problems. Not all of my teachers were like this. I don't think it should be expected. But there is a deal of compassion that I think should be a sub-requirement of the teacher. Even one of my "stricter" (in a way) teachers still showed compassion towards me at one point.

I also think humour is an important element of the teacher. Make your class laugh. Make them happy. If they are laughing and happy they are enjoying their time in your class and making the quality of their education better.

Of course, education is of course the conveying of ideas so the teacher should obviously not only know their subject but be passionate about it. I was very excited about one of my subjects of study in high school just because of the amount of passion my teacher conveyed in all of her lessons. Knowing your subject and then showing passion for that subject just helps students' learning.

I am sure (completely positive, in fact) that there are many more elements of a "good" educator but for now this is where this list ends.

My passion for education will hopefully take me places, despite the job wait for teachers. I will have to complete a 2-year BEd and of course I am still only in my first year of my undergrad, but it will be worth it. I am going to double major in psychology & philosophy and minor in english studies. The way my credits are structured I actually have room for a second minor so I can attain 4 teachables by the end of my 4 years. I am considering fine arts, classical studies and history. I wish I was in concurrent ed just so I can be learning about education (my true love) but not being in con-ed has allowed me to get 4 teachables rather than two.

What do you think is the most important element of a "good" educator?

There is not Enough Freedom in School

One time when I was in grade 12 we had to do a presentation on a theme based off of our two independent novels so I chose the generic theme of freedom. I began my presentation by asking people to place a dash on a scale of 0-10 (0 not free and 10 is very free)I drew on the chalkboard of how free they feel. It was a really good visual to see how free people felt. Most of the dashes were around the 6 mark.

I asked the class some leading questions and the one leading question was "Where do you feel the least free?" the class almost immediately responded with saying "school". I astounded my english teacher.

As a teacher I would think it would seem quite frightening to hear this. At first it does not seem like a big deal but in the terms of liberal education it becomes an enormous deal that students feel the least free in school.

Liberal education means questioning everything. Putting everything up for question and allowing freethinking to happen. If people do not feel free in a classroom, liberal education is not going to flow easily.

If there is a place for voicing your opinion and bouncing ideas off of other people, school should be this place. Especially high school. High school is when people are figuring out the world and who they are and who they will be in the world and if they are spending 8 hours a day in a building that doesn't have an atmosphere that encourages freedom of ideas or freedom in general we are just going to mass-produce chunks of people and not individuals.

Although, is this not what we are doing with the world? Creating stereotypes for people to fall into in order to better classify the earth, especially in the terms of consumerism and culture.

Anyways, I have a theory on why students feel the least amount of freedom in school.

1) Too many rules. High school is filled with a bunch of useless rules that intimidates students. For example: not wearing hats in the halls. This rule is so useless and I am pretty sure the only reason it is still around is because it gives authority figures a reason to assert their authority. This leads me to my 2nd point.

2) Too much authority. Obviously for safety reasons teachers and principals need to have a degree of authority over students but when a student walks into a classroom where they are instructed lessons and not encouraged to join in conversation equally with their teacher and classmates, they are not going to be successful in thinking freely. I had an amazing teacher once who was able to do both assert her authority over the class while also encouraging class participation. How? She didn't take bullshit and had a tough exterior but was also understanding and showed a great deal of compassion. She was also passionate about her subject she was teaching. She encouraged conversation by refusing to continue until people replied to her questions. She used group-work more than once a week to encourage classroom relationships. She wouldn't force you to work but would encourage it. It was the perfect amount of authority.

Anyways. This is just what I think. We need freedom in classrooms to be able to actually learn without bias. This is the gold nugget all teachers should strive to capture in each and all of their lessons, classes, days, and in their career. It is very important that students both get the factual material but also are given the chance to speculate it freely.

What do you think? Do you agree with my theory? What do you think about freedom in schools/classrooms?

I'd love to hear in the comment section!

New Years Resolutions + Tips on How to Stick to your Goal (and why I hate them)

I hate new years resolutions so much. I love making goals it is just the idea that we have to make goals at the end of the year for the beginning of the new year is just arbitrary and let's face it--- just setting the goal doesn't work.

It never works. You can't just say "I am going to do ______" and then do it, you need to create measurable, actual steps towards that goal. Not many people realize this and therefore their goals are not completed.

Goals are amazing. Nothing is really ever completed without a goal, unless it was a fluke or opportunity. But you aren't going to lose 50lbs by fluke, I'm sorry to break it to you. I love goals. But too many goals created around this time are left unfulfilled and it drives me crazy. The idea of only being able to create goals around this time is also not the best because you can create goals at any time in your life, not just at the end of a year.

Although, I have been procrastinating actually writing out my own goals so I am doing that now and here. I am taking advantage of the mob of people writing resolutions to write my own.

So here are my tips to complete your goals:

1) Write it down.
As unoriginal as this sounds, your goal becomes more real when written on paper. Put it somewhere you will constantly see it and be reminded of it.

2) Create reasonable and timely steps.
Do you remember "SMART" goals from school or work? Yes, yes they are fucking annoying. But guess what? They work. If you do not know what "SMART goals" are, click here for a good resource.

3) Be REALISTIC.
In the word "SMART" the "R" stands for realistic. I think this is a very important step to be taken seriously. Don't set a goal you can't attain. Maybe you want to run a marathon by the end of the year but then you think 1) Marathons in the winter are cold and I don't think I'll be ready by fall, 2) I need to lose weight first and 3) My eating patterns need to change, then you are probably setting something currently unattainable. If you change the time limit to a further date and make baby steps and create smaller goals like losing 10 pounds in 6 weeks, then you can work towards a larger goal.

4) SMALLER GOALS
Even if you think it is hard to come up with smaller goals to complete for apart of your larger goal do it! Write a minimum for 15 small goals to do your big goal and write one of those small goals to be completed immediately. For example, if you want to eat healthy in the new year, a first immediate step could be to research what your body needs in the way of fruits, veggies, calories, carbs, etc. A lot of people's problems are that they don't follow through with these goals. You may have decided to get in shape by getting a gym membership, but as a gym member I can't tell you how it pains me to see people pile into the gym for the first few weeks and then disappear. Force yourself to do personal training, write in advance for the whole year what days you will go to the gym.

5) Don't rush
Don't rush through your goal and make a lot of progress in January to be forgotten about the rest of the year. This goes along with the creating of smaller goals.

6) & Don't forget!
Keep your goal fresh in your mind. Write it everywhere. Put reminders on your phone. Tell your friends to remind you. Do whatever it takes to not forget to complete your small goals in order to achieve your larger goal.

7) KNOW WHY!
Why are you even completing your goal? For example, many people just decide to lose weight because they should and it's been on their mind but then they forget the reason. Is it to be healthy? To run a marathon? Write the significance at the end of your goals and remind yourself of it daily.

I really encourage everyone creating goals to follow these steps and the steps of "SMART" goals. Do what it takes to get what you want.

Anyways, so here are my goals. You can use my goals as sort of a template to write your own as well.

1) I will run my marathon in under 4hrs 30 mins. I have signed up for a marathon for early May and it is my first marathon. I hope to run it in under 4hrs and 30 mins. I am going to complete this goal by running a minimum of twice a week. I will also be able to run 32km by the end of March. I will stretch after every run to avoid injury. I will eat properly by getting the right amount of carbs and I will hydrate properly as well. I want to complete this marathon because I want to know that I can run 42.2km and I want to be healthy.

2) I will have an average over 70% in university. I will accomplish this task by completing the majority if not all of my readings, leaving enough time to study before each exam and test, fully editing my papers, participating in class discussions, visiting profs when I am having issues, prioritizing what needs to get done and completing all tasks. I want to accomplish this goal because I want an honours BA.

3) I will get a job before the summer. I will accomplish this goal by applying to places, not giving up and looking twice a week online for new openings. I want to get a job so I can earn money to not deplete my education fund too much.

4) I will manage my money and not overspend. I will create a budget and I will stay in my budget by tracking my spending and prioritizing my needs and not buying things that are unnecessary too often. I want to do this so I can come out of university with no debt and without needing a loan other than OSAP.

Good luck on the creation of your own goals! Let me know your goals in the comments.

Updates & Where is my blog going?

I used to be able to think in a certain pattern and usually that would be the way my blogs were written but I cannot think in those patterns anymore.

I realize how insane that sounds but I just don't feel like myself anymore. I find it hard to think, not in general, but just about the things I used to think about. Do you ever look back on photos or videos of yourself and feel different about yourself there? I feel like that with a lot of my blog posts.

I think it's just because I've stopped trying to figure things out. I have things mostly figured out, or at least I haven't started re-questioning them yet. My blog posts were trying to figure things out. They were opinion pieces about philosophy and psychology.

But I've lost that sense of my person. I feel so differently now. I have changed so much since I've started university.

So now I am not sure what direction to take this blog in. I was thinking of taking it on a route to focus on ideas in education because that is what I am mainly passionate about but I also want to talk a lot more about psychological disorders and whatnot. A lot of things that I want to write about I don't want people in my life to find online, so I find it hard to put what is actually in my thoughts out there to the world.

In a way I want a teen-directed blog about body image and depression but I also feel like that is too mainstream. Although I have gone through that and I realize it is mainstream so I feel like I could put a different spin on it.

Maybe my blog will just be life anecdotes.

I don't know. But I have decided to do some goals. I am going to work on writing up some new years goals and I will put that up on the 31st or 1st.

Now, I will provide some people with a few updates on my life in general.

I am in my first year of university now, I keep switching my major but what I am currently hoping to do is a double major in psych and english with a minor in philosophy.

I have a boyfriend now. We have been dating for close to 4 months and we are very happy.

I am going to be getting tested for learning disabilities soon. I'm not having any major issues, it's just I think I may have ADHD or some other learning disability that medication could help and I need a diagnosis.

I signed up for a marathon which I will be running in May next year!

I am just going to come up with a public list of blog ideas for me to write in the future, just so you can see potential things I will be writing about:

- Things I miss about high school
- A post about my view on art
- Bullshit, money & university
- Differences between high school and university
- Things that bug me
- How I view my body
- Idolization and celebrities
- Money making the world go around

If any of those topics appeal to you, please tell me in the comments because I will be sure to write about something that interests readers.

For now, I wish you a Merry Christmas. It is Christmas eve, after all.

Are you sure you want to go to post-secondary?

It has become a societal norm to go to college or university after high school. Is this necessarily a bad norm though? In my opinion, not at all. Education and learning are the most important things in one's life. It's all we really do. We learn things all of the time. We learn to communicate with others, we learn to do new things, everything we do has been learnt at one point in our lives. But the problem is that universities and colleges aren't as focused upon this idea of "learning" anymore.

Anyways, let me approach the actual question. Are you sure you want to go to post-secondary?

Reasons to go:

You really cannot get a job without it... that is a lie. You can. Many people do. You can even probably find a fairly good job without it, but you do need to make connections to get a job. So unless you have connections before entering post secondary to give you an amazing job in which you can still move up in to better salaries and this job will make you happy, you are set. But as it stands, more people do not have these connections, so you need to go to university/college to make these connections.

It actually isn't that bad. Despite what I said earlier, you do learn some valuable lessons. Although considering the fact that I am in english/psych/philosophy you can't do much with those degrees without a PhD unless you want to be a teacher. So I have learned valuable lessons but the classes and programs that teach you these valuable lessons aren't going to get you as good of a job. Liberal education doesn't prepare you for the monetary world we live in. I was representing the english department at my school and a grandmother was finding out information with her granddaughter about the program because she is a really good writer but she wants her to get a job and was wondering what a BA in english could do for it. I told it to her straight up, "Not much". It is an extremely valuable education... just not in terms of money.

It is a norm. Simply, post-secondary is just something we do. Although your liberal education may teach you to operate outside of some of the norms, and I am also telling you to, both of us will also tell you that is really hard. Acting against the majority is hard. This is why you should go to school after high school.

Reasons not to go. Instead of giving you actual reasons, I'll just tell you what I have learned so far in university.

1) University is completely illogical. I want to become an english & philosophy high school teacher and I am planning on doing a double major in English & psychology with a minor in philosophy. At my school I need to have 6 credits of science. So to attain my BAs in english and psychology to become a high school teacher I am taking geology. This makes SO much sense... not.

2) I have learned how to take bubble sheet tests. I am learning how to learn. I don't learn the material; I learn what the professor wants and I give him/her that said thing. So if the prof is going to give me a multiple choice test I do not study the material to learn it, I study the material in a very minor way in which I slightly understand it enough to be able to know which answer is correct. Can I give you specific definitions of things from psychology? Nope. But I can tell you the correct answer if you give me 4 options. It is much, much easier. Learning nothing is much easier.

3) It is all about money. This was one of the first lessons I learned in my english lecture. Universities and colleges live off of your money, that is how they stay around. But they really do not care about the individual students' success, even if they say they do. Well, they care about the top students because they want them to go out and advertise the university for them to get more students to give them money. University is a business.

So should you go?

It is your choice.

I would tell you not to go, but then again, I am not dropping out because it is all bullshit. Why? Because I have a goal.

I want to become a high school teacher. I want to become a leader. I want to become a philosopher for education. I want to show people how messed up the education system really is. The easiest method would be to finish university, word towards my MA and PhD in education and then get right into the belly of the beast of education to fix things. 

I just haven't decided whether I want to fix high school or university education systems. 

I keep using this word "fix" to describe what I want to do as if things are already broken. It's a weird word-choice. I don't necessarily want to fix things, rather, I want to change things. Not for the better, not for the worse, just for the logical. What is happening now makes no sense to me. People are doing things they hate to do more things they hate just so they can earn money. All of this unhappiness is unsettling to me. I also hate happiness, well, I don't HATE happiness, I just think that there should be a limit to happiness. I just think individuals are too stressed in society and they are too stupid to operate outside of the norms so what I need to do is change the norms so their stress levels go down.

If that makes any sense.

What is your opinion of post-secondary education? Are you going? Are you in it? Did you go?