Is college the end-all be-all that our culture puts forth? The following is a synopsis of my upper educational experience before that became as ambiguous as it is today.
The short of it:
Went to Ft. Collins---majored in music
Twas in over my head and changed majors
Went to Greeley---majored in elementary music
Twas too easy, non-challenging
Stayed at Greeley---switched my majored to English
Twas too pornographic
Transferred to CU Boulder
- Wrapped up all my credits as swiftly as possible into something and graduated a half semester early, with a degree in Elementary Education and a minor in Music.
- One of my sick electives at CU (just to fill out the degree) was a class in Religious Studies, where the prof. was supposedly a Christian but didn't believe half the Bible. Turns out, he was sleeping with one of the girl students. His teaching was as illogical as all get out.
The long of it:
- I begged Dad to let me NOT go to college. I told him I would study on my own for the four years. I was a good study person and had good mental discipline and had gotten good grades throughout. But he said "no way...you need the certificate to get on in life"...so I slogged through and hated it.
- I had two aunts on my mom's side of the family (as well as Mom, herself) who were all phenomenal teachers. One aunt became supervisor of all of Castro Valley Schools, in California, she was so extraordinary. The other ran a kindergarten in her basement in Grand Junction for decades and hosted a weekly children's radio show.
- As a little child (only a head taller than the students) I LOVED playing teacher. It began with my donning K-Mart sequined, spangly princess high-heeled shoes while handing out worksheets in my aunt's kindergarten in Grand Junction.
- Later, I dragged in all the little neighborhood children to our house in Boulder to teach them on my own. Mom rigged up a little balcony school room for me off my upstairs bedroom...complete with little wooden school desks that all connected to each other and my grandmother's enormous large slate blackboard. With chalk and eraser in hand and my aunt's discarded worksheets, I put those children through their paces in the summer time for my "play time" and their poor unexpected "work time."
- Much later, when I was fresh out of high school, with a surge of mental rebellion with myself, knowing I was destined to be a teacher, I fought it psychologically and escaped into music. .I thought, " I'm NOT gonna be what my aunts were."
- While first chair clarinetist in high school, I had opted for a music degree. But the day after graduation, knowing that I hated playing the clarinet, I put it in its case, never to play it again. So I trooped off to college confidently, not realizing that I had no medium through which to express the music. I think I did so badly, that no doubt my voice teacher thought "surely, her major instrument is piano," and my piano teacher would have thought, "surely her major is voice!"
Thus it went....collapsing finally into the trench of destiny. The Lord directed my path of real academic training, apart from and despite the formal attempts at it. (See this bio for more about that-- and a brief vita.)
