Why I Hate School But Love Education

“There is more than one way in this world to be an educated man.”

I am an educated women. I graduated from elementary school, graduated from high school and graduated from university. I am waiting to hear if I have been accepted into college and if I am I will graduate from that. I am an educated woman. This is something not all young girls and women have the opportunity to achieve but this does not actually mean I am more educated then they are. After 16 years of schooling I can tell you that without a doubt the most value things I’ve learned in life were not in school. I learned them by living. School does not mean education and education does not mean school but currently our society only recognizes those pieces of paper that you went into debt for.

I am guilty of thinking that I am “better” because I went to university and that is a belief that is supported by my country but it is not true. Here is my reality:

I have a 4 year bachelor degree which has not gotten me a job since I graduated from university in June 2011.

I have almost $28,000 in student debt which I have been unable to pay off since graduating in June 2011 despite having a 4 year bachelor degree.

I am hoping to go back to college for a diploma in ECE which in theory should get me a job. This will lead to more debt.

I work alongside other “educated” people but also with high school students. We make the same amount of money. My 4 year bachelor degree earns me the same amount as a kid who doesn’t have their high school diploma yet.

I have almost 4 years experience working with children and even more years of experience doing mental health work. No one cares.

The paper talks.

30 Day Challenge- Day 22

Day 22: Your academics

I graduated from elementary school (grade 8) in 2003. No honors or awards. I’m average. People did think I would get the English Award and the Citizenship Award….and I should have.

I graduated from high school (gr. 12) in 2007. Again, no honors or awards but I did get a recognition of receiving extra credits in the Arts

I graduated from Ryerson University with my Bachelor of Social Work in 2011. Again….no honors or awards but 4th year was my best year with  5 A’s and 1 B! I would have received honors if they saw the amazing improvement I’d made!

It’s not really “academic” but I am certified in First Aid, CPR and AED.

I also have training in inclusion programming and High 5.

I’m hoping to eventually make my way back to university for my Masters in something or a certificate program.

 

 

Campus Crisis

Finally got a hold of an article put out by Maclean’s, a Canadian magazine, about the rise in mental health issues in post secondary students. My university is mentioned, Ryerson, and this article nicely compliments the reasoning as to why The Madvocates are doing what we’re doing at Ryerson.

Campus crisis: the broken generation

Why so many of our best and brightest students report feeling hopeless, depressed, even suicidal

by Kate Lunau on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 11:27am

 

Next Step For School???

I graduated with a 4 year Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) almost a year ago from Ryerson University. I applied for my Masters of Social Work (MSW) at Ryerson University and York University but did not get in due to a perceived lack of experience.

(A little fun fact: In my letter of acceptance I stated that I had wanted to do my research on the non-hospital population that engaged in self harming behaviour. My personal research had revealed that most of the current academic research on self harm was conducted on individuals in hospitals when I knew that there was a very large population, myself included, that had never entered a hospital or had hospital stays for their self harm or other psychiatric issues. The two populations are different and I wanted to find out how. I also wanted to research individuals who were chronically self harming. Again, the academic research I found was conducted on individuals who admitted to only engaging in the behaviour a few times to only once. We cannot use that data to generalize to individuals who chronically self harm. As an awesome side piece I would have loved to research male self harmers since majority of research is on females. )

I’ve been working since finishing school and it’s be great. The problem I’m running into is the jobs that I want I need something I don’t have and that is a degree related to working with children such as Child & Youth Care (CYC) or Early Childhood Education (ECE). I was venting about this issue to Michael (my partner) because I love working with children but the current jobs that I can apply for are not long term. I may have experience with children but the fancy degree is what people want these days. Michael suggested that I go for a masters related to ECE. I said that it probably didn’t exist because ECE is generally a college level program and it was very strange of Ryerson to offer ECE at the undergraduate level. I WAS WRONG!!!!

Ryerson has a Masters of Fine Arts, Early Childhood Studies (MA, ECS)! Reading the description is sounds great (http://www.ryerson.ca/ece/graduate/index.html). I already have an idea for a Major Paper: how parents with mental health issues raise children. I would want to look at the issues these parents face, issues faced by children, supports available, stereotypes of mentally ill parents, effects of stigma on children, fears of to-be parents with mental health  issues, being a mentally ill parent(s) and raising a child with mental health issues etc I can link my own lived experience and combine two things that I like, mental health and kids!

The big question is….HOW DO I PAY FOR THIS!?!?!?!? I will look into another student loan, scholarships, bursaries and would continue to work through school but it’s just scary. A lot of money!