Finches and Turtles and Shit

Yesterday, a conversation took place between: me, a white girl educated in Iowa, 34; a Vietnamese girl educated in New York City, 24; a black girl educated in central Illinois, 21.  I mentioned the Galapagos Islands. 

The 21 year old goes, "Where?" 
"The Galapagos Islands, " I say. "Where Charles Darwin did his thing.  They're out in... the middle of nowhere off South America." 
"Yeah?" 
"Yeah." 
"I've never heard of this." 
The 24 year old speaks up, "You've never heard of DARWIN?" 
"I've heard of, like, Darwinism, but-"
And the 24 year old proceeds to lose her shit.  She cannot believe that somebody hasn't heard of Charles Darwin and evolution and it's the basis of all science and we're right on the edge of her saying, "How could you not know that?" when I intervene. 

"Hey, 21 Year Old, you went to school in Illinois, right?" 
"Yeah." 
"Yeah.  OK, I lived in southern Illinois for three years.  This was a period in time when the Illinois education system was going real hard on intelligent design and avoiding the theory of evolution." 
"Yeah, intelligent design, we talked about that. They didn't want to talk about world religions or anything, either, is that, that's part of it?" 
"Yep.  That's the one.  Illinois schools are..." 
"They're crazy, but my mom," (21 year old's mother was a college professor.  21 year old has expressed her privilege in this while also talking about the very real situation that her family was homeless for a few years), "says that it's way better than, like, she teaches in Georgia now and it's like, why?  Why even have a school?" 
I turn to the 24 year old, "I used to go to the best schools in the country.  Yes, in Iowa.  I watched them slide, as I was attending them.  Today, the best schools in the country are in New York.  I get it, you had a good education.  Not everyone did." 

I talk briefly about evolution and discover that the 21 year old knows more than she thought she did, she just didn't know a lot of the details and terms.  The 24 year old drops out of the conversation as the 21 year old and I go on to discuss bias in education and how damaging that can be when the emphasis is on testing for rote retention rather than on information synthesis- making the connections between a wide variety of ideas.   

And I recognise one of the ways I've changed.  At 24, I would have been the 24 year old, too, judging this poor dumb girl for her lack of schooling.  But I recognise in the 21 year old a maturity and ability to process information that goes beyond her lack of shared factual knowledge.  If she wanted to, she could look up the facts and be informed and go about her life.  In reality, she's much more interested in exploring our conversation from a perspective of, "Why is your experience different from mine, and how did that happen?"  The 24 year old, focusing solely on the collection of knowledge, has missed the point, the opportunity to actually share and teach and talk about why something matters. 

The irony here is that the 24 year old wants to be an educator.  The 21 year old wants to be an artist.  I... still don't know who I am, so let's worry about what I want to be later.