reflections on academia and different areas of study
As a prelude, be aware that this post may be completely founded on my own lack of confidence.
Earlier this week, I was helping a student revise an essay at the Writing Center. A central point of her paper was that she felt like a bad writer because she struggled to write "seriously," e.g. personal statements, critical essays, etc. She loved to write creatively and fabricate worlds of her own with words, but this sort of writing was "superficial" and inferior.
Her instructor had left her a note saying something like: what makes one type of writing better than other? Perhaps they just serve a different purpose?
We discussed this thought but ultimately, the student retained the same belief: academic writing is superior to creative writing.
Although I was rather disheartened by the end of the session, it had me thinking about my feelings toward my own studies. They're not so different from the student I worked with.
I often feel like a second-class student or less intelligent because I studied literature and am currently studying library and information science. Because I read YA literature and take classes on the art of storytelling. Because I can't really have a full-fledged conversation about economics or international policy. Because I fall under the humanities category, with all the negative connotations of "artsy."
No one has ever made me feel this way; no one has ever said anything (besides the standard English major jokes and the "you could do so much more than librarianship" statements). These feelings just waft around the university campus: subversive messages whispering that certain areas of discipline are better than others.
And I really don't like this. Do not all areas of study come together to form human society as a whole? Are not they all of equal importance, but simply serve a different purpose? Much like a body, made up of many parts to create a satisfactory experience of human life?
Teaching is just as significant as a position in business or politics. Creative writing is just as serious as academic writing.
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12-13 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
25-26 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
I like this a lot! I felt that way sometimes in school and had to remind myself that God created each person to have different strengths and passions, and there's nothing wrong with mine just because it's different than someone else's. Thanks for sharing this, Lois! :)
ReplyDeleteTeachers and librarians don't rank highly in our competitive society, and a stay at home mom doesn't rank at all. :(
ReplyDeleteThe Common Core standards promote non-fiction over fiction (at 70% vs. 30%) by a student's senior year of high school.
It's all so ridiculous.