Why Don't I Know Anything?

I had an expensive, extensive education, where I had the opportunity to learn anything and everything I could possibly want to know. And what I learned is that I can write, I think fairly well (did you not see the fantastic and fascinating list I composed earlier this week? Genius). And I have more than your average aptitude for numbers. I’m smart enough to recognize people that mean me, and more often than not you, harm and I’m smart enough to pay some fucking attention when I finally meet a worthwhile and lovely boy. But what I never learned was what the hell had happened.

My knowledge of history and science is woefully inadequate. I vaguely can tell you whenabouts something happened and more often than not I can tell you who probably won a given war. Absolutely somebody walked on the moon and of course My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pies…I think. But there is so much I don’t know it actually frightens me at times. And what I never figured out is how I missed out on knowing. Of course, I never did my homework. Ever. But I never did math or English homework either so that can’t entirely be why. What I think, however unfairly, is that the science and history teachers I came across early on were just not up to the job. I suspect that almost everyone in my graduating class from that school is just about as uninformed as I am. This is not a screed against teachers. (See? Screed? Smart.) I know a billion teachers and I am also smart enough to know that they will never be paid enough. They just won’t. Granted, they may not be able to handle the rigors of smiling widely like Julia Roberts does to earn her $20 million a movie, but they deserve a little more dough.

But my specific teachers? In elementary school? Well, one told me that my grandchildren would have gills. (“How’s Nemo?” “Cute, Mom, but how do we get him to stop picking his fins?”) The one thing I learned from a certain social studies was that the Firth of Forth, whatever that is, if that is even a thing, is in Scotland. I learned that because he made me stand in front of the entire class like an asshole and make like a hundred million guesses before he gave in and told me. “Come on, Erin. Firth? Hello? Scotland? You can sit down.” Dick.

I’m reading this book right now about John Wilkes Booth and his brother. Did you know they were actors? Famous ones? Both of them. I knew JWB was an actor, but I totally thought he was a shitty one. I thought he was Kyle from the Real World Chicago who is taking the world by storm as Philip on Days of Our Lives, the dumbest hammer on record. There is all this information about the Civil War in there, most of which I respond to with, “Huh?...huh.” Because I have no idea what happened. I went to Gettysburg, but all I remember is the bus ride. It was long. I’m also getting ready to read a book about how drinks, such as tea and soda, shaped history, and another about Booth and still another about e.e. cummings and then when I’m finally done, I’m going to read a bunch of books about LBJ and then track down something that will teach me any kind of something about this planet, or the other ones. And then I absolutely have to track some books about Vietnam and World War I and II and the Korean War because if there is anything I know nothing about, it is what caused these wars.

Perhaps, you’re thinking, I just didn’t have the “head” for history and science. To which I would say, no expression has done the children of this country a greater disservice than that one. I read a brilliant article in library school that proved, basically (this could not be more boiled down if it was, you know, something very boiled) that girls who are exposed to nonfiction books at an early age are more likely than other girls to score high on math and science tests. That is mindblowing to me. One extra click at Barnes and Noble or Amazon and your daughter has hopped one more fence keeping her from her fine lab coat. How many more easy things could we be doing? There are so many people, myself included, who just aren’t doing enough as they should be to knock those fences down altogether for girls and boys, especially the poor ones. I see so much wasted intelligence on a daily basis that it is disheartening.

Today, one of the schools that I should be serving learned that it will close at the end of this school year. And it is in a dilapidated building in a kind of shady neighborhood and absolutely there are valid reasons why it should close. Except. And this is the thing that no one will know because it IS in a shady neighborhood and it DOES serve kids that you cannot help but want to look away from and there are richer and poorer schools closing. The Except is: this is the only exclusively special education school in the neighborhood where I work. And that is why it is so expensive to operate and why it is hurting my heart a little bit that it is closing. Another school I serve has not had a librarian, or a library, for three years. Next year it will be four. Kids attend that school for seven years total. When those kids are my age, and realize they know nothing, it will not occur to them to look for a book to teach themselves unless I force myself on them now to an obnoxious degree and teach them how to do it. That could also be disheartening, or it could be a purpose. We shall see.