In order for me to tell you the thought that occurred to me first I have to tell you a story.
The semester before Zach and I started dating he lived with 2 other guys in the dorms of his college campus (mind you it was a 2 person dorm, which meant one of them was sleeping on the floor). At the end of that semester between the three of them they had earned all of 6 credit hours.
Stop, think, do the math. Okay.*
The other night when we were talking about this he mentioned one of his roommates (an art major) did however manage to pull through with a 4.0, due to his dropping every class except sculpting and then acing it.
That’s when I made the flippant remark that the 4.0 shouldn’t really count because he was just an art student and the other two had real classes to go to (if only they had**).
About five seconds later I realized what I had just said. I never think I’m a judgmental person until I catch myself doing it (more than I like to admit). I never think the biases of society pertain to me until I find myself acting exactly as expected.
Oh no, not I. I’m above those sorts of things. I have an open mind. I watch documentaries. I read more books than I watch television shows. I don’t even HAVE a television I have a library card! I didn’t drink the Kool-Aid I just took a few sips. (What? It was red!)
But when did being an artist become a stupid, non-realistic, career only slackers try for? When did doing something as incredibly brave and challenging as creating put someone else lower on the food chain and allow the rest of us to feel entitled because at least we weren’t doing that?
So in the few seconds it took me to run through a much less elaborate analysis of my own bias I spoke up. “Actually I take it back,” I said, “I think maybe we’ve got it backwards. Because the rest of us were just sitting around in classes listening to lectures for the most part and making presentations of information we found in books. While art students were actually creating something. They had to come up with something on their own, work on it every day, and it had to be good and not just a copy. What they do is actually a lot harder.”
Zach thought about it. “Yeah, that’s true.”
When I was a kid the first thing I remember wanting to be was an artist, or at the very least the person who gets to name the crayon colors. Somewhere along the way I gave up that dream for a more familiar path. I’m not saying I was meant to be a great painter. But if I had unknowingly allowed that prejudice to filter into my brain, what other areas of life might it be influencing? How I view other people? My students? Myself?
I mean, who wants to raise their hand and say “No I’m not creative and I look down on those who are.” Even if you don’t see yourself as creative don’t you still want to be?
And just in case, while we’re on the subject, have you been sipping the Kool-Aid too?
Think about it.
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*This is my sneaky teacher side tricking you into doing a word problem muahaha.
**I would like to point out that Zach didn’t miss a single class the entire last two years he was in college. And it wasn’t because of me either it was because he decided to do something about it.
