Chapter 9

I admit it. I'd been expecting a fight and was all set to do battle. That's probably why I went after Jack when he started in on what I was going to miss by finishing school two years early.

That's exactly what I was expecting from Daddy and June. My father knows me by now and can tell the difference between something I really want and something that's important to me. But that doesn't mean he caves whenever I want something.

We went through a lot of back and forth when I brought him a parental permission slip when I decided to sign up for my college classes. Since I was only 14 at the time, it was summer and I should be riding my bike or something, the college wasn't about to admit me on my say so, transcripts or not. It was a lot of hassle to go through so I could take what was essentially a review course for me, but that's the way the game is played. I had to go through their rituals to get in so I could take their intro course I didn't really need so I could sign up for the courses I did want and need in the future.

My father's main argument was that I could always do it in a couple of years. Kind of a "Don't Rock the Boat" syndrome. Unlike many other human quirks, this one hadn't been glommed onto by the "mental health" crowd yet so there were no drugs to force him into submission. It took a lot of convincing to get him to allow me to grow up ahead of schedule.

My problem is that school has always come too easy for me. I was bored out of my skull when they pulled me out of fifth grade and put me in sixth. And things were better that year because I had to play catchup to make up what I'd missed from the first half. But the next year, things were back to normal.

Normal. Now there's a good word. I think the group of people that term refers to has sunk lower and lower on the scale over the years. In the relatively short time I've been in this body it sure has.

I read somewhere that the modern school system was designed as a way to keep the youth occupied until they reached 18. I can guarantee you that it doesn't work as a means of education for the vast majority of us chillins.

I can remember being rewarded for learning. It was a long time ago, and didn't last much past the second grade, but I remember it, before it lost fashion. Then it became, "Jill, find something to do quietly while I work with the rest of the class."

I'm sure if you praised a dog enough when he shit on the carpet, you could get him to shit on the carpet all the time. But nobody in their right mind would want to do that, right? All I can say is we have a lot more respect for our dogs or our carpets than we do for our youth, or our society, for that matter.

We have become a society based on the lowest common denominator. The kids who used to go to the trailer out behind the school while the rest of us went to class are now the ones our teachers spend the most time with. We are so damned afraid of making somebody work for something that we pass students on to the next grade when they have no idea what they were supposed to learn. Try to hold someone back and the parents will sue. Self esteem has become something that's granted, deserved by all, whether or not anything has been done to earn it. Another of our "rights." Of course, once they get to be my age and start looking at what they have or haven't accomplished in their lives and take a hard look at what they will be qualified for when they hit the job market in a few years, they start killing themselves. Graph out the lowering of standards in the education system and do it for teen suicide. I bet you'll see a remarkable likeness.

And what about these non-achievers who get all the attention? Some of them get something from all the extra teaching. Most just squeak by. And a lot of them put in their time until they can quit and then they're gone.

Nobody thinks of comparing the methods of teaching with the results. They just keep pouring on the money. California has one of the highest per student costs of education in the country but the statistics keep dropping. The more money, the more stupidity. What's wrong with this picture?

The rest of us learn to find something else to do. Some of us do it inconspicuously. Others get put on Ritalin. Their statistics are skyrocketing. Drug pushers, both "legal" and illegal, love our modern system of education.

So, this is what I've lived my life with. The old line of "hang in there, it'll get better," is just so much wishful thinking, so much bull shit. I'd resigned myself to putting in my time like everybody else until I realized that I wouldn't be able to be with Jack for a couple of years if I did.

But I knew I was going against the grain. It was something people just didn't do. The fact that this sheep didn't want to stay with the flock was going to cause problems. The accepted way to do it would have been to convince Jack, my father and Jack's mother, most likely in that order, then go talk to my counselor. It probably would have taken less effort to get Ms. Evans to take me seriously, but I would have had to work just as hard with each of the other three before I even got to her. By doing battle in the school office with a woman I wasn't emotionally involved with, I got all the "there's no way they'll let you do this" objections out of the way.

That doesn't mean things would be smooth sailing from now on. My whole complaint about school is that I'm too smart, so I'm not dumb enough to believe that. First, I knew I was going to get nabbed by Jack for my comment about Sara and his English teacher. He already knew how I felt about Sara, but I'd been playing it pretty close to the vest about Miss Beevers. I love him to death, and I trust him with my life, but he was practically drooling when we saw her at the dance and he was telling me about her Elvira costume and how her impressive cleavage pissed off all the girls in class. And the rumors about her posing for Playboy when she was in college. I know men are like that, but it wasn't the smartest conversation to have with me when I was dressed as Harpo Marx.

And then, there were our parental units. There, I'll admit, I had been dumb. I figured they knew how Jack and I felt about each other. Really felt. Let's face it, that apartment wasn't built for me or even for Jack. It was built for Sara. If Sara hadn't come along and taken over Jack's room, it would have never happened.