Back to School
Back to School: Thinks I knew, but wish I’d believed … The start of another semester. For me, it’s the final year of a convoluted journey across 13 years, 5 states, a couple different collegiate institutions, (at least) on global pandemic, and more Monster Energy drinks and nicotine than I care to recount. For everyone returning to a classroom, it’s anxiety, excitement, anticipation, trepidation. New challenges, new environments within familiar spaces, faces both new and familiar, and a return to the thrills and frustrations of the American education system that the majority of us have been conditioned to function in at the same time we rail against it for the most formative years of our life. (We are a revolutionary people, at the heart of our psyche.) I’m far from a subject matter expert, by any means. But in getting to this point, I’ve actually learned some things. Most of what I’ve “learned” comes back to the same pithy one-liners we hear gratuitously throughout the cour...