When I complete my M. Div next spring it will be the end of a 17 year process. I must admit that I am a bit jealous of those who take the three years off and go straight through. But I think that I got (and am getting) more for my money. The slow pace, even though it has nearly driven me crazy, helped me to process things...apply them, question them. Sometimes it takes time to see things. We learn as we go.
Someday, somewhere, somebody has to acknowledge that the idea of cramming a human being full of information over a short span of time in incredibly misguided. Education, much like relationships, can not be done well if "efficiency" is the number one priority. You may learn facts or trivia in an all night study session, but wisdom comes from study paired with experience. There are some things that you will never know until you are 60, simply because they are not grasped in a classroom. They take time to permeate our thick skulls.
I also find it fascinating that the window of time that we seek to educate with the most focus and intensity is also the time when we are most likely to be more concerned about peer perceptions than actual growth and learning. In my work with teen-agers I have often found them too distracted by peer expectations and relationships to actually wrestle with what it means to think and learn. They are afraid to question as it may ostracize them from their "group". And for the most part, society stresses that by 25 your education should be done and you should be getting on with your life. I disagree, and not just because it makes me feel better about my snail's pace master's degree.
I also find it fascinating that the window of time that we seek to educate with the most focus and intensity is also the time when we are most likely to be more concerned about peer perceptions than actual growth and learning. In my work with teen-agers I have often found them too distracted by peer expectations and relationships to actually wrestle with what it means to think and learn. They are afraid to question as it may ostracize them from their "group". And for the most part, society stresses that by 25 your education should be done and you should be getting on with your life. I disagree, and not just because it makes me feel better about my snail's pace master's degree.
I recently wrote in a paper that far too often we see truth as a mountain to be climbed rather than a person with whom we are in relationship. You never finish a relationship, no matter how many degrees you hang on your wall. So maybe it's just rationalizing that makes me feel better about my eternal education. But I am thankful to learn slowly. I see things much more clearly today than I did 15 years ago. A friend shared with me a great poem in light of his 59th birthday that stresses the same idea.
Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in
another dress.
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars,
invisible by day."-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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