To All The Educators Who Encouraged Me

To all the teachers, teacher's aids, counsellors, principles, and tutors who encouraged me to do well in school; the ones that told me I needed to graduate high school and go to college, the ones that told me not to settle for community college but to get a bachelor's degree, the ones that warned me that not doing so would lead me to a job at McDonald's or Walmart that I would never be able to leave or properly live off of or have a happy and fulfilling life with:

I hope you, and those like you, never talk to my son.


I believed your words, I had no reason not to.  Especially with everyone else in society telling me the same thing and being taught, by you, that you were there to give me all the knowledge I needed to succeed in life.  I took your words at face value and grew up wondering where the people at McDonald's and Walmart went wrong in their lives.  If our great country, as you taught me, had quality free public education, as you so often preached, how did they end up stuck there?  Because why would people NOT want to have a job that will lead to a happy and fulfilling life?  Why wouldn't people want to earn lots of money and buy a house and a car and go on nice vacations every summer??  And in this wonder, from my young and ignorant point of view, I grew up looking down at those jobs and the people who did them.

"Go ahead and keep screwing around!  I don't care if you don't graduate and don't go to college, I'll come visit you at McDonald's when I'm hungry and chose your register at Walmart when I shop!"

How many times did you not say that (or something similar) to the classroom when we did not perform academically to your standards?  I believed your words and understood your implications.

I did as you told me, I graduated high school with honours and went off to a nice university.  Then life happened and I grew up.  And slowly I saw that all you did was spit vile lies at us.

Because the people at McDonald's did not fail in life.  It's not a glamorous job and it may not pay well but they didn't end up there because they chose not to study.  And they're not all miserable.  Same with the cashier at Walmart or the janitor in the building I work in.

See, I have learned that getting a university degree is NOT the only way to succeed in life.  In fact, many people are highly successful without them.  And I'm not just talking about the guy that owns facebook or the guy with the huge computer company.  I'm talking about every day people.  You preached to me that a university degree was the ONLY way.

Technical colleges are good!!  You do not need a four year degree to properly operate an x-ray machine.  But x-ray technicians are paid fairly well.

You also don't NEED a degree or certification from a college to have a good job.  Someone needs to drive the trash trucks.  And don't go on telling me that no one WANTS to pick up trash for a living because I've personally spoken with some of the men that do the route here.  They enjoy it, it's a job, it feeds their families and gives them enough extra to *GASP* buy a house and own a car.

You don't need higher education to be a receptionist, which usually leads to learning special knowledge and skills which lead to advancement.

You don't need higher education to own a franchise.  No, you can't do it straight out of high school but through hard work and dedication you can do it without a degree.

You don't need higher education to drive a bus.  And they get paid pretty well.

See, you lied to me.  And I fear for what happened to all those other students you lied to that did not have what it takes to succeed in higher education, because it's not easy.  Are they at McDonald's thinking that despite all their efforts they are worthless and failures?  Because they're not.  And I think of myself and others like me that invested a lot of time and money to getting that degree and graduated from a university, with honours, and wondered why on earth they couldn't find a job.  To figure out that it's because you got a degree like you were told when you really should have been doing some self exploration to discover what in life you were interested in doing.  So we go to our mediocre job we found where we are the most educated person around yet all our coworkers, the ones you said would fail and be miserable at McDonalds, took jobs straight out of high school and are now earning much more than us.  We cary school debt, their debt is their house.

So please, stay away from my child and all the other kids out there.  Do not tell them that there is only ONE path to success in life.  Because there is nothing wrong with being a truck driver or a sales representative or a tour guide or a cook or a mail carrier or an air plane pilot or a telephone operator at a call centre or any other job that does not require a university degree.  Let kids grow up and truly be whatever they WANT to be without fear of judgement.