Education is the movement from darkness to light.
~Allan Bloom
I have always believed education to be the foundation
for success. This belief did not come easily. I was a poor student, not because
of a lack of intelligence but because I lacked the drive to work hard. I was
more interested in the causes I volunteered with like S.A.D.D.. In class I slacked
off, was not attentive to assignments and generally ignored the educational
experience. Looking back, I see how much I missed out on.
It has been ten years since I left high school. I have since become a mother,
a divorcé, and a member of the working class. I have merchandised at
department stores, taken in kids for babysitting, worked at preschools and daycares
and been a full-time nanny. Somehow, through all of this, I took night classes.
I built up a decent GPA, became a steady B+/A- student and strived to make mine
and my daughter's life the best it can be.
When my daughter Sierra was a baby we had black and white designs in her crib
(to stimulate her mind). I placed homemade ABC's around her room and we read
together before nearly every nap and before bed at night. When she was two her
father and I realized we did not want her to grow up in the school district
we lived in and made a move to the country and a better school system. At three,
I enrolled her in a reading program at the public library and was amazed to
see how few other children were in that free program. By four, I had Sierra
in preschool, becoming employed there myself to offset the cost.
To me, my college experience and my daughter's education are linked. Depending
on how well I succeed will alter her current and future academics. If she sees
me slack off on assignments, she will learn that it the way to be. When I study
or type notes, I include her. She has enjoyed reading to me from my history
books and been the subject of charcoal drawings. Sierra has spent days off from
school on college campuses taking algebra classes and dissecting frogs in biology
lab. Her informal collegiate experiences far outweigh the ones she received
in her elementary school classes.
Sierra has grown up in a very different household than most kids: We have an
apartment in a house that my parents own. Both Sierra's maternal grandparents
and her aunt live on the premises. My sister, Shannon, attended Saint Rose and
later earned her Bachelors from SUNY Albany and Sierra attended both graduations
and remembers them well. Sierra was also front and center for my graduation
from Schenectady County Community College and has been on campus many times
with me. She has grown up in a college minded family. When she speaks of her
future "when I grow up" jobs, they all entail college first and she
has spent the better part of the last two years chattering about which one she
wants to attend.
The importance of a college education to me means the difference between working
at a daycare for $7.50 an hour and living the life I want for my daughter and
I. At the mediocre income I was earning as a nanny, I could afford to pay bills,
but that was all. There were no luxuries such as gymnastics class or movies,
shopping was limited to the clearance rack all the while we lived in debt. I
want more for our future than that. Sierra and I dream of buying our own house
and she thinks about her choice of college (currently Harvard, but I think that
is because of a TV character she loves). My dreams encompass all of that and
more. I have aspirations that life won't be as hard for her as it was for me,
and I hope that the mistakes I made and corrected can be avoided for her. I
hope her experiences as a child will make a lasting impression that can withstand
the laziness that can accompany adolescence and lead her to a brighter future.