I am sitting at my favorite neighborhood cafe, Cafe Bazaar. Its a cafe filled with people of strikingly different appearances but mostly its filled with men of a certain age hunched over their archaic computers or squinting their eyes towards MacBooks.
I love it here, away from the lingering eyes of the 20-somethings. Away from the calculating glare of the 30-crowd. I feel much more relaxed here in my day old makeup and lint-covered yoga pants. Sipping coffee, too caught up in the people watching gold mine I have walked into.
I came to read a heartbreaking memoir about depression. Its sitting next to me as I watch an old man who is glaring very seriously at a computer screen. As I ease drop on the pair of folks sitting right in front of me, I laugh at myself.
The man, dressed in what I like to call a jean-suit (jean pants, button up jean shirt, and even a jean jacket to match), sits quietly waiting for his coffee-companion to arrive. I like when people dress like this- it tells me something about them. For the record, if I ever catch you wearing jean on jean on jean, expect to be psychoanalyzed.
The women comes in frazzled. Her louis vuitton swinging at her hip. She is dressed impeccably in a white pencil skirt and red patent heels. The annoyance they felt towards one another was too apparent, I am sure the whole building can feel it. I nestle in for a good show.
They begin to talk and its clear that they are colleges, teachers of some sort. She begins by addressing the need for more home schooling- how it is the only way children can get a proper education now-a-days. He is firmly against this move. He argues that the more teachers a child can be exposed to, the more views and ways of thinking the child use as he or she navigates the world.
It is clear to me that I sat in this particular spot on this particular morning for a reason. Not only to take an adorable photo of the man next to me, but also to learn something about our evolving school system.
I am forever a student. The reason why I have an insatiable appetite for knowledge is because many teachers had an influence on how I think, how I question things. I took a piece from each, I let go of what didn’t resonate with me, and I cultivated my own way of being in the world. I am not saying that home school is inherently bad. But I do agree that the more people and environments we explore and expose ourselves to, the more we become connected to ourselves, making meaning out of our experience.
Not all children do this in the same way, however. Which is where our public school systems may be failing. It is my hope that we can further our development for different learning styles and better understand the evolving personalities of our world.
Darlingdear 