High School Non-Musical

 

 

Phillip Hong
March 19, 2010

 

I am probably revealing too much of my personal information in public, but I do not hesitate to admit that I am one of thousands of students in Ontario who have completed their secondary school studies through independent learning. Whether it'd be from the Independent Learning Centre (ILC), online high schools run by the boards, or even private correspondence education with plain old mail, we are a segment of the world of learning that has long been ignored.

 

In looking into my own academic history, I did cherish the days that were spent trudging around the hallways of an actual brick and mortar high school, but it seems that this option was not made for everyone, and certainly not for me out of all people.

 

Through the teenage years, I was anxious, stressed, confused and looking for my own identity. It was a time where everything felt interesting and exciting, but I wanted to learn using my feet; it just seemed that sitting in a dreary beige-bricked classroom was simply not the sort of experience that the curiosity in me could be satisfied with.

 

The peer pressure, the endless comments and assignments that were blindly given for absolutely no reason, to the meaningless chit chat that teachers give about their personal lives in order to fill class time in lieu of actual constructive learning - it was a conventional environment that did not fit with how I wanted to get my education at all.

 

It took a trip to Washington, D.C. to realise where my position was, and where my brain should have been. Several hours on a loud, trembling coach and a class trip that easily went sour for me when my American History teacher had criticized me for cussing about the destination. "You're a guest in someone else's country!" she exclaimed in horror as we mutually walked through the Smithsonian buildings.

 

She'll be one lively heck of a terribly strict grandmother someday. She also didn't realise that the Americans had abandoned my father as a Vietnamese soldier during that equally terrible war that's mentioned quite often to this day.

 

There was a huge clash between what I stood for and the course load that I was compelled to stick to - my father chose to move to Canada, and he's probably a bit offended about the fact that I studied American History after what had happened to him. I packed up my books and left, and independent study meant that my learning was always to the point, which also meant that I learned thrice as fast.

 

I'm proud to hold that diploma because I know that I finished my studies to that point due to my initiative, and not because I had to. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has similar feelings in making sure everyone gets the most education possible.

 

But the ILC requires that you drop out of day school at the age of 18 in order to study like I did, thanks to a law that had bumped up the mandatory school age from 16 to 18. McGuinty is sending the wrong message by not making alternative forms of education an important part of our system.

 

We need an education that is made up of more than one option. I'm heading to college due to this "other option", and the province needs to make sure that alternative options are available for years to come, in order to truly decrease the dropout rate.

 

Phillip Hong, a resident within suburban Toronto, is a constant tourist. Check out the interesting experiences of his journeys on The Travelling Briefcase.