school . . . pride?

Sophie will be starting school this coming school year. For a few months now, Jan and I have been looking around for the perfect school for her, and quite possibly, Sam as well. Though, as much as we want to give our children the best education that they can have, it never entered our minds to send them to a high-end exclusive school.

You see, my wife and I didn't study at a high-end exclusive school. Although we probably, at one point or another, aspired to study in one, for one reason or another, we didn't.

Anyway, Jan and I talked about this a lot of times. We both agreed that graduating from an expensive school won't assure a bright future for our children. Its the value of hard work, dedication and confidence to face whatever problem they would encounter that will make them successful in life.

I know, people have different notions about what success really is, but to us, success is living a comfortable life, doing what you love doing while taking care or yourself or your family. Taking care of yourself or your family means having the capability to provide food, clothing, shelter and education by your own means.

SO . . in the next couple of weeks, we'll be looking for a school that compliments OUR family values (I said OUR because families have different values and Jan and I have already developed our own family values). A progressive/non-traditional school seem to be fit with what we believe in as parents, and we've seen a couple of them within our vicinity.

We're not closing our doors to exclusive schools. Time may come when they might want to study at an expensive school for college. As long as they pass and we can afford it, they'd probably go there. If they pass and we can't afford it, they'd probably pass as scholars! :)

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What I don't understand is the much ballyhooed school pride. Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of the schools that I went to. What's disturbing is that some people think they're better than others just because they studied at an exclusive school. As I said, I  never studied in one. For me, kids who studied in expensive schools should see it as a privilege. Not everyone can afford to send their kids to these schools, and if they could, they probably worked their ass off just so they could do (or their family is really filthy rich because their forefathers worked THEIR asses off, which isn't really the kid's fault).

Take this article from Mo Twister's blog (which I read from time to time). He says that some people coming from expensive schools are too proud of their school, that sometimes, they think that, just because they went there, they're more superior than others (by others, I mean MOST people).

This is something that I don't want my kids to have. 

I want them to be confident, but not because they studied in a certain school but because they know what they're talking about and what they're doing.

I want them to be superior, not because of their school but because they worked their asses off  to be on top of the corporate ladder or to be the owner of their own business or to be the best damn guitarist this side of Wally Gonzales.

I want them to be proud, not because of their school, but because they're the best at what they do.

Besides, I know some people who are college drop-outs who were and still are successful in their respective careers. I also know well educated people who are PROUD (and when I say proud, I mean the traffic causing kind of proud in Araneta Coliseum) of their schools who couldn't afford to buy a piece of candy using money from their own pockets (because they're to good to work for a company who wouldn't hire them anyway, but would because they know a guy who knows a guy, that knows a guy in the company, or just plain lazy).

This is not to say that I don't know people from exclusive schools who are the opposite. There are a lot of good people too. They're the ones who would probably beat the crap out of  those "proud" people if they ever hear them talking too much (and when I say too much, i mean it in a totally bad way) about their school pride.

What's sad about this is that schools (and parents) are supposed to prepare kids for the real world. If its time for these kids to be out there and they're still trapped inside their "school world", I think the school and the parents failed.

In our careers, my wife and I probably failed as much as we've succeeded, but this is one failure we're not about to make.


:-)

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