Higher... for everyone?

Towards the new school year!

Is higher education necessary? What is more important: health or study? And in general - is it worth it?
Maria Konyaeva, our new author, invites Demagogue readers to immerse themselves (again) in the wonderful years of youth and reflect on how it happened that education is inseparably linked with suffering.

It’s no secret that in the modern world it’s better to be born not beautiful, but mentally stable - constant crowds in the subway, queues wherever possible and impossible, stress, lack of sleep, snacks on the run, children screaming on the street, neighbors screaming from behind the wall, and also the Unified State Examination and admission to a university... Wait, is it necessary to go to a university at all? Is this happiness and aesthetics as our family or VKontakte feed is trying to prove to us? Let's figure it out.

Firstly, let’s immediately discuss that this article does not call for either obtaining higher education or boycotting it; listen to your nervous system and draw your own conclusions. Secondly, the author’s task was not to “denigrate” higher education - it is only shown here that in every barrel of honey there is (and not always just one) fly of thick, tasteless tar. Now that all the formalities have been completed, we can move on to the topic of education itself.

Let's start with the banal and necessary: ​​school; it is there that they begin to tell us how good, easy and free it will be for people who can get a “tower”, and how bad it will be for those who do not achieve such success. "You'll be janitors or cashiers! And that's at best!" - at least one teacher says it consistently once a week, and the children believe it, because the elder cannot be wrong. And this is only the first brick in a huge wall that protects children from full physical and mental health.

“It’s useless to cram and be tortured, they teach at school, they teach at school, they teach at school!”

Have you ever had this happen? Are your Unified State Exam scores more important to you than the fact of lack of sleep and exacerbation of gastritis? Have you ever experienced stress due to grades? But what about tremors after a week of tests and tests? If you are the lucky one who did not know any of this at all, then you are either lying or did not study at school, because for eleven years we have been too diligently and diligently hammered into our heads that our scores determine our knowledge and value in life. They methodically prove to us that there is nothing more important than successfully passing exams and entering the budget; we are sent to competitions so that we raise the ratings of our schools, and we are told that this is all for our good; It’s just that the “good” costs us a pretty penny: the aggravation of existing diseases and disorders, as well as the acquisition of new ones as a bonus. And if you thought that your self-esteem was not shaken due to the fact that you were not beaten at school - surprise! - You are wrong. The favorite competition of all schoolchildren - jokes, jokes and ridicule - affects everyone in one way or another, and teachers who use their power over children only worsen the already difficult school life, for some it is more reminiscent of a daily game of survival.

But now you have gone through eleven years of studying a bunch of subjects, half of which will never be useful to you again, you even beat the exam and almost completely killed your own nerves, in anxious anticipation of the results - everything is behind you, you have your certificate in your hands, and you are going to apply to the university. But what awaits you ahead? Having interviewed several acquaintances from different faculties, from different universities and with completely different situations in life, here is the answer to the question “what will happen next”:

Firstly, stress. Many. For all reasons. Higher education is far from the cheapest “pleasure,” and therefore fear will also be mixed with a feeling of guilt because of one’s own “stupidity,” “laziness,” and “I didn’t live up to my parents’ hopes, and now they are paying for me!” You will also worry all the time about grades, about deadlines, about the fact that something isn’t working out for you, and about the fact that someone is better than you at something. And if you also have to do distance learning (or, worse, pass the session remotely), as was the case with the author and respondents during quarantine, then you will also worry all the time that there is someone in the house who can distract you during important tasks. In total, we have permanent stress, which will undoubtedly lead to other problems - this is just “firstly”.

Secondly, as a result, your chance of developing myopia and scoliosis will greatly increase. At the university, six hours of couples wait for you on every corner in a crouched state in front of presentations, electronic boards, textbooks on phones and “spurs” (after all, it’s simply unrealistic to learn the entire colossus of material in a week).

Thirdly, you will learn to “forget” your desires and needs in favor of education, because (see “firstly”) you are always, secretly or openly, ashamed of something. “I don’t have time for lunch - I’ll have a snack on the way to work!”, “What? Sleep for eight hours? Sorry, I’ll only be back from the university at nine, and I still need to do a mountain of homework from today to tomorrow; I’ll sleep for three hours, okay!” and other phrases that seem funny until you catch yourself that they have become a part of your life. If such a lifestyle does not cause you problems with sleep, skin, nails, hair or gastrointestinal tract, then, apparently, you are still a witch.

But why bring up this topic at all? Why run around your friends and ask them strange questions? Why not just relax during the holidays? Because my friends and I ourselves are dancing on this rake of problems, troubles and illnesses and we don’t want you to feel alone in this - and also because our feeds on all social networks are overflowing with the romanticization of suffering due to study.

The aesthetics of “dark academy”, the aesthetics of insomnia over notes and with twenty cups of coffee, the aesthetics of studying, the aesthetics of eating disorders (eating disorders: anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating, drankorexia, orthorexia, etc.) - all these types of romanticization of suffering lead to the fact that we consider our own fatigue, lack of sleep, hunger and problems normal. We are used to thinking that this is absolutely normal, “this is in the order of things,” “everyone is like this,” “childhood is over”; but why my childhood ended in nervous breakdowns and alcoholism, no one explained to us at school.

“Tili-tili, trawl-wali, we didn’t go through this, they didn’t explain this to us.”

We cannot explain what we ourselves do not fully understand due to age and experience, but we can say one thing for sure: the culture of suffering in the name of the “crust” of the diploma must die. Please remember that you do not have to act rashly, following the wishes of your family or being guided by “pragmatic goals” - you will succeed in what you are truly interested in, and not in what other people or social norms have imposed on you. I am not calling for any drastic actions, but I urge you to stop perceiving your studies as the highest good and start thinking about your health, comfort and psyche, because the university is with you for several years, and you remain with yourself for the rest of your life.

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