O magazine has a section that is devoted to Your Best Life and one feature is a series of questions asked of someone to describe their Best. I have a pretty spectacular life, so I'm gonna start to catalogue my bests. Here goes:
Best School Subject
Psychology of Death and Dying - Professor Frank Mitchell
After a less than wonderful high school experience, I decided that if I were to attend classes at a local community college that I must steer clear of any courses that took place during the day. I knew that mostly adults went to night classes and that teenagers wanted their nights open and would most likely take day classes. Avoiding my so called peers was paramount to a bearable college experience.
My Friday nights in 1995 were spent in Frank's classroom and if memory serves they began at 8pm and ended at 10:30. Not a single person my age in the room. It was heavenly. I was surrounded by grown ups who never knew me as everyone else had. I was The Kid in the back corner of the room who was real quiet. I wasn't stupid or a loser or whatever else everyone used to think. I was just another body in a classroom and it was unbelievably freeing.
Frank mostly told incredible stories and asked questions of the class and made the room a space for open discussions. Any class that allows its students to feel at ease enough to learn and absorb everything taught is without question the best.
I can relate. Although I loved high school, for the most part, there were aspects which I didn't like (and it sounds like they were the same ones YOU didn't like as well). However, on going to college I too felt the incredibly freeing difference in being treated like an adult. And hey, I even went to the daytime classes! Even when in classes with my peers who had presumably just been in high school as recently as I, there was a palpable change in behaviour and attitude. Even if they weren't more mature, at least they acted like it. There were, of course, many older people scattered throughout my classes as well and I also found this to be a truly wonderful thing. Finally, at long last, I felt I was actually somewhere I could learn something and not just being babysat for the day.
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