Herrington: I Am Joe’s Kid: Why Go to School?

The only reason to come to school is so that we can do there those things we can’t do anywhere else. What are those things? We might be hard pressed to think of things we really need to do just at school any more, given the Internet and the capacity of the media to meet our educational needs. Imagine seeing this question through the eyes of a 17 year-old; he would probably say that school is not really necessary in these very modern times. This reminds me of something from my own youth; there used to be a series of stories in the Reader’s Digest which used the expression, “I Am Joe’s _________.” I always wanted to make things work out at school, but sometimes it just wouldn’t, and this seems to be a “Joe” moment. I have always wanted to revisit that process in a series of pieces called, “I Am Joe’s Kid.”
In this first edition of “I Am Joe’s Kid,” we could describe what it is like to be the child of some soccer dad or mom, a student who goes to Blankety Blank High School. Joe’s kid does not want to go to school, and so he goes through all of the usual mind games, trying to drag his feet so that he does not have to go to school. Why does he have to go to school? Really? He has to go to school because it is the law. What the heck kind of reasoning is that? In that line of thinking, anything could be made necessary!
Joe’s kid needs to go to school in order to fulfill Joe’s lifelong dream of his finally getting his education. Joe has been working for years and years and now he has the funds together, and it will be a major step forward for his family to see someone get an advanced degree. The problem for Joe’s kid is that he does not want an advanced degree. He wants to be able to become a dancer. This is against everything that Joe stands for, in politics and in religion. That Joe wants Joe Jr. to do anything does not make the kid want anything that Joe wants for him. They are at odds over everything. Joe only knows that life is changing fast and is constantly getting more complex. Dance might be a wonderful hobby, but it will never pay the bills, Joe thinks. But, this is Joe’s kid’s life, and he needs to be able to choose his own path.
In the course of coming to adulthood, there are many life lessons students need to master. One of the most important lessons is getting where you say you are going and being where you have agreed you will be. Sometimes kids have a tough time not being distracted, and they abandon their posts. If they cannot be depended on, then they may have trust issues, especially self-trust. It is imperative that we learn to trust ourselves, otherwise we will fail to make commitments we can keep and our values will be centered around avoidance and omission, lying and irresponsibility.
Ultimately, it is in the area of identity, and identity crisis, that most of our problems occur in life, and for kids and students, this is the single most powerful area of concern as they navigate into adulthood. Who am I? Where am I going? How am I going to get there? What do I least want o happen in my life? What do I most want to happen in my life? By our taking responsibility for our lives and our becoming more pro-active towards our becoming more of who we want to be, we can find ourselves being more instrumental in our own educational process and having a more optimistic outlook on a daily basis.
Joe’s kid has to do personal work in the area of expectations and feelings of shame and guilt, just because he is Joe’s kid. Joe has a way of making his kid feel like she or he needs to be more than she or he is. In other words, a family rule is that ultimately being self-satisfied is okay, as long as you are not satisfied with yourself. This is confusing to Joe’s kid, since having the feeling that he is better than everyone else seems like a family trait, but it does not mean that his kids are better than Joe. Joe’s kid then learns to condescend to others and to lie to Joe. This leads to guilt over what he has done and shame over who he is. That is a tall order for school to overcome.
What happens in the end is that the distance between this kid’s sense of self and who she works at being by her daily life are not the same person, and she has an identity crisis. She wants to please her parents, but she thinks her parents are more concerned about whether they are seen as good parents to an obedient daughter than whether she is healthy and truly happy. They project and provide and plan and foster and subject, but they do so under the delusion that who they are working with is the person they themselves wanted to be. Their daughter is her own person and someone else entirely. This creates a world of problems for Joe and Joan.
What is it that needs to happen for little Josey? For Joe, Jr.? How can these second generation students make their mark and be on their own while living in the shadow of their parents? We find that they need to think for themselves and yet that is awkwardly tested as parents ask why Joe’s kid did that. You are supposed to think for yourself and make all the same choices your parents would make.
All in all, Joe’s kid needs school as a breakfront against parents and adulthood; every new situation brings the need to re-appraise life from different angles. Joe’s kid will soon become Joe, the adult, and have his own kids. When he does that, he will have learned a few new tricks, but he will carry over a few old bad habits. Maybe over the generations Joe’s kid will transform, but for now, Joe’s kid is definitely Joe’s kid. And his kid will be his kid, to some degree. And so the story goes.
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