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Originally posted by Steeltrap
It admits that you are well educated, but it also sets you up -- constantly -- as a noticeably different person precisely because you are well educated. You become the streetlight at the entrance to the community. It's obvious that you're there, and you may be something that no one else in the community is, but who the heck wants to be like you?
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This really sums up a lot of what she is saying. It was a long read but well worth the time.
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Originally posted by SteeltrapIn terms of attitudes toward education, therefore, there was a sharp division in my community between the practical and the intellectual. There was lots of room for people who wanted to learn to become mechanics or electricians, for those were tangible, practical jobs that existed in the world. Mind work, beyond figuring the price of cotton or how to pay bills or the technicalities of being mechanics or electricians, was troubling, not well understood, and generally to be feared.
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Although both of my parents hold postbaccalaureate degrees, I can see how they share this sentiment on a certain level. They know and realize the value of education, but at the same time, there is no way in the world they would have allowed any of us to study something like history or physical education in college unless we had plans to immediately pursue a graduate degree. My mother and father would not see the value in getting a degree in something that won't get you a job when you graduate.
I can hear my mother saying something like "if you want to study art, go to the library and study it for free but as long as I'm paying x amount of money to put you through that school, you're going to get a degree you can use."