Smug homeskooler pokes fun at college...

[Lady Elaine]

This girl's really been laying out a rant about college this past week. From her know-it-all attitudes about modern art to her daily tossing out of "propaganda" from prestigious schools, this girl is a piece of work.

bighouseinthelittlewoodsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/u-and-modern-university.html

bighouseinthelittlewoodsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/college-crash.html

bighouseinthelittlewoodsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/unsocialized-homeschoolers-gazette.html

My favorite lines:

"Somewhere along the way, I think I got a UW-Madison letter. (I lose track. All that stands out is the college who has the orange being unpeeled, the University of Chicago, St. Norbert's and Yale - that was an exciting day.) My daddy graduated there; we still get their alumni publications which I try to read over lunch break before my dad tosses them into the recycling with a deprecating, "Such a liberal college." Worldview training at its best."

Why is she getting all these letters? How do they know about her? Why do they care?

[fundiefan]

So, college is bad and evil and blah, blah, blah. But, oh, look at ME! Look how special I am! They are clammoring at my door because they all want me, me, me! I am super smart and super special and am way too good for any of those bad, bad places. But they WANT ME and won't leave me alone!

Her argument fails. On every level.

I don't know. If there was some organization/group/whatever out in the big, bad world that I thought was so terrible, I wouldn't be bragging about how badly they all want me. That's just me, though.

[VodouDoll]

Right? "I would never go to any of these evil places, but they want me to! Aren't I SPECIAL and COOL and AMAZING?!?!?!"

In her UChicago entry she says that she took the ACT and checked that she wanted schools to send her viewbooks. They're not sending her their stuff because she's awesome and brilliant and they're dying to have her matriculate. They're sending her this stuff because she asked them to send it so she could mock it on her blog. And she's pretending it means she's a genius.

I've never seen this blog before so I'm sorry if I have the wrong impression, but this girl is a smug jerk.

OMG the art entry, you guys. I'll probably be back with a fisking.

[Joykins]

She seems to value a liberal arts education but doesn't think she can get one at college? That's where I got mine!

I'm confused!

[ThisOlGirl]

Yeah, the art entry....

Short version--"I think it's ugly, so OMG it's sooo stupid!"

I think some of it is ugly too, and I'll be the first to admit that I don't "get" a lot of art. But instead of saying, "oh that's not art", I say "maybe I'm missing something". Then I haul my ass (and my 8 year old's ass) down to the art museum, actually look at the art up close and maybe read a bit about the art. I still think a lot of that stuff is ugly, but I am learning a teensy bit. Crazy, I know.

This girl is even more of a know it all and more full of herself than I was at her age--and that's saying a lot. I'm sure that attitude will serve her well in life--I know it served me well. :roll: :roll:

[VodouDoll]

Why did she post photos of works that are at MoMA - some of the most famous and formative pieces in the canon, I might add, and including them in her wide-eyed, backhanded snark about how all modern art is crap because she doesn't understand it makes her look depressingly ignorant and obnoxious - if she was actually at the UW-Madison campus art museum? Plus, it sounds like she was actually looking at contemporary pieces, not modern, and if she wants to make fun maybe she should make sure she at least knows what periods she's dissing first.

In another entry she says having to look at this art gave her "dyspepsia and stomach ulcers." You've got to be kidding. What teenager talks like that? I don't remember the last time a blog sent me from 0 to annoyed this fast.

[Rosa]

VodouDoll, good catch, I totally missed that.

See, "modern" means "right now" and it always means the same thing in every circumstance to contemporary = modern. Right?

It's not just ignorant, it's also EXACTLY like the way these folks read the Bible. Modest in 300 CE meant these dresses that cover my knees and elbows because that's what modesty means! DUH.

[Boltingmadonna]

OMG, this poor child. I feel so sad for her. I get why others posters think she's arrogant and a jerk, but after seeing the picture she put up of herself with a swelled-up eye, I see how young she is and it kinda clicks into place for me. I see so much of myself in her. When I was young, I felt ostracized from normal society because of my father's weird ideology and lifestyle, and because of my childish feeling that I must display loyalty to him by pretending indifference to my outcast status. After all, I had the only right worldview! So who cared what all those foolish heathens thought and said! I didn't want any of their dumb stuff anyway!

What I get from her writing is that she has a bright, curious mind and she's longing to find a way to express that and be listened to. Mocking what normal people do--school, college, modern art--is the only way she can use her talents in a way that's acceptable in her little tiny world. Her brain is being squashed to death by the arrogance of her father and others around her. Mimicking them is her way of trying to combine self-expression with getting approval from those who rule her world.

I also get that she's fascinated by the thought of college and deep down inside, she wants to go there. But she knows she can't, so she keeps saying she wouldn't want to ANYWAY. It's all sour grapes. Poor kid.

[booksnbeats]

UChicago is one of the most conservative universities in America. Huh?

I thought these entries would piss me off, as a PhD student in English who will be a professor one day. But they just made me smile. She reminds me of a lot of my students, actually. And like Boltingmadonna said above, her obsession with college (from her writing, you can tell she would do great!) shows how much she wants to go there. And it's sad that her parents have discouraged that. Maybe there's still a chance for her to break out and fund it herself--that's what I had to do.

[AnnoDomini]

This girl is probably jealous and wants to go to college, deep down inside. Just like people who say cruel things about rich people or thin people. Jealous.

[MonkeyMomma]

My favorite lines:

"Somewhere along the way, I think I got a UW-Madison letter. (I lose track. All that stands out is the college who has the orange being unpeeled, the University of Chicago, St. Norbert's and Yale - that was an exciting day.) My daddy graduated there; we still get their alumni publications which I try to read over lunch break before my dad tosses them into the recycling with a deprecating, "Such a liberal college." Worldview training at its best."

Good, she and her kind can stay out of our little liberal utopia. Keep your anti-intellectualism and intolerance, I'll keep State Street, Freak Fest, the farmer's market, and all the self-righteous Prius drivers, thankyouverymuch.

ETA a missing letter ... :roll:

[MonkeyMomma]

She seems to value a liberal arts education but doesn't think she can get one at college? That's where I got mine!

I'm confused!

This is exactly what I am thinking ... she appears to be hating on the very institutions that provide this kind of education in the name of defending it. It's so clear that she's - how do I put this delicately - talking out of her ass about the state of the liberal arts in the US.

[Austin]

Great. Sounds like her parents, or her father anyway, was the recipient of an education that he now denies his daughter in the name of not exposing her to a librul worldview.

So many of these first generation fundies had opportunities for education and a normal life and at some point decided they wanted something different. I may disagree with them, but at least they made their own decision. Their second-generation fundie children are afforded no such luxury and I think that sucks.

[YPestis]

I guess I don't see what there to brag about. She took a standardized where she gave permission for schools to send her junk mail. That's like feeling special that Walmart was sending me coupons every week after I gave out my address to them. I, and a lot of my college friends received those ads in the mail, regardless of our scores. It was just advertisement to let people know their schools. It doesn't mean they thought you were so special.

The really sad part is, many of these schools will encourage people apply to their schools with full knowledge they will not get in so as to increase their "yield" (which is accepted applications/total applications). High yield makes for good ads and gets high rankings on the US NEWS. People and schools like to pretend they don't care about those things yet every school has low yields or high rankings will use tout it as proof their school rulz (except for a few elite schools). I've read up on articles in the New York Times of kids who don't know any better and they apply to some of their academically selective schools only to get an outright rejection as soon as their application fee clears. Not even a secondary app or an interview invite. This blogger really looks stupid or naive when she brags about those school pamphlets or having her father toss out his old ala mater magazine. Unless you actually get into those schools, you just look like a wannabe looking in.

[AnnoDomini]

Great. Sounds like her parents, or her father anyway, was the recipient of an education that he now denies his daughter in the name of not exposing her to a librul worldview.

So many of these first generation fundies had opportunities for education and a normal life and at some point decided they wanted something different. I may disagree with them, but at least they made their own decision. Their second-generation fundie children are afforded no such luxury and I think that sucks.

That's my parents to a T. They were normal, went to public school, joined clubs, went to college, dated... Granted my father was a scowly kid who hated school and took refuge in band, while my mother enjoyed her high school experience (she was like the last Great American Girl Next Door--I kid you not) and was in drama club and yearbook committee. But they were normal. They met in college and dated and got married. Even used *gasp* birth control in the first couple years of their marriage (I think it stopped shortly after I was born). And then they became more and more and more fundy.

[oscar]

Yeah, the art entry....

Short version--"I think it's ugly, so OMG it's sooo stupid!"

I think some of it is ugly too, and I'll be the first to admit that I don't "get" a lot of art. But instead of saying, "oh that's not art", I say "maybe I'm missing something". Then I haul my ass (and my 8 year old's ass) down to the art museum, actually look at the art up close and maybe read a bit about the art. I still think a lot of that stuff is ugly, but I am learning a teensy bit. Crazy, I know.

A year or so back, I dragged a very unenthusiastic friend along to an exhibit of Californian Modern art. She left the exhibit excited and fascinated by minimal and monochrome painting - in particular, the way the subtleties of brushwork revealed the hand of the artist and how faint indications of geometrical shape were imperceptible in reproductions so that a painting could only be represented by itself. Sometimes the impressions you form of something from afar are limiting and misleading, in a way that makes it difficult to consider the idea that you might possibly be mistaken until you actually realize how mistaken you are.

It's hard to read, "I could've gone to Yale, but I didn't want to" as anything other than defensive rationalization teetering on very precarious grounds. Like others have pointed out, this series reads like she is mostly trying to convince herself. She seems quite bright, but if she were to proceed with her undergraduate education and on to graduate school, she would eventually reach a level where she is of average skill among her academic peers. By spurning higher education, she doesn't have to risk discovering that she is not as intellectually and spiritually exceptional as she's been led to believe, and her parents don't have to risk her questioning the doctrines under which she was raised.

In this series, she's making herself feel better by tearing down the experiences of others. I wonder if she realizes quite how transparent this is.

[Cran]

She snarks that all colleges write the same stuff in the magazines they send her - and how a student should be able to choose between colleges then!

Uhm... girl.. are you really so ignorant to think a college should be choosen because of the ADVERTISMENTS they send out?

No. Just no. This is not the way you do it.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

She seems to value a liberal arts education but doesn't think she can get one at college? That's where I got mine!

I'm confused!

Oh, it's a thing among many of the religious homeschoolers obsessed with "classical education" and Victoriana. They view a quality liberal arts education to be what happens when you sit around in a frilly dress reading "good books" in the drawing room over tea, infused with a healthy amount of Christian worldview and British imperialism. Science? That's what you get by walking around your genteel yard in the exurbs and observing what weeds have grown up around the fence.

You can learn all that stuff on your own, and you don't need any modern liberals to be involved, heavens no. You'll learn directly from the masters, via their books - if it's classical Greek or Roman, great, if it's pre-WW2 British, great, Founding Fathers, even better, but there's no need for any modern claptrap that might make you critical about anything.

...or something like that. If you end up talking funny because you only read old musty books, it's even more of a cachet. Haha, I don't understand modern slang! Aren't I awesome?? :roll:

Though if she really did ask for college catalogs I wonder if there's some desperate self-convincing going on behind the scenes, myself.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Additionally... I like quite a bit of modern art. I like abstract, and I like experience color, and shape, and contrast, just for what they are, not representational of anything other than a certain feeling, maybe. Colors from nature, but dissected. Think about two kinds of green, and an infinite line. A three-dimensional shape so dark it seems like a hole from even 2 feet away.

And you know what? I've tried to get some of that feeling by playing with color on my own, and it's DAMN HARD.

[formergothardite]

Well bless her little heart. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

[DebbuSue]

My son graduated from High School this past May. He took the PSAT early in 11th grade, and the ACT at the end of the same year. Once you get your name and address with those testing companies, your name, age, demographic information must be available to any school that has money to purchase a list. Even though he identified himself as a music performance major, he got packages from what seemd like hundreds of colleges, and offers of scholarships where he never showed an interest.

He spend this senior year at a performing arts boarding school, so was not home to take phone calls. One in particular - Philadelphia Bible College, offered him $14,000 sight unseen, and followed this up with phone calls from earnest young students. Talking to other parents, most of their kids got the same offers and what seemed like hundreds of phone calls.

I think most of these colleges were offering a token scholarhship in the hopes that you would come and foot the rest of the bill out of pocket. I got the impression that they didn't care about the student, just about their ability to fill the seats and pay the bills.

There is nothing special about getting packages from colleges, if you are breathing, you're eligible.

[Austin]

We have sons who are high school seniors. They have had their first go-around with the ACT, and once a kid does that, the floodgates open from all sorts of colleges, universities, technical schools, you name it. It doesn't mean anything, really, and it certainly doesn't suggest that a student will automatically be accepted at any of the colleges from which he/she receives brochures. Someone should explain this to our little anti-intellectual friend.

[PBrooke]

Aw, I remember well the mountain of advertisements I received in junior and senior year of high school. It is a little exciting to get a big thick book from Harvard or Yale or Columbia. Of course, there were schools who seemed great on paper, and then when I visited them in person I realized they weren't a good personal match... I wonder if this girl knows about the rounds of visits you're supposed to make.

It was such an exciting time, going to college. I feel a bit sad for this girl.

[Black Aliss]

Last time I looked, bulk mailing rates were still pretty low. Now, if she were getting phone calls from admissions recruiters, I'd be impressed. Glossy brochures in the mail, not so much.

[VodouDoll]

Even the phone calls are a dime a dozen. They stick a bunch of workstudy students in a call center and give them a script and a list of phone numbers. When I was in 12th grade our phone rang off the hook every night at dinner time with colleges wanting me to apply. We eventually had to turn off the ringer.