My Favorite Subject

My education began before I ever set foot in any class room, and to this day I keep my mind engaged with learning material. Personally, I view education and the educational system to be two entirely different things. This is because the most valuable lessons I ever learned in my life — four and a half decades plus, on this earth — are not taught in any classroom. I am currently continuing my education and working towards a degree, in spite of being exposed to information that contradicts lessons previously drilled into my mind as a child. So, if I may, let me tell you the story of how I learned the educational system was spoon feeding me fecal matter.

My father was the consummate authoritarian, and his training encompassed a vast array of practical life skills. With his thick accent he was fond of saying “If yuh dont wanna listen, yuh gonna feel!” That was his version of a double entendre, alluding to that old adage of touching a hot stove, and held a veiled threat of the belt. I attended grades k through six at an elementary school in the Bronx, one of New York City’s urban war zones. I did well in class if I put my mind to it, but like many children entering grade school, I was easily distracted. I imagine you would be too, if you constantly had to navigate around bloodstains on the sidewalk, but could not escape the abuse awaiting you at home — the one place where you are supposed to feel safe. School, well class really, was boring at first; because reading, writing, and arithmetic had literally been whipped into me.

History became my favorite subject, and this was because it had not been introduced to me at home. It piqued my interest and I soaked up all the new information like a sponge. It was never boring during history lessons as we were being regaled with tales of Christopher Columbus and his three ships. Class was more akin to entertainment, as some of my peers passionately disagreed with the assertions of our teachers, who led me to believe Columbus discovered North America. As fate would have it, our teachers were of European descent, while those involved with the rabble-rousing had African ancestry. Our lessons would later progress — as they usually do — towards the American Revolution, zoom by the Peculiar Institution, and dwell on the Civil war. History was replete with intriguing stories that I found exciting, and kept my young mind buried in a book.

Before long, I graduated to a junior high school that was two blocks and an entire galaxy away from my elementary school at the same time. In the halls of grade school there was order, while in middle school it was complete chaos.

During this period of my life, internally, I felt quite a bit of disarray and a need to determine where I fit in. So, I began to seek some enlightenment as to my ancestral history — after looking in the mirror and wondering what racial and ethnic categories I fit into. Unlike most of my peers, I had no other family members within a thousand mile radius, and this was a mystery I intended to solve. I came to learn that I am a first generation American whose parents both hail from the British Colony Guyana, and I also happen to be a mixture of European, African, and Amerindian¹. This helped extinguish the confusion I felt, but this information weighed heavily on my adolescent mind. Wondering why no one at home saw fit to help me grasp these concepts sooner, I began referring to myself as “a product of the slave trade.” Mom thought this was cute, and her words began to make sense — “Paul Michael, ‘dis country wih live in, if yuh have a lil’ black in yuh, dey consida you a nigger.” The timing of all this seemed to coincide with the unveiling of some complicated facts relating to my favorite subject.

Middle school was also the time when I became aware of the reasons some of my classmates still refused to accept what had been taught to us about Columbus and his ships. For a time, I was unsure of who to agree with, my teachers or fellow students? During my youth, President Reagan would frequently appear on TV and repeat a quote he was fond of — “Trust but verify.” So, I decided to follow his instructions, and while researching came across strong arguments questioning: how can someone discover a place that was already populated? There were also people who believed that the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria employed criminals whom could have fallen off the face of the earth for all they cared. And Columbus, who is lauded as a hero, displayed his immoral mindset in a letter requesting the weapons and men he believed necessary to conquer the indigenous populace who just welcomed him. Considering what I had recently learned about myself, some of those very “Indians” who encountered Columbus may have been friends of my ancestors.

Discovering these things about Columbus, who’s own journal proved he never set foot in North America — after wholeheartedly believing my teachers over my peers — was extremely disheartening. Betrayal feels like a knife in the side from your baby brother, the psychological scars of which endure long after the physical ones have healed. And although my baby brother did not attack and almost kill me until I was 30, that experience is the closest illustration of the emotional trauma I felt after realizing my favorite subject had been filling my mind with distortions of actual events. How many other historical fabrications had I been led to believe? I now felt like I couldn’t take what was being taught in any classroom too seriously, and developed a negative mentality towards school.

Not only did my mentality towards school change, I outgrew my father and would no longer tolerate his abuse. As a result, my formal education was stunted in junior high, after losing faith in the curriculum designed by the Board of Education. So, a suitable description of the process I underwent as a child who entered New York City’s Public school system during the 1980s, parallels the title of a now classic album, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.” However, I love learning new things, and believe it’s important, that with proper guidance, we learn how to think critically for ourselves! Surprisingly enough, history is still my favorite subject, and I have learned more by reading books² you would never find in any public school library.