Being Schooled

Considering I’m a lifelong educator, I surely have been “schooled” a lot in my life. I can remember every one of them clearly. I will spare you the details of most of them, particularly those that still sting, because frankly, I come out looking bad in every single one of them.

“Being schooled” happens when someone calls you out on something you have said or done, regardless of your intent or thought process, that you shouldn’t have said or done. You try to defend yourself, you rationalize, you chalk it up to your ignorance or intent or well-meaning carelessness, but if you’re honest with yourself, you “shouldna dun it.”

If you want to defend me on some of the examples I’m about to share, hold your horses! It’s my life and my education. I’ve thought through and agonized about each one ad nauseum, and I know that “being schooled” was precisely what I needed in that instance. I share these to get you thinking about times you have been schooled, and about the grand education God gives us via other people throughout life.

The first time I remember getting schooled was when I came home from high school in Singapore for my first vacation. It was the first time my mom had seen me after several months of intensive peer influence without her presence. I still remember where I stood in the kitchen as she told me off for having just used the word “crap.” It was a low-class word, she said, not befitting of the kind of young lady I had the potential to become. My mama was right. I have rarely ever--and only deliberately with a certain calculated purpose--used that word since then. Schooled.

Another instance during my high school years: I had the distinct shame of being pulled aside by the principal’s wife and told with some energy that I was out of line for speaking ill about another student who would be joining the student body but had not yet arrived. Reputation is a precious thing, she told me, and I had no right to steal that from this boy. I was poisoning the well for him. She was right; I had zero defense. Ouch. Schooled.

As a college professor I was surprised to hear that a student had taken an intense dislike to me. I got her into my office to ask how we had gotten into this place. She recalled that a few months back, I had informed her casually as I met her on the sidewalk, that I’d looked over her program and it looked like she would not be able to graduate that year as expected. She was devastated. My “by-the-way” approach left her feeling disrespected, alone and unvalued. I never did manage to climb out of that hole with her; with some people a thoughtless action can set a trajectory that you can’t recover from. Schooled.

And then there was the time that I used the word “pickaninny” when I was saying something. As a child I’d heard it in an Australian song about aborigines, and thought it was such a cute term. A dear friend privately drew me aside and informed me that the term is racist. At first I was taken aback and resistant. When you’re being schooled you have to work these things over, and there is no escaping the reality of another person’s offense. I had to realize that just because I had thought a word meant something cute, doesn’t mean that to everyone else. And in fact, the word is offensive. Schooled.

You may be a better person than I when someone confronts you about your words and actions. You may instantly accept it and apologize and never do it again. Not me. My knee-jerk reaction is to resist, to excuse myself, to explain it away, to rationalize, to defend myself, or to go passive aggressive in some way. “Being schooled” feels personal. Well, it is, I suppose.

I wish I could say, as did one of my direct reports to me not so long ago, “Thank you for confronting me about this. It means you care about me, and I really appreciate it.” (What a classy response.) 

Nope, I’m far less gracious than that. When someone is good enough to “school” me, they typically have to leave it sitting there with me awhile, so it can work its way past my defenses. But I eventually get around to apologizing and changing my ways, because I want to be a better person. Not only that, I really do—as my faculty member did—appreciate the true caring that goes into schooling me. If you love me enough to address my character as viewed through my actions, you really love me.

Let’s just hope you don’t have to school me too often. Because being schooled is exhausting work.