What are you here to learn? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you do your own writing, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You learn who you are <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what you stand for <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what you stand against <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what you love <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what you makes you feel alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you have someone or something write for you, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You learn to lie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You learn to cheat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And you lose all its benefits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(See above.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you do your own reading, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You drink in ideas, experiences, characters, stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You feel them down to the roots of your hair, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in the goosebumps you get <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the words are magic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You inhale the sounds and <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Patterns and <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Qualities of great writing <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To emulate in your own writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You are molded as a person by what you read <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By what moves you <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And by what you refuse to be moved by. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reading gives you life experiences <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That can\u2019t be had in real life <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And life lessons without the pain <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of living them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reading deepens you, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teaches you how to be a better human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when you only pretend to read, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you read the summaries <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And jot down pretend-notes, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All you learn is to cheat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You lose all the benefits of reading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(See above.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I listen as you sit discussing <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What you were supposed to have read <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And wonder how much of your talk is real <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And how much of it is just so much <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Excrement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You go through the motions <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But none of it means anything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All you are learning is how to fling B.S. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back and forth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you view learning as transactional, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You turn in counterfeit product <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get a grade <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get a credential someday <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get on to the next thing, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It may seem like a bargain <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To get something for nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the result, none of the effort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in the end, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You get a hollow reward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You become, by counterfeiting, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A counterfeit person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A fraud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A liar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A cheat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A surface person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All show, no substance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Sedgewick Bell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Education has made it all transactional <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When maybe it should be transformational. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It isn\u2019t really supposed to be about <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Points and grades and GPAs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Learning isn\u2019t just ticking off the boxes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Learning should deepen you, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take you outside your comfort zone, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make you more human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More yourself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone can cheat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only you can write your words. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only you can meet an author <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the pages <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And have an interaction <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between just you two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one else can do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you don\u2019t do it, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one else in the entire universe <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can have that interaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will never exist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you cheat, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you cynically think it doesn\u2019t matter, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You are murdering the learning <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That might have transformed you <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the person you might have become <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Will never exist. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What are you here to learn? When you do your own writing, You learn who you are And what you stand for And what you stand against And what you love And what you makes you feel alive. When you have someone or something write for you, You learn to lie. You learn to cheat. Read More >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[225,184],"tags":[398,33,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1224,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrfitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}