shadowspar

We screw up so many things when it comes to education. Everything from universities to elementary schools is underfunded. Archivists work through getting and paying for a graduate degree only to find that we don't care enough about preserving our history to pay them to do it. Librarians fight an uphill battle against administrations who don't see the value in libraries, publishers who busily corral all knowledge into walled gardens, and even the occasional peer who seems determined to restrain the profession until it passes into irrelevancy. Access to higher education sucks; being poor, native, disabled, or just plain far away from a school will make it needlessly difficult to pursue a degree or diploma. Teachers sometimes cultivate repetition instead of learning. Much of society only recognizes institutionalized schooling as "education" and ignores any learning that's not accompanied by a framed piece of paper.

Given all this, it's practically a wonder anyone ever manages to learn a damn thing. Sometimes it seems as though only the resolve and the goodwill of the people involved -- students, educators, support staff, everyone -- that keeps the lights on at all.