An unlikely class

Once I was forced to take an accounting class. My dad wanted me to take it; if I didn’t he would have been very disappointed in me. He said something along the lines of how I would need it for my future. I took that class three years ago, in high school and I gotta tell ya, I don’t remember anything at all from that class, except the saying, “debits on your left, credits on your right.” And I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. I think the reason I don’t remember anything from that class is because of how I learned the material.

Ironically and surprisingly, I, having no interest in that topic, did the best in my class. It could be the fact that my dad helped me a lot (since he was the one who wanted me to take the class and he’s an accountant himself). It could also be the easy-to-read textbook and spongy brain I had at the time. Oh man, I really quietly hated that class, so much so that I was pushed into my auxiliary mode of learning, that is, that whole school year in that class, I was in robot mode, so I didn’t really feel anything. Everything I did was automatic and void of real interest. Passion in the subject matter was a separate entity. A separate and lacking entity.

That’s not the kind of learning that I like. I mean really it’s, well, I was about to say that it’s unhealthy learning, but now I’m thinking it’s just a kind of learning that will get you by temporarily. In the end, you don’t really learn anything because it all goes out the window. And you know the ride wasn’t fun anyway.

Fortunately, for me it was kind of fun. Not the learning part but just the conversations held between my teacher and classmates that were unrelated to accounting. Like camping trips and vacations and school fights that had recently happened or stories about my teacher’s kids, and stories about past field trips to the county jailhouse. It was also fun watching my teacher struggle with the reluctance of the other students to learn when more and more seniors in our class (I by the way was a senior, then) started cutting class or when spring break was coming soon. My teacher too grew lenient. Sometimes, as a class, we’d try to distract her and make her talk about her children and what’s going on in her life so as to avoid learning. I think we were all in the same boat then. That day, in that class period, I escaped with a total of eleven minutes of actual learning (each class period is 42 minutes long). Yes, I was constantly checking the clock and looking out the window.

Anyway, just wanted to share with you one of the most unlikely classes I’ve ever taken.