The Apple Philosophy

A is for Apple
Somebody threw me an apple
with a worm in it.
I bit out the worm
and threw the apple back.
I was the only one who knew the worm
had the most nutrition.

This poem, which I wrote as an English assignment in the last month of grade ten, epitomises my state of mind at the time. That state had been brought about by the educational system that had me produce this poem in the first place. Let me explain.

My grade ten English teacher, Mr. Mackenzie, the head of the English Department and notorious for pulling student’s grades out of hats, repeatedly going into rehab and other less noble things, who had given us some rather difficult and long assignment which I remember nothing of having probably not done it, asked us to take our frustration out on him by writing a poem. A is for Apple was the result.

The poem’s title suggests one of the first things we learn in school, the alphabet. The apple itself is a symbol of education. Its bright red shine speaking of the promise of all that is good and noble. Educational Institutions, of the past at least, have promised that our schools will prepare our children for the responsibilities of life. My depiction of the casual and careless manner in which this promise was passed to me was intentional. At sixteen years of age I could see that the promises were hollow, or at least infested.

The worm is a curious creature. It does not attack the apple from the outside but it's egg was put there by its parent while the apple tree was in bloom. It grew only after the apple formed, eating at it from the inside, coming out just when the apple is ready to eat. The educational system’s promises were being challenged within by another insidious promise. I remember the teachers reciting it to my parents all the time, "Teddy can become whatever he wants." I thought I was special. This promise was a lie. My parents bought into it. I bought into it. Who wouldn’t want to believe their son had great potential? But how was it to be developed?

What my parents and I had failed to realise is that the educational system wasn’t really concerned with my learning, as such, but were really practising a philosophy of noninterference. If they left me alone I would become what I wanted. Not all within the school system bought into this philosophy, but enough did to make it difficult for those teachers who saw a correlation between input and output.

I had entered my first year of school ready to learn. School and I were not a fit, however, and I would not be bent to fit. So, school had to bend instead. In some ways it made sense but the world was not like that. I was rarely challenged and little was demanded of me. In Junior High, classroom marks did not matter. Our final marks were based on four quarterly exams on which I always did very well. Well enough to put me in the top ten percentile. I was in the elite without any effort. I was special.

At sixteen, I realised that I did not need to finish school. At the end of grade ten, I promptly dropped out. I perceived the worm as of greater value than the apple. After all, I could be what ever I wanted. I set my sights high. When I grew up I was going to be a fire truck or something just as impossible, like a rock star. I threw the apple right back in their faces. I knew better than they. In reality I had been a good student. I had taken their liberal social philosophy, hook, line, sinker and, of course, worm.

My flirtation with grade eleven and twelve (after four months of doing a job I hated which my parents made me take, since I wasn’t going to continue my schooling) ended after my flirtation with a certain brunette that placed me into the real world unprepared. A wife and child at eighteen, though it gives you a sense of responsibility, does not prepare you for responsibility.
Entering adulthood and family life unprepared is a scary thing. Nothing in the school system had equipped me to take on the responsibilities of a husband and father. From the start I found out that I could get by with little effort. The teachers did not interfere with my inactivity. I met their standards of progress and then some. Aside from the fact I never did my assignments, I was a model student; quiet, happy and my high marks on exams made the teachers feel like they were successful. Real life was not like that, however. When people, governmental institutions or circumstances demanded more of me, I thought it was unfair. When I heaped responsibilities upon the shoulders of that certain brunette (seven children and a useless husband), I didn’t see how unfair I was being to her.

Somehow, I managed to see that God demanded more of me. I didn’t join any of the modern churches that have been infested with the same liberal philosophy. I’m forty-one [written in 2004] and counting and counting on my newly acquired insight to be the start of real change. Consequences have forced me to see my error but the damage that has been done may not be easy or even possible to repair.

This is a warning to all. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Make your own. I’m probably I little näive to think my warning will be heeded. After all, there were many voices out there that I did not heed. Yet, if it helps someone to realise a little sooner, that there is a real world which takes real effort and real choices to succeed in, it was worth the hour it took me to write this.

I want to be clear. It wasn’t that finishing school would have made much difference. If I still had the same attitude, my life would have been the same but different. Maybe I would have grown up to be a useless bureaucrat, a correspondent for the CBC or even a teacher infesting the minds of students with the same apple philosophy. A is for apple. Just watch out for the worms.