Cecilia's MLC

The following was sent to me by a very close friend; Cecilia Smith, who graduated from MLC in 2012 as a valedictorian and is soon to be starting her sophomore year at Ohio Wesleyan University.

                  Most kids at MLC have probably been through a variant of a conversation I’ve experienced too frequently: a parent of someone attending a traditional school will ask, “So what’s MLC about?

                  Then comes a barrage of questions, always the same formula.

                  How many kids actually graduate?

                  How many go to college?

                  How many go to out-of-state (this can be replaced with “private”) college?

                  The parent is trigger happy, shooting these questions at me with a smirk and skeptical voice, as if they are triumphantly disproving my success at MLC with cold, hard, reality. Beneath the curiosity lies often lies a smug subtext. The “real world” is much too tough for my hippie-softened brain.

                  I’ve surpassed those real world expectations. Like Orianna, I attend an out-of-state and private university. Also like Orianna, I’ve made the Dean’s List both semesters my freshmen year of college and have boasted above-average standardized test scores. My “success” at MLC (because these same parents asking about my college track record believe measuring grades with a different set of letter undermines my intelligence) has translated into real world “success.”

See? "Success" indeed!

                  And yet, if MLC has taught me anything, it’s that “success” is not measurable in numbers; success is measurable in opportunities, experiences, and personal satisfaction. Success is a path each person forges for themselves, and MLC is a place where you can slash that path with a machete or where you can gently push aside the leaves, occasionally test-tasting the berries.

                  My personal experience at MLC has been a tight amalgam of both – I’ve found myself given opportunities and forced into them. Additionally, with the channels of communication I had with the teachers and administration, I’ve also been able to make my own opportunities. I was forced into dancing in the Solstice pageant, given the chance to teach electives to kids of all ages, and worked on several independent projects with the teachers. Where but MLC would I be able to work with a professional film company to make a documentary about artists in Portland? What about performing in a play during which we literally had to improvise the entire second act? And where else would I be asked to question everything and everyone, including the teachers?

The Solstice Cast of 2011!

                  Because of MLC’s alternative curriculum, I’ve established life skills many college students don’t have. Presenting portfolios to panels of outsiders and peers every year was practice for presenting myself to potential employers and to potential colleges. The endless amount of PowerPoints prepared me for the many PowerPoints in college, and eventually, for the many inspiring and heart-wrenching speeches I hope to give. Writing reflections with every portfolio piece, too, contributes to developing time-management skills and study methods. Though typing an extra essay with every project seemed cumbersome at the time, I’ve realized how much it helped me comprehend my own learning.

                  Most importantly, however, MLC has taught me about context. Everything summed up in the previous paragraph relates to context: explaining personal production, pulling together and summarizing information, and defining idiosyncrasies. MLC goes further still by asking its students to contextualize themselves in society; the character traits demand students think about others and I remember many times teachers at MLC asked students to simply think about the world at large.

                  Like the week high schoolers who didn’t go on the Ashland field trip spent debating the BP oil spill, attending seminars at Mercy Corp, and watching docu-dramas about the AIDs epidemic. Sure, it was depressing and scary but it served as a reminder that one person’s existence is just one person’s existence. And though one existence is limited on one sense, its influence can be infinite when awareness is realized and change enacted.

The cast of Bianca's Theatre class's play, It's Only A Play, performed in 2012.

                  This was my awakening and it was MLC that opened my eyes. I can pinpoint a turning point in my life when taking a psychology class my junior year of high school. We learned about sociology, and social inequality in such a way I discovered a new passion. MLC, through its history classes, literature classes, and even sex ed. classes, ripped away my blinders, a catalyst to my now indelible desire to right the world’s wrongs through social movements and political activism. It’s why I chose to major in gender studies and minor in journalism. It’s why I want to start a charity project for orphans next semester at college, and it’s why I continue to read, to learn, and to contextualize.

                  MLC was the place where I first found myself. I found support in great teachers, motivation I didn’t know I had, and friends who I would die for. I credit MLC for giving me so much freedom to grow and for solidifying a foundation I will build on in the upcoming years.

                  The changes at MLC scare me because there needs to be a venue for alternative education. There must be an entity encouraging students to find their own happiness instead of simply churning out cattle for an increasingly disenchanted society. True education – as Professor William Cronon meant it – requires a special kind of investment, and I fear MLC’s recent, more traditional, approach to education spotlights the success in the “how many students can we get out of here?” kind of way. I want our schools in the United States to truly attempt teaching kids to be the best they can be and that goes past letter grades and test scores, and even the Dean’s List. It comes down to why MLC was originally created: to create a community where kids can grasp their dreams and support each other – and maybe, eventually, the rest of the world – through the many paths in the real world.