Getting Inspiration from Education

Your education (or that of others) can be a terrific place for writing inspiration.

A Vital Component of Life is Education

Education is of course something anyone in a wealthier country, who is over than the age of five (usually), has in common with everyone else.

But what does it have to do with writing?

The Process

Consider the process you go through, and even the rituals which accompany schooling. You get up in the morning. Then you often eat something and you usually leave the premises, although not always. You read a lot, and answer questions.

Plus you might perform mathematical operations. Some of these tasks may be simple. Others may be grindingly difficult.

Then at some point you knock off for the day. You might have assigned homework. And then you go to sleep so that you can do it all over again. It’s a little different if you’re homeschooled. But a lot of the activities are the same.

The Subjects

After primary classes, you start to see variations. French instead of Spanish. Physics instead of advanced Biology. College-bound students tend to track one way. Those who are going to stop with a High School diploma or GED tend to track another.

Education Means Interactions

There are some interactions with homeschooling, but not as many as when you leave your domicile and go to a school. There may be bullying. Students may self-divide into cliques. Some join clubs or teams. Or they may even go to work.

There may be divisions that students make due to athletic ability. Or academic ability. Another group might be artists, or musicians. Some students know what they want to study. E. g. they know what they want to be when they ‘grow up’. Others take longer to find themselves.

And, of course, don’t forget students who get pregnant, or marry, or drop out—perhaps all three. Their experiences are just as valid.

School Shootings

Unfortunately, they have become a fact of life in American education. Fortunately, they don’t happen at every school. And even when they do happen, it’s often not every single person who’s quite literally in the line of fire.

That having been said, in the United States, kids go through active shooter drills from a very early age. Equally disturbing is the fact that kids can be in virtually any grade and become targets.

However, this unfortunate fact of life has one small silver lining. Teachers, cafeteria works, principals, and other adults in school settings now look for certain signs. Are these checks perfect, catching everything? Of course not.

But the hope is that some troubled kids get the help they need before they pull a trigger. But it’s difficult to prove that something that was perhaps going to happen, never did.

And as for gun control, well, that’s dead in the water (no pun intended) when it comes to preventing such horrors. Still, I won’t get into that issue in this blog post.

Education, Inspiration, and Takeaways

If your characters are in school, what is it like? Both Harry Potter and The Lord of the Flies allude to scholastic pursuits. Are your characters failing? Teacher’s pets? In trouble? Coasting? Ready to drop out because they think it’s pointless?