They say 'ignorance is bliss'...

But has anyone who has ever said that known what ignorance feels like? Because in my experience, ignorance comes out, generally in embarrassing and awkward circumstances that almost always certainly end in judgment.

Sometimes it strikes me just how much of a baby I am. I don't mean I'm a whimp--well, maybe I am a whimp. Whatever. But that's not the sort of baby I'm talking about. I just mean that there's so much of the world I haven't experienced, and so much I don't know about things. Usually I just go along through life and try not to worry to much about the fact that half the time I don't know what other people are talking about, or that things that other people just take in stride freak me out. In day-to-day school, it's easy to forget how naive or clueless you are when all that matters is that your reading is done and your homework turned in.
But then, there are moments when I'm reminded that although I try to pretend I'm just as grown up as the next person, I really don't know anything at all. People bring up things about alcohol, drugs, or sex, and I'm so lost and then I'm stupid enough to open my big mouth and ask what they're talking about. Just the other day, I was eating lunch with some friends who were talking about April 20th. And, as per usual, I blurt out, "Wait--what's on April 20th?" (For clarification for anyone as foolish and naive as me, April 20th is apparently National Pot-Smoking Day.) [Hey, HEY. Don't judge.]

My friends were very nice about not being judgmental or laughing at me for it, but the fact remains that too often I have to ask clarifying questions of others that lead to awkward answers. The truth is, I really don't care to know about those types of things, but at the same time, unless I start learning, I'm going to find myself in lots more awkward situations in the future.

Next year, I'm probably going to be teaching in an urban middle school, which invokes a combination of excitement and terror. Excitement, because I want to have real students, but terror, because I fear I will be walking into a school full of kids with far more worldly knowledge than I've ever been exposed to or could imagine being exposed to. In other words, it's going to get worse. It's one thing if peers your own age are talking about something you don't follow, but it's a lot more problematic when it's kids half your age. In the past, I've been able to mostly ignore my own ignorance. Like, if I just bury myself in school and reading and writing and all the other things I enjoy then I won't notice that I feel like a small child in a world of grownups. But when I'm a teacher, I can't not notice or care about what my students are talking about because I have to fully understand their world in order to understand them. The naivete has got to come to an end.