Post-High School Assignment Analysis

I am sitting on a worn yet comfortable couch, my fingers poised over the keyboard of my laptop. At eighteen, I am preparing to begin my first post-high school assignment. It is a fairly simple assignment, and I am actually quite excited about starting to write. I sit in the already well-loved student lounge that is part of the small Bible school I have just begun attending. There are other students nearby, some surely working on the very same paper, assigned to everyone at the beginning of the week. The school sits on the coast, mere yards from the beach, and the smell of sand and salt is perpetually in the air. I begin to write and the words come easily, flowing onto the page faster than I expect. Writing from my Christian worldview, for teachers sharing the same worldview, does not turn out to be particularly difficult. I know what I believe, they

I remember: It is the day we watched the video denouncing the things I believe in. I have left class and am boarding the light rail train to go home. On the train, I immediately begin furiously researching aspects of the film I just saw. Later, too, I research the court case that was featured, the result, the different things discussed. The video is over; we are done with it in class. There is plenty of other homework to be done and, working when I’m not in school, I have little time to get it done. But still I cannot put the video out of my mind. I remember: I am in a small office within a large building on the campus of the state university. The instructor who was displeased with my final essay sits before me, asking me to simply put my religion and beliefs aside when dealing with academics, or least when dealing with this class. Put them aside? I realize I cannot; the instructor does not understand, but I am being asked to put aside more than just beliefs and religion- I am being asked to put aside my faith. And I cannot do this because, I realize, my faith is part of