No, not because of that but because I don’t use obvious clickbait to title my work. That said, please forgive the title and suspend your judgment for a moment.
It will all make sense later, promise.
Today, I got to thinking about The Breakfast Club, especially the essay conceptualized as a group and penned by Brian at the film’s conclusion. That’s when the most random yet curious question materialized in my foggy noggin…
What might their letter sound like if they had to write it as kids today, in 2026?
For the hell of it, I took a stab at crafting such a message.
I ran the final product by some Gen Z kids on retainer to ensure it worked for them and didn’t just sound like an old Gen X dude writing what he thinks Gen Z might say because lord knows, I don’t need to sound like Steve Buscemi in a high school hallway.
My kids and I had an interesting conversation about what they thought the core of The Breakfast Club’s message was, but what was the most intriguing insight from all this speculation?
As predictable as it is sad, that letter was timeless. The same core message translates almost flawlessly for today, despite using different terms to appeal to a different generation in a different time.
I threw in some carefully camouflaged easter eggs for communication/linguistics geeks like me, but I’ll leave those hidden for now…
Behold, the wild geek in his natural habitat, singing Will Ferrell’s “Volcano Man” from Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga.
I opened an email from a college student this week that really struck me and ignited a somewhat dormant desire to write, so here am after, well, let’s just say a long time.
As they lamented the struggles of working while juggling college and family, it reminded me of my own story to an extent, since I hadn’t started college until the ripe old age of 28.
It felt ripe, okay? Viewing 28 in the rear-view from 48? Yeah, that looks a bit different.
Anyway, they nonchalantly stated in closing that “school is certainly not for the weak!”
And I agree, though the adage became a springboard from which I shall now go on to offer some unsolicited advice to anyone else who’s currently struggling through education and possibly wrestling with whether it’s all worth it.
Or, maybe this goes out to anyone who is considering beginning an educational journey late in life like I did. Okay, fine, not “late in life” but would you just stop judging me? Sheesh!
The student’s off-the-cuff adage, school is not for the weak, was one that I found sparked a curious thought that needed some unpacking, so I began wrestling with it for a while, chewing on it, digesting it, allowing my varied brain enzymes (brainzymes, if you will which just made the band name list) to break it down before addressing it here using the slightly less than focused ramblings birthed at 4AM in a Guatemala City hotel room.
See, I wanted to take the time to really articulate further what “school” and “weak” constitute for me, to see if the adage held up, and to do that, I needed some time to think. Being in Guatemala for work, I have approximately zero shortage of options to choose from (part of the problem is just that — having too many choices when you’re an ADHDude). Nevertheless, I picked out a bucket list checkpoint from childhood after I found out how cheap and accessible it was when I reached out to Viator.
I was about to cap off an unforgettable week full of randomized events by making my way up an active volcano.
And my unusually active, adventurous week featured:
A guest spot on a phenomenal podcast, The SoapyRao Show in an episode titled “The Creative Individual: Life skills to Navigate Technology and Channel Creativity”
I got 2 spur-of-the-moment tattoos — it wasn’t the designs that were spontaneous, but rather, the time, place, and artist. One is an homage to one of my favorite books of all, Stephen King’s IT, and the other really was spontaneous and drawn on my shoulder by the legendary Rob Zombie at a meet and greet.
I was party to… let’s call it an “adrenaline-producing event” that rattled me … pretty good.
And I had an enormously fun day with my colleagues at Irtra, a Disney-like theme park, though unlike its expensive and crowded cousin up north, Irtra’s lines are bearable, the food’s much better, and the variety of everything was outstanding.
Somewhere during all that time, I had an epiphany while reflecting on the statement, so if you will allow me, I’m gonna break it down.
Of course you’ll allow me. After all, this is my website.
School is not for those who consider themselves strong enough as-is. These types view the pursuit of further education in its formal state as unworthy of their time and effort. And why would they, given their belief that they have nothing left to learn?
If weakness = Fear, then school isn’t for the fearful, either. By that, I’m referring to anyone who makes decisions by veering into the direction their fears point them, whether that’s gravitating toward that which they never wanted but go toward anyway out of FOMO, but on the other hand, they may also avoid things because they’re afraid of what may actually happen.
Education, as a process, is fraught with fear, uncertainty — a lot like climbing an active volcano — but it imbues self-worth, confidence, and teaches us that life’s challenges, discomforts, and difficulties aren’t things to be avoided.
They are to be confronted if we hope to look back on a life story that’s genuinely worth telling.
School, in its many healthy forms, is the perfect place to find oneself when they exhibit qualities that most others associate with weakness:
Meekness, humility, and service to others;
Openly and unabashedly fraily, shy, or bashful introversion;
Unsure, unconfident, anxious, inexperienced, yet seeking to find one’s place in the grand scheme.
And every last one of the frustrated, picked-on, passed-over adult learners who gave college one last shot in a Hail Mary attempt to use what time they have left to leave an indelible mark and legacy that their children might someday be proud of — like me.
In other words, I agree that school is definitely NOT for the weak.
I simply feel that what I consider “weak” as a seasoned educator isn’t what everyone else thinks, because I’ve seen weak become a strength.
… and right now, if you’re reading this and identify with what’s said here?
You are most definitely NOT weak, so hang in there.
I wake up, groggy-eyed and out of it, most likely sometime near 9 or 10 AM because that’s how it is when you work from home and have an ADHD kid who won’t go to sleep until after midnight. I pick up my phone, randomly choose the first thing to warm up my synapses for the real work I’ll have to do later, and odds are, it’s Facebook.
And there it is.
“Your friend, Michael Skaife, and others have birthdays today. Send them g…”
Of course, the rest of the notification is truncated, but who TF cares.
Frequently, I think about word choice when it comes to describing certain phenomena and how that word choice reveals how we view or feel about those things. Time is an interesting example. Think about the verbs we use to describe how we interact with time: saving, spending, wasting, etc. If we take a step back, we realize how often we view time as a commodity, like money or material wealth.
Allow me to start this reflection with some context.
I’ve been teaching communication, which includes as my bread and butter, intro to public speaking, better known as the dreaded college speech class, for the better part of 11 years.
Prior to that, I was a budding communication major who enjoyed the challenge of public speaking, but about 16 years ago, I walked into a speech class for the first time full of dread. I tried everything I could to get out of that class. Can I test out of it? “No.” Can I substitute it for a writing class? “No.” You get the idea. Continue reading “My (first) TEDx Experience”→
Allow me to begin this story by emphatically declaring that I am much more of a cat person than a dog person. I’ve always identified with the following quote from Robert De Niro’s character in Meet the Parents:
You see, Greg, when you yell at a dog, his tail will go between his legs and cover his genitals, his ears will go down. A dog is very easy to break, but cats make you work for their affection. They don’t sell out the way dogs do.
I genuinely admire the way I have to earn a cat’s love and affection. In fact, I have a cat at this moment who did not warm up to me for at least a few years, but once I earned her trust slowly and methodically, I became her best friend (until I rub her belly, and then all bets are off). Continue reading “Everything I Know About Forgiveness, I Learned From My Dog”→
Josh Misner, PhD 