My friend Nick talks like Jack Kerouac writes – in a racing thought stream, punctuated with occasional emphasis on a word you wouldn’t expect to carry any weight. Once, Nick took me to Small’s, a Greenwich Village jazz club, where a sepia Duke Ellington photograph stared me down from the wall behind the bassist and the only sounds I heard were the trio’s syncopated notes and the “mmhmms” from the jazz-educated audience. Hours later, when we arose from the cavernous place, back onto the misty loud city streets, Nick told me that here, on this glittering concrete bridge to the vast metropolis, he is home. It was the shortest string of words I heard him say.
Home is a concept I’ve pondered extensively and one that has followed me through my college days, my master’s degree, and straight into my first year of law school, when Fr. Kalscheur, while teaching us diversity jurisdiction in Civil Procedure, asked me where my domicile is. For most of the eighty-two people in the room, this was an easy question, but I was speechless. Where do you belong when you have no place to which you return?
Like Nick’s, my home is more free-form. Having spent my childhood navigating a smattering of rural, suburban, urban, and foreign communities as my professor-parents moved us between campuses, I have been rooted in a world of knowledge but never in a place. In college, I studied abroad four times and developed a fascination with the role of neighborhoods and cities. Afterwards, I studied urban planning until I realized I wanted to take the intellectual inquiry that grounded me and apply it to one piece of the place puzzle, so I began a master’s program in sociology and education. The first book I read was Place Matters. I was home.
While studying part-time, I worked with veterans who were beginning programs at Columbia. Our life experiences were worlds apart, but we connected through a shared sense of displacement. Working with them, I wondered about people whose lives are substantially more complex than mine, like those suffering from homelessness, growing up in foster care, divided between homes during custody wars or because of incarcerated parents, or who are illegal immigrants or part of witness protection programs. To where do they return in the eyes of the law?
In my education, my job, and my own life, place and my “domicile” have mattered in access to resources, quality of life, and who I become as a human being.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, November 8, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Update on Education Reform
There's been a lot going on in the public-facing world of education reform lately. The documentary 'Waiting for "Superman"' has brought the issues of educational inequity and the impact of purported "school choice" back into the spotlight. Here are a few articles that provide some food for thought:
-Lauded Harlem Schools Have Their Own Problems, NYTimes, October 13
-Grading School Choice, NYTimes Op-Ed, October 11
-Does School Choice Work?, National Affairs Journal, Fall 2010
-Resources promoted by Waiting for "Superman"
And also worth a look:
-Have College Freshmen Changed?, NYTimes Room for Debate, October 11
-Lauded Harlem Schools Have Their Own Problems, NYTimes, October 13
-Grading School Choice, NYTimes Op-Ed, October 11
-Does School Choice Work?, National Affairs Journal, Fall 2010
-Resources promoted by Waiting for "Superman"
And also worth a look:
-Have College Freshmen Changed?, NYTimes Room for Debate, October 11
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
On Being a Boston Resident Again
I alone am back where we began.
I wonder if when my parents decided to build a family they knew it would disperse into an American diaspora, with pieces scattered across the Southern Tier, around the Great Lakes, and at times as far as California. We are individuals with our own paths who, for a brief period in time (in the grand scheme of things), formed a cohesive unit in a few select majestic cities and sleepy towns.
What many people don't know is that it all began (or rather, I began) in Boston. New York, of course, stuck with my sister and I the most, perhaps because it hosted our most formative years or perhaps because it’s just that kind of place. My new room in Boston is filled with maps of and tributes to New York—a sepia photograph of a snow-covered Central Park, an artist’s rendering of the dominance of the subway lines over the geography of Manhattan, an old New Yorker cover, a postcard that screams in eerie ghost-like letters “NEW YORK IS A FRIENDLY TOWN.”
New York proclaims itself unabashedly. Back on 168th Street, my gateway from my home on Fort Washington Avenue to the 1 train, I used to pass an enormous red sign draped over the skywalks of New York-Presbyterian Hospital announcing, “Amazing Things are Happening Here.”
Now, I am walking the streets of Brighton and Brookline, noticing no such proclamations of greatness or friendliness. I see a few “Boston’s Best” claims, decent marketing ploys but not quite infused with the specific certainty of New York’s self-descriptions. Yet this is where the McGee-Tubb family began. This must be a friendly town, where amazing things happen, or else we wouldn’t have began here!
Cambridge has always been a magical place for us, a place where upon arrival we feel some immediate and deep attachment. For now, here, it seems as though our tendency to carry our places with us is limited solely to the streets and nooks of this one Boston city-suburb. Conversely, somehow New York pervaded us and we fell for the city as a whole- as much as we inhabited it, it inhabited us. Though Morningside Heights occupies a special drawer, the entirety of Manhattan and even some portions of the outer boroughs belong to us as places we used to own.
Will all of Boston encompass me? Will the entirety of this place become familiar enough and steeped-full-of-my-life enough that it travels along with me throughout the rest of my stops and stations?
I wonder if when my parents decided to build a family they knew it would disperse into an American diaspora, with pieces scattered across the Southern Tier, around the Great Lakes, and at times as far as California. We are individuals with our own paths who, for a brief period in time (in the grand scheme of things), formed a cohesive unit in a few select majestic cities and sleepy towns.
What many people don't know is that it all began (or rather, I began) in Boston. New York, of course, stuck with my sister and I the most, perhaps because it hosted our most formative years or perhaps because it’s just that kind of place. My new room in Boston is filled with maps of and tributes to New York—a sepia photograph of a snow-covered Central Park, an artist’s rendering of the dominance of the subway lines over the geography of Manhattan, an old New Yorker cover, a postcard that screams in eerie ghost-like letters “NEW YORK IS A FRIENDLY TOWN.”
New York proclaims itself unabashedly. Back on 168th Street, my gateway from my home on Fort Washington Avenue to the 1 train, I used to pass an enormous red sign draped over the skywalks of New York-Presbyterian Hospital announcing, “Amazing Things are Happening Here.”
Now, I am walking the streets of Brighton and Brookline, noticing no such proclamations of greatness or friendliness. I see a few “Boston’s Best” claims, decent marketing ploys but not quite infused with the specific certainty of New York’s self-descriptions. Yet this is where the McGee-Tubb family began. This must be a friendly town, where amazing things happen, or else we wouldn’t have began here!
Cambridge has always been a magical place for us, a place where upon arrival we feel some immediate and deep attachment. For now, here, it seems as though our tendency to carry our places with us is limited solely to the streets and nooks of this one Boston city-suburb. Conversely, somehow New York pervaded us and we fell for the city as a whole- as much as we inhabited it, it inhabited us. Though Morningside Heights occupies a special drawer, the entirety of Manhattan and even some portions of the outer boroughs belong to us as places we used to own.
Will all of Boston encompass me? Will the entirety of this place become familiar enough and steeped-full-of-my-life enough that it travels along with me throughout the rest of my stops and stations?
Monday, July 26, 2010
Our Panama Adventure
We arrived in Bocas Town on Wednesday, July 14. Unfortunately, our luggage hadn’t even made it to Panama. Nevertheless, we dropped our carry-ons off at Hotel Olas and ventured out to explore Bocas Town.
Bocas Town, the main digs in Bocas del Toro, an archipelago off the northeast coast of Panama, offers a slow-paced, relaxed lifestyle to Panamanians and Anglo ex-pats alike. The streets are lined with stores and casual restaurants that open and close at their owners’ whims and with hostels and hotels all with their own docks into the bay. We arrived during a quiet period, when backpackers were limited in their ground movements by union protests in the nearby province and when Bocas seemed to be half-asleep, drowsy from the heat and salt water surrounding it. This, I knew immediately, was the ultimate beach adventure, the kind of place where flip flops are the only footwear; sand, water, and wind are inescapable; and no matter what your propensity to keep track of time at home, absent any real sense of schedule.
As we got to know Bocas Town more, we learned that its residents consist of poor Panamanians who live comfortably by their standards and sub-par by ours and of “gringos,” white citizens of elsewhere (the US, England, Australia, Holland) who found the lure of Bocas’ beaches and ease so appealing that they never went home. Most of the business owners in Bocas are gringos, but despite this trend there is an immense variety in cuisine and a local feel to the operations. Even with the strong presence of foreigners, I still found many opportunities to converse in Spanish and was proud to be able to communicate about nearly everything in a language I feared I had lost.
On Thursday, without swimsuits with which to visit the beach, we took a water taxi to the Butterfly Farm on Isla Carenero. Though the ads we had seen indicated that it would be open, we found the farm deserted. We walked around the unlocked portion of the farm and met a number of caged animals, including a deer (whose name, we later learned, is Bambi), some ducks, a host of brightly colored frogs, and a few wild turkeys who were not only uncaged but seemed to follow us everywhere we went. Eventually, a man appeared, and in Spanish he informed me that the man with the key was on his way on a bicycle, but he was at a birthday party and it could be a while. I spoke with him for a while and he walked us around the caged animals again, but the time came for us to meet our water taxi back to the main island, so we bid him goodbye and stepped amongst the crabs along the dock to head back. Later, we explored the periphery of town and encountered the “Batido Bus,” where we enjoyed delicious smoothies in lawn chairs on top of the bus itself. After, when we stopped by the airport (an airstrip on the outskirts of the small town), our luggage had arrived, and we happily carried it to our hotel. Our real adventures could begin!
Some Floridians we met tending the bar at another hotel in town recommended we find George at Casa Verde, the hostel across the street, and ask him to take us on one of his boat tours. Boat tours are the main way to do things in Bocas del Toro—each day, dozens of small boats depart Bocas Town for the various beaches, snorkeling spots, and parks on the other islands. On Friday morning, we found George, a dark Panamanian with a Jamaican-like approach to life, and joined him and two female teachers from Florida on a day trip. We stopped at Boca del Drago, aka Starfish Beach, and found hundreds of large, beautiful starfish in the shallow water along the beach. Next, George took us to his “cousin’s” house, suspended on stilts above the bay between islands, where we ate the sandwiches we had brought and had fresh coconut provided by a random fisherman with a machete.
On Saturday, we met up with George again and this time were joined by a few couples from various European countries. We headed to Red Frog Beach, a nature preserve and possibly the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. Pete taught me how to float with a wave that’s about to break, and for lunch we enjoyed delicious burgers from an American-run grill on the beach. Meanwhile, Panamanian children who had gone into the forest and captured bright red poisonous frogs (the beach’s namesake) approached us and showed us their treasures. Afterwards, we piled back into the boat and went to Hospital Point, where I snorkeled until I couldn’t snorkel anymore. We saw incredible coral reef and a huge array of fish. One of the things I was most impressed with about Bocas del Toro was the variety of fish I saw there—even in shallow waters, clownfish join sardines and starfish along with hundreds of other types I could never name.
Saturday afternoon, we moved to our second hotel, a bed and breakfast called Bahia del Sol on Saigon Bay, on the outskirts of Bocas Town in a quiet, but very low-income, area. Bahia del Sol was incredible—the house is large with high rafters and a porch that opens right out onto the bay. There, we could relax on hammocks or with our feet dangling off the dock and watch the sun set over the Carribean. Our hosts, Jack and Lee, were friendly but respectful of our privacy, and offered fantastic recommendations based on their four years residing on the island. After spending a little time enjoying our new digs, we headed out to check out Aqua Lounge, the main party spot in Bocas. Aqua Lounge is a bar built right over the water, with a diving board above a cordoned off section of the bay. Braver than I would ever be, Pete tried out the board, in his clothes (we didn’t think to wear our swimsuits), and loved it so much that he did it again immediately after. A bunch of drunk people diving into a bay connected to the Carribean Sea seemed like a recipe for disaster, though, so after watching a few more water taxis unload groups of hostel-dwellers, we jumped in one and returned to our hotel.
We decided to lay low on Sunday. By this point, Pete and I both had serious sunburns, despite regularly applying SPF 70, and we wanted to enjoy our fantastic bed and breakfast. Pete worked with Jack (one of the proprietors) to get a fishing rod set up, and he set out to see what he could catch off the house’s dock. I brought my book to a hammock in the shade and left it only to respond to Pete’s exclamations of “I caught something!!” to photograph it and cringe while he unhooked it. Pete was fairly successful—he caught a blowfish and two or three other smaller fish. We also enjoyed dropping the bait in near a group of squid and watching them ink every time. In the evening, we took a long taxi ride along the beach (literally, it drove in the sand right next to the water) up to La Coralina, an isolated hotel and restaurant far out on the main island. We spent a few hours there enjoying their spectacular views and delicious food before calling it a night.
On Monday, our last day in Bocas, we took another boat tour, this time with a service called “Jampan” (Jamaican-Panamanian) run by a Canadian. Our tour guide was a local, born and bred in Bocas, and brought us first to Islas Zapatillas, some of the furthest islands from the main set and now a nature preserve where 7 countries have filmed their “Survivor” TV series. Near one of the islands, we set out snorkeling and saw even more beautiful reef than we had previously. Though we were not far from the coast of the island, Pete came face-to-face with a sizable shark, and we quickly swam back to shore to avoid serious injury. The island itself had a trail from one end to the other, so we followed it hoping to see interesting animals or maybe an abandoned Survivor set. Though these wishes were unfulfilled, we did see many, many crabs, lots of husked coconuts, and some of the most lush and stunning forest I’ve ever seen. Reaching the beach on the other side, we dug our feet into the sand and enjoyed the walk along the perimeter back to where we began. After Zapatillas, we headed to another snorkeling spot called Coral Cay. Deeper and further offshore than the other places we had snorkeled, this spot offered much larger fish to be seen and deeper reefs to explore. Our guide warned that there may be jellyfish, and not more than 10 minutes after we began snorkeling, I told Pete something was biting me. Jellyfish! Thankfully, we were heading to a restaurant for lunch next, so I waited patiently for vinegar from the restaurant instead of asking someone to pee on me to stop the stinging. The restaurant was also on stilts free-standing in the sea, and it was there that I not only recovered from my first ever jellyfish incident but also had the most delicious, fresh lobster tail I could ever imagine.
After returning from our final Bocas outing, Pete and I took in the island calm on the porch of our hotel. Venturing out to try one last restaurant among the many in town, we recounted all the wonderful experiences we had had and all the fun stories we could bring home with us.
Bocas Town, the main digs in Bocas del Toro, an archipelago off the northeast coast of Panama, offers a slow-paced, relaxed lifestyle to Panamanians and Anglo ex-pats alike. The streets are lined with stores and casual restaurants that open and close at their owners’ whims and with hostels and hotels all with their own docks into the bay. We arrived during a quiet period, when backpackers were limited in their ground movements by union protests in the nearby province and when Bocas seemed to be half-asleep, drowsy from the heat and salt water surrounding it. This, I knew immediately, was the ultimate beach adventure, the kind of place where flip flops are the only footwear; sand, water, and wind are inescapable; and no matter what your propensity to keep track of time at home, absent any real sense of schedule.
As we got to know Bocas Town more, we learned that its residents consist of poor Panamanians who live comfortably by their standards and sub-par by ours and of “gringos,” white citizens of elsewhere (the US, England, Australia, Holland) who found the lure of Bocas’ beaches and ease so appealing that they never went home. Most of the business owners in Bocas are gringos, but despite this trend there is an immense variety in cuisine and a local feel to the operations. Even with the strong presence of foreigners, I still found many opportunities to converse in Spanish and was proud to be able to communicate about nearly everything in a language I feared I had lost.
On Thursday, without swimsuits with which to visit the beach, we took a water taxi to the Butterfly Farm on Isla Carenero. Though the ads we had seen indicated that it would be open, we found the farm deserted. We walked around the unlocked portion of the farm and met a number of caged animals, including a deer (whose name, we later learned, is Bambi), some ducks, a host of brightly colored frogs, and a few wild turkeys who were not only uncaged but seemed to follow us everywhere we went. Eventually, a man appeared, and in Spanish he informed me that the man with the key was on his way on a bicycle, but he was at a birthday party and it could be a while. I spoke with him for a while and he walked us around the caged animals again, but the time came for us to meet our water taxi back to the main island, so we bid him goodbye and stepped amongst the crabs along the dock to head back. Later, we explored the periphery of town and encountered the “Batido Bus,” where we enjoyed delicious smoothies in lawn chairs on top of the bus itself. After, when we stopped by the airport (an airstrip on the outskirts of the small town), our luggage had arrived, and we happily carried it to our hotel. Our real adventures could begin!
Some Floridians we met tending the bar at another hotel in town recommended we find George at Casa Verde, the hostel across the street, and ask him to take us on one of his boat tours. Boat tours are the main way to do things in Bocas del Toro—each day, dozens of small boats depart Bocas Town for the various beaches, snorkeling spots, and parks on the other islands. On Friday morning, we found George, a dark Panamanian with a Jamaican-like approach to life, and joined him and two female teachers from Florida on a day trip. We stopped at Boca del Drago, aka Starfish Beach, and found hundreds of large, beautiful starfish in the shallow water along the beach. Next, George took us to his “cousin’s” house, suspended on stilts above the bay between islands, where we ate the sandwiches we had brought and had fresh coconut provided by a random fisherman with a machete.
On Saturday, we met up with George again and this time were joined by a few couples from various European countries. We headed to Red Frog Beach, a nature preserve and possibly the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. Pete taught me how to float with a wave that’s about to break, and for lunch we enjoyed delicious burgers from an American-run grill on the beach. Meanwhile, Panamanian children who had gone into the forest and captured bright red poisonous frogs (the beach’s namesake) approached us and showed us their treasures. Afterwards, we piled back into the boat and went to Hospital Point, where I snorkeled until I couldn’t snorkel anymore. We saw incredible coral reef and a huge array of fish. One of the things I was most impressed with about Bocas del Toro was the variety of fish I saw there—even in shallow waters, clownfish join sardines and starfish along with hundreds of other types I could never name.
Saturday afternoon, we moved to our second hotel, a bed and breakfast called Bahia del Sol on Saigon Bay, on the outskirts of Bocas Town in a quiet, but very low-income, area. Bahia del Sol was incredible—the house is large with high rafters and a porch that opens right out onto the bay. There, we could relax on hammocks or with our feet dangling off the dock and watch the sun set over the Carribean. Our hosts, Jack and Lee, were friendly but respectful of our privacy, and offered fantastic recommendations based on their four years residing on the island. After spending a little time enjoying our new digs, we headed out to check out Aqua Lounge, the main party spot in Bocas. Aqua Lounge is a bar built right over the water, with a diving board above a cordoned off section of the bay. Braver than I would ever be, Pete tried out the board, in his clothes (we didn’t think to wear our swimsuits), and loved it so much that he did it again immediately after. A bunch of drunk people diving into a bay connected to the Carribean Sea seemed like a recipe for disaster, though, so after watching a few more water taxis unload groups of hostel-dwellers, we jumped in one and returned to our hotel.
We decided to lay low on Sunday. By this point, Pete and I both had serious sunburns, despite regularly applying SPF 70, and we wanted to enjoy our fantastic bed and breakfast. Pete worked with Jack (one of the proprietors) to get a fishing rod set up, and he set out to see what he could catch off the house’s dock. I brought my book to a hammock in the shade and left it only to respond to Pete’s exclamations of “I caught something!!” to photograph it and cringe while he unhooked it. Pete was fairly successful—he caught a blowfish and two or three other smaller fish. We also enjoyed dropping the bait in near a group of squid and watching them ink every time. In the evening, we took a long taxi ride along the beach (literally, it drove in the sand right next to the water) up to La Coralina, an isolated hotel and restaurant far out on the main island. We spent a few hours there enjoying their spectacular views and delicious food before calling it a night.
On Monday, our last day in Bocas, we took another boat tour, this time with a service called “Jampan” (Jamaican-Panamanian) run by a Canadian. Our tour guide was a local, born and bred in Bocas, and brought us first to Islas Zapatillas, some of the furthest islands from the main set and now a nature preserve where 7 countries have filmed their “Survivor” TV series. Near one of the islands, we set out snorkeling and saw even more beautiful reef than we had previously. Though we were not far from the coast of the island, Pete came face-to-face with a sizable shark, and we quickly swam back to shore to avoid serious injury. The island itself had a trail from one end to the other, so we followed it hoping to see interesting animals or maybe an abandoned Survivor set. Though these wishes were unfulfilled, we did see many, many crabs, lots of husked coconuts, and some of the most lush and stunning forest I’ve ever seen. Reaching the beach on the other side, we dug our feet into the sand and enjoyed the walk along the perimeter back to where we began. After Zapatillas, we headed to another snorkeling spot called Coral Cay. Deeper and further offshore than the other places we had snorkeled, this spot offered much larger fish to be seen and deeper reefs to explore. Our guide warned that there may be jellyfish, and not more than 10 minutes after we began snorkeling, I told Pete something was biting me. Jellyfish! Thankfully, we were heading to a restaurant for lunch next, so I waited patiently for vinegar from the restaurant instead of asking someone to pee on me to stop the stinging. The restaurant was also on stilts free-standing in the sea, and it was there that I not only recovered from my first ever jellyfish incident but also had the most delicious, fresh lobster tail I could ever imagine.
After returning from our final Bocas outing, Pete and I took in the island calm on the porch of our hotel. Venturing out to try one last restaurant among the many in town, we recounted all the wonderful experiences we had had and all the fun stories we could bring home with us.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Travel
While catching up on my New York Times, I came across 36 Hours in Rajasthan, India. I can't believe it's been almost three years since I traversed the route this writer recommends. In planning the next steps of my life, I hope that I make time for travel. There is nothing so perspective-granting as a visit to another culture.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Worth a Read
Postcards from America: The New York Times asks four writers to report on their local economies. I was particularly struck by the Iowa story, which, after seeing Food, Inc. recently, really resonated with me.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Marvelous Chaos of Applying Methodologies to Daily Life
Professor Harrington sits on the table, eying the 14 of us encircling him. He uses his hands to steady his aging frame on the table's edge, turns slowly towards me, and quietly asks, "What's happening here?" Taken off-guard by the non-rhetorical nature of such an obvious query, I quickly respond, "we're students sitting in a room, about to learn." He grins and asks, "is that what's happening, or what you think is happening?"
And so begins my dizzy spiral into the world of ethnographic methods. The prefix title of this class, the part before the colon (often described as "the category of interest"), seemed meaningless when the class appeared on a list of requirement-fulfilling courses. "Methods of Inquiry." It sounded like it would offer an overview of a particular research method and provide an opportunity to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and premeditated choices of the research I've been reading in other courses.
As I've now learned, one of the core features of ethnography and participant observation is triangulation, the merging of multiple methods of gathering data and the cross-checking of this data through these multiple sources. To get triangulation, we ask three questions: What do people say is going on here? What should be going on here? (Or, perhaps, what do people say should be going on here?) And finally, what's actually going on here?
The funny thing about answering these three questions on the same topic is that the answers are rarely synonymous, despite the fact that we arrange our lives on the presumption that they very often are. It's both disorienting and liberating to know that what's supposed to be going on is very rarely what's actually going on, and often not even what the participants say is going on. Does this mean that we are constantly deceiving ourselves? Are we resistant to seeing the real occurrences of our daily operations, our societies, or our behaviors? Which of the sources or answers holds the greatest truth: our reality, our perception of it, or our expectations (essentially our understanding of the order of our activities and our world)? Finally, how do we ever really assess what's actually going on here, when that assessment is almost always human-determined, and every one of us brings a lens that forms a unique perception of the situation?
I couldn't help but write down Professor Harrington's comments on the first day of class regarding the absence of truth in science. He said, so matter-of-factly, as if it were the simplest comment worth saying, that scientific inquiry is about building connections between truths. Not discovering the ultimate truth, not uncovering anything at all, but building--taking two things that already exist and developing a model for understanding their relationship. Ethnography, of course, is exactly that.
In learning about ethnographic methods I am also learning how covertly I've been trained to think as a sociologist. When told to "do research" my mind immediately runs toward random samples of large populations, surveys, statistics, and ways that we can quantify our questions despite their focus on abstractions like "race" and "learning." In this course, we're learning how to sit down and talk with people, to build a big picture from a very small one instead of the other way around. Our ethnographic methods rely on spending lots and lots of time in the community or institution that we're studying, with the aim of answering the three questions above through direct observation and participation. At a very basic level, this makes sense--what better source of information than the participants and the settings themselves? Go straight to the source, take good notes, and build yourself a model of that tiny universe to help you understand some things there and even beyond.
This alternate role of participant-observer has, in my own life, presented an entirely different vantage point from which to consider all the relationships and scenarios I encounter. Out I go each day, examining and hypothesizing, asking questions of all the things I have historically taken for granted. Why do drivers stop at a red light? Is it because it's the law, because they don't want to hit a pedestrian, or because they don't want to be hit by cross-traffic? Why do children who fight in the classroom play together on the playground? Why do small, mixed-income immigrant communities flourish in pockets in this city where neighborhoods are so stiffly defined by socioeconomic status? Am I suddenly asking these questions because of the exciting prospect of field research, that golden gem of ethnography, which would require me to get out there and experience the scenarios behind these questions? Or, am I now realizing that every procedure, every situation that's part of our daily operations, has a story behind it and a logic that may not be what it seems? It's all chaotic and wonderful, wondering and questioning and theorizing about the best way to get to the bottom of this and that. I'm on my way to the train, a ho-dum process I engage in twice daily, and oh, I spy a curious scene!, off the brain wonders to consider triangulation.
Taking Harrington's advice and looking at scenarios through all the theories I've learned, I now want, or perhaps even need, to ponder, "what's happening here?" Playing detective like a five-year-old, I am rediscovering the beauty of the hidden methods and patterns of our crazy, unconsciously orderly lives, and it's marvelous.
And so begins my dizzy spiral into the world of ethnographic methods. The prefix title of this class, the part before the colon (often described as "the category of interest"), seemed meaningless when the class appeared on a list of requirement-fulfilling courses. "Methods of Inquiry." It sounded like it would offer an overview of a particular research method and provide an opportunity to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and premeditated choices of the research I've been reading in other courses.
As I've now learned, one of the core features of ethnography and participant observation is triangulation, the merging of multiple methods of gathering data and the cross-checking of this data through these multiple sources. To get triangulation, we ask three questions: What do people say is going on here? What should be going on here? (Or, perhaps, what do people say should be going on here?) And finally, what's actually going on here?
The funny thing about answering these three questions on the same topic is that the answers are rarely synonymous, despite the fact that we arrange our lives on the presumption that they very often are. It's both disorienting and liberating to know that what's supposed to be going on is very rarely what's actually going on, and often not even what the participants say is going on. Does this mean that we are constantly deceiving ourselves? Are we resistant to seeing the real occurrences of our daily operations, our societies, or our behaviors? Which of the sources or answers holds the greatest truth: our reality, our perception of it, or our expectations (essentially our understanding of the order of our activities and our world)? Finally, how do we ever really assess what's actually going on here, when that assessment is almost always human-determined, and every one of us brings a lens that forms a unique perception of the situation?
I couldn't help but write down Professor Harrington's comments on the first day of class regarding the absence of truth in science. He said, so matter-of-factly, as if it were the simplest comment worth saying, that scientific inquiry is about building connections between truths. Not discovering the ultimate truth, not uncovering anything at all, but building--taking two things that already exist and developing a model for understanding their relationship. Ethnography, of course, is exactly that.
In learning about ethnographic methods I am also learning how covertly I've been trained to think as a sociologist. When told to "do research" my mind immediately runs toward random samples of large populations, surveys, statistics, and ways that we can quantify our questions despite their focus on abstractions like "race" and "learning." In this course, we're learning how to sit down and talk with people, to build a big picture from a very small one instead of the other way around. Our ethnographic methods rely on spending lots and lots of time in the community or institution that we're studying, with the aim of answering the three questions above through direct observation and participation. At a very basic level, this makes sense--what better source of information than the participants and the settings themselves? Go straight to the source, take good notes, and build yourself a model of that tiny universe to help you understand some things there and even beyond.
This alternate role of participant-observer has, in my own life, presented an entirely different vantage point from which to consider all the relationships and scenarios I encounter. Out I go each day, examining and hypothesizing, asking questions of all the things I have historically taken for granted. Why do drivers stop at a red light? Is it because it's the law, because they don't want to hit a pedestrian, or because they don't want to be hit by cross-traffic? Why do children who fight in the classroom play together on the playground? Why do small, mixed-income immigrant communities flourish in pockets in this city where neighborhoods are so stiffly defined by socioeconomic status? Am I suddenly asking these questions because of the exciting prospect of field research, that golden gem of ethnography, which would require me to get out there and experience the scenarios behind these questions? Or, am I now realizing that every procedure, every situation that's part of our daily operations, has a story behind it and a logic that may not be what it seems? It's all chaotic and wonderful, wondering and questioning and theorizing about the best way to get to the bottom of this and that. I'm on my way to the train, a ho-dum process I engage in twice daily, and oh, I spy a curious scene!, off the brain wonders to consider triangulation.
Taking Harrington's advice and looking at scenarios through all the theories I've learned, I now want, or perhaps even need, to ponder, "what's happening here?" Playing detective like a five-year-old, I am rediscovering the beauty of the hidden methods and patterns of our crazy, unconsciously orderly lives, and it's marvelous.
On Old Subway Cars, and Growing Up New York
The subway seats are orange on this train; surprising, because the facade is sleek and clean, digitized, the kind they introduced in the early 2000s on all the lines we never take. When we'd venture onto the 4 or R platforms, we encountered these beasts like modern aliens, their interiors lined with light blue bench seats. Now they've permeated the outer lines like ours, the A and the 1, these high-tech warriors ready for the repetitious battle of the evening commute. On this A train with a modern exterior enclosing those old orange, classic three-toned seats, we take standing room amidst a mezcla of New Yorkers speeding uptown, past the slow stuffy stops of the Upper West Side, directly from 59th to 125th. We will stay on a few more stops beyond this gateway to Harlem, but as the doors open here our eyes drift across the station in silent homage to our haunt of earlier New York days. When the doors close we return to our activities, writing and reading, reflecting and learning, two things these four-eyed sisters do best.
We both wouldn't mind slipping into an orange seat right now and feeling the cool plastic on our tired backs, dropping our bags from our shoulders to our laps. Most of the seats are occupied by bodies we may never know, despite the familiarity some of their faces present from previous travels along the A.
It's been a year and six months since we moved further uptown and to the west. Though we've switched our primary train (a life status change for a New Yorker, akin to divorce or an empty nest or a new job), we seem to be plotting our old patterns, tattered, tried, and true, onto this new map. To get to the places we've grown to love, we simply walk farther; to continue our quest for a moment on each inch of Manhattan, we venture deeper. Along these new routes, we grace the same orange seats, hosting us for the mere minutes between each of our destinations, the traverses of our concrete geographic pattern.
We both wouldn't mind slipping into an orange seat right now and feeling the cool plastic on our tired backs, dropping our bags from our shoulders to our laps. Most of the seats are occupied by bodies we may never know, despite the familiarity some of their faces present from previous travels along the A.
It's been a year and six months since we moved further uptown and to the west. Though we've switched our primary train (a life status change for a New Yorker, akin to divorce or an empty nest or a new job), we seem to be plotting our old patterns, tattered, tried, and true, onto this new map. To get to the places we've grown to love, we simply walk farther; to continue our quest for a moment on each inch of Manhattan, we venture deeper. Along these new routes, we grace the same orange seats, hosting us for the mere minutes between each of our destinations, the traverses of our concrete geographic pattern.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Framework for Summer
My words are words of a questioning, and to indicate reality;
This printed and bound book...but the printer and the printing-office boy?
The marriage estate and settlement...but the body and mind of the bridegroom? also those of the bride?
The panorama of the sea...but the sea itself?
The well-taken photographs...but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?
The fleet of ships of the line and all the modern improvements...but the craft and pluck of the admiral?
The dishes and fare and furniture...but the host and hostess, and the look out of their eyes?
The sky up there...yet here or next door or across the way?
The saints and sages in history...but you yourself?
Sermons and creeds and theology...but the human brain,
and what is called reason, and what is called love,
and what is called life?
-Walt Whitman
This printed and bound book...but the printer and the printing-office boy?
The marriage estate and settlement...but the body and mind of the bridegroom? also those of the bride?
The panorama of the sea...but the sea itself?
The well-taken photographs...but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?
The fleet of ships of the line and all the modern improvements...but the craft and pluck of the admiral?
The dishes and fare and furniture...but the host and hostess, and the look out of their eyes?
The sky up there...yet here or next door or across the way?
The saints and sages in history...but you yourself?
Sermons and creeds and theology...but the human brain,
and what is called reason, and what is called love,
and what is called life?
-Walt Whitman
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Amazing Things Are Happening Here
Following the blocks from the 1 train to my apartment, I can tell what time it is by which stores still have their lights on. I know it's late when even Starbucks, after the midnight hour, has closed. For the most part, the streets are deserted, except for the smokers escaping crowded, merengue-and-salsa-filled bars, nurses leaving awkwardly-timed shifts, mothers returning home, weighed down with groceries and kids' clothing and burdens.
Each morning, heading back towards the 1 train I am greeted by the sun streaming through transparent, lofty walkways connecting the 8th-10th floors of buildings over Fort Washington Avenue, igniting a huge red canvas that screams: AMAZING THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE.
Fighting crowds just to walk down 168th Street, I examine my enemy warriors and wonder where they're going. What amazing things will they accomplish today? How are they contributing to what's "happening"?
Here, on 168th Street and Fort Washington Ave, is the Columbia University Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. What goes on inside its towering buildings and interconnected walkways is all but invisible to passersby, whose glimpses are limited to the wear on the face of a tired surgeon in scrubs grabbing 5 coffees at Starbucks or the quick transfer of a person on oxygen from the back of an ambulance to the hospital's emergency room.
This city is filled with these microcosmic concentrations of activity. Within the Medical Center's towering halls, scientists are building new vaccines, grandmothers are receiving their final doses of long-time medications, hungry student eyes are watching with careful attention procedures they must learn by rote. Further south and east, somewhere between the giants of Park Avenue and the art beat of the Lower East Side, the NYU Medical Center pursues the same activities, building another medical force and affecting another subset of our city's population.
These massive functions of institutions and structures so tiny within the grand scheme of this city keep me in constant awe of New York. Thousands of minute interactions build hundreds of daily rote processes and dozens of new discoveries all within this one four-block radius where, as it also happens, I make my home with hundreds of others who take their daily activities beyond the short limits of this neighborhood.
The interconnectedness of these tiny spheres forms the glue of this city. When a patient arrives from downtown or the Bronx, he brings his mother, who cleans houses in Queens, and his brother who used to own that beloved corner deli down the street. All the neighborhoods that comprise this city become intricately connected through the movements and alliances of the people who inhabit them. And so it goes, in all the many definitions of that vague word of place, its meaning rooted in the mind of the listener or speaker, amazing things are happening here.
-----------------------------
"Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
Each morning, heading back towards the 1 train I am greeted by the sun streaming through transparent, lofty walkways connecting the 8th-10th floors of buildings over Fort Washington Avenue, igniting a huge red canvas that screams: AMAZING THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE.
Fighting crowds just to walk down 168th Street, I examine my enemy warriors and wonder where they're going. What amazing things will they accomplish today? How are they contributing to what's "happening"?
Here, on 168th Street and Fort Washington Ave, is the Columbia University Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. What goes on inside its towering buildings and interconnected walkways is all but invisible to passersby, whose glimpses are limited to the wear on the face of a tired surgeon in scrubs grabbing 5 coffees at Starbucks or the quick transfer of a person on oxygen from the back of an ambulance to the hospital's emergency room.
This city is filled with these microcosmic concentrations of activity. Within the Medical Center's towering halls, scientists are building new vaccines, grandmothers are receiving their final doses of long-time medications, hungry student eyes are watching with careful attention procedures they must learn by rote. Further south and east, somewhere between the giants of Park Avenue and the art beat of the Lower East Side, the NYU Medical Center pursues the same activities, building another medical force and affecting another subset of our city's population.
These massive functions of institutions and structures so tiny within the grand scheme of this city keep me in constant awe of New York. Thousands of minute interactions build hundreds of daily rote processes and dozens of new discoveries all within this one four-block radius where, as it also happens, I make my home with hundreds of others who take their daily activities beyond the short limits of this neighborhood.
The interconnectedness of these tiny spheres forms the glue of this city. When a patient arrives from downtown or the Bronx, he brings his mother, who cleans houses in Queens, and his brother who used to own that beloved corner deli down the street. All the neighborhoods that comprise this city become intricately connected through the movements and alliances of the people who inhabit them. And so it goes, in all the many definitions of that vague word of place, its meaning rooted in the mind of the listener or speaker, amazing things are happening here.
-----------------------------
"Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thursday, April 23, 2009
From Berlin, 3.18.09
A City Divided, united by the tearing down of a wall twenty years ago, struggles to build one cohesive identity to present to the world. More so than culture, economic realities perpetuate two worlds, one modern, progressive, western, the other the recent aftereffect of communism and inhibited progress.
This city serves as an excellent case study for tourism. The physicalities that so recently defined this city now provide more learning, cultural and commercial opportunities for tourists than for locals. We have been so quick to objectify these places, to historify them, that they have become fossils, informative and dead. Yet these places are remnants of an immediate past. 1990 is within the living memory of the majority of the world’s population. These places shaped day-to-day life for many of our neighbors, colleagues, friends and leaders—their footsteps remain in the annals of their rememberances—crisp and vivid and alive. Such quick memorialization quiets the immediacy—it puts these days in the bucket of the past. Yet it is apparent in Berlin that there were too many years of separation. How do they begin to participate in the same economy? What are their municipal priorities? Who does, and who should, this city serve?
Still, Berlin is alive—it is in that earlier, grungy state that once characterized London’s Brick Lane and New York’s East Village. Giulia raves about the inexpensive, inexplicable nightlife, the cultural energy, the constant flurry of parties and galleries and delicious food and watching the sunrise on a balcony in a new neighborhood each night. Much of this has been fueled by Berlin’s lack of cohesiveness, its inability to pull it all together into something subject to clear identification and resulting gentrification. Much of it hinges on uncertainty and perplexity at how to handle East Berlin. This is a unique situation that may prevent Berlin’s trajectory as a London or New York or San Francisco.
Yet for all the glamour and grunge, I don’t think Berlin is for me. In its youthful population, this city is dominated by floaters and dreamers, artists and thinkers who are driven toward a lofty aim or who are adrift, passionate yet uncertain of their ultimate direction. I thrive in cities that demand competition and competence—I need to be surrounded by creative energy that’s being funneled into targeted, meaningful production. There are elements of Berlin that I would cherish in any city—lazy Sundays, six languages being spoken at a bar, partying until dawn without spending more than five Euros, art everywhere and always, buildings with history, neighbors with incomparable stories, the fusion of cultures from Europe, Turkey, and the world beyond. Take all this and couple it with a city with unmatchable global power, with a city that demands a place on everyone’s map, if not as a destination than as a place that absolutely must be known, and that, that place is my city.
This city serves as an excellent case study for tourism. The physicalities that so recently defined this city now provide more learning, cultural and commercial opportunities for tourists than for locals. We have been so quick to objectify these places, to historify them, that they have become fossils, informative and dead. Yet these places are remnants of an immediate past. 1990 is within the living memory of the majority of the world’s population. These places shaped day-to-day life for many of our neighbors, colleagues, friends and leaders—their footsteps remain in the annals of their rememberances—crisp and vivid and alive. Such quick memorialization quiets the immediacy—it puts these days in the bucket of the past. Yet it is apparent in Berlin that there were too many years of separation. How do they begin to participate in the same economy? What are their municipal priorities? Who does, and who should, this city serve?
Still, Berlin is alive—it is in that earlier, grungy state that once characterized London’s Brick Lane and New York’s East Village. Giulia raves about the inexpensive, inexplicable nightlife, the cultural energy, the constant flurry of parties and galleries and delicious food and watching the sunrise on a balcony in a new neighborhood each night. Much of this has been fueled by Berlin’s lack of cohesiveness, its inability to pull it all together into something subject to clear identification and resulting gentrification. Much of it hinges on uncertainty and perplexity at how to handle East Berlin. This is a unique situation that may prevent Berlin’s trajectory as a London or New York or San Francisco.
Yet for all the glamour and grunge, I don’t think Berlin is for me. In its youthful population, this city is dominated by floaters and dreamers, artists and thinkers who are driven toward a lofty aim or who are adrift, passionate yet uncertain of their ultimate direction. I thrive in cities that demand competition and competence—I need to be surrounded by creative energy that’s being funneled into targeted, meaningful production. There are elements of Berlin that I would cherish in any city—lazy Sundays, six languages being spoken at a bar, partying until dawn without spending more than five Euros, art everywhere and always, buildings with history, neighbors with incomparable stories, the fusion of cultures from Europe, Turkey, and the world beyond. Take all this and couple it with a city with unmatchable global power, with a city that demands a place on everyone’s map, if not as a destination than as a place that absolutely must be known, and that, that place is my city.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Reflections on Berlin
A few weeks ago, I visited Germany for the first time. I haven't written about it in retrospect yet because I wasn't sure just what to say. That Berlin is bohemian and grungy? Quiet and orderly? What do you say about a place that feels so familiar but remains entirely foreign?
An article in last weekend's NY Times Week in Review pretty much sums up my impression of Berlin, and of Germany more generally. While visiting, I was amazed at how everything seems to operate on the honor system, and how rule-abiding everyone is, despite their personal circumstances or the reasonableness of the rule. This kind of culture can't be bred out of thin air; it stems from deep roots in a culture's collective memory, from a shared goal of mutual survival grounded in the experience of selective alienation, and from a slew of interacting situations that countries like ours may never be able to relate to.
Beyond the orderly rule-abiding, I loved Berlin's neighborhoods. Like New York, Berlin feels like a series of pockets sewn loosely together, each with distinct contents and made out of slightly different fabrics. Part of this stems from the division of the city into East and West Berlin until the early 1990s, and part of it flows habitually from the nature of a large city.
Most especially, I appreciated Berlin's late-night conversations--the quiet exchanges between friends and neighbors at casual bars where you pay what you like or at places like Gramophone Bar, where all the pieces fit perfectly together into an irreplicable ambiance. In Berlin, life feels as though it will take its natural course, and that's just as it was meant to be. While Paris is for lovers, Berlin is for thinkers and seekers, for artists building amorphous representations of life and philosophers drowning the hours away in pensive reflection on the reasons behind the state of things, while life goes on within and beyond this creative, conscious city.
An article in last weekend's NY Times Week in Review pretty much sums up my impression of Berlin, and of Germany more generally. While visiting, I was amazed at how everything seems to operate on the honor system, and how rule-abiding everyone is, despite their personal circumstances or the reasonableness of the rule. This kind of culture can't be bred out of thin air; it stems from deep roots in a culture's collective memory, from a shared goal of mutual survival grounded in the experience of selective alienation, and from a slew of interacting situations that countries like ours may never be able to relate to.
Beyond the orderly rule-abiding, I loved Berlin's neighborhoods. Like New York, Berlin feels like a series of pockets sewn loosely together, each with distinct contents and made out of slightly different fabrics. Part of this stems from the division of the city into East and West Berlin until the early 1990s, and part of it flows habitually from the nature of a large city.
Most especially, I appreciated Berlin's late-night conversations--the quiet exchanges between friends and neighbors at casual bars where you pay what you like or at places like Gramophone Bar, where all the pieces fit perfectly together into an irreplicable ambiance. In Berlin, life feels as though it will take its natural course, and that's just as it was meant to be. While Paris is for lovers, Berlin is for thinkers and seekers, for artists building amorphous representations of life and philosophers drowning the hours away in pensive reflection on the reasons behind the state of things, while life goes on within and beyond this creative, conscious city.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Why I Love New York
We are a web of small communities, connected by the moments we share in the public places that shape our daily lives.
Despite having a hundred native tongues, we speak a common dialect.
Thriving on anonymity in our constant interactions with strangers,we learn the most personal things about our neighbors and the people who surround us, even if we never learn their names.
Despite having a hundred native tongues, we speak a common dialect.
Thriving on anonymity in our constant interactions with strangers,we learn the most personal things about our neighbors and the people who surround us, even if we never learn their names.
Friday, March 27, 2009
New York Is a Friendly Town
In the Student Service Center at Columbia, black and white pictures of New York line the walls. At one end, a high-contrast shot of Grand Central depicts the calm in the station before rush hour. At the other end, the columns and statues of the New York Stock Exchange loom over students awaiting transcripts, the processing of a request to drop a class, and other administrative steps that build and categorize their education here. How many of these students were once destined to hallow the halls of these New York giants? How many of them were to be passing through the terminal to a hedge fund or a bank, or turning a close eye to the trade floor with each day's opening bell?
As this New York crumbles, what are their destines now? Will courses in Greek civilization and Western humanities equip them with alternate paths? Will they put their heads together and, moving full-force through the gates of their alma mater, begin something that is thus far undefined?
After September 11th, this city thought nothing would be the same. Together, we acknowledged a crisis and we began to pick up the pieces, to re-build our homes, and to fight to make it to a better time. We took pride in being a city that accepts difference and used the irony of the attack as an opportunity for empowerment and for return to the comraderie that defines this city. For two years this city felt shell-shocked, but over time we began to put a new face forward, storing that frightful day in our permanent memory banks and continuing onward as soldiers in the most powerful metropolis.
This time in New York's history is different. After months of newspaper headlines screaming crisis and failure, I am surprised at how much we continue to operate as if business is usual, as if nothing has changed. I can feel it when I turn any Manhattan corner that this is a farce, that we are players in a game that has surely run amok. When outsiders imposed tragedy on our city we embraced it and joined together to fight it, facing it head on as our truth. Yet now, when we impose it on ourselves, we are less willing to confront it. When will we acknowledge a new chapter in our history? When will we begin to re-imagine our destinies? When will we take all this to heart?
As this New York crumbles, what are their destines now? Will courses in Greek civilization and Western humanities equip them with alternate paths? Will they put their heads together and, moving full-force through the gates of their alma mater, begin something that is thus far undefined?
After September 11th, this city thought nothing would be the same. Together, we acknowledged a crisis and we began to pick up the pieces, to re-build our homes, and to fight to make it to a better time. We took pride in being a city that accepts difference and used the irony of the attack as an opportunity for empowerment and for return to the comraderie that defines this city. For two years this city felt shell-shocked, but over time we began to put a new face forward, storing that frightful day in our permanent memory banks and continuing onward as soldiers in the most powerful metropolis.
This time in New York's history is different. After months of newspaper headlines screaming crisis and failure, I am surprised at how much we continue to operate as if business is usual, as if nothing has changed. I can feel it when I turn any Manhattan corner that this is a farce, that we are players in a game that has surely run amok. When outsiders imposed tragedy on our city we embraced it and joined together to fight it, facing it head on as our truth. Yet now, when we impose it on ourselves, we are less willing to confront it. When will we acknowledge a new chapter in our history? When will we begin to re-imagine our destinies? When will we take all this to heart?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Can Education Save Us?
Obama’s invitation for questions yesterday brought over 100,000 inquiries from people across the country. Among the top categories was education, with over 13,000 questions voted on by 28,000 people. In times of massive layoffs, complete financial insecurity, and national struggles with homeownership and health care, why are Americans asking about education?
For starters, we’ve gotten to a point where we require or expect a costly and time-consuming college education for the majority of our workforce. With this expectation, Americans want to know how they will pay for college, or how they will get out of the debt they accumulated when they attended college ten, five, or even two years ago. These questions hinge on financial concerns, but they speak to a larger issue. In the last 20 years, we’ve turned to colleges and universities as a critical contributor to individual success. While this can be partially explained by the increase in specialization and growth of the knowledge economy in a post-industrial society, I don’t think this explains it all. Perhaps we’ve transformed higher education into a nearly mandatory task because these institutions aren’t as regulated by the government and therefore don’t seem to be failing us in the same way that our K-12 schools are. In some ways, we are unique in this situation; in many countries, secondary education is sufficient schooling for individuals to be deemed able to participate and engage in society in an informed and articulate way.
In the underbelly of all these questions about college loans and elementary school music programs, I think that Americans want to know how education might save us. An inadequate education system, in which students continue to fail against our nation’s own measures of success, can only hurt us. But an adequate or even innovative system, one that empowers all citizens with the ability to be productive, to think critically and creatively, and to master new tasks will make for a better equipped, more efficient workforce, a globally competitive American population, and, perhaps most importantly, a broader base of Americans able to say, “what were we thinking.”
As a superpower, we have very few colleagues to check us. We are able to behave irrationally or irresponsibly without too many peers to talk us down or call us out. What if we were able to check ourselves? What if within our population, we had diverse constituents equipped with the tools and the means to provide our own balances? This is the formula we rely upon for our government—why not rely upon it for our society as well?
Maybe America is sensing this. If we can turn our schools into 13-year breeding grounds of citizenship and articulation, rather than holding pens for rambunctious or starved (in any sense of the word) children, we may see one of the central social welfare mechanisms of our society transformed into the great arbitration tool of our nation. If our financial bailouts fail and the quality of life that most of us experience suffers, could our schools, the place where we train the next generation how to behave responsibly and act civilly, be what saves this nation in the long-run?
In my next post I’ll make some recommendations. These are lofty goals that require innovative thinking coupled with tangible reform. I’ll focus on how we can tweak our approach to school financing to ensure appropriate taxpayer contributions to education, and how we can reform how we use these dollars to ensure that the most valuable resources in schools are prioritized. It’s a meager start, but if we are to reverse the trends that got us to this awful place where we are now, we must begin at the beginning.
For starters, we’ve gotten to a point where we require or expect a costly and time-consuming college education for the majority of our workforce. With this expectation, Americans want to know how they will pay for college, or how they will get out of the debt they accumulated when they attended college ten, five, or even two years ago. These questions hinge on financial concerns, but they speak to a larger issue. In the last 20 years, we’ve turned to colleges and universities as a critical contributor to individual success. While this can be partially explained by the increase in specialization and growth of the knowledge economy in a post-industrial society, I don’t think this explains it all. Perhaps we’ve transformed higher education into a nearly mandatory task because these institutions aren’t as regulated by the government and therefore don’t seem to be failing us in the same way that our K-12 schools are. In some ways, we are unique in this situation; in many countries, secondary education is sufficient schooling for individuals to be deemed able to participate and engage in society in an informed and articulate way.
In the underbelly of all these questions about college loans and elementary school music programs, I think that Americans want to know how education might save us. An inadequate education system, in which students continue to fail against our nation’s own measures of success, can only hurt us. But an adequate or even innovative system, one that empowers all citizens with the ability to be productive, to think critically and creatively, and to master new tasks will make for a better equipped, more efficient workforce, a globally competitive American population, and, perhaps most importantly, a broader base of Americans able to say, “what were we thinking.”
As a superpower, we have very few colleagues to check us. We are able to behave irrationally or irresponsibly without too many peers to talk us down or call us out. What if we were able to check ourselves? What if within our population, we had diverse constituents equipped with the tools and the means to provide our own balances? This is the formula we rely upon for our government—why not rely upon it for our society as well?
Maybe America is sensing this. If we can turn our schools into 13-year breeding grounds of citizenship and articulation, rather than holding pens for rambunctious or starved (in any sense of the word) children, we may see one of the central social welfare mechanisms of our society transformed into the great arbitration tool of our nation. If our financial bailouts fail and the quality of life that most of us experience suffers, could our schools, the place where we train the next generation how to behave responsibly and act civilly, be what saves this nation in the long-run?
In my next post I’ll make some recommendations. These are lofty goals that require innovative thinking coupled with tangible reform. I’ll focus on how we can tweak our approach to school financing to ensure appropriate taxpayer contributions to education, and how we can reform how we use these dollars to ensure that the most valuable resources in schools are prioritized. It’s a meager start, but if we are to reverse the trends that got us to this awful place where we are now, we must begin at the beginning.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Initial Impressions of Berlin
Many people are unconventionally employed or unemployed here. Berlin is so cheap that they spend their days in cafes and galleries, their evenings in beer gardens and clubs, and the wee hours in large, dark flats in five-story walkups, whose vast windows flood with early morning sun when it’s time to begin the whole circuit/routine again.
Trams and bicycles occupy the majority of street traffic, but not to the same extent as in Copenhagen or Amsterdam. The U-Bahn and the S-Bahn offer compelling, cheap, and comprehensive train transport.
Many things operate on the honor system. At cafes and many restaurants, food and drinks are served at a promise to pay before leaving. On public transport, sporadic enforcement of payment does not deter people from paying anyway. In a few bars, you pay what you like for as much as you drink and eat.
Trams and bicycles occupy the majority of street traffic, but not to the same extent as in Copenhagen or Amsterdam. The U-Bahn and the S-Bahn offer compelling, cheap, and comprehensive train transport.
Many things operate on the honor system. At cafes and many restaurants, food and drinks are served at a promise to pay before leaving. On public transport, sporadic enforcement of payment does not deter people from paying anyway. In a few bars, you pay what you like for as much as you drink and eat.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Some Food for NYC Thought
The New York Times has published the results of a survey of thousands of New York City residents. The results are interesting but not surprising. Here's a quick summary and brief analysis:
- The areas that indicate the lowest satisfaction with NYC's government services are also the poorest, meaning that they are the ones most likely to utilize government services and most likely to need them.
- Measures of sidewalk maintenance, playgrounds, street maintenance, rat control, and neighborhood cleanliness all get the lowest ratings in the poorest neighborhoods, suggesting that the city concentrates its efforts in more affluent areas.
- While only 33% of NYC residents surveyed are satisfied with NYC's public after-school programs, 57% of those who have attended a NYC public school after-school program in the last 12 months give good or excellent ratings to the program's service. This suggests that the data presented here don't tell the full story--in other words, as usual, statistics are misleading.
- 78% of those surveyed gave excellent or good ratings to the way the City of New York provides services in "your language." This suggests that either the survey was offered in multiple languages, or it was only given to those who speak English or Spanish.
- New Yorkers are dissatisfied with NYC's public housing, its services for protecting children at risk of abuse and neglect, its services for addressing homelessness, the NYC public schools, air quality, and the way NYC spends tax dollars.
- However, New Yorkers are very satisfied with NYC.gov, the city's public libraries, 311, 911, citywide fire protection, neighborhood emergency services, Medicaid, public senior centers, and subway daytime safety.
On Our Generation, and Optimism in Recessive Times
I have mixed feelings about this article from today’s New York Times Magazine titled “Generation OMG.” I recall learning about an era called the Roaring ‘20s, a time right before the Great Depression when life was lavish, parties were like dreams, and the future seemed wide open for anything to happen. Is it really true that a generation on the brink of entering this possibility-filled world, a generation so close to this recent forgotten time that they can see it in the tired eyes of parents and older friends, abandoned all ideas that the prosperous life that those before them had lived could become a possibility for them too?
In this article, the author quotes an English professor as saying, “The ‘30s challenged the whole idea of the American dream, the idea of open economic possibilities…The version you get of that today is the loss of confidence on the part of both parent and children that life in the next generation will inevitably be better.”
I think there are some crucial cultural differences between our generation and the one that came of age during and immediately following the Great Depression. For one, we are significantly more connected. We are in communication constantly and we participate in digital forums where we bounce ideas off each other, form interest groups and partnerships before we even meet, and develop programs before we acquire the resources to support them. Additionally, overall we are significantly more educated. We have the social, human and cultural capital to understand the economic situation and how similar situations have played out historically; further, we have the tools to make the best of our situation and the ability to balance risk with safety and security while pursuing innovative courses of action.
For our younger counterparts, those whose parents are seeking to put them in daycare because they’re working longer hours or those who are just learning to read and write in Kindergarten, those who are learning life through the lens of an economic downturn, I think there is actually great hope. For all the reasons cited above, the youngest of our citizens have resources and tools at their disposal that were unfathomable in the 1930s. Further, these young people ten or twenty years behind us will come of age in a world that is being redefined by us. They may face more of the “psychic scars” that Kate Zernike discusses, but couldn’t they be mediated by the unabashed optimism of impressive innovation, young leadership, and bold assertion of new approaches?
Zernike acknowledges these possibilities toward the middle of her article. She writes:
In this article, the author quotes an English professor as saying, “The ‘30s challenged the whole idea of the American dream, the idea of open economic possibilities…The version you get of that today is the loss of confidence on the part of both parent and children that life in the next generation will inevitably be better.”
I think there are some crucial cultural differences between our generation and the one that came of age during and immediately following the Great Depression. For one, we are significantly more connected. We are in communication constantly and we participate in digital forums where we bounce ideas off each other, form interest groups and partnerships before we even meet, and develop programs before we acquire the resources to support them. Additionally, overall we are significantly more educated. We have the social, human and cultural capital to understand the economic situation and how similar situations have played out historically; further, we have the tools to make the best of our situation and the ability to balance risk with safety and security while pursuing innovative courses of action.
For our younger counterparts, those whose parents are seeking to put them in daycare because they’re working longer hours or those who are just learning to read and write in Kindergarten, those who are learning life through the lens of an economic downturn, I think there is actually great hope. For all the reasons cited above, the youngest of our citizens have resources and tools at their disposal that were unfathomable in the 1930s. Further, these young people ten or twenty years behind us will come of age in a world that is being redefined by us. They may face more of the “psychic scars” that Kate Zernike discusses, but couldn’t they be mediated by the unabashed optimism of impressive innovation, young leadership, and bold assertion of new approaches?
Zernike acknowledges these possibilities toward the middle of her article. She writes:
Surveys have shown young people becoming more civic-minded in the last four years, and those who study them suggest this will increase, if only because the jobs will be in creating the public institutions and infrastructure of a new economic order. And with the assumptions of the past decade now popped, the older among the recession youth might feel bolder striking out in more creative directions.Through questionable stimulus bills and excessive layoffs, through the closing of companies and the changing of mindsets, we, the 20-somethings, wild and smart, are poised to re-frame the American economic and social order. Perhaps we saw this coming--many of us have been trained to think outside the box, to push the limits of the way we understand the world and to seek creative solutions to problems we identify. We have been building this capacity and this energy, almost as if we have been waiting for this moment to throw it all out there into the world and start something new. Whether we repeat the trends of the early 20th century or we define a new world order, unique from anything seen thus far, has yet to be determined. As we break up the forms and feel new things, to use the words of Michael McClure, we must declare ourselves the shepherds of change and the leaders into the brave new world. For our peers and for those who tread lightly behind us, soaking up the world through our schools, we must fearlessly build a future full of days that are definitionless and open, that prioritize creativity and maximization of talent over commitment to routine and safety at the expense of innovation.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood
I wonder if I should have taken the one less traveled by.
If I weren’t sitting here right now, reflecting after a class at Teachers College and a long day at my desk at Columbia, I would have just returned from Spain, exhausted and exhilarated from a year of teaching English to 2nd graders and living in a rural, coastal town quietly distanced from the epicenter of this global financial meltdown.
It’s incredible to me how much single decisions shape our lives, and even more so how those decisions are rarely made on the impact they will have on our lives long-term. Instead, they are often made by prioritizing one tiny factor on which they hinge: a friend in town who we could always spend more time with, the immediate appeal of a higher salary, the weighing of two options when each should be considered independently, the fleeting priorities we think we will live by indefinitely. Our daily lives are defined by these individual components that we consider in isolation, though they collide in every moment to build the beginning and end of our days, the thoughts that preoccupy us before sleep, the frameworks with which we understand our purpose.
As I’ve discussed in an earlier post, I am one of the floaters. I do not have a predefined path or even a clear, distant end goal—instead I have diverse interests, competing priorities, and at times an inability to balance rational thinking with emotional investment. As a result, the individual factors of a decision play heavily in my selection; without a clearly defined purpose, I rely on the sub-components to understand my choices.
After graduating from college, I spent the following summer weighing two options: accept a one-year position with the Spanish government, imparting my native tongue on youngsters in a small town, or begin employment at a prestigious university in a global city, in a position requiring an ironically vague specialization and carrying an equally vague indication of where I could go from there. I picked the latter, partially because I thought that if I picked the former, I would spend the next summer engaging in a similar decision-making process, having spent a year doing something fun but not career-advancing, engaging but not necessarily skill-imparting. To prevent a wasted year, as it seemed at the time, I opted for the safer, more standard choice of immediate salaried employment in New York City.
I’m not sure what I thought would happen when I started this real life, full-time job. I couldn’t fathom being there for long, nor could I imagine where I might go next. After learning the ropes for a few weeks, I began to apply my old patterns of behavior to this new situation. I sought immediate advancement, rapid and incremental change, and new challenges. I scoured job postings without any sense of what I was looking for—I wanted significance, I wanted growth, I wanted a change of scene. I wanted agency over my own status. For a year and six months now, I have remained in this position, changing projects, acquiring new responsibilities, building relationships. I frequently wonder what my days would look like had I gone to Spain or taken a risk or chosen a challenge over safety. I look at the graduate program I’ve committed myself to, a spin-off of my job and an excuse for keeping it, and measure out the months until I’m through with this phase of my life. Yet in all these daydreams, in every calculation, the next destination remains unapparent.
Though I believe in the power of individuals to overcome obstacles and remedy effects of poor decisions, I’m cautious about this next one. Each step we take as young adults plunging forward into the world shapes and defines us—what happens if the next step poorly defines me? What if I place too much weight on the individual pieces of a decision without understanding the greater implications? What if I’m unable to holistically, strategically, wholeheartedly understand what I truly want to do?
If I weren’t sitting here right now, reflecting after a class at Teachers College and a long day at my desk at Columbia, I would have just returned from Spain, exhausted and exhilarated from a year of teaching English to 2nd graders and living in a rural, coastal town quietly distanced from the epicenter of this global financial meltdown.
It’s incredible to me how much single decisions shape our lives, and even more so how those decisions are rarely made on the impact they will have on our lives long-term. Instead, they are often made by prioritizing one tiny factor on which they hinge: a friend in town who we could always spend more time with, the immediate appeal of a higher salary, the weighing of two options when each should be considered independently, the fleeting priorities we think we will live by indefinitely. Our daily lives are defined by these individual components that we consider in isolation, though they collide in every moment to build the beginning and end of our days, the thoughts that preoccupy us before sleep, the frameworks with which we understand our purpose.
As I’ve discussed in an earlier post, I am one of the floaters. I do not have a predefined path or even a clear, distant end goal—instead I have diverse interests, competing priorities, and at times an inability to balance rational thinking with emotional investment. As a result, the individual factors of a decision play heavily in my selection; without a clearly defined purpose, I rely on the sub-components to understand my choices.
After graduating from college, I spent the following summer weighing two options: accept a one-year position with the Spanish government, imparting my native tongue on youngsters in a small town, or begin employment at a prestigious university in a global city, in a position requiring an ironically vague specialization and carrying an equally vague indication of where I could go from there. I picked the latter, partially because I thought that if I picked the former, I would spend the next summer engaging in a similar decision-making process, having spent a year doing something fun but not career-advancing, engaging but not necessarily skill-imparting. To prevent a wasted year, as it seemed at the time, I opted for the safer, more standard choice of immediate salaried employment in New York City.
I’m not sure what I thought would happen when I started this real life, full-time job. I couldn’t fathom being there for long, nor could I imagine where I might go next. After learning the ropes for a few weeks, I began to apply my old patterns of behavior to this new situation. I sought immediate advancement, rapid and incremental change, and new challenges. I scoured job postings without any sense of what I was looking for—I wanted significance, I wanted growth, I wanted a change of scene. I wanted agency over my own status. For a year and six months now, I have remained in this position, changing projects, acquiring new responsibilities, building relationships. I frequently wonder what my days would look like had I gone to Spain or taken a risk or chosen a challenge over safety. I look at the graduate program I’ve committed myself to, a spin-off of my job and an excuse for keeping it, and measure out the months until I’m through with this phase of my life. Yet in all these daydreams, in every calculation, the next destination remains unapparent.
Though I believe in the power of individuals to overcome obstacles and remedy effects of poor decisions, I’m cautious about this next one. Each step we take as young adults plunging forward into the world shapes and defines us—what happens if the next step poorly defines me? What if I place too much weight on the individual pieces of a decision without understanding the greater implications? What if I’m unable to holistically, strategically, wholeheartedly understand what I truly want to do?
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