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.
Showing posts with label American dream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American dream. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
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.
Friday, December 12, 2008
In Rememberance of Those We've Lost, and Those We Have Yet to Lose
Poem XXXVI
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.
-A.E. Housman
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.
-A.E. Housman
Monday, November 3, 2008
Ushering in the Next Era
I have never been one to write about politics. During the 2004 election, my parents told me to write about my experience in Ohio so I wouldn’t forget; they said it would be an experience for the books, a time unlike any other that was mine to document. Here we are, four years later, singing a reprise of that blazing chorus of hope and fear, and though I let it all seep over me before, maybe the time to write about it is now.
In fall 2004, Lorain County, Ohio saw an influx of visitors from across the nation pile out of vans to “get out the vote.” Celebrities made appearances, rallies were held, blue and red signs dotted front yards for miles. On Election Day, we watched the outcomes in other states come in from lines at our own polling places. During the six and a half hours that I spent waiting to vote, I was fed and entertained by fellow students and townspeople afraid that the long wait would send tired would-be voters home. I enjoyed Chinese food from a local restaurant, brought to my spot in line with a choice of sauces, listened to some of Oberlin’s best musicians perform violin concertos and organ pieces, avoided local media covering the “unexpected voter turnout,” did some schoolwork. Every so often, I’d chat with the others in line; we’d say we couldn’t believe how few voting machines there were, would our votes make it in on time, avoiding the real subject of why we were there: to change the nation. In 2004, unprecedented numbers of college students exercised their voting rights in Ohio. Home states like New York and Massachusetts and California seemed undeserving of our votes. Instead, we imposed ourselves on our temporary state, Ohio, not to impact life there but to impact the nation for which we stand, no matter which state we stand for it in.
In the end, our votes in Lorain County weren’t counted. Kerry indicated intentions to cede long before many of us even made it inside a polling booth. For weeks, it felt as though we had lost six and a half hours of our lives for the basic, unrealized premise that, in a democratic nation, every vote counts, when really ours didn’t even matter.
Like a dream deferred, the hope for change became focused on four years down the road, November 4, 2008, a date that seemed too many days of poor leadership away. We watched the American image abroad decline substantially through intifadas in Israel, invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a slew of other questionable foreign relations decisions. Outside our own front doors, we sent children and teachers into underfunded failing schools, invested our money in an increasingly unstable economy, struggled to afford healthcare, and further perpetuated the view that Americans are greedy, uneducated consumers of the world’s products and resources who think about nobody other than themselves. Having by majority elected monkeys in suits to take vacations from a big white house on the American dime instead of improving our lives, we were held responsible for this action, in a sense, by getting what we deserved.
Now, on November 3, 2008, we brace for another day of reckoning. Most of us think we are ready for change, or at least know we desperately need it. Many of us think we see an opportunity for this in one of the candidates, though quite a few of us think we won’t see the change we need in either of our options. In the 2004 election, voters had the choice of the incumbent; they saw the familiar face of a man who didn’t seem to totally mess up our lives, compared to a stranger who said he would do great things but hadn’t had the opportunity to show that he really would. In 2008, the starting ground is flatter. Though both candidates have track records, neither has been the chief executive. Neither has had that unfair advantage of not totally messing things up, an advantage that sadly instills trust rather than disapproval in this country. As a result, we can hope that the man who wins tomorrow will be the one elected by the majority to show us what a fresh face in the White House can do for our nation.
On November 4, 2008, we exercise our right to elect the leaders of our government. We cast our votes for the person who most represents the values that we adhere to and the future we see for our country. All that we know now is that the Bush era is over; we can only hope that after tomorrow, we will not spend another four years waiting on a dream of strong, competent leadership deferred, but instead move full-force forward into four years of re-evaluation, reconstruction, and re-determination to make America a place where we want and deserve to live.
In fall 2004, Lorain County, Ohio saw an influx of visitors from across the nation pile out of vans to “get out the vote.” Celebrities made appearances, rallies were held, blue and red signs dotted front yards for miles. On Election Day, we watched the outcomes in other states come in from lines at our own polling places. During the six and a half hours that I spent waiting to vote, I was fed and entertained by fellow students and townspeople afraid that the long wait would send tired would-be voters home. I enjoyed Chinese food from a local restaurant, brought to my spot in line with a choice of sauces, listened to some of Oberlin’s best musicians perform violin concertos and organ pieces, avoided local media covering the “unexpected voter turnout,” did some schoolwork. Every so often, I’d chat with the others in line; we’d say we couldn’t believe how few voting machines there were, would our votes make it in on time, avoiding the real subject of why we were there: to change the nation. In 2004, unprecedented numbers of college students exercised their voting rights in Ohio. Home states like New York and Massachusetts and California seemed undeserving of our votes. Instead, we imposed ourselves on our temporary state, Ohio, not to impact life there but to impact the nation for which we stand, no matter which state we stand for it in.
In the end, our votes in Lorain County weren’t counted. Kerry indicated intentions to cede long before many of us even made it inside a polling booth. For weeks, it felt as though we had lost six and a half hours of our lives for the basic, unrealized premise that, in a democratic nation, every vote counts, when really ours didn’t even matter.
Like a dream deferred, the hope for change became focused on four years down the road, November 4, 2008, a date that seemed too many days of poor leadership away. We watched the American image abroad decline substantially through intifadas in Israel, invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a slew of other questionable foreign relations decisions. Outside our own front doors, we sent children and teachers into underfunded failing schools, invested our money in an increasingly unstable economy, struggled to afford healthcare, and further perpetuated the view that Americans are greedy, uneducated consumers of the world’s products and resources who think about nobody other than themselves. Having by majority elected monkeys in suits to take vacations from a big white house on the American dime instead of improving our lives, we were held responsible for this action, in a sense, by getting what we deserved.
Now, on November 3, 2008, we brace for another day of reckoning. Most of us think we are ready for change, or at least know we desperately need it. Many of us think we see an opportunity for this in one of the candidates, though quite a few of us think we won’t see the change we need in either of our options. In the 2004 election, voters had the choice of the incumbent; they saw the familiar face of a man who didn’t seem to totally mess up our lives, compared to a stranger who said he would do great things but hadn’t had the opportunity to show that he really would. In 2008, the starting ground is flatter. Though both candidates have track records, neither has been the chief executive. Neither has had that unfair advantage of not totally messing things up, an advantage that sadly instills trust rather than disapproval in this country. As a result, we can hope that the man who wins tomorrow will be the one elected by the majority to show us what a fresh face in the White House can do for our nation.
On November 4, 2008, we exercise our right to elect the leaders of our government. We cast our votes for the person who most represents the values that we adhere to and the future we see for our country. All that we know now is that the Bush era is over; we can only hope that after tomorrow, we will not spend another four years waiting on a dream of strong, competent leadership deferred, but instead move full-force forward into four years of re-evaluation, reconstruction, and re-determination to make America a place where we want and deserve to live.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Plight of the Overeducated
Many people dream in clear, focused vision--they see a role they will fill, the specific ladder they will climb to a pre-identified destination, and the end at which they hope to arrive. I don't know if it is the eighteen years of top-notch schooling or the whirlwind of New York or just the way my brain works, but I am restless and lack a solidified dream-plan. Frequently a "plan" will appear to me, and I will convince myself that this might be my destiny, the path which I was meant to pursue and the area of life where I can make the most impact. Then uncertainty and other options push into this perfect portrait and I am reminded that, thus far, I have not settled for anything less than an ambiguous destiny, blurry as a coastline in the morning fog.
This is a common tale--I've heard it in the ramblings of classmates and seen it plaguing and confusing colleagues and friends. There are three features that form this situation that I find most troublesome: (1) the great American emphasis on "destiny" and having a particular path that you are meant to pursue, (2) the upper-middle-class perpetuation of the mythical beauty in believing that all doors are open to you, and (3) the liberal-idealist perception that "I" must stand out by making a profound impact on this world.
I've been thinking a lot about the "American dream" because of Amy Stuart Wells, my professor who has been assigning readings on the paradox of the whole thing. Even though I've known it all along (and we all have, by believing in it and pursuing it), I'm still shocked to realize that the dream consists of opportunity for the whole/collective success along with maximization of individual achievement. This is where that question looming in the minds of every Oberlin graduate appears: How can I make a positive change in the world/for humankind and be recognized as an individual for doing so?
As a result of asking this question, we rack our brains for the most innovative solution, and when that fails we rack our brains for the most achievable option. Our minds are racing towards a thousand destinations, and struggling to hold onto all of them we find ourselves advancing towards none of them--lost soldiers uncertain of neither our battle nor our weapons, we are defeated.
This is where I stand right now, particularly in the face of collapsing markets and mudslinging campaigns, overpriced airfares and the realization that yes, I do need to hold down a job now if I want to go anywhere (at all) from here. Will rationalizing the American dream and the plight of the overeducated to dream big without direction help me identify my own path to pursue?
This is a common tale--I've heard it in the ramblings of classmates and seen it plaguing and confusing colleagues and friends. There are three features that form this situation that I find most troublesome: (1) the great American emphasis on "destiny" and having a particular path that you are meant to pursue, (2) the upper-middle-class perpetuation of the mythical beauty in believing that all doors are open to you, and (3) the liberal-idealist perception that "I" must stand out by making a profound impact on this world.
I've been thinking a lot about the "American dream" because of Amy Stuart Wells, my professor who has been assigning readings on the paradox of the whole thing. Even though I've known it all along (and we all have, by believing in it and pursuing it), I'm still shocked to realize that the dream consists of opportunity for the whole/collective success along with maximization of individual achievement. This is where that question looming in the minds of every Oberlin graduate appears: How can I make a positive change in the world/for humankind and be recognized as an individual for doing so?
As a result of asking this question, we rack our brains for the most innovative solution, and when that fails we rack our brains for the most achievable option. Our minds are racing towards a thousand destinations, and struggling to hold onto all of them we find ourselves advancing towards none of them--lost soldiers uncertain of neither our battle nor our weapons, we are defeated.
This is where I stand right now, particularly in the face of collapsing markets and mudslinging campaigns, overpriced airfares and the realization that yes, I do need to hold down a job now if I want to go anywhere (at all) from here. Will rationalizing the American dream and the plight of the overeducated to dream big without direction help me identify my own path to pursue?
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Spacious Skies and Amber Waves of Grain
It is hard to really describe America. Can you encompass it in a phrase? We can pinpoint aspects of eras, fractions of moments, the elements that seemed to be the most glaringly obvious personifications of this country, and yet still with a million of these details we cannot come to see the bigger picture. I think what fascinates me the most about the United States is the quietness of its diversity. The news boils everything up and down, making scenes and taking fragments for the world. But what about the people who are just going about it? Everyone has their larger issues and battles they fight, but somewhere every moment a representative from every group is going to the supermarket or the bathroom or the office. There are certain elements of American daily life that, in some form, become universals--but where does this take us? Back to the very differences that exist quietly, or in some cases loudly, and make this country what it is. And I want to see all of it.
I want to see Montana and Wyoming, where there are stretches of uninhabited land for miles. I want to see Los Angeles and the Anglo-European Sikhs and Chinese immigrants and Indian Americans who live and work and drive their SUVs there. I want to see Texas, all of it, I want to see Houston with its black Evangelists and Austin with its urban Texas mezcla and San Antonio with its Catholics, its Jews, its Texans, for the lack of a better word. I want to see New York for the thousandth time and see something new about it, like I always do, I want to walk down new streets and old streets and changed streets and feel the movement that is too easy to miss and too hard to dismiss. I want to see Attica, Kansas, again, and remember the vastness of this country. I want to see Route 66 and every inch of what's left of it, I want to drive down Santa Monica Boulevard and through the hills of Denver and across the grand state of Missouri and through places I've never been--Kentucky, Idaho, South Dakota, Georgia. I want to drink coffee in Boulder, pray in Chicago, speak Spanish in New Mexico, discover Alberkerkee which I can't even spell, eat cheese or do something even more wonderful in Wisconsin. I want to root for the New England Patriots and boo for the visiting team at a Knicks game and wonder when the Oakland A's will win the series. I want to meet a stranger on a bus in Saint Louis and remember everything but her name, I want to encounter the hundred cultures I see on the Boston T every morning, I want to experience them and their Americanness and their foreignness and their joys, their worries, their realities. I want to see Bombay Dreams and the Producers in the same day, I want to visit Colliers ABR and a construction site in Arizona, I want to speak with them all and hear their stories. I want to compare in an incomparable sort of way. I want to discover without being a tourist, I want to play the role of the outsider and the insider, the visitor and the neighbor, I want to view this from so many angles.
I want to look out the window of my apartment on Morningside Drive and see all of it in the cab crawling through the rain on a gray April night. I want to see it in the eyes of David and Nivan, with whom I end up in the same place after lifetimes of difference. I want to see it in the future of three children playing in a park in a nameless, timeless place, and know that the more things change the more they stay the same, and it is good.
I want to see Montana and Wyoming, where there are stretches of uninhabited land for miles. I want to see Los Angeles and the Anglo-European Sikhs and Chinese immigrants and Indian Americans who live and work and drive their SUVs there. I want to see Texas, all of it, I want to see Houston with its black Evangelists and Austin with its urban Texas mezcla and San Antonio with its Catholics, its Jews, its Texans, for the lack of a better word. I want to see New York for the thousandth time and see something new about it, like I always do, I want to walk down new streets and old streets and changed streets and feel the movement that is too easy to miss and too hard to dismiss. I want to see Attica, Kansas, again, and remember the vastness of this country. I want to see Route 66 and every inch of what's left of it, I want to drive down Santa Monica Boulevard and through the hills of Denver and across the grand state of Missouri and through places I've never been--Kentucky, Idaho, South Dakota, Georgia. I want to drink coffee in Boulder, pray in Chicago, speak Spanish in New Mexico, discover Alberkerkee which I can't even spell, eat cheese or do something even more wonderful in Wisconsin. I want to root for the New England Patriots and boo for the visiting team at a Knicks game and wonder when the Oakland A's will win the series. I want to meet a stranger on a bus in Saint Louis and remember everything but her name, I want to encounter the hundred cultures I see on the Boston T every morning, I want to experience them and their Americanness and their foreignness and their joys, their worries, their realities. I want to see Bombay Dreams and the Producers in the same day, I want to visit Colliers ABR and a construction site in Arizona, I want to speak with them all and hear their stories. I want to compare in an incomparable sort of way. I want to discover without being a tourist, I want to play the role of the outsider and the insider, the visitor and the neighbor, I want to view this from so many angles.
I want to look out the window of my apartment on Morningside Drive and see all of it in the cab crawling through the rain on a gray April night. I want to see it in the eyes of David and Nivan, with whom I end up in the same place after lifetimes of difference. I want to see it in the future of three children playing in a park in a nameless, timeless place, and know that the more things change the more they stay the same, and it is good.
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