Miseducation and Misinformation

Your education has failed you. Commence panic immediately.

Especially now, when we're in the throes of Occupy Wall Street-ers (and their attempted and mostly botched dismantling-s), the question in our society has become intensely focused--What makes me different than the guy next to me? And who can blame us? We have college grads, experienced workers and leaders of industries with more acronyms after their names to count-- all still in the unemployment line. (See "The Miseducation of American Dreamers" for an interesting point of view on higher education.) According to the Occupy-ers, there are 1%-ers and 99%-ers. If you're part of the conservative middle, there's also 53%-ers. If you have a job, it's just the fact that you have a job while unemployment is still ripping apart traditional fantasies of American plenty (esp. in the rust belt). If you're well-traveled, well-read, experienced in your industry than those all count too. Whatever way you choose, one factor that keeps showing up in the mainstream consciousness is education. My question is why? Is it because of the inherent inequality there? The problems in our educational system? Just a widespread watching of Waiting for Superman?

Whether you say "I went to Famous College Prep (they don't call them high schools anymore--it's not as prestigious to do so). Then I went to Ivy League College." or "I went to Community College and then State University" the youth of America know that they're in a competitive market. A market where, one of the few options that you have to differentiate yourself from the guy next to you (and hopefully land a job post-shoveling money over to your alma mater) is to go to a good school. It's interesting to see though that "a good school" is now no longer defined as just university any longer though...in fact, there are very profitable businesses that specialize in preparing your pre-schooler for acceptance into some of the magnet schools that are so desired in metro areas like Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, etc. But what's wrong with our public system?

The Economist recently boiled down the public school crux to "three great excuses" for bad schools:

1. Skimpy government spending
2. Disparity between social classes
3. Culture

Unfortunately, the first two are not particularly compelling. Yes, the government has made significant cuts to educational spending over the past years, but the U.S. is still one of the the countries that has the highest spending in education, but still lags behind other countries on overall outcomes in secondary education. Additionally, in a study of countries between 1970-1994 found that countries that doubled or tripled their educational spending often stagnated or went backwards in terms of the quality of their educational performance. So. Social disparity?

Originally coined by the education trade unionist Martin Johnson, he pointed to the "inequality between classes, which is among the largest in the wealthiest nations" (he was referring to Britain at the time) as the reason why its pupils under-perform.This is partially true. Students who come from a hard background will struggle academically because a lot of their mental will is directed toward outside variables that are more directly related to their survival. However, we find that the link changes-- Australia, for example, has a large discrepancy in income, but still falls ninth in the most recent PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). (PS- The U.S. is 14th, after countries like South Korea, Canada, Estonia and Poland.)

So, culture then. It is true that many cultures, particularly Asian cultures place a lot of emphasis on the importance of education (the top 5 in the PISA are Shanghai, China (very interesting specific), South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, China  (again very interesting specific) and Singapore). Some trace this back to its roots in Confucianism and its mindset of lifelong learning instead of education as a means to an end. Others will trace it back to the equally popular beliefs of Amy Chua-ism, also known as "Tiger Mom-ism".

So what do we do now? If it is a lot of culture, that will take a long time to change won't it? What should we do in the meantime? Excellent question. From a young-person's perspective, there's a couple things we can do immediately to encourage educational excellence:

1. Teach strong values. All the intelligence in the world means nothing if it used for evil. Take a cue from Spiderman kids...with great power comes great responsiblity.
2. Encourage reflection. A desire for learning should be born out of something more than just wanting to make money--encourage people to look beyond the immediate. Yes, I know money will buy you a boat which will make you happy, but why? Is it the freedom that you enjoy? The independence? Find your core driver and see where else it will take you--if independence is your thing, see if that parlays into helping women in third world countries gain their independence through micro-loans. Find ways to apply your personal interests and invest yourself so that it makes you want to keep learning
3. Outline the logistics. Sure, its easy to say that after a million years (that's an approximation) of medical school, you get to be a neurosurgeon. Begin saving lives. But let's break it down at an early age--at each step we should outline the next step while keeping the big goal in mind. Go to high school. Go to a good university. Study for your MCAT. Apply to medical school. Go to medical school. Breaking it down to manageable steps so that young people have a clear view of what the next milestone should be would help. I see a lot of people getting confused and disoriented around the college years and the medical school/residency years.
4. Bureaucracy/Tuition. Stop the mountains of paperwork, or at least give clear guidance as to what needs to be filled out, by whom, when, and what it will mean. Tuition. Stop raising it all the time. Especially when our families are struggling to pay bills. Please. Thank you.
5. This one is for parents. Stop coddling your kids. I'm not even kidding, my significant other did not have his own bank account until after he graduated college. He had never paid a bill in his life.He never had a real interview until a year after college. He didn't know how to apply for a credit card. Take the credit card with unlimited funds away.  Now slowly move away from your child. They will not implode. I promise.
6. And this one's for the kids. Finally, please stop filling your mind with trash. I know, I know. I'm super boring. Go ahead-- watch trash television if you really want to--CSI or Law and Order SVU, Millionaire Matchmaker, whatever. But let's put some limits on it. This means no Jersey Shore. Why? Because sentences like "Snooki wants a perfect guy--a juicehead gorilla with a tan. They frolick" (TRANSLATION: A randomly nicknamed girl who can't spell her own name consistently wants a new man to be around because she hasn't been physically attached to one in over 5 hours and this is reality television. She wants a 'roided-out monster with a tan because a tan is obviously super important. (Orange complexions are just part of that evolutionary programming...along with height and good teeth) She also learned the word "frolick" yesterday, so she doesn't know what that means, but she wants to do it) is not only the most ridiculous sentence ever and makes me want to cry, it's also a really bad example for our youngins. If we stop watching maybe they'll pull it off the air and the cast can fade into obscurity. *hope hope hope*