Skip to main content

End Education

Every generation as it ages out thinks that the newer ones are on the path to decline. The quality of life and education is worse and people are on balance less bright than before. If that had been really true we would have worked ourself into extinction by now. Since we still around, its safe to the say that the degree and pace of decline might have been over-stated. But reading this article about what it will take students to graduate high school in New York, does make a person wonder, if this might not be the beginning of the end.

 One of my co-workers sends his three kids to a charter school that does not have have tests and provides no feedback on a the child's performance. They are required to bring their best selves to school and do the best they can while there. The outcomes don't matter and most certainly don't count. P is very pleased with the system because it makes for a low stress life for his kids who are all a few years away from college. 

P himself went to a very selective college and is well aware of what it takes to make the cut. He is adamant that he does not wish that life for his kids. I asked him what if they want a life like his (and theirs) which is great part can be attributed to where he went to school and the connections he made while there. Several of P's closest friends have national standing in their fields. More than once in his career, these friends helped him land a job he was less than qualified for. With such blessings in his life, P is able to give his kids a high quality of life and a chance to go to school where there is no need or expectation to perform.

 I very much doubt his kids are ready for the rough and tumble that awaits them in college and beyond. The protected life of chartered school will end along with the fully funded lifestyle where there are no performance expectations whatsoever, These kids go on three to four big vacations a year and countless small ones. The mundane business of life and school happens in the gaps between vacation. The New York proposal seems to be akin to P's parenting style delivered at scale and not requiring the parent to have the means P does to support the non-performing life of their kids. 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more

Changing Pace

This blog has been a big part of my life for the last five years. Besides giving me the opportunity to connect with a number of interesting people and share my thoughts and ideas with them, it has been a form of daily meditation for me. No matter what the day threw my way, I made a very deliberate effort to find a little quiet time to write.The process of thinking about what to write and then the act of writing itself worked as an antidote to aggravations big and small. Five and half years ago, when I started Heartcrossings both my personal and professional lives left a lot to be desired for. The only real happiness I had was in being J's mother. While that was often enough to make me forget what I did not have, I sorely needed a third place to call my own and shape in the likeness of my dreams. This blog has been where there were no limits or constraints and that was absolutely exhilarating - it is the reason I have been able to nurture it for as long and as much as I have. A lot ...
25 comments
Read more