Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time (and I know the two of you who have, so don't try to deny it!), knows that I owe my life and modest success to education. They also know I'm an 8th grade dropout who stepped foot just one time into a high school, and that was to steal the nickels out of the kotex machine in the women's bathroom in order to buy a bag of weed from my connection, Margie Vitella. Margie was a firecracker hot redhead who introduced me to real cannabis and didn't rip me off with some oregano like our mutual freind"Bom" Fetters did to me back in the early 70s.
Once I began smoking pot, I had little time for school and even less interest, since school taught me nothing at all about identifying and copping quality pot. In fact, the things they were teaching me about grass and drugs in general were so outrageously idiotic and false that whenever I heard about the horrors of some drug I was previously unaware of, I wanted to run right out and get stoned on it. See, we kids realized quickly that that the quality of a particular drug was directly proportional to the level of scare tactic the government was using to dissuade us from trying it. The more ominous the commercial or ad or info phamplet, the better we knew the dope was going to be. Let that be a lesson to those of you who are in charge of disseminating information about drugs to our current crop of kiddies.
Decades later, as my life swirled in the toilet of addiction, despair and self-induced agony, real education became the only ticket to a better life. I am so thankful that this particular resource was available to me but I have to say that accessing it was a real challenge. I just happened to be fortunate enough to have had a little guidance from a family member and was able to take it from there.
One of the things I think we need to do for many of our brothers and sisters on the street is to make sure they are aware there are educational opportunities available to them and also provide them with basic assistance in accessing those opportunities. I often help clients at Operation Stand Down Nashville with filling out their FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Once that is completed, I then assist them on how to begin their "re-entry" into school. This includes some consideration on the amount of units they should take in their first and second semester, the types of courses they need to begin with, the various departments that might be able to provide help to them with tutors, special assistance, etc., how to begin preparing for the rigors of academic life, etc., etc., etc.
I try to bring to the table the information that was beyond helpful to me, yet was never provided to me and instead, was learned through experience and trial and error. This isn't to throw the Admissions department under the bus here, but the fact is, admissions deals primarily with people who are coming into the college system at least somewhat prepared and often functioning, if not right at college level, then damned close to it. They don't often see folks who are struggling with addictions, mental health issues, homelessness and myriad other problems that hinder their ability to attend school, as well as remain focused on classes when they're dealing with where they're going to get their next meal today.
I strongly believe more people would succeed in obtaining an education if we were able to provide assistance to them beyond simply financial help. The career and admissions departments could benefit greatly from the introduction of some consumer-providers in their direct service and policy formation sessions, and giving credit where credit is due, many schools do indeed have re-entry pros who work closely with students like me.
One thing I can guarantee you about those of us who are considered re-entry students; when we decide that school is the answer, we're going to give it 110 percent because, as "hairnet and nametag graduates," we know what it's like out there without an education. We also realize we probably don't have many more "do-overs" so we're going to give it our all and take our studies seriously. Let this also be a warning to those in classes with re-entry students; they don't take kindly to having their time wasted, nor their lessons disrupted, by rude asses who eat, talk or otherwise cause a disruption in the classroom during the session. We want what we're paying for and we won't stand for careless fools who don't know enough to behave appropriately in the classroom.
Putting Our Brains on Hold
By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 6, 2010
The world leadership qualities of the United States, once so prevalent, are fading faster than the polar ice caps.We once set the standard for industrial might, for the advanced state of our physical infrastructure, and for the quality of our citizens’ lives. All are experiencing significant decline.
The latest dismal news on the leadership front comes from the College Board, which tells us that the U.S., once the world’s leader in the percentage of young people with college degrees, has fallen to 12th among 36 developed nations.
At a time when a college education is needed more than ever to establish and maintain a middle-class standard of living, America’s young people are moving in exactly the wrong direction. A well-educated population also is crucially important if the U.S. is to succeed in an increasingly competitive global environment.
But instead of exercising the appropriate mental muscles, we’re allowing ourselves to become a nation of nitwits, obsessed with the comings and goings of Lindsay Lohan and increasingly oblivious to crucially important societal issues that are all but screaming for attention. What should we be doing about the legions of jobless Americans, the deteriorating public schools, the debilitating wars, the scandalous economic inequality, the corporate hold on governmental affairs, the commercialization of the arts, the deficits?
Why is there not serious and widespread public engagement with these issues — and many others that could easily come to mind? That kind of engagement would lead to creative new ideas and would serve to enrich the lives of individual Americans and the nation as a whole. But it would require a heavy social and intellectual lift.
According to a new report from the College Board, the U.S. is 12th among developed nations in the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees. The report said, “As America’s aging and highly educated work force moves into retirement, the nation will rely on young Americans to increase our standing in the world.”
The problem is that today’s young Americans are not coming close to acquiring the education and training needed to carry out that mission. They’re not even in the ballpark. In that key group, 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree, the U.S. ranks behind Canada, South Korea, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Israel, France, Belgium and Australia. That is beyond pathetic.
“While the nation struggles to strengthen the economy,” the report said, “the educational capacity of our country continues to decline.”
Everybody is to blame — parents, students, the educational establishment, government leaders, the news media and on and on. A society that closes its eyes to the most important issues of the day, that often holds intellectual achievement in contempt, that is more interested in hip-hop and Lady Gaga than educating its young is all but guaranteed to spiral into a decline.
Speaking this week about the shortage of degrees in the 25- to 34-year-old demographic, Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board and a former governor of West Virginia, said, “When I was in school, we were No. 1 in the world in college graduations. When I was governor, we were third, and I was surprised by that drop. Now we’re 12th at a time when a good education is critically important to getting a decent job.”
Among other things, he called on educators to develop curricula that are more “interesting and inspiring.” And he said it is essential for students to work harder.
These are gloomy times in the United States. A child drops out of high school every 26 seconds. As incredible as it seems from the perspective of 2010, the report from the College Board tells us that “it is expected that the educational level of the younger generation of Americans will not approach their parents’ level of education.”
What is the matter with us? Have we been drinking? Whatever happened to that vaunted American dream? In Hawaii, the public schools were closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year for budget reasons.
When this is the educational environment, you can say goodbye to the kind of cultural, scientific and economic achievements that combine to make a great nation. We no longer know how to put our people to work. We read less and less and write like barbarians. We’ve increasingly turned our backs on the very idea of hard-won excellence while flinging open the doors to decadence and decline. No wonder Lady Gaga and Snooki from “Jersey Shore” are cultural heroes.
In their important book, “The Race Between Education and Technology,” the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz pointed out that educational attainment in the U.S. “was exceptionally rapid and continuous for the first three-quarters of the 20th century.”
Then, foolishly, we applied the brakes. All that’s at stake is our future.
