Topic: This just in

I posted about 5min. ago, then I got a call from the executive director of expeditionary learning Outward Bound, an organization that is creating public schools in New York and one in Denver that incorporate Outward Bound values of experiential education into their curriculum.  I look at their website all the time and get excited by the potential I see!

So…I’ve got this problem where I get anxiety when I have a lot of thoughts, and I don’t really know where to start.  I could never ask questions in class because of this problem, and even if I do try to speak up, I’m suddenly speaking but I’m not in control, and it really is the worst feeling in the world, especially knowing it’s ridiculous but being unable to control it.  Anyways…I sort of froze on the phone, my heart rate picking up.  I actually put the guy on hold, to catch my breath, and said maybe it’d be better if we meet in person.  I slowly calmed down, and I was able to begin explaining what it is I’m hoping to achieve, and it was good to hear him listen.  Anyways…I’m meeting him on Wed., undivided attention.  So, now I’m working on outlining the things I want to explain and propose.  Another funny thing happened, besides me freaking out on the phone.  He asked what I looked like, and I describe myself, about 6 ft. short dark hair, and 23-years old, pretty young looking.  His discription was pretty similar, and when he said he was 68, I was kind of surprised.  For some reason, his age was calming to me.  I can only imagine the experience this guy has that has led him to this position. 

Anyways…back to the book.  Can’t wait for this opportunity!

Topic: Question of the day

As part of my book promotion, I’ll be at my alma mater, Washington U. in St. Louis, which is hosting one of the presidential debates.  There will be a lot of political stuff going on all around that time, and while I don’t think i’ll be getting involved, I’m trying to think, if I could make one sign to show on tv, or, if I could ask one question to both candidates, what would it be.  What would you guys ask?

Topic: US News & World Reports college rankings

One of the many objectives of my book, “College Daze” is to have Washington U. in St. Louis remove itself from these rankings.  The two main reasons, are that it promotes harmful competitiveness between schools and between students, as well as that it is a poor measure of “quality of education.”  When I graduated in 2003, Wash U was ranked #9 in the country.  That’s right, I went to a school that many would acknowledge to be one of the 10 best, right up there with the ivy’s.  My personal experience, which I’ll say was average as in I enjoyed school about as much as anyone else, was a personal red-flag that these rankings are deceiving people to believe that they are going to suddenly love school because they’re going to have dynamic professors, engaged classes, etc.  How can a #9 ranked school be only average, with professors and classes as dynamic as high school?

As it turns out, Wash U is ranked #9 based on two leading variables.  One is their wealth, or the size of their endowment.  The second reason is their ability to market students with a high level of selectivity, bringing in not the best people, or best students (i don’t believe there’s anyway to determine that) but the best people on paper, based on grades, SATs, extra-curriculars, etc.  Those two factors are the prime reason why Wash U is ranked so highly, and why they are able to charge $30,000+ semester for the privilege of receiving credits from Wash U., versus receiving credits anywhere else.

Many professors are wary of the rankings.  It is my hope, that “College Daze” will be read by these and other professors to turn their wariness into something meaningful, so that they demand that Wash U. not be included in future rankings, as a statement that the rankings do not reflect quality of education, and that schools should not measure themselves against one another by these rankings.  However, it was my expectation that what would really need to happen before Wash U pulled itself from the rankings, was Wash U to slip in the rankings.  This weeks US News & World Reports shows Wash U slipping out of the top 10, to spot number 11.  It’s already no their website, www.wustl.edu if you want to see whether the school pays attention to such things or not. 

Currently listening to: Madonna the Immaculate Collection
Currently doing: more editing, waiting for my 2 aussie friends and english friend from camp to arrive, bike ride later, stare at some adventure travel magazines in the library
Currently looking forward to: just bought a discovery pass from greyhound, $575 for 2 months of unlimited travel in the US and Canada.  Heading to St. Louis, Austin for the austin city limits music festival, www.aclfestival.com, heading to san fran to hopefully meet a book publisher, heading to berkely to see what the school is all about, and we’ll see what else develops.

An opinion article by Adam Cohen in the New York Times, Sunday Aug. 22, 2004, shows us how the best advice for today is found in the books of old.  The article is about the book “Walden,” by Henry David Thoreau, a book he wrote about his two years, two months, and two days living in a simple shack by a pond.  A book, which, according to Cohen, “buried in its accounts of planting bean fields and starting out at the night sky is some remarkably prescient media criticism.”  Thoreau highlights how, while following gossip or sensationalist news is not a bad thing, as a result of this type of media, society is too easily distracted from the news that matters.  Thoreau also writes a chapter complaining that Americans are not reading the best books, and instead are occupied with cheap novels (I’ve never been asked to read a single thing by Thoreau in school).   Cohen continues, that while Thoreau was following the story of an antislavery insurrection in Haprers Ferry, Va., Thoreau was surprised to see other people “going about their affairs indifferent.”  The main point I want to get to in highlighting Cohen’s article about Thoreau, is how “[Thoreau] believed in the importance of information not merely to improve the mind, but as a guide to action…[he was] not only keeping up with the great moral causes of his day; he was fighting for them.”

That’s what my book is about, along with everything else I try to cover.  How to translate words into actions.  In America, people love words, but more often for what other authors have described as mental masturbation.  We soak up information to discuss, not necessarily to put to any good use.  Michael Moore’s books and movies are number-one sellers in America, yet you still get a feeling that people enjoyed the excitement behind his ideas, more than the importance behind his ideas.  You can give us all the red-flags you want in books, about the direction our culture is taking, but we’ll just go about our lives.  “Catcher in the Rye” has become such a classic book, but we don’t reflect that that book is a red-flag that the educational system we have in America is killing the potential of our country’s youth.  And if you reflect on the reason for the title, you’ll realize that the main character in that book, Holden Caulfield, wanted a job as a camp counselor, to kids as they played in a field of rye, if they neared the edge of the cliff.  However, the problem isn’t just that we can’t turn words into actions, but few of us are reading the books and articles that should be rattling society today, in which case, schools should be putting that controversy into the hands of students. 

Anyways, this brief article made me reflect that America is probably full of Thoreau’s.  America is full of people who love nature as Thoreau did, people who contemplate the big picture of life, people who don’t live lives of indifference.  However, writing this book has made me realize that while it is the Thoreau’s who will lead to a better America, our system of education kills the spark on would-be Thoreau’s.  Cohen wrote, “Thoreau had some important principles to lay down.  He wrote it for the mass of Americans who, he believed, “lead lives of quiet desperation,” sleeping through life, and missing the most important things going on around them.  His intent, he declared in the epigraph, was to crow like a rooster in the morning ‘to wake my neighbors up.’”

Topic: Posting like mad

I hope you guys enjoy me posting every 5min. it seems.  Just a lot to say these days…

So…it’s interesting when you go through some intense experience, then you come back home, and are expected to fit right back into normal.  People may inquire a little into your experiences, but they’ll never know the half of what you’ve been through.  I’m starting to follow this line of thought, because it helps explain what i’m doing.  How did I go from a quiet and shy kid at home, the kid who aimed for straight A’s, to this kid with a grand vision for revolutionizing higher education?  How come I started my senior year of college wanting to be a legal investigator, and working towards earning a national title on the Wash U. mock trial team, to this person, sort-of in the real world, but not really in the sense that I’m an unestablished wanderer, an aspiring somebody.

The answer lies in those experiences and people I’ve met, who are now nowhere to be found.  The 78-year old woman I spent a day with, helping to feed 500 starving dogs in a township in South Africa.  The gay English hypnotist who fed me cheesecake, and who I walked arm-and-arm with around Stellenbosch University, one of the oldest and most conservative schools in SA.  Maybe it was hiking w/ two 30-something Englishmen, who still thought fart jokes were funny.  The two girls from Vancouver who never went to college, and were spending two months going all over Africa.  The doctors from Belgium who were part of Doctors Without Borders, a program that brought them to Africa to educate people about AIDS.  Maybe it was when I went with my Welsh friend Dan to his MBA program to hear a speaker on how to find a career you love, and thinking to myself, these guys are 25+, still emotional about getting good grades, and yet, they don’t even know what work they can possibly do to make them happy.  Or that day I spent with Dan leisurely driving the coast, having drinks, visiting the most expensive estates around.  Maybe it was the nice woman who scooped me up when I passed out at the Cape Town wine festival, and brought me home, and made fun of me when she saw me in a cafe (writing) the next day.  It might be Matt or Gilmar, who work at the Green Elephant hostel in Observatory, a quiet suburb of Cape Town, whose job is to maintain the place, but otherwise, they live in a big house that I called home for several weeks.  Maybe it was Jon who graduated from Oxford, and went running by me on the Cape Town mountains, and helped me write an article critiquing education everywhere to the NYT (unpublished).  Maybe I was influenced by my two Outward Bound instructors, 30 years old, and making a living taking me and 9 other people camping.  Maybe it was being fit enough on that course to run a half-marathon without walking once.  Or Menzi, my 30-year old co-instructor in S. Africa, who managed a group of kids with the ease of someone who has instructed for 5 years.  Maybe it was nearly crying because the mountains were so steep, and hot, and merciless, but the fact I didn’t die there.  Or maybe, it was the guy who did die in the mountains, who I had to help carry out at 9pm at night, who weighed over 250lbs.  It could have been my friend Ella from Belfast, Ireland, an art student volunteering at OBSA (outward bound south africa) who decided to stay for the year to be an instructor.  Or the two Czechs, Petr and Zdenka, who were always helping me make sense of the world.  Or Doc, 38 years old, making paper machete models when he’s not instructing courses.  Why else might I be doing what i’m doing, having strayed from the traditional?  Maybe Gary, 40 years old from Manchester England, had his leg amputated last year, who I spent the day hiking and cliff diving with.  Or the guys who were volunteering in an all black villiage in their hospital.  Or the guy I met on my flight to S. Africa who was coming from Ecuador where he taught English, even though he knew no Spanish, and the kids alternated days of school because of overcrowding.  Maybe my friend Eugene who I lived with in Cape Town, who wants nothing more than to rock climb every day, and can drive 20min. and be hanging from rock.  Or Mike Pagodin, who has worked for Outward Bound for 30 years, and recently located to help build the program in S. Africa, and would invite the entire staff over for a braai and beer.  Maybe it was the fact that I went sailing for the first time this year, and soon got good enough to run every part of a whaler that sat about 15 people.  Or learning how to do a kayak roll.  Maybe teaching 10 African kids how to sing Piano Man, while they taught me a cheer that I was later able to lead the entire staff of my summer camp in, “Yo, yo yo, yo yo la vista…” Why am I not back in graduate school, teaching in a classroom, or wearing a shirt and tie?  Maybe it was that evening where a group of us all packed into a car and sped across town just to catch a sunset.  Maybe it was spending a day fishing with my best friends on my sr. spring break trip in South Padre Island, Tx.  Maybe it’s the concert I’m going to Sept. 17-19, in Austin, Tx. Why don’t I pick one thing and stick to it?  Why don’t I have a car, or my own place?  Maybe because I want to stay with my good friends in St. Louis, and they have room for me to crash.  Maybe because I’ve got all this camping gear, and the Appalachain trail is calling my name for a hike sometime this year.  It could be that I might meet some interesting people taking Greyhound around America.  It could be that I’ve got a bicycle that I love to ride, and I’m ready to be active again.  I think i’d like to see some of the protests at the Republican National Convention, I think I’d like to see some friends maybe in Vancouver for New Year’s, I want to see my oldest sister run a marathon in D.C. on Haloween.  There may be a day I just want to find a park and read a book.  Perhaps a stranger to chat to.  What if in 3 months time I become a minor celebrity?  I may be asked to travel to other schools to speak about my book.  Maybe I’ll successfully be able to create a college course, and bring American college students back to S. Africa.  Wouldn’t that be sweet.  Why is life the way it is?  I’ll tell you why…

Topic: New York Times Magazine article on depression on Japan

If you get your hands on the article, it’s an interesting one to read.  I don’t have it in front of me right now, but i’ll try to tell you what i remember and got from it.  First of all, up until recently, Japan didn’t even have a word for depression.  The word they have now translates to something like a leaky soul, since they’re a more spiritually based society.  Anyways…while any society is going to have “depressed” people, and i don’t mean in any way to simplify the symptoms of what depression is, but it’s interesting how America has taken the lead in labeling it a disease, a medical condition.  Japan is catching up quick, and while it is true that meds can help depression, many will recognize that there’s no clear-cut way to determine whether being in a bad mood leads to a chemical change in the brain, or whether a chemical change in the brain leads to being in a bad mood (again, bad mood is simplifying the problem, i apologize). 

The problem w/ the medical boom is that it takes attention away from some soceital aspects of depression.  People feel lonely and get diagnosed depressed.  Perhaps our living environments need to be more carefully examined.  People feel depressed as a result of low self-esteem caused by comparing themselves.  Maybe our competitive society, and a society that dictates what’s acceptable to do and not do is to blame. 

Let’s look at depression another way.  You pop some happy pills, as a clinically depressed and occassionally suicidal friend of mine has called them.  At the same time, what are you doing.  You’re either sitting in therapy, or worrying about school most likely if you’re under 22, or you’re worrying about what 9-5 job you’re going to work if you’re over 22.  I’ll tell you, the people I met while traveling, people who are willing to live on a dime, but are also living on vacation for an extended period of time, are some of the happiest people i’ve ever met.  I mean, if you want to diagnose depression as a medical state of being, than people who travel should be diagnosed as being happy as a medical state of being.  It’s a completely different lifestyle, free of any of the pressures that never leave our back in normal society.

So…that’s my diagnosis for depressoin.  Lifestyle change.  One person in the article on depression in Japan stated how going on a fast in the woods helped cure his depression.  It’s not like curing cancer, curing depression has to be done through a change of mindset.  It requires something spiritual and natural like being in nature, like a fast, like a break from the society that has both caused and diagnosed the problem.

I remember spending an entire day in Hermanus, a coastal town in South Africa, just staring at the waves crashing into the cliffs.  If I was there this fall, I’d be privilaged to see tons of Southern Wright whales all along that coast, but, although it wasn’t the right season, I was still sitting along one of the most peaceful and beautiful stretches of S. Africa I had seen (actually, I wouldn’t call it one of the most, the entire coast of S. Africa is beautiful).  Anyways…i remember thinking to myself, “this place is a cure for depression.”  You sit for as long as you want.  You move when you want.  You eat some of the $1 yet delicious raisin loaf that you bought whenever you want.  You go back to meet interesting people at the hostel whenever you want.  And then the next day, you guessed it, you do whatever you want.  While Harvard scientists will explain the science of depression and produce the medical cures, it’s going to take more of the penniless and more of the thirsty for lifers to produce the real cures for depression.

Well…things are really getting exciting with the book.  I think since I’m approaching my own personal deadline, I’m realizing how many more things I want to say, so I’m freeing myself up to just say anything.  And that’s the beauty of this project.  There’s nobody to tell me what’s right or not except me.  There’s no word limit, and I’m not writing this for a grade. 

I’m not delving into politics, but I’m starting to write about how irrelevant politics is to the average person, more than the avg. person actually, because we don’t live in a society where change is possible.  Bush.  Kerry.  I’m not talking about that.  We live in a society where we go to school till we’re 17, then most feel obligated to go to school till they’re 22, then most have to start from scratch as 22 year olds with no real life experience, then most feel it’s time to settle down.  After that, you’re no longer really part of the equation of making a difference anymore, in the sense of dedicating yourself to a cause, becuase you have other causes, family, career, bills, and retirement to look forward to.

What will hopefully create a society that can make things happen, is to free up those 4 years that up until now have put thousands of 18-22 year olds inside a classroom.  Free them up to get involved in the adult world, to learn, to explore, to have adventures, to begin to make a difference.  This way, by the time they’re 22, they’re already heading into their adult/working lives with wind in their sails, and then we will have a society that we might truly be proud of.

Topic: Q & A with Dan

First of all, thanks Johnny for your post!!!

Second, I’m planning on adding a section in my book that’s a Q & A of me, before I even really sell a single book.  So, if you have a question for me, serious or not, about education, lifestyle, travel, S. Africa, Outward Bound, whatever, fire away, and I’ll answer back on this site, and probably in the book too.

-dan

Topic: Creating your own culture

First of all, if you haven’t read Tuesday’s With Morrie, it takes about 2 – 3 hrs. to read even if you’re a slow reader.  Pick up the book and read it.

Second of all, the reason I mention that, is because one of the main characters, Morrie, is giving advice as he gets closer to dying.  And this is a true story, written by Mitch Albom, the other main character in the story.  He talks a lot about creating a culture that has meaning for you, a culture different than the mainstream reality tv watching culture.  Anyways…i don’t want to get too much into that, but i wanted to make a point, what was it.

Oh yeah…so i’m doing just what this dying man told me to do.  I’m living the dream.  I have friends who have 0 vacation days while I have 0 working days for probably a few months.  I’ll admit, my parents are paying my insurance, that’s the big thing that’s holding me back.  But everything else, getting around, living, food, social life, i’m on my own.  and whatever i’m missing by not having a lot of money or a lot of possessions, i have freedom.  There are some close to me that for various reasons are unhappy with the life i am living.  I don’t want to discuss those issues here, but only say that those who criticize this lifestyle are those who don’t understand it, in the same way i don’t criticize those who work 9-5 and live in their apartments.  I just notice that those people don’t have the passion for life that I have right now, and if people are unhappy and not doing something about it, that’s what upsets me.  It’s hard for me to not have all the people close to me fully supporting what i’m doing, but at the end of the day, i do need to make myself happy and live my life. 

Topic: Going big

I also feel I have something to prove.  People want to know my fall-back plan, want to know what i’m doing without a job.  Right now, my job is promoting this book, and I have every expectation of it being a success.  It’s like i’m going for a gold medal.  What’s those guys jobs.  Except for Michael Phelps, most aren’t making a lot of money in sponsorships, and they’ve spent their last 4 years doing nothing but training for a sport.  Are people hounding them about what job they’ll get?  Probably not, because by following their passion, a) they’ve been living their dream and inspiring others and b) they’ve accumulated life skills that they’ll be able to use later on.

This book is my olympic bid.  I expect people at my university to talk about it.  I expect word of it to spread to other schools.  I expect Outward Bound to get notice of it, and for it to spread in the community, possibly even overseas.  I expect parents to get notice of it, and newspaper writers.  Those are my expectations.  They’re high, but achievable if I want them.  And if i fail.  I win for the experience.  And there’s still a world of things I can do.  So, to my skeptics, bring it on.  And to my supporters, I hope I prove to you what’s possible.

-dan

Topic: Depth

So…i’ve gone from editing my book, to getting a bit deeper.  On the surace, it’s about improving education, creating dialogue between admin. and students, encouraging gap years, encouraging mindfulness in terms of course selection, job pursuits, encouraging a de-emphasis of grades, encouraging study abroad, yadda yadda yadda. 

But the theme that’s keeping it going is about life, about meaning, about consuming material things, and consuming meaning from life.  About living your own life vs. living the life society has granted you.  It’s about what we have defined as normal, vs. the things that should open our eyes a bit.  It’s about making life less about the media, about politics, economics, and more about us, the real people, not just the numbers.  It’s about confronting ourselves.  Reflection.  It’s about human potential.  The need for our schools to be centers of compassion and service.  Grades and testing?  These couldn’t be further from what we need to be achieving in school.  Thoughts and actions must be radical in the sense of creating real and meaningful change through vision and persistance. 

Topic: The Mantra

One day, while sitting in a coffee shop in Cape Town, where I spent an afternoon writing out what would become the first 10 pages of my book, I scribbled down on a piece of paper:

BE PERSISTANT AND GOOD THINGS WILL COME YOUR WAY!!!

I just re-discoverd that sheet, and it’s helping.  I’m re-absorbed with my book, which is a good thing because I’m not letting this run past August, so the next week and a half is the home stretch.  Right now, lettersat3am is my lone contributor, there is still an opportunity to write for my book.  Around 1000 words, your thoughts on education, college, school, and how academic culture spills over into the culture we see as adults.  Yes Dara…I would like some words of wisdom from you to if you’d like to…

-Dan