November 16, 2004

• Day # 9/10, the streak of writing and living continues

  
  

  Let me start with some questions:

  
  

  -does anyone know what’s going on in Iraq?  Who are we fighting against, the Sunni’s is it, Saddam’s old party?  Would this be comparable to a country who hated the US (take your pick) going to war not just to kill Bush, but to try to kill every Republican? And then, to help us have an election so we now have one party to choose from?

  
  

  Well…Monday was spent on a bus all day.  I lied, and I’m actually in Whistler now, not Vancouver (they’re about 2hrs apart).  I had one good conversation on the bus, a high school junior from Oregon, her school just got a Gates grant of $1,000,000+ I think to move towards being a small school.  The conference I just went to in San Fran. was all about those schools, so, it was pretty funny coincidence (I don’t believe in fate or anything, she could have said any number of things like, “hey, I like Seinfeld,” and I’d say what a small world).  Anyways…this girl, 16, was way too smart for highschool.  Any student who thinks about politics while in high school, should be exempt from going to highschool!!!  That would be my first policy as chief of education or whatever…I mean, this girl has struggled w/ tests, is bored in school, but she’s already thinking like an adult.  Her father has parkinsons. “I can’t understand how people can vote against stem-cell research.”  Her brother lived in Kzykistan near Afghanastan, “The people in Kzykistan were at war w/ Afghanastan, and when troops stopped arriving, that might have been a sign that Afghanastan was preparing their troops for something else, like a war with the US.”  I forgot she was even in highschool for a while, and we talked about a whole range of topics, including the educational system.  The main difference between us, was that this girl would still be in school for another 6 years before being anything but a student.

  
  

  The case for school is getting weaker.  I spent much of the busride reading the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU’s) report, “Greater Expectations” which is all about their vision for what college needs to look like.  It was pretty inspiring, and recognized that going to college is almost becoming universal in America, and also recognizing, that the quality of a college education is flawed in many areas.

  
  

  Here arises the great contradiction.  75% of Americans are going to college, supposedly because the world is more complex, and other such reasons.  College is supposed to make students better thinkers, communicators, problem solvers, (as most would say), and they make it sound as if college alone can do this like going to the gym can give you muscles.  The problem with this, is that while the AACU believes that more students are going to college to gain the skills necessary for life, they are also recognizing that college is currently doing a poor job at giving those skills to its students.  So…it would seem, that while people may need these new skills, people are mistakingly going to college as a means to achieve those skills.

  
  

  The way I see it, the AACU is trying to create a bold new vision of college, and I respect that.  They’re trying to bring together the innovative ideas that are currently happening at schools around the countries.  Schools w/ good advisigin systems, with experiential curriculum, with portfolios instead of grades, with mandatory study abroad componants, with internship componants, etc. 

  
  

  However, I learned something important at the Coalition of Essential Schools conference this weekend.  There are 2 ways to improve schools in America.  One is to change existing schools by making them smaller and focussing on the individual student more than general content, and the second is to create new schools, to create new alternatives than putting students in these less than ideal educational systems.  The move to change schools is definately the longer, harder, and more treacherouse route.

  
  

  So…what are high school graduates to do?  If we are to learn from the examples of highschools, the movement of colleges from the traditional collect-your-credits and graduate system, is going to be long.  Also…it’s going to be difficult, as teachers in K-12 can at least be trained to help students, while currently, teachers in colleges (who we call professors, which has a huge effect on how we preceive them as educators) are almost purely trained in their subject.  College professors aren’t trained to help students learn.  That’s one of those dirty little secrets of higher education.

  
  

  Anyways…as I said the other day, I’m optimistic that things will change.  However, I’m not sure I’ll see colleges change much in my lifetime.  I’m more optimistic about students pursuing different things than they currently are.  When I’m in DC, working with the AACU and AASCU, I hope to see if we can’t begin to encourage Americans to take a year off, (gap year) between high school and college.  I’d also like to see the AACU be more vocal about their views on the US News rankings (they hate the rankings, in fact, they managed to create a new ranking…which they didn’t mean to be a ranking, but a list of schools that do innovative things, so students will realize that one of the best colleges in America is more likely to be Evergreen State in Olympia Washington than my #11 ranked school, Washington University in St. Louis).

  
  

  Well…last night, I finally arrived in Whistler.  I met up with my two friends, Morgan and Erin.  Funny thing is, we’ve only seen each other once.  We met in a hostel in South Africa, and hung out for a day there.  We exchanged e-mails, as is customary, and said, “if you’re ever in the area, come on down.”  We e-mailed a few times over the last few months, and since I happened to be in San Fran, which is “in the area” of Whistler, being a 29 hour bus ride, I decided to come on down.

  
  

  We had a great dinner last night…and great conversation.  Neither Erin or Morgan went to college, in fact, there’s definately not the same pressure as in America.  The only obvious reasons we could think for going were to gain credibility for a job, although even that appears to be questionable.  The two have done lots of travelling over the past four years, working odd jobs to pay their way.  Living in a place like Whistler has naturally made them outdoorsy, and I think has had a great affect on their life philosophies. 

  
  

  There’s definately something unnatural about spending your days in an office, or stuck inside a house or apartment.  All people grow up loving to just play…yet we’ve marginalized that part of our lives to the 1 or 2 weeks of vacation we get, or the weekends.  That’s my biggest struggle, I’ve friggin’ worked for Outward Bound, the oldest or at least the most well-known outdoor education organization probably in the world, and i haven’t done anything outdoorsy in months.  When it comes to choosing the geography in which I live one-day, there’s no doubt I will live somewhere within minutes of the mountains.  And, I grew up afraid of this…afraid to break away from Long Island, or NYC.  Hellz no…will I ever settle in one of those places.  I’m even a little un-easy about spending the winter in DC, as I know any efforts to be outdoorsy will require a lot of work on my part, but ultimately, I want to live in a place where myself, my gorgeous wife, and my children, will not have to worry about how to play, because when your backyard is the mountains, you never run out of inspiration for being young and having fun.

  
  

  -also…had my crotch sniffed by a drug smelling dog at the US-Canadian border.  How do they teach dogs to smell for drugs?  Do they put drugs in their food or something?

  • 2:00 pm
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