The Harvard Mystique

So the Dean of Admissions for Harvard is currently answering questions on the education page of the NYT. It's fascinating to see the list of over 900 questions (so far). At least 50% of them are from parents and are either about the perfect child who got 2300 on the SATs, feeds orphans, is captain of the hockey team and was the MUN rep to some international convention, while maintaining a 4.0 and getting 5s on 5-6 AP exams, but somehow was rejected by Harvard, or else the letters are about the genius 4-year-old who is currently enrolled in French, tap dance, and pre-calculus and who the parents feel is a shoe-in for the Harvard class of 2023. The other letters tend to deal with the fairness of legacies, affirmative action and giving spaces in an American university to foreign students.

What interests me is the perceived attitude that Harvard is somehow a magical place, and that not going to school there will somehow destroy the lives of these children. It is particularly intersecting because many of the parents and students at my school feel the same way. Among the Korean families particularly, there is an idea that there are only 5-6 universities that matter, and that failure to attend one of them will result in lifelong shame and poverty. The rumor is that there is actually a written list that all of the parents have. Harvard is at the top of the list, of course, followed by Yale, Georgetown, Berkeley, University of Chicago, and one or two others. No small liberal arts schools are on the list, so a top ranked school like Amherst or Hamilton is not considered acceptable. Even the free ride to Colgate one of our students received was looked down upon because it wasn't from one of the schools on the list.

I argue with students about this all the time, but it seems to be a losing battle. They are looking for a name university, because they feel that having Harvard or Yale on the resume with somehow help them in the future. I point out that one of the teachers at our school has a degree from Harvard, and I have a degree from a not terribly prestigious Catholic university in Chicago, but we both teach in the same school, and get paid from the same pay scale.

Certainly, going to an Ivy gives you the advantage of meeting movers and shakers, but studies have shown that unless you start out in those social circles, you are probably not likely to move into them, and that once the demographics are adjusted to remove social advantages that students have had coming in, Ivy graduates are no more likely to be successful financially than Big 10 graduates. Similar studies have been done about happiness.

The people I know who went to Harvard are not particularly successful financially, not struggling certainly, but not crazy wealthy either. In fact, the people I know who have done the best financially went to University of Illinois. As for happiness, some of the people I know who seem most pleased with their lives had completely nontraditional educational careers, either not going to college at all, or else taking many years and many detours to get where they are.

I'm not putting down the Ivies; they are terrific schools for a certain kind of student. And I am sure that the level of discussion in classes is significantly more elevated than at many schools. But there are many schools that this can be said of. There are great professors everywhere; in fact, one of the best I ever studied with was at Harper Junior College in Palatine, Illinois.

It's the commoditization of education that upsets me. None of the parents in the NYT article, and none of my students, seem to want to go to Harvard because they want a great education. They all want a Harvard diploma for the status it confers and for the perceived financial advantages.

Education is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. The perfect school for one student might feel confining to another. It would be nice if kids, and their parents, spent more time worrying about getting the best possible education, rather than the best possible name on their resumes.

I Can't Believe I am Going to Admit This, But...

I read The Shack this weekend. I know, I know, shameful. I'm not a book snob, far from it. I will read just about anything, crappy airport detective novels, chick lit, Twilight. But a quasi-Christian, mystical piece of fiction masquerading as nonfiction? Particularly a book that is blurbed on the back cover by Wynonna Judd? That's too crappy even for me.

But a student gave it to me to read. How do you say no when a kid hands you a book and tells you he thinks it's really "deep in spite of the Christian stuff they push on you"? (The student being Muslim). So I read it. And it's crap. Big surprise. But at the same time, I can see why he liked it.

I don't know if any of you went through a spiritual phase in high school. I did. I was heavily into the books of Chaim Potok for a while, when I was getting intouch with my inner-Jew (turns out my inner-Jew likes bacon too much to consider becoming orthodox, and as Judism was always an all or nothing proposistion for me, I stayed Protestant). But before that, I was a fan of Richard Bach, who wrote Jonathon Livingston Seagull. Looking back on it, I don't think I was so much interested in the answers. I was interested in the questions, and more importantly, in knowing that it was ok to have questions.

When I was a teenager, fundamentalist Christianity was rearing its ugly, judgemental head in northwest suburban Chicago. Previously, DuPage County, in the western suburbs, had been the home of the Christian Right, but with the spread of Reaganism, more and more people began to turn from what I think of as mainstream Protestanism--Methodists, Lutherans and such--to churches that placed a much greater emphasis on the idea of being "born again" and on a kind of "us vs them" mentality that was very devisive, even for teenagers. Maybe particularly for teenagers.

I had friends whose parents wanted them to hang around with their "youth group" friends, because those kids were somehow "better" than the rest of us. Suddenly, being religious, no, being Christian made people morally superiour, rather than just being a designation like Irish or Italian. And just as suddenly, people like me, who had grown up going to church, who believed in God, etc, were told that we were not Christian, because we did not conform to some other church's standards of what being a Christian was.

(Can I mention here that even writing about this still make me angry? I get so indignant and so frustrated even thinking about how hostile and belittling people were during this time, particularly friends who wanted to "save" me. How arrogant to assume that you have all the answers or that your belief system is somehow superior to anothers. )

For some of my friends, their religious life assumed almost cult-like importance in their lives. And questioning was not ok. Either you believed what they believed, or you weren't one of them. For someone like me, who had been raised in a church where the most common answer to a question was "What do you think?", it was a lonely, confusing time.

So I read books. And being 15 or 16 or 17, I read books that appealed to me on a simplistic, positive level, ones that told me that there was no one right way, that love and kindness were more important than dogma, that let me think about the big questions without expecting me to come up with big answers.

So when a kid hands me a book like this, I know what he is saying isn't that he really thinks it's a great book--he's read great books and knows the difference. He's a Muslim kid, living in a Muslim country, and even though he goes to a secular school, he has been given a long list of do's and don'ts, and he's beginning to question them, only he can't question them openly, because that means disagreeing with his family and his friends publicly, andvery few kids that age are strong enough to do that.

So yeah, anyway, the Shack kinda sucks, but I kinda liked it anyway.

Wending My Way Back Home....

So, some people (my family mostly) have remarked upon my lack of posts here at the Land-o-Lu. I haven't forsaken the blog, but this summer has gone by so fast that I have not really had time to devote to long drawn-out posts, and the little bullet points seem better suited to Facebook. However, I am now on my way back to Dhaka, so I am going to make a concerted effort to be better about blogging.

I'm sitting in Heathrow right now, drinking coffee and people watching. I have a couple hours before the next leg of my trip, which is good since my legs are all cramped up and unhappy. I need some time to stretch.

I have talked before about how much I love my job, and I really do, but leaving Chicago is such a gut-wrenching experience every time. I would never use homesickness as a reason to not do this anymore, but it hurts like hell to say goodbye to people you love when you know you're not going to see them again for six months. I am blessed with wonderful friends and family, which is great, but maybe it would be easier to say goodbye if they sucked. In particular it was hard to say goodbye to my father ( I don't really talk much about my family here, but my father's health is not good, and every time I come home there is a noticeable difference) and to Molly, Jane and Steve's dog, who is getting to be an old girl.

I know Chicago will be there in six months, a few things may change, but most things won't, and I know that things would change even if I still lived there, but at the same time is is just so fucking hard to day goodbye.

Sweet Home Chicago

I'm finally home, after a ridiculously long trip. (Three flights, one box of cough drops, two books and one sleeping pill.) Sharon picked me up at the airport and dropped me at my parents' condo in the 'burbs. I've completely lost my voice, am waking up at 3am, and may possibly kill my father before my mother comes back from her 50th college reunion on Sunday, but all in all, it's good to be home.
Pretty much all I have done, besides dinner with my oldest, bestest friends, is read back issues of the New Yorker and drink tea. Not a bad way to start vacation, particularly when it's rainy and cold outside. I've tried to read the Chicago paper, but it's even worse than it was two years ago, and they have changed the shape, so that it is weirdly skinny and awkward feeling.
That's one of the weird things about living abroad. Things are mostly the same, only they are different. And I've only been out of the country for two years. I can't imagine what it must be like for friends who have been everseas for years. Although, I guess if they have been overseas their whole adult lifes, they don't have the same connection to their hometowns as I have with Chicago.
Anyway, I am home, and looking forward to things that I know haven't changed, like a Cubs game, and breakfast at M. Henry, and going on walks with Jordyn, and all of the things I have been missing in Bangladesh.

Policies

Mindy recently wrote a blog post detailing her life policies. I have written about some of mine in the past, but reading her post reminded me of two that I feel the need to share with the world at large.

The first policy is the "Last man standing" policy, which states that if you are one of the last guests at a party you are obligated to offer to help clean up. I would go so far as to say you are obligated to actually help with the cleaning, but some people really don't want the help, so I will leave it with the offer. I recently hosted a party which went on until far too late in the evening (4:00 am) and ended with me picking up cans, bottles, plates, ashtrays etc., while the five remaining people grumbled that they could not believe I was actually sending them away. Needless to say, these are five people who will not be coming to my house again at any time in the near future.


Policy number two is the Thank you note policy. If someone has done something nice for you, take five minutes and send them a note. This is of course mandatory for all gifts, but also important for things like dinner invitations and helpful behavior. I am pretty good with thank you notes, although not as good as my friend Tracy who has a thank you note in the mailbox the morning after a party while the rest of us are still in bed. This is a policy I actually discuss with my students, many of whom have never written a thank you note in their lives. (Thank you mom for always making us write notes after Christmas and birthdays!) There are people I have taken off of my friend list for failing to follow this policy. Seriously, if someone takes the time do to something for you, be it give you a gift, interview you for a job, or help you move, take the ten minutes it takes to find a nice card or piece of paper and thank them properly!

RIP Jay Bennett

This is an outtake from the movie I am Trying To Break Your Heart, which chronicles the making of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. It's a wonderful movie if you are a Wilco fan, and might make you into one if you're not already.

What Your Money Does At The Bank

Cambodia and Thailand photos

I have been completely swamped. Between school, Dhaka Stage and working on my masters degree, I have a little overwhelmed and unfortunately have not been spending much time in the Land of Lulu.

Sadly, I don't have time to write a long post about how amazing this trip was, but it was. Siem Reap is always in those books of the 100 places you need to see before you die. Well, there's a reason for that. it was unreal. These first pictures were taken at a few different temples, some have been restored, others look much like they did when they were first discovered. (I liked the wild looking ones the best!)

The pictures further down are from Chiang Mai, from a wonderful restaurant, and then a few of various wats throughout the city. I fell in love with Chiang Mai and could easily live there.

More pictures to follow....

Drive to Work

I haven't gotten around to writing a long piece on my vacation yet, but I thought you might like to see this little video we filmed this morning.


This is my morning drive to work. I am doing the fast action stunt driving and my friend Leon is working the camera. (the video actually ends in his office, not my classroom, but other than that, it's the same commute.)

Still Traveling

I have been remiss in posting, haven't I?

Sorry.

I promise to have a real post up at some point, but am having too much fun to sit down and write about everything.

We ended up changing our plans and heading north to Chiang Mai because Bangkok was having civil unrest and rioting. Chiang Mai is pretty wonderful, so we are not too disappointed.

I'll be back with photos some time this weekend, until then.....