Preparing for Life

Life seems to be all about preparation for what comes next, but never about embracing the moment we're in-- especially when it comes to school. I remember halfway through fifth grade, we moved our school supplies from our desks to our lockers, because that's where we kept things in sixth grade. I later learned, however, that we only did this because in seventh and eighth grade, we didn't have our own desks and had to keep our things in our lockers. But this, too, was really only preparation for what was yet to come in high school, where we similarly stored our things in our lockers. So basically we started preparing for high school in fifth grade.

This idea of early preparation was taken to a whole new level at Linwood Middle School, a school in Brunswick, New Jersey where all students begin tracking their academic path (on an electronic planner) in sixth grade. According to an article in the New York Times, the goal of this is to "better prepare students for college, and motivate even low achievers to work harder by showing them that what they want matters, too."

Although I agree that it is important to motivate low achievers and show students that what they want matters, I have a problem with the idea that sixth graders are mapping out their futures. Why should they have to already deal with the pressures of college? One individual interviewed in this article, Mercedes Arias, has a perspective about this that I couldn't disagree with more. She says, "If you don't know yourself and think you want to be a biologist, you may realize in your sophomore year in college that you don't like science... You should have really figured that out sooner." I personally see college as an opportunity to experiment, and I think it's almost better if people don't know what they want to major in in college right when they get there. This way they can try out more than one thing. If a student has to pigeon-hole themselves and decide what they enjoy and dislike (academically) in sixth grade, then high school and college become stepping stones for a job, where they should be stepping stones for life. This is unfortunate because it means that students wouldn't have the ability to experiment different areas of study in college, and instead would only be able to move through their lives in one direction-- one decided in sixth grade.

When I read this article, it really struck a nerve with me. What do you think about this idea? Do you think it would be beneficial or be detrimental to our society? Why do you think we spend so much time preparing for the future instead of appreciating what we already have?

The Stay-at-Home Dad

I read an article on the New York Times website this week that I thought related really well to our recent unit about men and women's roles in history.

This particular opinion piece talked about how during the current recession, more men are being laid off jobs than women, which means that in a lot of families, the wife is working while the husband is not. This means that the untraditional stay-at-home dad is becoming an increasingly normal occurrence in families across America. But at the same time, this idea is not widely accepted due to the gender stereotypes that have been established in the past, in this case mainly the idea that men should work while women should stay at home.

This idea of breaking the gender stereotypes and accepting something that is not considered "ordinary" is hard for a lot of people in America. In this article, Collins talks about how we are "a country that has spent so many generations celebrating the housewife" and now "could show a little enthusiasm for the full-time dad." After we have spent time in class talking about America's apparent  inability to adapt to new and different ideas, it occurred to me that maybe we are unable to accept the idea of the stay-at-home dad because we have been focusing so much on creating the image of a housewife in the past, and it has since been transformed into an expectation.

Why do you think that America has such a difficult time with change? I personally see nothing wrong with the stay-at-home dad and I don't see fathers staying home with their kids as a weakness. What I don't really understand is why we as a country cannot accept this new idea, why we have such a hard time when it comes to change in general. It almost seems like people are so resistant to change that it is viewed as a bad thing, while in fact I think it usually is a source of strength because without change, there is no progress.

The Past, The Present, The Future

I went to Boston this weekend and while I was there, I went to the Holocaust Memorial. As I walked through the six towers that exhaled steam to mimic the gas chambers, I was overwhelmed by the millions of identification numbers written on the walls. 

Although the towers only housed the ID numbers of those who died, this memorial was a tribute to all individuals affected by the Holocaust. This made me think a lot about our recent conversations in class about reparations. After seeing this memorial, I came to the conclusion that the most meaningful and personal type of reparation is a formal apology. In my own life, I have found that it is difficult to openly apologize for something you did that you know was wrong, but it's the only way to face your mistake. On the other end, even when you are unable to excuse the action of the person giving the apology, it means a lot to receive one. In a lot of ways, this is not comparable to an apology for something like the Holocaust, or in terms of our class discussions, to slavery. But regardless of the scale of the event, I think it's still necessary for wrongdoers to face their mistakes. Other types of reparations, like monetary or experiential (like the GI Bill), do not allow individuals to face their mistakes in the same capacity. I think they can be used in addition to- but not instead of- an apology.

Although an apology cannot take away the actions of the Holocaust or of slavery, it's a way to acknowledge that actions in the past were not just. Contrary to what some people said in class last week, I think that it is important and necessary to reflect and learn from the past. The past is the past, but it 100% influences the present and the future. If we do not learn from past mistakes, how do we expect to grow? Without reflecting on the past, how can we ensure we do not make the same mistakes in the future?

HERSTORY

Last week, I read an article about how some people reacted to being nominated for the Academy Awards. Following our Herstory presentations last week, there was one reaction in particular that support the ideas we have been discussing in class.

Kathryn Bigelow is nominated for best director for The Hurt Locker. She is only the fourth female director to ever be nominated for an Oscar. When she got news of her nomination, she responded, "I certainly, if one can give the impression that the impossible is possible, then I am perhaps overwhelmed with joy. But I do think that I hope someday we can lose the modifier and that becomes a moot point whether the person is male or female and they're just filmmakers making statements that they believe in."

One of the main ideas we talked about during the Herstory presentations was the idea that women have been perceived as inferior to men in American society in the past. This quote supports the idea that although women may have progressed, there is still a visible gap between men and women in American society today. Reflecting on the past and the present, is it reasonable to think that we will ever be able to "lose the modifier" in America?

Success

I saw Avatar this weekend, and after our conversations about the movie in class, it was difficult not to watch it through a critical lens. One thing that stuck out to me was the overlying idea that evolution is a cycle. I noticed that Jake Sully's video logs took place in 2154 and therefore, his interactions with the Na'vi population took place in the future as well. The idea that the Na'vi's society was based on their interactions with nature demonstrates that future societies may rely on unevolved basics to live, which also supports that development is not a continuum, but is instead a circle.

The idea that the existence of the Na'vi population was dependent solely upon nature contrasts with the values of the human race, which in the movie is represented by Americans. In the movie, the humans were willing to destroy the Omaticaya (a section of the Na'vi clan) and their world on Pandora to obtain a certain material that would make them rich. For them, the ultimate goal is monetary success, and they're willing to destroy anything and everything that stands in the way in order to get it. The human race fixates on material possessions to provide happiness and success, forgetting about simpler things like nature and love, which are the basis of the Na'vi belief system. For the Na'vi people, money does not exist and is of no use, making monetary success a useless and unattainable goal. Since they are not distracted by superficial things, their priority is to protect what they know and love-- nature. As long as they can stay in touch with nature and their Goddess Ewa, they are successful. For them, life is in and of itself success.

How do you define success? What type of success is valued in the American society? Is this the type of success we should be striving for as individuals/ as a country? How does Avatar challenge the things we have come to see as important?

Creating Yourself

"Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself."

George Bernard Shaw

For what I hope is an obvious reason, this quote made me think a lot about the creativity aspect of our class, but also about a blog post I wrote earlier this year. In this previous post, I considered the idea that education stifles creativity, that we lose creative ability because it is not actively used during school. However, this quote made me reconsider the idea all together. Maybe it's not so much that we've lost it, just that we mask it- call it something else- and forget that we have the ability to use it.

When I was younger, I was taught in school that being creative is a way to distinguish and set yourself apart from others. In terms of school, this meant thinking outside the box and coming up with individual ideas and projects. But by time I had reached seventh or eighth grade, this creative way of thinking wasn't valued so highly, and success in school was focused more on the output rather than the path taken to get there. In my previous blog post, this is what led me to believe that schooling forces us to lose our ability to be creative. However, I failed to realize that creativity is necessary beyond a schooling environment and that it is the fundamental of individuality.

The quote by George Bernard Shaw says that "life is not about finding yourself." "Finding yourself" implies that who you are yet to become already exists, you just have to look for it. Like George Bernard Shaw, I would argue that this is inaccurate because you do not already exist, not until you create who you want to be. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I was wrong in my other blog post. We can't lose our ability to be creative because we use it all the time. We are creativity in it's purest form.

In my personal opinion, our American Studies reflects life in the sense that neither are possible without creativity. What do you think about this quote? Is creativity a fundamental of life, or does it just a skill that has the ability to be lost?

The Little Engine That Could

One of the books I remember from my childhood is The Little Engine That Could. In this book, a little steam engine is too small to carry herself and the rest of her train cars up the hill. So she leaves the cars at the bottom and goes to search for help. She eventually finds another young steam engine that is willing to help her and together, the two engines return to the bottom of the hill and begin to pull. Slowly, the other cars start to move. As motivation, they chant "I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can" until they reach the top of the mountain, where the little steam engine says thank you and sings "I-thought-I-could, I-thought-I-could" as she continues with her journey.

The phrase "I think I can" holds a lot of meaning. The train believed in her ability to find a way to get her cars up the hill, and her self-motivation and determination allowed her to find a solution to the problem. At a young age, children that read this book learn that it is not a weakness to ask others for help, but most importantly that if you think you can do something, you can.