The Ivy League, Mental Illness, and the Meaning of Life
This is a worthy read. Here are the fundamental principles underlying most liberal homeschools. The article is writing from an Ivy League point of view, but the truth of the system is consistent from the top down. I could quote the whole thing. Just go read the article.
"...the take home message is that
everyone has to liberate themselves from this system. Education should
be an act of liberation. We need to make a better system but ultimately
everybody has to claim their freedom for themselves."
good find.
ReplyDeletejumped out at me:
DeleteThe truth is that the meritocracy was never more than partial. Visit any elite campus across our great nation, and you can thrill to the heart-warming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. Kids at schools like Stanford think that their environment is diverse if one comes from Missouri and another from Pakistan, or if one plays the cello and the other lacrosse. Never mind that all of their parents are doctors or bankers.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t a few exceptions, but that is all they are. In fact, the group that is most disadvantaged by our current admissions policies are working-class and rural whites, who are hardly present on selective campuses at all. The only way to think these places are diverse is if that’s all you’ve ever seen.
I'm not sure we read the same article?
ReplyDelete"I just hate it when people talk about how self reflection is somehow self indulgent—as if the things that students were being invited to do were not, like making themselves rich and powerful. How is that not self-indulgent? But I would say, aside from all the personal, intellectual, spiritual benefits of self-awareness—I can’t believe we even have to argue this—the main point is to know yourself so you know what you want in the world. You can decide, what is the best work for me, what is the best career for me, what are the rewards that I really want. And maybe you’ll end up saying that I do need a certain level of wealth, but you will know it because you will have come to know yourself. And you will be acting on your own initiative instead of having unconsciously absorbed the messages that have been instilled in you unconsciously."
I read the one you quote, in the Atllantic, and then the one from The New Republic, that inspired the subsequent interview in the Atlantic. My wealthy black girlfriend, who I sent the article, still has her sights set on Harvard for her child, because (as she says) "If you grow up rich and white and without exposure to the world, then yes, maybe a second tier school will offer more opportunities to get out and about. But if you want to be a wall-street broker, and fabulously wealthy, or offer your child every opportunity in the world, then it's Harvard, Baby!" Interesting how we are coming at it from different ends, she and I. I admire her spunk and she sure has done well for herself!
ReplyDeleteMy Dad was one of the legacy Ivy kids referenced in the New Republic article. He pre-dated the radical inclusion move of the 60s. I grew up with him tossing away the Ivy's, much as this man has done - as overblown and uncreative bastions of a single genre. While he gave due honor to the privilege he'd enjoyed, and what it availed him throughout his life, he also said his life was richer outside that world. That is how I got to grow up on a farm.
Your computer linked an article for you that mine didn't show me. So I had no way to understand what you were referencing. A link would have been helpful there. :)
ReplyDeleteOne point I get from the original article is that the system is inherently antagonistic to mental health----even for the kids who are most successful in the system.