Driving on Route 517 in rural Tranquility, New Jersey, I noticed an interesting sign,

“what you are not changing, you are choosing.”

I thought what a great message for individuals who consistently complain about personal situations which can be changed. My immediate contrary thought was that during the pandemic, being able to change many things is impossible.

Nobody has the REMOTEST idea what education this school year will be like in reality. It is VIRTUALLY impossible to analyze all the possibilities.

Not to worry; I will ZOOM in on the K-college education news flow of the past two months and attempt to put the information in different buckets.

DEPRESSING

*Rising mental health issues across all age levels

*Lower income and minority populations being hurt much more than affluent and white households

*Students already struggling academically being further damaged by remote learning

*The absence of Fall sports, important for a myriad of reasons

*The inability of differing viewpoints to be voiced on many college campuses

*Not being able to copy the beneficial virus approaches of other countries with respect to young people

*Being quarantined at college, coupled with dorm and meal restrictions

*How few in-person virus cases it will take to cause large revisions in the whole approach to school

*Students who flaunt mask and distancing rules at parties, putting all at risk

IRRITATING

*Politicians at every level

*The collapse in internship opportunities

*Testing little kids over zoom when they should be outside playing and learning more important things

*Colleges, a $600 billion business, resisting their need to cut costs.

*Affluent people accenting education inequality by creating learning pods and hiring teachers

*Sickness rates rising, for those trapped at home or school when teachers rotate but not the kids

*Expensive digital access codes for on-line material

*A sharp reduction in job offers for MBA students

CHAOTIC

*Wide variation in approaches to instruction and safety as schools reopen

*Teachers simultaneously having in-person students and others in their homes

*The inability to do proper contact tracing because of noncompliance when people are called

*The scramble for help, whether it be Chegg or Khan Academy or whomever

*Varying rules about quarantining college students arriving from other states

*Differing information about virus susceptibility of various age groups

*OMG, how will there be college football

OK, TO BE FAIR, THERE IS SOME POSITIVE STUFF – in complete sentences

*Student debt payments for federal loans can be deferred through December 31.

*Forced to provide more on-line education, improvements are being made in the process.

*More people realize college is not for everyone, that learning a marketable skill is a worthy aspiration.

*Fraternities and sororities will either have to reform or they will be banned from campuses.

*Greater analysis is being done on how well-meaning colleges actually perpetuate racial divisions.

*With no growth in enrollment, colleges are slowly becoming more competitive.

*The semi-scam which is for-profit off campus housing has taken a deserved economic hit.

*More attention is being paid to the qualitative aspects of a college application.

*There is more questioning: why pay exorbitant tuition when there is no college experience available.

*Greater scrutiny is happening concerning “legacy” admission policies.

*There is more interest by employers in hiring for skills rather relying on the credibility of a diploma.

IN THE “DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH’ CATEGORY – BUT REGISTER TO VOTE ANYWAY

This is the trillion dollar Biden plan regarding student debt: (1) $10,000 in debt cancelled for 43 million federal loan recipients, (2) borrowers earning less than $125,000 would have undergraduate debt forgiven if incurred at a public college or a minority-serving non-profit college, (3) borrowers could pay 5% of discretionary income toward debt, instead of 10%, with the balance forgiven tax-free after 20 years, and (4) increased Pell Grants.

IN THE ‘UNRELATED TO THE PANDEMIC’ CATEGORY BUT QUITE IMPORTANT

It is worth noting and repeating that there is continuous growth in the availability of on-point cost/benefit data that a student might want to use to make informed cost/benefit decisions on a major, a college, and a career. Included in the incremental information and the decision-making process is the understanding that subject matter and specific programs within a given school can be more relevant and rewarding than the name over the college gate.

FINALE

Enough already – you, the reader of the above collection of observations, are on your way to earning a societally valued credential, regardless of your grade or semester level. You should be proud of your accomplishments and, maybe even more importantly in these challenging times, your level of perseverance. Staying focused on the task at hand is job one, not trying to figure out how the world will look when you move up a year in age.  

I COULD CARE LESS!

This essay is satire. Any resemblance to the attitudes of living people is purely coincidental.

I bought a house in a neighborhood without knowing a soul. The schools are highly rated. Why would I choose to stay where I was living in the city and send my kids to decrepit buildings with disinterested teachers. Okay, I am sure some of the teachers in urban neighborhood schools are passable. I mean they have jobs right.

Now I am rarely in the city unless I am going to a performing arts center located near an expressway that can get me in and out with no hassle.

Anyway, my son’s teacher, like everybody else here a member of the NJEA, tells me that charters are not really public schools, that they are lousy and simply vehicles for profiteering.  She should know.

Aren’t charters in New Jersey minority student dominated – whatever education they get is fine. Those kids will be working for my kids anyway… yeah, I know, I am being insensitive. Come on, it’s not as if I’m inviting their parents to have dinner at my house to discuss STEM curricula.

I hear that a couple of urban charter school graduates have gone onto to Ivy League universities. Probably an affirmative action of some sort. Politically correct colleges want to brag about their commitment to diversity so they need poster kids.

Years back, didn’t advocates say that charters would save us tax dollars and be known for education innovation.  All nonsense, like everything else about charters. Of course, to have DeVos as a fan could almost make me feel sorry for charters.

If charters suck, like they say, don’t come asking taxpayers like me for more money to be sent from the suburbs to the cities and wasted. Let all the rich non-profit funders put up their dough.

Cripes, if my kids’ school starts to suck, I will put them in private school.

Like I said, why should I care about charter schools.

**

“The presumption of others’ unworthiness and the ability to keep them out of sight have always been powerful potions that soothe the consciences of the comfortable.”

THE DEMISE OF NUANCED DISCUSSION

Let’s say that I am in favor of police reform: transparency on disciplinary situations over a certain threshold, increased training, and more diversity. But I am against defunding the police department. To many, my fractional disagreement with the list of demands put forth by those wanting change makes me not a nuanced supporter, but an enemy and I am so labeled.

Let’s assume I am a professor with an exemplary record of interaction with my students and I am teaching American literature. It is a vibrant class and my reviews are excellent, which means lots of agreement with my style. One day, employing nothing but quotations, I initiate a discussion of how the word “n…..r” is used in widely read books, both older and contemporary, and in certain popular music. Instantly I am labeled a racist.

I fully endorse, more importantly, I have directly underwritten a sharp increase in the inclusion of African-American authors in school curricula, regardless of the ethnic composition of the class. For sure, many would label Ta-Nehisi Coates book, Between the World and Me, an anti-white diatribe, even as it won plaudits and monetary prizes. Nonetheless, it is must reading. If unfairness in one direction does not bring unfairness in another direction, you must be a Mandela or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At the same time, to drop Shakespeare from the required reading list is incomprehensible. Am I now anti-black because I want the inclusion of a great author regardless of skin color?

Presume — correctly — that I am in favor of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and strongly advocate its adoption as a means of somewhat addressing income inequality. I am in favor of taxing previously untaxed wealth at a person’s demise. I would like to see higher income tax rates above the $100,000 level. At the same time, I see no purpose, moral or otherwise, in simply attacking a person for having accumulated wealth. For that fractional sin, regardless of my other opinions, I am labeled a capitalist pig.

For many years, I have directly supported undocumented young people seeking higher education and all that goes with the American Dream. I have believed it foolish to spend money on more and bigger walls, as physical barriers are not relevant to the root causes of border crossers. I have discussed and supported the unrolling impact of demographic change (with special attention to the Hispanic population) and what that means to changes in the structure of power. If I simultaneously refuse to endorse a ‘no borders at all’ policy and on occasion have to remind advocates that an illegal act is still illegal, regardless of its motivation or those root causes, then I am out of step. My fractional opinion brings banishment from the roster of contributors to intelligent discussion.

No funder of higher education aspirations has been more critical than I of the obscene cost of college. Nobody has been more aware of the impact on students from the decline in state aid and the lack of inflation-indexed federal grant money.  The resultant student loan situation is a disaster of epic proportions. And these descriptors are before COVID-19.  If simultaneously I believe that glib statements such as “let’s cancel all student debt; let’s make all college free,” are distractions from rational dialogue, can that possibly mean I am ‘anti-student?’

I have had gay friends for literally decades. I believe a LGBTQ person should have equal access to all matters pertinent to being a resident of this country. And there should be no government imposed or endorsed discrimination when it comes to hiring practices at publicly-funded institutions. However, when a person starts a business with his own money, he should be able to determine his own policies with respect to accepting customers. For this, I am to be perceived as anti-gay rights?

**

In each case, my fractional viewpoint – at least in the context described – means I am labeled as if I was fully against the suggestions put forth, even though I am in favor of the vast percentage of them — a total distortion which virtually turns dialogue upside-down.

When that fractional characteristic becomes the 100% identification, there is no chance for people to meet and arrive at mutually acceptable policy initiatives. Our two-party political system will splinter into as many groups as there are single issue viewpoints. Elections will become increasingly chaotic and losers will not be graceful (which is happening already with a two-party line-up).

P.S.

During the lockdown, many people, young and not-so-young, found that they have had more time to do things, but less motivation to do them.

One response to this dilemma is to get interested in something new and perhaps unexpected. Person A takes up knitting; Person B does crossword puzzles; Person C reads books that have not been assigned by a professor; Person D gets hooked on video games; Person E begins communicating with long-lost relatives he previously could have cared less about; and on and on it goes.

For myself, a non-television viewer excepting “Law & Order” and sports, that extra time has found me watching the original “Perry Mason,” available only in black-and-white. (Details available on request).

In turning on the television a few minutes before Mason comes onto the screen, I have noticed a show which will go nameless because it obviously would not fit in today’s world. It has an intact family—mother and father and two kids, they eat together, they are curious, they read, they express love, they dress as if they cared how they looked. And the producers slip in a life lesson with every episode.

If a student on a college campus were to praise such a combination of – dare I say – positives, he or she would be showered with boos (probably sprinkled with obscenities) and ostracized as having endorsed middle-class values, a no-no in today’s polarized society. Not even an opportunity to see whether this is another instance of fractionalization.

Cleaning out various files and folders prior to retiring my aging desktop (remember those!), I found some thoughts which have stood the test of time. Here for your reading enjoyment, and maybe a touch of utilization, are a few that were not too dusty. Thank you to all those unnamed sources who over the years have contributed to the list.

Success Ingredients:

               Talent, perseverance, self-reflection

                Ask questions, do research, analyze

                Decide, dedicate, succeed

                Tackle the bad news first, because it requires action.

You are entitled to your opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.

Because somebody has the right to do something does not necessarily make it the right thing to do.

Be totally honest about yourself.

Know which decisions must be made now and which can wait. When unsure about a decision, emphasize variable, not fixed, commitments.

Your loving family is not in the classroom when you are taking an exam.

Pursue your passion, your Plan A, first; at the same time, have a Plan B.

Underpromise and overdeliver; overpromising affects your overall credibility.

Group data is meaningful, but it tells you nothing about any individual within that group.

Be aware of the Conflict Avoidance Syndrome — fight when you are right.

A diploma opens doors and provides options. It does not guarantee a job.

Stress is evident in a wide variety of contexts, not only that of the pandemic, and different personalities handle it differently. Understand your own mental health stressors; know which come with the territory of aspiration and achievement and which can be avoided, maybe even discarded completely.

“Distance does for love what the wind does for a flame. It extinguishes the weak and feeds the strong.”

I wonder what distance, specifically that caused by COVID-19, does for the connection between a college student and their school. If everything is on-line, it seems inevitable that there is a weakening of the bond associated with being on campus – the interactions with classmates or professors or campus clubs or activities, the networking opportunities.

For a rising freshman or sophomore in the turbulent year of 2020, does the intellectual distance from daily academic stimulus and information tend to weaken the expected commitment to a particular major. Here there is a bit of good news; it is typically not until the end of the second year that the choice must be made.

The rising junior fortunately may have the opportunity to change their major quickly if their original thinking has been blown away by a reflection exercise occasioned by being locked down at home. In addition, they may luck out in terms of an improved job market by the time they graduate in 2022.

The rising senior is most affected by the lockdown, despite all the technological and social media tools for eliminating physical distance. Internships, quite often the steppingstone to a job offer, have become scarce. The employment environment when they graduate in May of 2021 probably will be better, but not necessarily robust. Economists debate whether the recovery from the lows of 2020 will be V-shaped or U-shaped or even W-shaped.

Regardless of their level of angst, the collegians I know are determined to achieve their four-year Bachelor’s degrees as rapidly as possible. They have demonstrated strength throughout their lives and are not about to let the wind extinguish their plan.