• Graduates in the year 2021: 
  
• What an interesting group, hailing (though not necessarily commuting!) from New Jersey to New York to Nepal. The diploma range is from a two-year degree to graduate school. Some of you took a straight-line route, some had a change or two along the way as you decided on your next step.
• All of you are working in some capacity already, with the majority simultaneously attempting to figure out life after graduation: will that first regular employment be “just a job” or a stepping stone toward your desired career. 
• Some of you have graduate school in mind, but not necessarily right away, knowing that such a step probably would be the most intentional education decision you have ever made.
• All have persevered through a pandemic that turned your lives, and/or those of your families and friends, upside down. 
• All have dealt with the pluses and minuses of your particular school, at times thinking it was the best choice ever and at other times wondering why you ever enrolled there.
• All have lamented the lack of clear communication from schools during the various changes dictated by the pandemic.
• Most important is that each of you has become more self-reflective, more aware of who you are as a individual, your uniqueness, and your ability to become the person you want to be. In a society and world where lack of self-knowledge can quickly get one labeled and grouped, the ability to “know thyself” is more important than ever.
  Congratulations!
  As the country gets more vaccinated, I hope to break bread with you and get completely caught up.  I realize that your graduation ceremonies themselves will be restricted attendance, if any, a bummer for sure.
  Peace,
  Bob
  
  
  
  
  

The secret to learning Reading had little to do with school — or the latest teaching techniques found on college education major syllabi — or insights delivered at workshops by expensive consultants.

Instead, what if a positive attitude, curiosity, and learning Reading stemmed from a stable family structure, the inculcation of values, books in the home, affordable time and available energy.

Maybe a series of societal changes would be more likely to produce acceptable Reading outcomes than teachers seeking to be heroes. Or is the former one of those necessary, but not sufficient situations.

Here are a few examples of societal changes with prospectively highly leveraged positive returns:

Inexpensive daycare … Higher minimum wage … Restructured marijuana laws … Availability of Pell grants for prisoners … Ability to choose the school to which a child attends.

Fast forward, at the upper end of the school age spectrum, long after Reading has supposedly become a habit, why not make this ask of rising high school graduates:

Agreement that the sequence of high school graduation, then a job, then marriage, then a child is clearly preferable socioeconomically (demonstrated to be the case by Brookings Institute research data) to any sequence which switches around these four milestones of life.

Perhaps the combination of said agreement and the aforementioned multiple societal changes would lead to more family cohesion, which would lead in turn to increased success in Reading.

Or maybe my “What If” mutterings are meaningless in a world of Googled “education’ and social media addiction. Why even care about in-depth Reading when “answers” to all of life’s questions are merely a click away.

For a period of several decades, ending in the early 2000’s, Bob Gersony was an “humanitarian contractor” to various agencies of the United States government.   This is somewhat surprising, given that today’s profile of a private contractor to the government is that of a mercenary whose allegiance is to the connection between his kill count and his paycheck, operating under the protection of Washington officials determined to bring our way of life to heathens around the world, even if we have to decimate their country to do so.

The book entitled “The Good American” chronicles the life story of Gersony. At various times, he went to Guatemala, Mozambique, Nepal, Sudan, Ethiopia. His task was to find out what was going on by talking to regular people, not those higher up who often allowed theory to disturb facts. With a pen and notebook, he interviewed hundreds of refugees, for example, and his policy conclusions were often at odds with those expressed by those in far-off comfortable offices. And his suggestions were almost invariably productive.

There are so many aspects of Bob’s approach that lend themselves to daily living for all of us:

*every person wants to feel empowered to choose his/her own path

*people want to be productive, to live meaningful lives

*most individuals would like to be part of a community, however defined

*having questions for each new person you meet is part of lifelong learning

*listening to answers and following up unlocks more information than using a script

*assumptions without research are perilous

In my circuitous mind, thinking about Gersony and what he did brought me back to wondering about my own country, not a distant situation.

As the United States moves inexorably to one of multiple minorities, it will be incumbent on those in growth mode — Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans, and mixtures of every conceivable combination – to be more charitable to their prior oppressors than the latter have been to them. The alternative is a series of bloodbaths.

White America, which is not growing its population and shows no inclination to do so by suddenly changing its birth rate, will obviously attempt to cling to that power which it regarded as a birth right. At a minimum, many feeling that loss of place will “act out,” as the therapist would say. The prior administration legitimatized violent action, but it was already happening, with one indication being the ultimate acting out, suicide, the rate of which has been rising.

The January insurrection in the nation’s capital was completely shocking for its location, but to me it was not surprising when analyzed through the lens of acting out. For every person who openly totes a gun or throws a rock in frustration, there are thousands, especially in small town and rural America, who are wistful about “the way things used to be,” when a decent job was attainable with only a high school education, when the local factory meant the possibility of lifetime employment, when a white collar position in a multi-layered corporation never would be exposed to downsizing.

Theirs are lives in geographies carved up by farmlands and rivers and hills and railroad tracks, none of which have their historical relevance, not in a world which transacts life through laptops, clicks delivered by people whose fingernails have never been dirtied.

The Elks and the Moose and the VFW and the American Legion are all there, along with monuments to the fallen military personnel who disproportionately come from small town America. Flags are more evident, some tattered but not to be trifled with by those who want perfection in their patriotic displays.

Their memories become their lives; they are attached to them with a defensive strength that defies dispassionate analysis. Scapegoats are eagerly sought.

The more passive of those who are embittered simply have let their votes tell of their frustration. The more aggressive have taken to the streets, to internet postings in an attempt to find compatriots in their delusion that the demographic tide – which they have consistently and erroneously seized upon as the cause of their angst — can be stemmed.

In a country where on average everybody owns a gun, it should not be surprising that so-called sudden and inexplicable violence is paradoxically more the norm than the exception. Murder rates, incarceration levels, childhood gun-related fatalities, domestic violence incidence all are suggestive of a society struggling mightily to cope with its multiple challenges.

There is little doubt that a humanitarian contractor will be needed right here, talking with ordinary people and, through those with power, trying to convert that research into policies that can find a receptive audience. Washington, in contrast, is fixated on its own rules of political engagement, manipulating each other for gains which continue when they become lobbyists after leaving office (just as the corporate executive who has hurt his company walks away with millions of dollars).

And all the while, those segments of the population who are relatively new to being outside the gates of power wonder “what about us,” the same question that those seeking power have been rightfully asking for a very long time. The same question which has now become a series of demands; the due bill of history is now to be paid.

Traveling to the heart of darkness, the inner soul of the United States, and creating a game plan for the complex reality of a shift in power and an evolving revision of the prior American narrative — would be the most difficult assignment every given to a Bob Gersony.

*This is the one-year pandemic scorecard for New Jersey: 21,219 lives lost; 30% of local businesses closed, 56% increase in food insecurity; two million unemployment claims filed.

*The pyramid of diversity and power, whether in corporate America or on the college campus, is consistent: greater diversity at the lowest rung (employees/students) than at the managerial/administrative level (the latter typically a source of irritation to minority college students). That middle level in turn is more diverse than the executive offices, including the college president unknown to the majority of his or her customers, aka students.

*In a longstanding, predominantly white school district, the kindergarten class might be twice as diverse as the high school. A demographic-based shift in power is inevitable.

*This is a suggested replacement for current methods of capital punishment: listening to a 24-hour non-stop tape of “likes” and “you knows.”

*Not connected to that fantasy is the serious and troubling research which shows that the correlation of brain injuries to subsequent criminal activity is quite high.

*A poll in 2019 disclosed that only half of people in Latin America believed their neighbor would return a found wallet; on the other hand, only 40% believed a cop would do so.

*We have everything we need to know at the click of a finger. We have not become happier.  And the average person has not become more affluent.

*One-third of Latinos voted for Trump, a higher ratio than in 2016.

*We have more communication devices than ever, and fewer friends.

*Hate crimes, while up recently, are significantly below those of twenty years ago. The flames seem to burn hotter, however.

*Our schools have more technology than ever dreamed possible. We have not become smarter. Our healthcare providers have more portals to capture more of our information. However, we have not become healthier, nor has healthcare become more affordable.

*From the trough of the Great Recession, the first quarter of 2009, to the end of 2020, household wealth for the bottom 60% of the population grew between 27% and 37%. The next 20% were up 97% and the top 19%, 72%. The top 1% soared 135%.

*On the student loan front, some federal relief has been granted and one much older former student was able to escape debt through bankruptcy, heretofore considered impossible. Nationally, 6% of borrowers owe over $100,000; 18% owe over $40,000. The worst debt is when the borrower fails to graduate, thus often leaving them with the prospect of insufficient income relative to debt.

Yes, I frequently compare cheese and chalk, as the saying goes. But isn’t that life: trying to make decisions about non-comparable choices.

In football, it is the bomb, the long pass for a touchdown which brings people out of their seats, a play made much easier to accomplish by multiple rule changes in recent years.

In basketball, no longer is the nuanced skill involved in making a contested 15-foot jump shot of interest; the focus is completely on three-pointers and dunks — they excite the populace.

In baseball, a strike-out has ceased being a source of criticism; it is now simply the other side of the desired home run coin.

In hockey, too much defense and too little scoring led to a change in the rules a few years ago.

In soccer, the way tackles used to be made – admittedly often with some malevolence in mind — is no longer acceptable; stars, defined typically as the goal scorers, could get hurt.

In gambling, there is no longer the need to interact with seedy characters; the public has jumped into the fray, courtesy of needy governments who lust after tax revenue.

In the stock market, without being hampered by the need to actually analyze the company whose stock they are purchasing, people can place bets on random fluctuations in prices.

In video games, results arrive quickly, often in blood red.

In the lottery, the most honest of rip-offs, there are instant winnings.

In all cases, immediate excitement trumps subsequent reflective thoughts.

Transitory gratification is the logical accompaniment to that misleading bumper sticker which says, “live each day anew.” In truth, everything a person does both before and after that day affects what their current day is about.