Monthly Archives: May 2011

A Paradoxical, Pervasive Prejudice

Posted on by
1

Most people want to be far wealthier, but dislike the wealthy.

What do you know about the wealthy? Do you know many well-to-do people? Know enough, well enough, to generalize about them?

Like old age, the notion of “wealth” is of course relative. Since 1970, Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy has conducted several studies of the wealthy. Mostly recently, they asked 165 households with at least $25 million in assets to write freely about how prosperity has shaped their lives and those of their children. Their average net worth was $78m, with two being billionaires.

The results of the study are not yet public, but The Atlantic was granted access to portions of the research which form the basis of Graeme Wood’s April essay titled, “Secret Fears of the Super-Rich“.

Fascinating read. The bottom line, to paraphrase Woods, the respondents turn out to be a generally dissatisfied lot, whose money has contributed to deep anxieties including a sense of isolation, worries about work and love, and fears for their children.

A few excerpts:

• A vast body of psychological evidence shows that the pleasures of consumption wear off through time and depend heavily on one’s frame of evidence. Most of us, for instance occasionally spoil ourselves with outbursts of deliberate and perhaps excessive consumption: a fancy spa treatment, dinner at an expensive restaurant, a shopping spree. In the case of the very wealthy, such forms of consumption can become so commonplace as to lose all psychological benefit: constant luxury is, in a sense, no luxury at all.

• Among other woes, the survey respondents report feeling that they have lost the right to complain about anything, for fear of sounding—or being—ungrateful.

• The poor-little-rich-kid retort is so obvious—and seemingly so sensible—that the rich themselves often internalize it, and as a result become uncomfortable in their interactions with the non-wealthy. Once people cross a certain financial threshold, they have a tendency to hang out with one another, to enjoy the company of other people who know that money relieves some burdens but not others.

Interesting how clearly the poor-little-rich-kid retort shapes the comments at the end of Wood’s essay.

Our church has recently updated its “welcoming” statement which reads: We welcome all people—the poor and the rich; the young and the old; people who are single, married, blessed, divorced, separated, partnered, or widowed; people of all abilities; people of all sexual orientations and gender identities; and people of all nations and ethnic backgrounds.

Some probably assume the rich may not need as warm a welcome as the other referenced people and groups. But Boston College’s “The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth” study suggests they do.

Understanding, care, and empathy shouldn’t be rationed out as zero-sum qualities.

What Arne Duncan Really Meant

Posted on by
Reply

An Open Letter From Arne Duncan to America’s Teachers

By Arne Duncan

What Arne really meant.

I have worked in education (Never taught in a public school a day in my life. With the low pay, large classes, and top-down management, I’d never be caught teaching.) for much of my life. I have met with thousands of teachers in great schools and struggling schools, in big cities and small towns, and I have a deep and genuine appreciation (repeat platitudes enough, some teachers may begin to believe them) for the work you do. I know that most teachers did not enter the profession for the money. You became teachers to make a difference in the lives of children, and for the hard work you do each day, you deserve to be respected, valued, and supported (which is why I’m probably not the best guy for the job)

I consider teaching an honorable and important profession, and it is my goal to see that you are treated with the dignity we award to other professionals in society. In too many communities, the profession has been devalued. Many of the teachers I have met object to the imposition of curriculum that reduces teaching to little more than a paint-by-numbers exercise. I agree. (I’m a a politician not an educator so I have to tell you want you want to hear, in actuality though, I prefer business leaders’ ideas to tie your compensation to your students’ test scores on standardized reading and math exams.) 

Inside your classroom, you exercise a high degree of autonomy. You decide when to slow down to make sure all of your students fully understand a concept, or when a different instructional strategy is needed to meet the needs of a few who are struggling to keep up. You build relationships with students from a variety of backgrounds and with a diverse array of needs, and you find ways to motivate and engage them (Here’s hoping you aren’t smart enough to detect the irony in me having to argue you have a high degree of autonomy. Obviously, if you felt greater trust, I wouldn’t have had to include this paragraph at all.) I appreciate the challenge and skill involved in the work you do and applaud those (ten percent) of you who have dedicated your lives to teaching.

You have told me you believe that the No Child Left Behind Act has prompted some schools—especially low-performing ones—to teach to the test, rather than focus on the educational needs of students. Because of the pressure to boost test scores, NCLB has narrowed the curriculum, and important subjects like history, science, the arts, foreign languages, and physical education have been de-emphasized (which, apart from science, is fine by me since those subjects don’t impact our economic competiveness). And you are frustrated when teachers alone are blamed for educational failures that have roots in broken families, unsafe communities, misguided reforms, and underfunded schools systems. You rightfully believe that responsibility for educational quality should be shared by administrators, community, parents, and even students themselves (But since the Education Department can’t boss administrators, communities, parents, and students around as easily as you, deal with the scapegoating.).

The teachers I have met are not afraid of hard work, and few jobs today are harder (I’m guessing). Moreover, it’s gotten harder in recent years; the challenges kids bring into the classroom are greater and the expectations are higher. Not too long ago, it was acceptable for schools to have high dropout rates, and not all kids were expected to be proficient in every subject. In today’s economy, there is no acceptable dropout rate, and we rightly expect all children—English-language learners, students with disabilities, and children of poverty—to learn and succeed (even if our short-term “Race to the Top” funds only impact a tiny fraction of those students’ classrooms).

You and I are here to help America’s children (Well, I’m here to strengthen my resume, play pickup ball with O, and leverage this title into serious money going forward, but Harvard taught me you have to include this kind of sentence in a “letter of appreciation”.). We understand that the surest way to do that is to make sure that the 3.2 million teachers in America’s classrooms are the very best they can be. The quality of our education system can only be as good as the quality of our teaching force (my “legacy” insight).

So I want to work with you (well not directly, and after reading the comments, maybe not even indirectly) to change and improve federal law, to invest in teachers and strengthen the teaching profession. Together with you (well, with The Gates Foundation and the 3.2 million of you in mind), I want to develop a system of evaluation that draws on meaningful observations and input from your peers, as well as a sophisticated assessment that measures individual student growth, creativity, and critical thinking. States, with the help of teachers (fortunately, it’s always the state education officials in charge, God help us if it was “Teachers, with the help of their states”) , are now developing better assessments so you will have useful information to guide instruction and show the positive impact you are having on our children (or the negative impact many of you are having on your students).

Working together, we can transform teaching from the factory model designed over a century ago to one built for the information age (Catching my stride now! Almost like I’m channeling 2008 O.). We can build an accountability system based on data we trust (even if my department, your state education office, and the business community don’t trust you) and a standard that is honest—one that recognizes and rewards great teaching, gives new or struggling teachers the support they need to succeed, and deals fairly, efficiently, and compassionately (that’s gotta make union leaders feel better) with teachers who are simply not up to the job. With your input and leadership, we can restore the status of the teaching profession so more (or some) of America’s top college students choose to teach because no other job is more important or more fulfilling (so I’m told).

In the next decade, half of America’s teachers are likely to retire (some earlier than they had planned in part because of my department’s policies). What we do to recruit, train, and retain our new teachers will shape public education in this country for a generation. At the same time, how we recognize, honor, and show respect for our experienced educators will reaffirm teaching as a profession of nation builders and social leaders (crescendo time) dedicated to our highest ideals. As that work proceeds, I want you to know that I hear you, I value you, and I respect you (even if my actions suggest otherwise).

Osama bin Laden is Dead, Al Qaeda is Not

Posted on by
7

I just finished reading Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, considered by many the definitive “rise of Al Qaeda, 9/11 book”. It was an extremely ambitious project rooted in meticulous research.

Here’s what Patrick Beach said of Wright’s work: Even for Wright — a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine who’s long been regarded as a superhumanly tireless journalist — the book is a feat of terrific endurance. He has traveled for much of the past five years, conducted some 600 interviews, compiled a reference library of 150 or more books and inhaled tens of thousands of documents. The guy’s work ethic makes every other scribbler look like a punk. And every single fact, element or category — what Osama bin Laden has had to say about Saddam Hussein, for example — has been annotated and cross-referenced using Wright’s famously meticulous index card system.

The Looming Tower is brilliant on several levels, but maybe its greatest strength is Wright’s remarkable clarity. He always opts for the simplest form of expression, as a result, despite the foreignness of a lot of the content, I almost never had to re-read. Sometimes I chose to re-read a paragraph or two just to marvel at the incredible economy, simplicity, and accessibility of the narrative.

Almost always, whenever Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Central Asia, and/or the “War on Terrorism” comes up in conversation I’m amazed at two things: 1) how strong everyone’s opinions are how we should combat Al-Qaeda and 2) how little those same people know about Islam, Osama bin Laden, and Al Qaeda. As just one example, I would guess less than 10% of North Americans could correctly list the “five pillars of Islam“.

Since Al Qaeda hasn’t pulled off a 9/11-scale attack in the U.S. over the last nine plus years, and Osama bin Laden has been killed, the vast majority of U.S. citizens would say our post 9/11 response and current military commitments have been spot-on, but I’m not so sure the world is much more secure than in 2001 despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our trillions of dollars of military spending.

Reading one excellent book doesn’t make me an expert, but here are some of the most relevant post-bin Laden things I learned from The Looming Tower: 1) Arab governments’ torturing and killing of Islamic fundamentalists repeatedly led to increased Islamic fundamentalism. 2) Islamic fundamentalism is an ideology; consequently, it rests far more on ideas than on one or a few charismatic leaders. Our military, by itself, even with its special forces and drones, cannot defeat the ideology. 3A) Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda’s top officials always hoped the 9/11 attacks would draw the U.S. into a protracted conflict in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They have been successful in fomenting more violence. 3B) Osama bin Laden was not, and Al Qaeda’s top officials are not, afraid to die for their ideas. They embrace the idea of martyrdom. 4) Osama bin Laden’s death will no doubt damage Al Qaeda’s finances, but those losses could conceivably be offset by the organization’s ability to leverage his new status as a martyr to recruit new members. I disagree with the “experts” on television right now saying this is an Al Qaeda “deathblow”.

I am not even close to mourning bin Laden, but forgive me if I sit out the raucous public celebrations. It’s far too early to know whether this is a substantive turning point in creating a more peaceful, secure world for all the world’s people.