Preserving Privilege

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According to the WaPo, several private schools in the D.C. area, including Sidwell Friends, are scrapping Advanced Placement (AP) classes.

The schools issued a statement explaining:

“Collectively, we believe a curriculum oriented toward collaborative, experiential and interdisciplinary learning will not only better prepare our students for college and their professional futures, but also result in more engaging programs for both students and faculty,” the schools said. “We expect this approach will appeal to students’ innate curiosity, increase their motivation and fuel their love of learning.”

There’s little educational value in the Advanced Placement program. It’s primary purpose is to give privileged kids a leg up on their peers.

The scrapping of AP classes is a smart move, but lets not kids ourselves, Sidwell Friends and company made this move not just to appeal to students’ innate curiosity, increase their motivation, and fuel their love of learning. No doubt they expect the new and improved curricula to do an even better job of preserving their students’ privilege. That’s the lifeblood of those schools.

The Truth About the Ultra Rich

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They’re very different one from another. Too often, people paint them with a broad brush.

The Buffets, Gates, Bloombergs, Allens are intent on contributing to the common good. Big time. In the case of the Gates Foundation, they seek to enhance global healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology.

Then there’s the oil billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch. Read what motivates them, in “How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country“.

“The Kochs’ opposition to transit spending stems from their longstanding free-market, libertarian philosophy. It also dovetails with their financial interests, which benefit from automobiles and highways.

One of the mainstay companies of Koch Industries, the Kochs’ conglomerate, is a major producer of gasoline and asphalt, and also makes seatbelts, tires and other automotive parts. Even as Americans for Prosperity opposes public investment in transit, it supports spending tax money on highways and roads.

‘Stopping higher taxes is their rallying cry,’ said Ashley Robbins, a researcher at Virginia Tech who follows transportation funding. ‘But at the end of the day, fuel consumption helps them.'”

The Koch brothers oppose whatever slows their fortune from growing ever larger. Things like low income people gaining mobility and conserving natural resources.

David Koch’s networth is between $50 and $60 billion. How much is enough? Based on his actions, no amount.

Twice The Fun, Half the Money

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Two words. University housing. Few travelers know that most universities have housing options for any visitors looking to save serious money on nearby hotels. Many times the options range from inexpensive minimalist dorm rooms with shared bathrooms to modestly priced hotel-like rooms with private bathrooms.

The Good Wife and I just spent three days living in a small, but very clean and comfortable hotel-like room on the campus of The University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The centrally located hotel is normally filled with conference participants, job candidates, and visiting faculty. The first night we watched our President pal around with the world’s worst dictator on a 42″ plasma t.v. and throughout our stay we luxuriated in the large commercial kitchen that came complete with a giant fridge/freezer; precise tubs and instructions for labeling our food; free fruit, tea, and coffee; newspapers; and an expresso maker complete with two types of beans waiting to be grinded.

And don’t forget U.S. readers, everything north of the border is currently 24% off, so our three nights cost $302. See how far that will get you in downtown Vancouver.

It gets better. Large university campuses like UBC, go Thunderbirds, have tons to recommend them, especially in the summer, when there’s a tiny fraction of the normal number of people. On our first campus walk, we met a man who befriended us and told us we had to visit the Rose Garden because “the roses knew you were coming, so they’re blooming” and also the Museum of Anthropology which has the world’s largest collection of Pacific Northwest indigenous art.

We dug the roses and the MOA, but the cheap vegetarian restaurants on campus rocked too. And the running was great, the trail that looped the campus, the tartan track, the coastline trail. Next time we’ll take our bicycles because West Vancouver’s ubiquitous bike lanes we’re calling us.

Best of all though was the swimming. After arriving, we learned a new state of the art aquatic center had recently opened in the middle of campus. BEST pool ever. Tons of natural light, beautiful materials, white, clean, spacious—the hot tub is designed for 34. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Entrance to heaven, $5. Bring a quarter or a loonie for a small or large locker and your own towel, shampoo, and soap.

The pool was set up for long course. I could’ve swam, hot tubbed, and steam roomed all day. The only mistake I made was diving off the 3 meter board. Trying to impress the Gal Pal was not worth tweaking my shoulder.

Speaking of swimming, the nearby 137 meter long Kitsilano pool, or Kits pool if you’re cool, was what inspired our trip to West Vancouver. We were mesmerized by the pictures. Not sure it was real, we knew we had to experience it ourselves. It’s described as the third sexiest pool in the world, but that was before The Good Wife graced it with her presence. It was hard to get her out of the water. We had perfect timing too, decent weather, a week after $3.3m in improvements, but a week or two before the summer surge.

And if you’re fortunate enough to visit Vancouver, don’t miss the Granville Island Public Market for some nice art and excellent food. Speaking of food, the first night we ate at Lido, one of the Richmond restaurants featured in the previously highlighted NYT article. We we’re the only non-Asians for as far as the eye could see, super cool. The bok choy, green beans, chicken, and white super sticky rice were off the charts. Heads up—they only take cash and get Canadian money in advance because they don’t want to be bothered with silly currency adjustments.

The best part of this trip, besides reconnecting with my best friend, was mixing with locals the whole time. Downtown we would’ve been two of thousands of tourists. On campus, in coffee houses, at Kits Beach, everywhere we went, we were surrounded by ordinary Canadians, largely Chinese-Canadians, living their daily lives. As travelers, that’s how we’ve always rolled.

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UBC’s New Aquatic Center

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Kits Pool

 

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Now The Sexiest Pool En Todo El Mundo

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Post coastline to downtown run and leisurely swim with far fewer flip turns than normal.

Saturday Assorted Links

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1. If you’re like me, it takes the World Cup to generate much interest in football. And if like me, your country didn’t qualify, you’re in search of a team. I present to you a cogent argument for Peru or La Blanquirroja.

2. Can you guess the language that is eating the world?

3. The beginning of the end for college admission tests?

“Starting this fall, Chicago will invite applicants to send a two-minute video ‘introduction.’ That idea echoes Goucher College’s recent embrace of video as a means of connecting with teenagers who grew up filming themselves with smartphones.”

4. I am often saddened by how casually acquaintances and friends of mine talk despairingly about the homeless. How best to help troubled men and women without homes raises more questions than answers. Progress is slow at best. In the meantime, there is something we can do for however long it takes to make genuine progress. We can acknowledge homeless men’s and women’s human dignity by treating them kindly. More specifically, we can take the lead from this African American man in challenging people’s anti-homeless cruelty.

5. Love never forgets.

6. This saddens me. Greatly. Of course the same could be written about Eldrick Tiger Woods and Ronaldo (no relation, despite the physical similarities) Byrnes.

And In Other News

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You know how people say, “I’m between jobs”, well, I’m between vacations. Yesterday I returned from my Tour de France preparations held in an undisclosed location in a state that starts with the letter “O”. 346 miles with lots of climbing. Would’ve been more if not for winter conditions yesterday. Now I’m just waiting for the phone call from a team still looking for someone who can reach the podium in Paris.

And in thirty minutes the Good Wife and I are off to an undisclosed location in a country that starts with the letter “C”. Here’s hoping they let us in given our President’s sad and sick bluster of recent days.

Some miscellaneous thoughts from the road:

• It’s amazing that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are walking the earth at the same time.

• To Dean who wrote thoughtfully about how to prep high schoolers for college. Initial thought. We need to reframe the question to how do we as elementary, middle school, high school teachers and egghead professors prepare students for life, not just the next stage of educational credentialing. Related thought. In a recent NYT essay about suicide the author said young people are way more anxious because they know way more is riding on their academic success or lack thereof. The author made it sound like young people’s fragile mental health is happening in a vacuum, but young people are simply responding to the cues set by their teachers, coaches, and most especially parents. We have to help young people worry less while preparing them for life.

• This week, if I eat like last week, I will gain about 15 lbs.

• Last week, during a mid-ride break, a 75 year old man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat was helping at a food stop. I asked if he was happy with Trump. To which he replied, “Yes! He has exceeded my expectations. I was worried he was just a talker.” I don’t interact very regularly with real live Trumpeters.

• I wonder, what would people’s attitudes be towards the summit with NKorea if they had any inkling of how evil the Kim regime is?

• In a few hours, the Gal Pal and I will be gaining weight here. Don’t hate me because you ain’t me.

• Back Friday. Peace.

 

 

From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement

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Truly excellent and important reframing from Shawn Ginwright.

“While trauma informed care offers an important lens to support young people who have been harmed and emotionally injured, it also has its limitations. I first became aware of the limitations of the term “trauma informed care” during a healing circle I was leading with a group of African American young men. All of them had experienced some form of trauma ranging from sexual abuse, violence, homelessness, abandonment or all of the above. During one of our sessions, I explained the impact of stress and trauma on brain development and how trauma can influence emotional health. As I was explaining, one of the young men in the group named Marcus abruptly stopped me and said, “I am more than what happened to me, I’m not just my trauma”. I was puzzled at first, but it didn’t take me long to really contemplate what he was saying.

The term “trauma informed care” didn’t encompass the totality of his experience and focused only on his harm, injury and trauma. For Marcus, the term “trauma informed care” was akin to saying, you are the worst thing that ever happened to you. For me, I realized the term slipped into the murky water of deficit based, rather than asset driven strategies to support young people who have been harmed.”

Sociology > psychology.

Is Racism Curable?

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What do we do with the Roseanne Barrs, Michael Richards, Donald Sterlings of the world? The race to condemn them and the impulse to ostracize them is understandable, but we shouldn’t expect either of those responses to help racists overcome racism.

Another way of asking the question is how do we create less racist communities? More specifically, can the obviously racist—the Roseanne Barrs, the Michael Richards, the Donald Sterlings of the world—be rehabilitated? Can they learn to tolerate cultural diversity, let alone appreciate, value, embrace it?

The educator in me believes so. An integral part of anti-racism work is found three-fourths of the way through yesterday’s New York Times essay, “Sex and Gender on the Christian Campus”.

Molly Worten explains that an increasing number of evangelical Christian college students are beginning to question their conservative parents’ and professors’ theological and political assumptions. For example, Ashley Brimmage at Biola University. Worten writes:

“Ms. Brimmage is not a typical Biola student, but she is not unusual either. There is a small but increasingly vocal progressive community on campus, including L.G.B.T. organizations. When Biola applied for an exemption from the Obama administration’s interpretation of Title IX in 2016, students protested.

I asked Ms. Brimmage how she came to her views on gender and racial justice. Did she encounter a new theological argument in a book or a class? ‘The biggest answer is relationships with others, not working through these things on paper,’ she said. Female mentors and friendships with gay and nonwhite students compelled her to revise her theology (almost half of Biola’s students are now nonwhite or international).

Ashley’s “biggest answer” jives with my experience of learning to embrace cultural pluralism and with my helping young adults learn to interact smartly and sensitively with diverse people. It’s about close, interpersonal relationships with people different than oneself. Only then do negative preconceived notions that are a byproduct of implicit biases begin fading away.

Yes, let’s take away racists’ public platforms which are privileges—whether television shows, comedy club gigs, or professional sports teams—but let’s not completely ostracize them; instead, let’s surround them with diverse people whose life stories are our best hope to begin changing their hearts and expanding their minds.

Friday Assorted Links

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1. How Children’s Socioeconomic Differences Play Out Over Summer Break.

2. Moderation in everything, right? Sadly, wrong.

3. The Birth of the New American Aristocracy. Supe long. I’m only half way through. One provocative stat and important insight after another. Note how the author is preserving his family’s privilege in how he and his wife are aiding their high school daughter’s college search. I’m a 5G-er, how ’bout you?

4. Why do so many parents intervene shamelessly in their children’s professional lives?

Sad that this pgraph had to be written. Does the author’s use of “mom” suggest they’re the primary perps?

“If you’re unlucky enough to be the child of parents who are incorrigible when it comes to intervening in your professional life, the most effective approach might be to limit how much information you give them. If you keep things vague (or, with some parents, relentlessly positive), they’ll have less to opine on and fewer opportunities to interfere. But if the worst does happen and your parent contacts your employer, the best thing you can do is make clear that you had nothing to do with it and that you recognize how inappropriate it is. For example: ‘I’m mortified that my mom emailed you! She means well, but of course she shouldn’t be involved in this conversation. Please don’t feel you need to respond to her, and I’ll ensure it doesn’t happen again.'”

5. Bonus vid that I find strangely addictive. Whatever that says about me, it can’t be good.