The on-line description of Mount Rainier Ranger Margaret Anderson’s memorial service was moving. As was the on-line retelling of Southern California surf-tech pioneer Sean Collins‘s recent memorial service.
Pictures of Anderson’s memorial are here. And here are more from Collins’s service.
One regimented, formal, set in a university auditorium, steeped in tradition. The other, free-flowing, informal, set in the ocean.
Notably different, yet equally beautiful and powerful celebrations of life.
Turns out adolescent anger is contagious.
Mary Daily in the January 2012 issue of the UCLA Magazine summarizes Psychiatry Professor Andrew Fuligni’s and colleagues new research on adolescent development and family relationships.
A study that involved 578 ninth-graders from three ethnically diverse LA public high schools (redundant phrase) showed that adolescents had more arguments with parents or other family members on days when they also had conflicts with their peers, and vice versa. The participants completed a questionnaire at school and kept a diary for 14 days. The daily family-peer link was the same across ethnicities.
In Fuligni’s own words, “Adolescents interactions in the home and with peers shape each other on a daily basis, at least in part, through emotional distress.”
He adds, “Adolescents tend to respond with more extreme and negative emotions than do preadolescents or adults, probably because it’s the time in their lives when they are experiencing multiple transitions that might be stressful—puberty, dating, and changing schools as examples.”
Therefore, do everything possible to minimize family conflict in the interest of improved peer relations, and don’t take every argument personally, instead try to find out if things might have gone sideways with a friend or friends at school.
Sorry if you were wanting to ease into the weekend with a new girl scout cookie review.
In a chapter titled “Economics Confronts the Earth,” Juliet Schor, the author of True Wealth, writes about a group of economists, natural scientists, engineers, systems dynamic researchers, and other who came together twenty-five years ago around the view that ecosystems should be at the core of economic analysis.
“They were especially interested in what conventional economics wasn’t measuring or studying,” Schor explains. “These dissenters recognized a fundamental point about how our system has been operating. If the market economy gets large, and nature remains external to it, threats to basic ecosystem functioning will arise.” “Ecological economics,” she notes, “has mostly been ignored by the mainstream.”
And she adds, “Environmental economics has also been closely intertwined with energy economics, which in turn has ties to energy companies and interests. And in the last few decades, special interests acting against environmental protection, often from the energy sector, have enlisted economics to water down regulations and forestall action.”
Put most simply, mainstream economists, by ignoring ecosystems, underestimate the true costs of production and consumption. Similarly, we grossly underestimate the true costs of war by slighting the devastation inflicted both upon civilians in the war zone and upon our surviving soldiers and their families following their return from combat. This MIT-based “The Human Cost of the War” website touches upon unaccounted for domestic costs, but is an especially good place to start to learn about the war’s devastating impact on Iraqis.
When economists total up the costs of the Iraqi war, they calculate the costs of the planes, artillery, food, energy, equipment, training, salaries, and Veteran Administration hospital costs. But they don’t factor in a litany of qualitative, post traumatic stress-related costs including substance abuse, depression, conflict-filled marriages, separated families, violent crimes including murder, and suicides.
More specifically, they don’t factor in Benjamin Colton Barnes and vets like him who can’t shake the violence of their war experience. They don’t factor in the loss of Margaret Anderson, the Mount Rainier park ranger that Barnes recently shot to death before fleeing and dying himself. They don’t factor in what Eric Anderson’s life is like, Margaret’s husband, also a Rainier ranger. And they don’t factor in what Eric Anderson’s 1 and 3 year old daughters lives are like now without their mother.
Just as many special interests that don’t want environmental economists to highlight economic costs to ecosystems, many others don’t want a full accounting of war’s costs. The tragedy of this failed accounting is aptly described on the MIT “The True Cost of War” website—”. . . if there is no accountability for the human toll of war, the urge to deploy military assets will remain powerful.”
Sundays are glorious rest days. The week’s physical activity deposits are in the bank. It’s just me, myself, and my iPad in bed. Surfing aimlessly, wasting time because I can.
Craigslist. Seattle. Olympia. Jobs. Managing Editor. I could do that. Where’s it written I have to die an egghead professor? Check it out:
Leading health related website is currently searching for a Managing Editor to join our company.The Managing Editor is responsible for quality control, editorial consideration, and publication of all written content published to our website, ensuring content accords to website mission and vision.
The Managing Editor’s duties are as follows:
-Manage all aspects of written content editing and publication.
-Make editorial consideration to website content, ensuring all content accords to website mission and vision
-Work in conjunction with Content Marketing Coordinator on various content related projects
-Develop ideas for user generated, pop-culture, and traditional content
-Manage and coordinate with writers on various projects
-Work with programming team and managing editor to design improvements to design of content pages
-Manage other related duties as assignedThe successful candidate will have some combination of experience in communications, content management, literature, journalism, and creative writing. We are looking for someone who is self-motivated, prioritizes effectively, communicates well via written and verbal mediums, thinks strategically, yet can focus intently on day-to-day details, feels confident in ability to learn the ins and outs of various content management systems, and works well in a collaborative, team environment.Required Qualifications:
Bachelors or Master’s degree in communications or social science related fields preferred
-Interest in mental health and psychology
-1 – 2 years of relevant experience.
-Strong background in computers and ability to learn new technology quickly
-Able to handle a variety of projects simultaneously and prioritize effectively
-Communicate effectively via email and in collaborative meeting environmentsThis is a full-time, 40-hour per week position. Pay starts at $15 per hour, with opportunity for increased wages. Interested applicants please reply to the anonymous email and please be sure to include your cover letter and resume as word docs.
I’m not sure what’s more frightening, the fact that they require a Bachelors or Masters, experience, and pay $15 an hour with no medical benefits, or the possibility they may get qualified candidates applying for the job.
Do the math. $2,400 a month before taxes, so at most $2k take home. Without medical benefits especially, that is not a “livable wage”. What’s the cheapest, catastrophic private medical insurance cost a month? How much to insure and maintain a beater car? Rent an apartment? Travel on an occasional weekend? Save for large, unplanned future expenses? Walk or bike to work, share an apartment, live really simply, basically keep living like a college student indefinitely, then it’s probably doable.
This is a mean and nasty job description that speaks volumes about the new economic reality.
College administrators, the people running for President in 2012, and the sitting president won’t tell you the truth—that a college diploma does not guarantee a job that pays a livable wage. Not even close. That is the new economic reality.
In the U.S., in the 20th century, most adults expected their children to live a more comfortable and secure life than themselves. In the first decade of the 21st, anxiety has replaced hope and most parents are deeply worried about whether their children will achieve economic independence even if they complete internships, graduate college, and outcompete others for the title Managing Editor of a “leading health-related website”.
Count me among them.
And that’s no small feat because I confess, after thirty years in the game, I’m too cynical about the potential of educators to reform schooling in the U.S.
Tony Smith, a 44 year-old former offensive lineman for the Cal Bears, and current Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District, gives me hope. Never mind that parents in the district are trying to recall five board members for supporting Smith’s proposals for improving Oakland’s schools.
If you need an infusion of hope, take eleven minutes to watch the interview with Smith embedded in this PBS story. I like what Smith says and how he says it. Money quote, “You can’t just transform a single institution and expect to change all the (negative educational) outcomes.”
In essence, Smith is saying the dropout, or “pushout” rate, is not the fault of just the schools; consequently, reversing it will require the help of the County Health Department, Housing Authority, and lots of other groups and people in the community.
We have a choice. We can continue to think simply and single-mindedly about the dropout problem and blame teachers exclusively, or as Smith suggests, we can reframe the problem in terms of community development. Smith’s approach emphasizes school-community partnerships so that students begin developing the necessary skills to succeed at specific jobs in the region.
Liberals like me who are skeptical of meritocratic rhetoric will support Smith. Conservatives who lambasted Hillary Clinton’s book “It Takes a Village” will push back, hence the effort to recall the board members.
A note of concern. Eleven minutes isn’t nearly long enough to get much of a feel for Oakland’s schools, but I dislike when the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) religion sidelines the humanities and schooling is thought of strictly in utilitarian, preparation for work ways. Smith alludes to some female students becoming passionate about math and science work. Great, but what about the potential of the humanities and arts to light similar fires in students? Curriculum development shouldn’t be a zero-sum game.
The thing that most intrigues me about Smith is his use of language. It matters because ideas matter. “Pushout” versus “dropout” and “opportunity gap” versus “achievement gap”. Here’s hoping the Oakland parents chill and give Smith more than the typical three years to implement his ideas and see if they Bear fruit.
A friend of mine was irked because his partner didn’t want to send out Christmas cards this year. Nothing to do with the expense, the time, anything, turns out she just didn’t feel like it. “We didn’t deserve to receive any,” he reflected.
A year off is no big deal, but this understandable tension illustrates a foundational idea that explains why close friendships are elusive—they depend upon reciprocity.
Zuckerberg has zucked up our understanding of terms like “acquaintance,” “friend,” and “close friend”. If you’re like most people, you have many acquaintances, maybe a handful or two or three of friends, and very few close friends. This Daily Mail article says most people have two close friends, down from three 25 years ago. I’ve seen similar U.S.-based research numbers. What distinguishes friends from acquaintances and close friends from mere friends?
Friends spend more time together than acquaintances. Acquaintances are people we enjoy when we occasionally end up at the same place at the same time. A large proportion of Facebook “friends” are acquaintances. With an acquaintance, you can go weeks or months without any face-to-face contact. You don’t really know what makes them tick and they’re clueless as to your inner life. In contrast, friends do things together more frequently—whether writing back and forth, talking, helping one another, working out together, eating, traveling, etc. Time together gives friends a feel for each other’s daily activities, hopes, fears, and thoughts more generally.
What distinguishes especially close friendships is both people initiate a similar amount. Communication; invitations to do things; and the degree of honesty, transparency, and trust are balanced. There’s a natural, shared reciprocity. That sounds more simplistic than it is. In actuality, no friendship is ever perfectly balanced. Close friends can weather a slight imbalance (10-15%?) at any given time, but more than that and closeness is inevitably sacrificed.
How to apply these ideas? Most people would trade several acquaintances for a friend and a handful of friends for one especially close one. Quality trumps quantity. All of us have friends we wish we were closer to, but they don’t initiate as much as we’d like. This is why life for middle schoolers is so filled with drama, the social imbalances wreak havoc. When it comes to unrequited friendship, most middle schoolers are not self-confident or secure enough to say, “Your loss.” We never completely escape the complexities prompted by social imbalances.
Think about your social constellation. Who are your acquaintances, friends, and close friends? Odds are you have acquaintances or friends who you wish would initiate more. I shortchange my long-distance friends because I’m allergic to telephones. I shortchange local friends because I’m similarly allergic to cell phones which means, like a modern day Rudolph, I can’t join in all the texting fun. More important than telephone calls and texts is a willingness to be vulnerable enough to allow friendships to deepen.
Consider using the changing of the calendar to tell a friend or two through your words and/or actions that you’d like to spend more time with them. If they don’t initiate any more than normal for whatever reason, don’t push it or dwell on it, life’s too short, close friendship can’t be forced. If need be, accept the limits of that particular friendship and invest your time and energy in another friend who may be waiting for an invitation to spend more time together and to be more vulnerable.
Here’s hoping your 2012 is filled with meaningful friendships.
Of related interest, here’s a 2008 post on how the limits of time force friendship making trade-offs.
Divide oldsters in the U.S. into three parts—1) those who haven’t saved nearly enough money to stop working; 2) those with modest savings who with social security can retire if they live super simply; and 3) those with sufficient savings to stop working and move anywhere they’d like.
Some of the “sufficient savers”, once they stop working, follow “experts'” advice and head south where it’s warm and sunny. I grew up in SoCal and as these pictures from a recent visit to CentralCal attest, I dig nice weather as much as the next guy.
Here’s the problem with that advice—financial “experts” don’t factor social capital into their retirement equations. Given what we’re learning about happiness or “subjective well-being”, it makes no sense to sever longstanding friendships in the interest of better weather.
The counter argument—we’ll make new friends, especially with spare time—doesn’t factor two important things into consideration. Close friendship stems from personal history, a treasure trove of shared experiences over decades, memories and stories that are retold (and embellished) and thereby relived. It’s tough to build up meaningful deposits in those memory banks late in life. Another cost of moving to a Sun Belt retirement community is the loss of mix-aged life and friendships and the vitality that provides.
Some well-to-do “Snow Birds” split the difference and divide their time between two homes. The GalPal and I may someday try out snow birding lite, renting a Golden State condo for a few months in the dead of winter.
However, I can’t see myself relocating altogether. Today I ran around Capital Lake with a close friend who I’ve been running with for 13 years. We’ve logged over ten thousand miles fixing our wives’ and the worlds’ problems. Ran past Sue who cleans my teeth. I thought I might see her at Christmas eve service, but she must have attended a different one. A few minutes later we passed Denny, who always has a smile and Seattle Marathon entry for me. We can’t go to the Farmers Market without seeing someone we know. After moving around most of my life, it’s nice being rooted. To take the social capital we enjoy for granted would be a mistake.
This National Public Radio story by Veronica Devore pains me:
Tyra Banks, rappers Nicki Minaj and Wiz Khalifa plus many other celebrities are behind an initiative from the Get Schooled Foundation to increase attendance in American high schools. Students and parents can sign up for the twice-weekly wake up calls that, in combination with school-wide attendance challenges and activities rolled out in 90 schools across the nation, encourage teens to get up and get to school.
Marie Groark, Executive Director of the Get Schooled Foundation calls attendance a “silent epidemic” that often goes unaddressed in favor of encouraging students to get to college or make something of themselves. When they’re only focused on the long view, she says, parents and students don’t think about the importance of just being in school every single day.
The student response to the robocalls has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Groark. The largest attendance gains from the program have come in the ninth grade, a crucial time for students to build good attendance habits and get integrated into the school culture.
“Ideally every parent in America would be reinforcing how important it is to go to school every day, but that’s just not happening,” Groark says. “We could sit around and blame the parents, or we could step in and think of creative ways to close the gap. At the end of the day, we can’t have another generation graduate at 67 percent – our kids and our country can’t afford it.”
This initiative is addressing what almost any high school teacher would tell you is one of the more frustrating aspects of their work. The phrase “silent epidemic” is excellent, but what does it say about our culture that many adolescents are motivated more by an automated celebrity voicemail than by living, breathing parents and guardians.
Keep making the calls as long as they’re making a positive difference, but using celebrities as parent surrogates or complaining about how little parents are doing to encourage academic achievement are not our only options. What about digging deeper and exploring why so many students don’t attend school regularly? Are students opting out because of lifeless curricula; or because of dated, boring teaching methods; or because there are few supports to help them catch up to the peers they’ve fallen behind; or some combination of factors?
Typically, high achieving students follow the footsteps of their parent(s), guardian(s), and older siblings who have modeled the benefits of doing well in school. The common thread is they don’t want to let down loving, caring adults in their lives, most often their parents. Celebrity calls are a superficial, stop-gap measure that don’t do anything to reverse the anti-intellectualism that contributes to students slighting school. Until we update curricula and teaching methods, provide more tutoring and related supports to low achieving students, and hold parents accountable for the silent epidemic, too many desk chairs will remain empty.
Dear Readers,
I enjoyed sharing a lot of what I learned in 2011 with you. Here were the most popular posts from the year:
2) Is On-line Learning a Good or Bad Thing?
3) The Public School Budget Crisis and the Dilemma of Professional Development
4) 2011 RAMROP—Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Piece
5) The Life Changing iPhone 4S
7) Home Schooling is Hip. . . and Selfish
I appreciate your reading, subscribing, and forwarding posts to others. A special thanks to those who took the time to comment during the year. Recent new subscribers, a kind comment from a former student, a thoughtful email from my mom, and support from a friend at a holiday party have me ready to roll in the new year. Seemingly small gestures add up.
I’ll continue trying to provide meaningful content. I could use your help in two ways—by jumping in the water sometime this year and agreeing or disagreeing with me about something and by sending questions and/or links of things you’d like me to write about.
In appreciation,
Ron
I’ve been subjecting my unlucky, long-suffering wife to a string of intense foreign flicks. Most recently, In a Better World, which won the Oscar for the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film. One reviewer explains that “the film examines the different ways people react to injustice, and looks at how what counts as ‘revenge’, as opposed to ‘justice’, is a matter of perception.” Watch it and let me know what you think.
How do you react to injustice? What, if anything, do you do when you see an adult hit a child in public? What, if anything, do you do when you learn someone is a victim of domestic abuse? What, if anything do you when your tax dollars make it possible for drones to kill bad guys and innocent civilians anonymously from the sky?
I know what you do when an evil person, family, or cadre in Zimbabwe or North Korea hits, impoverishes, and imprisons on a national scale. Nothing. Most people cope with the atrocities of those regimes by not paying attention to them. If we don’t even know where Zimbabwe and North Korea are, who Kim Jong-un and Robert Mugabe are, or what Zimbabweans’ and North Koreans’ lives are like, it’s so much easier to just make fun of how backward the countries are.
On the other hand, if we’re better than our popular culture, and press pause long enough to learn what life is like for fellow humans who were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s impossible to watch the North Korean succession without getting sick to your stomach.
The North Korean tragedy is nearly impossible to grasp, but here’s an imperfect analogy. If your politics are anything like mine, after John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate during the 2008 U.S. presidential election, you had a few “Oh shit, there’s a possibility of an ill-informed, right wing dilettante becoming president” moments. Forget President Sarah Palin. Instead imagine if the vote was canceled and Jenna Bush was appointed President. Jenna, not Barbara because she revealed a greater capacity for cruelty. One of Jong-un’s alleged childhood pastimes was torturing small animals.
I miss Christopher Hitchens’ writing. This incredibly vacuous New Yorker essay on North Korea’s Kim Jong-il’s funeral ceremony/performance begs a question—who will fill his shoes? Without Hitchens’ passionate, populist voice the Kim Jong-un succession has even more of a feel of inevitability.
I get it, the immediacy of the evil in North Korea pales in comparison to the violence in our own neighborhoods and communities, but the scale of human suffering deserves more of our attention. We can and should be committed to a more peaceful and just 2012 both in our own communities and on the Korean Peninsula.
Pressing Pause 