Education, The Best and the Brightest

"Education and Training: BUILDING The Best and the Brightest vs. ATTRACTING the Best and the Brightest" by v. johns, 8/30/10, 9:58 PM

One thing I want to to make clear is that while I support education, whole heartedly, and believe that it is the key to Florida’s future – to America’s future – I am, by no means, a proponent of elitist sentiments of education that have more to do with Ivory Tower egos than with genuine contribution to the American way of life. And it saddens me to see how education has become more of an instrument designed to acquire jobs and income, rather than of its original intent of producing a more enlightened, productive and civic-minded citizenry. Thus, I would hope that, at some point, with special regard to our higher education systems, as opposed to simply funneling and straining only “the best and the brightest” into “good jobs” or “cushy jobs,” perhaps we would instead focus the “education” portion of “education and training” on building minds, while making the “training” portion of the phrase “education and training” ever more realistically accessible and flexible to suit the needs of ordinary working Americans. This is already the case in many places, but there’s always room for improvement. Furthermore, how can all of this be achieved with regards to continuity of knowledge and skill? 

As of late, I can’t seem to get my mind off a book I ran into, while in college, that I regretfully failed to purchase when it was on the shelf. I don’t remember the title, but I remember that it listed and profiled colleges that allegedly took generally “average” students and transformed them into “A” students. And I’m beginning to wonder if colleges and other educational institutions are really serving their purpose – to educate – by going after those who, for all intents and purposes, are pretty much already educated and skilled by way of their inherited privilege or raw talent.

As far as I’m concerned, any college in this nation can ATTRACT the so-called “best and brightest.” But how many can boast of taking nearly ANY student and transforming them, via various learning systems, strategies and technologies, into the “best and brightest.” Not many. And while I respect such hallowed institutions as Harvard and Yale… MIT,.. could it be that in simply “attracting” the best and the brightest, rather than “building” the best and the brightest, from the roots on up, they are at best… cheating? Like it or not, the authors of the controversial book, “The Bell Curve,” were somewhat right in predicting the rise of an educated elite that would rule and control an overwhelmingly undereducated underclass. A nightmare finally come true, but with profound limitations, as seen in the current “jobless recovery” aftermath of the “Great Recession.” For all those concerned, even if marginally sustainable, is this REALLY the kind of nation you want? Are you even remotely aware of the bloody, revolutionary implications that such disparities present? 

With regard to higher education, in particular, there’s nothing wrong with keeping with our high-school to University traditions. I enjoyed my freshman year in college (even if I didn’t enjoy many other years after that). Nothing can compare to that first year of meeting new people daily, partying every week and constantly learning new things. However, now that I am an older adult in need of an education that I failed to acquire when I was younger, I find myself on the other side of the coin… Not young and bright, just starting out, but older, burned out, a bit disillusioned, starting over again, and often surrounded by kids in community college classes who are much smarter, perhaps, and much younger, certainly, who will be competing with this old man for a chance at landing the very same jobs.

So, what becomes of the 45-year old dishwasher with a rather meager income who, though he may actually enjoy his job, is suddenly faced with an overwhelming desire to do something else (Something in the medical field perhaps)? Without going bankrupt or too much into debt, how does he get educated and trained for a job in a field that requires significant personal and professional input to develop? What systems (support, learning technologies, etc.) are available to facilitate his success? I already KNOW the individual, personal, conservative, self-motivation answer to this question. What I want to know is the answer with regards to the overall interactive interface of the system itself. Interface and ease of use, mind you, is why Apple is such a successful company. Understand?

Since it is generally agreed upon that Florida is in need of a serious educational overhaul, I would hope that, starting with pre-school and continuing up, Florida would begin building a more well-defined and accessible educational system by establishing a civics-based education core with enhanced individual and institutional training capabilities. And while education and training go hand in hand, their roles should be somewhat separate, yet easily accessible from either end of the learning spectrum. Education should not only prepare us for the training needed to secure and manage our jobs, it should also prepare us for full societal participatory citizenship. Training, on the other hand, is -- or should be -- the specific refinement and expansion of that core common civic knowledge into actual personal, professional and public productivity.

As I mentioned before, in my brief series on Florida’s anti-intellectual environment (Labels: Education and Culture), in addition to political tom foolery, various cultural attitudes towards education and learning have also helped to cripple education’s role in bettering our lives and MUST change. Even people who are IN school seem to regard it largely as as joke, a burden or simply a means to an end (a job). There’s no sense of duty to one’s society to learn more and apply it to making our nation and world a better place to live. On the other hand, I’ve seen some foreign students, here on visas, with a clear and definite urgency to learn all they can so that they can take what they know back to their own home countries and help build sorely needed infrastructure and systems. While our kids look forward to making it big and buying more toys, kids from other, less developed countries, here on a mission to learn, seem to look forward to making their own countries better places to live.   

In the meantime, I have not only observed many poor people’s seemingly general disdain of education and training, I’ve also witnessed the so-called “best and brightest” among us drift along in frightening contentment that THEY are particularly special while others just, inherently, flop and fail. Not very bright. Furthermore, I’ve also witnessed those who flop and fail make “lifestyles” of their condition. At the heart of all this, an anti-intellectual climate, stateside and nationwide, leftover from both Bushes, that culturally, and personally, punishes those who aspire farther, further and greater, civically, personally and financially (Minorities especially). So, while I despise the arrogance of the powerful and the privileged, I severely deplore the attitudes of those of us, here on the bottom, that feed into the cycle of abuse that pits the powerful against the poor… and the poor against themselves. The poor, nowadays, being anyone who makes under $250,000 per year.

In our dumbed-down society, one needs only to look at where we are to witness what happens when education is either not taken seriously or is used to position the privileged and the powerful above the middle class and the poor. And though we’ve been here before, via the Great Depression, this time is different. Our moral core is all but gone. Sadly, the lessons learned from all this may only be short term. Furthermore, there are only so many more times in our ever unfolding history that America may be able to absorb and shake off the kind of morality-deficit induced economic rot and decay that has befallen our nation as of late. Our moral resolve has faltered to the point of Americans being against themselves amid growing corporate and political control. The greed, selfishness and self-hate that permeates our national character, and seems to be magnified here in South Florida, almost ensures that the point where now find ourselves -- a nation paralyzed economically, socially, politically and morally -- will almost certainly be revisited again.

I have no faith whatsoever in most of our political leaders. Our educational leaders, on the other hand, through the life-altering and transformative power of the institutions they command, may very well be our last great hope against permanent internal destruction. IF they can find the will to stand on a united front against the tyranny of the anti-intellectual powers that be. For us they must fight. “Affirmative ACCESS” is key…Access to the knowledge types needed to become a better citizen and access to the training systems needed to secure and manage our jobs and public duties. And most, certainly, access to highly-efficient public mass transit. Thus, in considering our educational needs, in the state of Florida, I want citizens, business and lawmakers alike to take one good look at our society, as it is now, and as they imagine where they would like it to go, to ponder this a few basic questions: What kind of people are we producing in our society? The same old people who got us where we are now? Or are we producing the kind of people, of good quality and character, who will take our state and nation into the future we believe we deserve?

It is my fear that, because of education’s high price tag and overall distorted role in our lives, the former may well be the case…