Thank you for this defense of a well-rounded education. I'm a pharmacist, which means I had to study the "hard" sciences (chemistry, biology, etc.) However, my bachelor's degree is in sociology, a "soft" science. I can't begin to tell you how that set me apart from a lot of my classmates and colleagues, mostly in the ability to empathize with my patients.
Having a well-rounded education allows a person to be able to consider different approaches and different factors in their careers. It allows for a more holistic approach. It helps to decide if one SHOULD do something, rather than just if one can. That last bit seems rather important these days...
Thank you, thank you, well said! I could not agree more.
What the red states have done, are doing, is a travesty and will result in even greater numbers of people who never learn to think deeply, to continue their education through their own independent reading, know how to separate fact-based sources from agenda-selling charlatans - a nation of dumbed-down, led-by-the-nose, easily manipulated fools.
After my own school experience - the worst homework procrastinator, never challenged, bored to death, sailed through on smarts alone (6th grade book report on Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge - bless my excellent parents who belonged to classics book clubs - teacher called me a liar for claiming to have read Hardy, ha!), cut 80 days Senior year & only made it thru 2 years of college bec I never learned the DISCIPLINE of DOING HOMEWORK. The lack of a degree seriously limited my job options later in life (and by the time I might have been able to go back to finish, I was a single mom of 3 with a severely ill child; life required me to spend my available time as a warrior on his behalf).
I made damned sure my 3 went to a high school that focussed on teaching critical thinking above all, emphasized original source materials, ensured a broad and deep liberal arts foundation. I encouraged all 3 to pursue a foundation in liberal arts as undergrads - imo, specializing, a deep focus on one subject, is for grad school. (All a BA/BS tells an employer is that you know how to do at least some homework and learn; MA's have become what BAs/BSs used to be.)
[All 3 bright, creative, learned to question, learned how to learn, how to think, all deeply creative. The results were...mixed, as both of my sons struggled with Serious Mental Illness that began to present in high school. My oldest, treatment-resistant schizophrenia, kept him from both college & work, died at 31. But before that - and even during 16 dark years of SMI & countless hospitalizations - a brain that crackled with deep thinking. My youngest... a national award-winning student poet, emerged with Bipolar 1, didn't make it past 21. Won so many awards - Harvard Book Prize, writing, history, photography, social justice - his high school had to give. But my surviving daughter? Also all the awards, top grades, graduated Columbia University magna cum laude w/ Senior Thesis Honors as an English Lit major, followed by full-tuition scholarship to Juilliard Drama (accepted by Yale Drama, too). It wasn't until both of her bros died 9 mos apart - 10, 11@ years ago - that her own SMI began to emerge... Life is many things, but fair is absolutely not one.]
Learning to be a critical thinker and independent life-long learner is everything. No matter where you live, don't let them deny you that, don't let them deny your children. Fight back, find a way. The result is not only a better, kinder country but a better, richer life. As you so aptly state - Do your homework! (I, for one, sure wish we got do-overs... Apologies for the overly long - and far too personal - comment.)
First of all, before we get to the rest of it: Hardy in 6th grade! Congrats. It took me until 48th grade to crack open one of his. As for your story, wow. I can't even imagine the heartache. So sorry for your losses. I know how traumatic mental illness can be, both as a witness and (much less severe) sufferer. Thank you for sharing. You're a good mom.
Respect and a humble bow, your writing makes my days better. I am...a bit speechless that you not only read but responded to my comment. Honored.
Re Hardy, I do know this - surround a child with great books, teach them to read, and they will read them. Whenever my kids had a new teacher, I only cared about two things: Did they have a sense of humor? Did they focus on reading?
My dad studied engineering at Virginia Tech on the GI bill after Korea - the GI Bill changed the lives of a generation - a wife & 2 babies, a 3rd born while he did 4 years in 3 and worked as a factory janitor full-time 2nd shift. He and my mom, married right before Korea, shared one bicycle. She *dreamed* of going to college, but girls in her family (of 3 girls) only became nurses or secretaries. Or wives.
BUT they both loved BOOKS, they both loved reading. I grew up as 1 of 4 kids in a tiny 3 bedroom ranch, but we had subs to Life, Look, Time (how I learned Santa wasn't real at aged 5, ha), later even National Geographic. My parents were READERS.
That's it, that's everything. The rule in my house, with my own kids? If we went anywhere, anywhere at all, my kids always had to bring a book. Just in case, you never knew, the car might break down. Got your book? OK then!
When I had the choice with my 3rd, I sent him to Montessori - no homework! (among other great reasons). I HATED homework, as a student, as a mom. School was and is far too homework-heavy at too young an age, and it has only gotten worse. No high school student should come home with 3-4 hours of homework assignments, classes that start at 7:30 a.m. (even though I agreed with your "Do Your Homework" what I really meant was READ. Get LOST in BOOKS.
Our teach-to-the-test educational system is messed up. Yes, yes - teach math, science, a second language (from an early age!), ART and MUSIC, writing (including cursive!) and - most of all - help them learn to love READING.
If I could snap my fingers and have my wish? Wonderful public libraries everywhere (and fully fund the VA - my husband is a 100% service-connected disabled Vietnam vet, a draftee grunt blown up by a landmine at 21 in 1968, a year in a naval hospital being put back together, then a BA in Eng Lit, MAT and MSW; dude's a READER).
My loss, my beautiful boys... I am like Iorek, the Armored Bear, in Philip Pullman's wonderful His Dark Materials series, a freaking warrior for those living with serious mental illness. They are the bravest people I know. End the stigma. For my guys, this is where I come down: I was lucky to have them for as long as I did. My shooting stars... Damned lucky. 💫✨💫✨💔
Thank you, Michael.* I appreciate your words more than I can say. Keep writing, I promise to keep reading (and subscribing).
*My little brother's name... undiagnosed Bipolar 1 - runs in the family, my maternal grandfather spent decades institutionalized with schizophrenia - co-occurring with Substance Abuse Disorder, 90% of the males in my family, both sides, have been alcoholic. We lost my Michael to suicide at 18. They had no treatment for teenaged alcoholics then, no family therapy, didn't even have a name for Bipolar Disorder. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go...
P.S. The vet is my wonderful 2nd husband, late in life - we are 70 & 76, but together 18 years now.
My first, father of my 3, also had generations of SMI and SAD in his family. So my 3 just had the bad luck to be born into a vulnerable, crummy gene pool - all red heads, all brilliant, all creative, and all 3 dual diagnosis for SMI & SAD. Dealt a lousy hand of cards.
But readers? Critical thinkers? Appreciators of other cultures, of art, music, film, poetry? Politically progressive? Haters of racism, misogyny, homophobia & transphobia, poverty? Damn straight.
P.P.S. I forgot! I forgot! They also spent their limited $ on books especially for US! Starting with Golden Books (I still have fond memories of Poky Little Puppy) and on to The Bobsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, hoarse books for my sister - Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka, Big Red, The Ponies of Asateague - and "exceptional girls and women" books for me - Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames. Then HARDCOVERS with beautiful end papers in slip cases! Little Women, A Tale Of Two Cities, The Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, The Five Little Peppers And How They Grew...
By the time I got to 6th grade, Thomas Hardy, a beautiful leather-bound book from the monthly Classics Book Club, t'weren't no big deal. Books - as you know so well - are works of art, not only their contents, but how they look, the font used, how they feel in your hand, the weight of them, they draw you in.
We have lost so much in losing weekly and monthly magazines, daily newspapers coming into our homes, independent bookstores, hard-copy books, trading so much for screens - which I now have to use myself as my eyes age, thank goodness for them . The Internet and screens have revolutionized access to information, don't get me wrong, but we have also paid a very, very high price.
That's all. Start with the baby books, get to Beatrice Potter, Margaret Wise Brown, Winnie The Pooh and just. keep. going. 🩷❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🤎🩶🤍❣️
Argh!! Beatrix, Beatrix Potter. (God I hate typos and no Edit options...)
And, yes, you can tell from my oh-so-white children's and young adult reading lists that I was a child of the '50s (forgot A CT Yankee In King Arthur's Court, Tom Sawyer, et. al. devoured Twain before I got to Tolkien). But my children, they were '80s-'90s, different, far more diverse reading available to them,, yay! And that has only gotten better, MAGA be damned.
Linda B, this whole thread broke my heart wide open (lost a nephew to schizophrenia 18 months ago) and then filled it back up with booklove. (I've read CT Yankee at least a dozen times.) I'm so sorry for your losses, so moved by your memory of your shooting stars (and what stars they were!), and so warmed by your book list. You took me back to the beginnings of my own voracious love of books, which habit was always fully funded by my parents. Thank you for writing all this. And all thanks to Author MIB for the deep dive on the nurturing of the ability to think deeply, and the reminder it's one of the singular joys to being human.
My Philosophy major and English minor has always made me an easy target for people wanting to disparage my education choices. I don’t regret it at all. I went to a university that provided a true “liberal arts” education: all students took a number of classes outside our major in other major domains (e.g., math, science, economics, etc), as well as a January term where we would study one topic of our choosing, no matter our major, intensively. It has served me well and I like to believe I lead a richer life because of it.
Growing up in Tennessee's public school system and graduating high school in '99, I have often wondered what I could have learned if circumstances had placed me somewhere else. But now, I tend to think that those of us who have it in us to think will eventually do so on our own one way or another. Not having that guidance makes it a long and painful process, though. I didn't get a lot of proper liberal arts instruction but I learned a lot from the art I naturally consumed along the way. And I continue to learn from those who created it. Thank YOU for that.
I'll be 42 in November and it feels like I'm just now starting to really think and piece things together too. Like I'm just now becoming fully conscious. It's a relief to know that I'm not the only one that has happened to.
Critical thinking is not a valued trait in my state either. Especially by the fundamentalist evangelicals. Also, Texas is closing school libraries in Houston ISD and turning them into detention centers. I know I keep talking about this. It bothers me.
In the words of Sam Harris, it’s the golden age of assholes. You are not an asshole, and you know how I can tell? Because you are not proud of not doing your homework, not reveling in the fact that you didn’t have a thought in your head until you were 40. Of course, that doesn’t mean you aren’t a jerk sometimes. But jerks are ok.
I recently saw a post on Twatter about how some kids would cry doing their math homework, and how could that possibly be a thing. I not only cried, but I only graduated high school because my mom begged the principal to add my shitty piano lessons to the curriculum. I would have flunked out otherwise.
Thank you for this defense of a well-rounded education. I'm a pharmacist, which means I had to study the "hard" sciences (chemistry, biology, etc.) However, my bachelor's degree is in sociology, a "soft" science. I can't begin to tell you how that set me apart from a lot of my classmates and colleagues, mostly in the ability to empathize with my patients.
Having a well-rounded education allows a person to be able to consider different approaches and different factors in their careers. It allows for a more holistic approach. It helps to decide if one SHOULD do something, rather than just if one can. That last bit seems rather important these days...
Thank you, thank you, well said! I could not agree more.
What the red states have done, are doing, is a travesty and will result in even greater numbers of people who never learn to think deeply, to continue their education through their own independent reading, know how to separate fact-based sources from agenda-selling charlatans - a nation of dumbed-down, led-by-the-nose, easily manipulated fools.
After my own school experience - the worst homework procrastinator, never challenged, bored to death, sailed through on smarts alone (6th grade book report on Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge - bless my excellent parents who belonged to classics book clubs - teacher called me a liar for claiming to have read Hardy, ha!), cut 80 days Senior year & only made it thru 2 years of college bec I never learned the DISCIPLINE of DOING HOMEWORK. The lack of a degree seriously limited my job options later in life (and by the time I might have been able to go back to finish, I was a single mom of 3 with a severely ill child; life required me to spend my available time as a warrior on his behalf).
I made damned sure my 3 went to a high school that focussed on teaching critical thinking above all, emphasized original source materials, ensured a broad and deep liberal arts foundation. I encouraged all 3 to pursue a foundation in liberal arts as undergrads - imo, specializing, a deep focus on one subject, is for grad school. (All a BA/BS tells an employer is that you know how to do at least some homework and learn; MA's have become what BAs/BSs used to be.)
[All 3 bright, creative, learned to question, learned how to learn, how to think, all deeply creative. The results were...mixed, as both of my sons struggled with Serious Mental Illness that began to present in high school. My oldest, treatment-resistant schizophrenia, kept him from both college & work, died at 31. But before that - and even during 16 dark years of SMI & countless hospitalizations - a brain that crackled with deep thinking. My youngest... a national award-winning student poet, emerged with Bipolar 1, didn't make it past 21. Won so many awards - Harvard Book Prize, writing, history, photography, social justice - his high school had to give. But my surviving daughter? Also all the awards, top grades, graduated Columbia University magna cum laude w/ Senior Thesis Honors as an English Lit major, followed by full-tuition scholarship to Juilliard Drama (accepted by Yale Drama, too). It wasn't until both of her bros died 9 mos apart - 10, 11@ years ago - that her own SMI began to emerge... Life is many things, but fair is absolutely not one.]
Learning to be a critical thinker and independent life-long learner is everything. No matter where you live, don't let them deny you that, don't let them deny your children. Fight back, find a way. The result is not only a better, kinder country but a better, richer life. As you so aptly state - Do your homework! (I, for one, sure wish we got do-overs... Apologies for the overly long - and far too personal - comment.)
First of all, before we get to the rest of it: Hardy in 6th grade! Congrats. It took me until 48th grade to crack open one of his. As for your story, wow. I can't even imagine the heartache. So sorry for your losses. I know how traumatic mental illness can be, both as a witness and (much less severe) sufferer. Thank you for sharing. You're a good mom.
Respect and a humble bow, your writing makes my days better. I am...a bit speechless that you not only read but responded to my comment. Honored.
Re Hardy, I do know this - surround a child with great books, teach them to read, and they will read them. Whenever my kids had a new teacher, I only cared about two things: Did they have a sense of humor? Did they focus on reading?
My dad studied engineering at Virginia Tech on the GI bill after Korea - the GI Bill changed the lives of a generation - a wife & 2 babies, a 3rd born while he did 4 years in 3 and worked as a factory janitor full-time 2nd shift. He and my mom, married right before Korea, shared one bicycle. She *dreamed* of going to college, but girls in her family (of 3 girls) only became nurses or secretaries. Or wives.
BUT they both loved BOOKS, they both loved reading. I grew up as 1 of 4 kids in a tiny 3 bedroom ranch, but we had subs to Life, Look, Time (how I learned Santa wasn't real at aged 5, ha), later even National Geographic. My parents were READERS.
That's it, that's everything. The rule in my house, with my own kids? If we went anywhere, anywhere at all, my kids always had to bring a book. Just in case, you never knew, the car might break down. Got your book? OK then!
When I had the choice with my 3rd, I sent him to Montessori - no homework! (among other great reasons). I HATED homework, as a student, as a mom. School was and is far too homework-heavy at too young an age, and it has only gotten worse. No high school student should come home with 3-4 hours of homework assignments, classes that start at 7:30 a.m. (even though I agreed with your "Do Your Homework" what I really meant was READ. Get LOST in BOOKS.
Our teach-to-the-test educational system is messed up. Yes, yes - teach math, science, a second language (from an early age!), ART and MUSIC, writing (including cursive!) and - most of all - help them learn to love READING.
If I could snap my fingers and have my wish? Wonderful public libraries everywhere (and fully fund the VA - my husband is a 100% service-connected disabled Vietnam vet, a draftee grunt blown up by a landmine at 21 in 1968, a year in a naval hospital being put back together, then a BA in Eng Lit, MAT and MSW; dude's a READER).
My loss, my beautiful boys... I am like Iorek, the Armored Bear, in Philip Pullman's wonderful His Dark Materials series, a freaking warrior for those living with serious mental illness. They are the bravest people I know. End the stigma. For my guys, this is where I come down: I was lucky to have them for as long as I did. My shooting stars... Damned lucky. 💫✨💫✨💔
Thank you, Michael.* I appreciate your words more than I can say. Keep writing, I promise to keep reading (and subscribing).
*My little brother's name... undiagnosed Bipolar 1 - runs in the family, my maternal grandfather spent decades institutionalized with schizophrenia - co-occurring with Substance Abuse Disorder, 90% of the males in my family, both sides, have been alcoholic. We lost my Michael to suicide at 18. They had no treatment for teenaged alcoholics then, no family therapy, didn't even have a name for Bipolar Disorder. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go...
P.S. The vet is my wonderful 2nd husband, late in life - we are 70 & 76, but together 18 years now.
My first, father of my 3, also had generations of SMI and SAD in his family. So my 3 just had the bad luck to be born into a vulnerable, crummy gene pool - all red heads, all brilliant, all creative, and all 3 dual diagnosis for SMI & SAD. Dealt a lousy hand of cards.
But readers? Critical thinkers? Appreciators of other cultures, of art, music, film, poetry? Politically progressive? Haters of racism, misogyny, homophobia & transphobia, poverty? Damn straight.
P.P.S. I forgot! I forgot! They also spent their limited $ on books especially for US! Starting with Golden Books (I still have fond memories of Poky Little Puppy) and on to The Bobsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, hoarse books for my sister - Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka, Big Red, The Ponies of Asateague - and "exceptional girls and women" books for me - Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames. Then HARDCOVERS with beautiful end papers in slip cases! Little Women, A Tale Of Two Cities, The Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, The Five Little Peppers And How They Grew...
By the time I got to 6th grade, Thomas Hardy, a beautiful leather-bound book from the monthly Classics Book Club, t'weren't no big deal. Books - as you know so well - are works of art, not only their contents, but how they look, the font used, how they feel in your hand, the weight of them, they draw you in.
We have lost so much in losing weekly and monthly magazines, daily newspapers coming into our homes, independent bookstores, hard-copy books, trading so much for screens - which I now have to use myself as my eyes age, thank goodness for them . The Internet and screens have revolutionized access to information, don't get me wrong, but we have also paid a very, very high price.
That's all. Start with the baby books, get to Beatrice Potter, Margaret Wise Brown, Winnie The Pooh and just. keep. going. 🩷❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🤎🩶🤍❣️
Argh!! Beatrix, Beatrix Potter. (God I hate typos and no Edit options...)
And, yes, you can tell from my oh-so-white children's and young adult reading lists that I was a child of the '50s (forgot A CT Yankee In King Arthur's Court, Tom Sawyer, et. al. devoured Twain before I got to Tolkien). But my children, they were '80s-'90s, different, far more diverse reading available to them,, yay! And that has only gotten better, MAGA be damned.
OK, I'll be quiet now. Mwah!
Linda B, this whole thread broke my heart wide open (lost a nephew to schizophrenia 18 months ago) and then filled it back up with booklove. (I've read CT Yankee at least a dozen times.) I'm so sorry for your losses, so moved by your memory of your shooting stars (and what stars they were!), and so warmed by your book list. You took me back to the beginnings of my own voracious love of books, which habit was always fully funded by my parents. Thank you for writing all this. And all thanks to Author MIB for the deep dive on the nurturing of the ability to think deeply, and the reminder it's one of the singular joys to being human.
My Philosophy major and English minor has always made me an easy target for people wanting to disparage my education choices. I don’t regret it at all. I went to a university that provided a true “liberal arts” education: all students took a number of classes outside our major in other major domains (e.g., math, science, economics, etc), as well as a January term where we would study one topic of our choosing, no matter our major, intensively. It has served me well and I like to believe I lead a richer life because of it.
Growing up in Tennessee's public school system and graduating high school in '99, I have often wondered what I could have learned if circumstances had placed me somewhere else. But now, I tend to think that those of us who have it in us to think will eventually do so on our own one way or another. Not having that guidance makes it a long and painful process, though. I didn't get a lot of proper liberal arts instruction but I learned a lot from the art I naturally consumed along the way. And I continue to learn from those who created it. Thank YOU for that.
I'll be 42 in November and it feels like I'm just now starting to really think and piece things together too. Like I'm just now becoming fully conscious. It's a relief to know that I'm not the only one that has happened to.
Because shit is getting weirder by the day.
You are becoming quite the columnist/essayist. Thank you.
Critical thinking is not a valued trait in my state either. Especially by the fundamentalist evangelicals. Also, Texas is closing school libraries in Houston ISD and turning them into detention centers. I know I keep talking about this. It bothers me.
I went back to college at 40 just to take a class in critical thinking because I realized I’d never learned how.
Okay, I also took a storytelling class and a mythology class, but that’s beside the point.
In the words of Sam Harris, it’s the golden age of assholes. You are not an asshole, and you know how I can tell? Because you are not proud of not doing your homework, not reveling in the fact that you didn’t have a thought in your head until you were 40. Of course, that doesn’t mean you aren’t a jerk sometimes. But jerks are ok.
I recently saw a post on Twatter about how some kids would cry doing their math homework, and how could that possibly be a thing. I not only cried, but I only graduated high school because my mom begged the principal to add my shitty piano lessons to the curriculum. I would have flunked out otherwise.