Putting Money Where My Mouth Is

I’ve mentioned, before, a young friend and her indecision over college. She’s graduated high school, yesterday or today I think, so the question is substantially less abstract now. I still think that she should do it. For me and for almost everyone I know, university education was an unbelievable chance for us to learn about ourselves, discover who we wanted to become, and grow into those frames.

I think she deserves the same chance. Really, I think that everyone deserves the same chance (that teaching urge is hard to forget), but my friend seems particularly important right now. She’s endearingly quirky and I believe she doesn’t give herself enough credit for how bright she is. Sometimes I wonder how she might change in the experience; I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t make the most of it, but how is anyone’s guess.

I’d like to meet that hypothetical future-self, whoever she might be. I bet she’d have a lot of interesting, compelling things to say.

It’s time for me to put some money where my mouth is.

This is my open gift to her, my promise before all of you. I hope you get to hold me to it.

Please Excuse the Lack of Posting

For the past month or so Adrian has been preparing for a very big exam. He took it on Saturday (it took all of Saturday) and will start posting more again when his brain has finished congealing.

So, please excuse the lack of posting lately, and maybe for another few days.

Thank you,
~Catboy! =^.^=

Words Have Power

Two years ago, faced with my graduation from the University, I began looking for work. I care a lot about education, so I applied to Teach For America, along with the usual group of tech companies and the startup where I work today.

While I think that Teach For America’s mission is tremendously important, parts of the program do concern me. As one friend put it, a lot of the program’s teachers just want their requisite nonprofit time before moving on to Senate appointments, and it really does show. I’ve always been a bit more of a craftsman than a politician, personally, and I worry sometimes about whether students suffer as people for the sake of good-looking news stories. They talk about “dynamic teachers who had not only a command of the curriculum but also the ability to connect with children,” but one US News story they shared described an academy founded by former TFA teachers:

Running or yelling is forbidden; students walk in straight, quiet lines. Though classes average more than 30 students, they are so silent you could hear an eraser drop. If a child speaks without being called on, the teacher stops in midsentence. If a child’s attention strays, the teacher warns: “I’m missing one person’s eyes.”

This doesn’t feel like “connecting with children” to me; it feels like a show of force rather than compassion or outreach. The teacher isn’t saying Look at me, because this is important; he says Look at me, because I can humiliate you. The academy even spends the first week “KIPPnotizing” new students to behave that way. I almost expected the example student to snap to his feet, ramrod-straight, and shout “I am sorry, Mein Herr! It shall not happen again!” Discipline and academic rigor have their places, of course, and I’m an advocate of both, but too much of either can be a socially crippling thing.

We are more than our grades and test scores.

Saying this out loud was probably not the smartest thing I have ever done.

If you think education is expensive…

Lately I’ve been writing back and forth with a young friend of mine. She’s in her last stretch of high school, still not entirely sure of what she wants to do with her future or whether she can afford to go to college. A few days later, the Cal Alumni Association called me, and I signed up for a lifetime membership, partly in recognition of the opportunities that the school opened to me. As I balance these two events, I keep coming back to the same thought:

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
- Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University

Over a lifetime, the average college graduate makes a million dollars more than someone with only a high-school diploma.

Letters from a Young Writer, Part 3

Back to Part 2

im willing to lern im only thirteen but i want to be a great author more than anything

I spent a lot of time wondering if I should write back. My day job cuts into my writing time enough as is, and I’m not really sure I believe that she wants to improve. Particularly in fan communities, many writers will praise each other and enjoy being praised, even if their work simply doesn’t measure up. Writing is less an end and more a means for growing closer. They write for community, because humans are storytellers by nature, because they enjoy sitting around the virtual campfire.

Basically it’s a circle-jerk of the ego.

It’s too bad that I’ve never really been friendly enough for that sort of thing.