We have major problems in our country today. If we rewarded people according to the service they provide, teachers would be thanked and paid the salaries of NBA stars, while NBA stars would be paid what teachers make now.
Furthermore, I am fed up with the apathy I have seen around me. And I am particularly fed up with apathy on the part of teenagers in schools. We have forgotten how privileged we are in so many ways in this country. My mother's parents were peasants, quite literally. They grew up in Italy during the 1930's and 1940's. Both of them were so poor that they had to leave school after only the first or second grade to go to work on the farm to help their families. That was the extent of the education that my grandparents had in their entire lifetime. There were times growing up when they did not have food on the table. However, conditions were much worse in other parts of Italy (see Carlo Levi's book Christ Stopped at Eboli), and grew worse for my grandparents when were teenagers. At some point during World War II, the Germans put my grandmother and her family into an internment camp, where they were cramped into close, dirty quarters with many other Italians like them. Ticks, biting insects, hunger, and sickness were a major problem for all the inmates. Somehow, my grandmother and her family survived. The Germans also went around the villages raiding for food and wine. My grandfather told me he was so hungry that he ate 48 ears of corn when the war finally ended—just as he turned 18 years old. However, in spite of this hardship, after World War II, my grandparents met, married, worked hard, came to America, raised seven children (nearly all of whom went to college), paid off their house, and retired. In one lifetime, my grandparents lifted their family up from the peasantry and into the middle class. We are so lucky to have what we have in this country: food and shelter, education and opportunity. We should be very careful not to take them for granted.
There are far worse problems in other parts of the world than those that most of us face here. In some countries in equatorial East Africa, many people cannot even grow food because of long and terrible droughts that lead to famines and mass starvation. I have a friend whose mother is from the Philippines. Early one morning in her home country, she was running to church and was almost shot by a guard who suddenly popped out from a corner with an AK-47, expecting to confront an insurgent on a terrorist mission and not a girl running late for Mass. These represent just some of the tremendous threats to human health and safety that people face every day around the world.
I realize that I have about as much tact as Bill Gates, but this is just a taste of some of the problems happening elsewhere in the world—and also in some of the inner cities here at home. We should not have to motivate our children or our adults to do their school work or their jobs. Free public education is a privilege—and historically a very recent one at that. We should be thankful for the education we have received. Even if we didn't always understand why we learned it at the time, every class we took gave us a new skill that we can apply to the world around us. Every day that we worked, whether we liked our job or not, has put food on our table and kept the wolves at bay for at least one more day. We should be thankful for what we have received. Even if we did not like what we received, we should be thankful that we had it at all. And in some cases, we may also be thankful for the additional option to exchange what we have received for something that suits us better.
Returning to the above issue, where are the teenagers' attention and motivation going these days? To social networks, text messages, and games on their iPods. iPods are not a necessity. They are not even a privilege. They are a luxury. However, I will not deny that today the Internet is a necessity. The Internet is a powerful tool that can ignite grassroots movements, initiate commerce, support research (in almost every area possibly imaginable), initiate job and college searches, and yes, even support our social and family connections. The iPod is not good or bad in itself, except in how it is used. The iPod is wonderful when used for entertainment. But it should NOT be used for entertainment during work time or class time. I have seen a lot of iPods used by teenagers as distractions for just such a purpose. Now, we cannot be all business all the time. The great joys in life are from small pleasures and good times with good company. My own procrastinations are particularly infamous among my friends from college. But there is a certain point when the job needs to get done. And there's a certain point where parents, indulging the whims of their children, are creating a Frankenstein's monster by indiscriminately getting iPods and iPhones for their teenagers—or allowing them to buy these products for themselves—without demonstrating the priority of their own education and work. Responsibility is key in life and needs to be taught from experience, and it needs to be taught at home. When a teacher calls home about a student, but the parent interrupts the teacher in order to call the teenager on her cell phone in the middle of class for a scolding, that shows us why the teenager is having problems in school. It shows a lack of priorities. That sound of the iPhone ringing in the middle of class is the sound of our future going down the tubes. It is a misuse of a luxury, a misuse of a tool, and a lack of priorities. Give me a plunger, because I will not let our future—or my own—go down without a fight.
Now, even though I've used examples from real life, my point is not to criticize individuals. Nor is my point to romanticize the past of my grandparents compared to our own relatively pampered lifestyle. My point is to criticize our values and our priorities. My point is also to assert that this strength and resilience to overcome need did not only exist in Italy during World War II—they exist today, and we can call upon them any time. We have forgotten need. We have forgotten what it is to truly go hungry. Perhaps that excess of wealth over the last fifty years has taught us to be complacent. We have let ourselves become flabby. Perhaps that is why countries that have suffered terrible need, such as India and China, are now emerging and powerful markets. But we will find a way out of our own flabbiness—even if we have to learn hunger again. We are undergoing a stage, but not a permanent condition. Yes, we have many problems in our country. Yes, there is much greed, corruption, theft of funds, kickbacks, and more. I do not believe that people are innately good. I believe that people have an overwhelming propensity to choose the wrong thing, myself included. However, people can be whipped into shape, as any sports coach, choir master, or drill sergeant can tell you. What we need is discipline. This requires rules. No, we do not need to abide by rules rigidly or unflinchingly, for this can be stifling. But we do need to develop a very elaborate set of guidelines for a very large variety of situations. We need to establish our priorities and develop a regimen. We need to live FOR something, and iPod and gossip are just not going to cut it. My question is: what are YOU living for?
Furthermore, I am fed up with the apathy I have seen around me. And I am particularly fed up with apathy on the part of teenagers in schools. We have forgotten how privileged we are in so many ways in this country. My mother's parents were peasants, quite literally. They grew up in Italy during the 1930's and 1940's. Both of them were so poor that they had to leave school after only the first or second grade to go to work on the farm to help their families. That was the extent of the education that my grandparents had in their entire lifetime. There were times growing up when they did not have food on the table. However, conditions were much worse in other parts of Italy (see Carlo Levi's book Christ Stopped at Eboli), and grew worse for my grandparents when were teenagers. At some point during World War II, the Germans put my grandmother and her family into an internment camp, where they were cramped into close, dirty quarters with many other Italians like them. Ticks, biting insects, hunger, and sickness were a major problem for all the inmates. Somehow, my grandmother and her family survived. The Germans also went around the villages raiding for food and wine. My grandfather told me he was so hungry that he ate 48 ears of corn when the war finally ended—just as he turned 18 years old. However, in spite of this hardship, after World War II, my grandparents met, married, worked hard, came to America, raised seven children (nearly all of whom went to college), paid off their house, and retired. In one lifetime, my grandparents lifted their family up from the peasantry and into the middle class. We are so lucky to have what we have in this country: food and shelter, education and opportunity. We should be very careful not to take them for granted.
There are far worse problems in other parts of the world than those that most of us face here. In some countries in equatorial East Africa, many people cannot even grow food because of long and terrible droughts that lead to famines and mass starvation. I have a friend whose mother is from the Philippines. Early one morning in her home country, she was running to church and was almost shot by a guard who suddenly popped out from a corner with an AK-47, expecting to confront an insurgent on a terrorist mission and not a girl running late for Mass. These represent just some of the tremendous threats to human health and safety that people face every day around the world.
I realize that I have about as much tact as Bill Gates, but this is just a taste of some of the problems happening elsewhere in the world—and also in some of the inner cities here at home. We should not have to motivate our children or our adults to do their school work or their jobs. Free public education is a privilege—and historically a very recent one at that. We should be thankful for the education we have received. Even if we didn't always understand why we learned it at the time, every class we took gave us a new skill that we can apply to the world around us. Every day that we worked, whether we liked our job or not, has put food on our table and kept the wolves at bay for at least one more day. We should be thankful for what we have received. Even if we did not like what we received, we should be thankful that we had it at all. And in some cases, we may also be thankful for the additional option to exchange what we have received for something that suits us better.
Returning to the above issue, where are the teenagers' attention and motivation going these days? To social networks, text messages, and games on their iPods. iPods are not a necessity. They are not even a privilege. They are a luxury. However, I will not deny that today the Internet is a necessity. The Internet is a powerful tool that can ignite grassroots movements, initiate commerce, support research (in almost every area possibly imaginable), initiate job and college searches, and yes, even support our social and family connections. The iPod is not good or bad in itself, except in how it is used. The iPod is wonderful when used for entertainment. But it should NOT be used for entertainment during work time or class time. I have seen a lot of iPods used by teenagers as distractions for just such a purpose. Now, we cannot be all business all the time. The great joys in life are from small pleasures and good times with good company. My own procrastinations are particularly infamous among my friends from college. But there is a certain point when the job needs to get done. And there's a certain point where parents, indulging the whims of their children, are creating a Frankenstein's monster by indiscriminately getting iPods and iPhones for their teenagers—or allowing them to buy these products for themselves—without demonstrating the priority of their own education and work. Responsibility is key in life and needs to be taught from experience, and it needs to be taught at home. When a teacher calls home about a student, but the parent interrupts the teacher in order to call the teenager on her cell phone in the middle of class for a scolding, that shows us why the teenager is having problems in school. It shows a lack of priorities. That sound of the iPhone ringing in the middle of class is the sound of our future going down the tubes. It is a misuse of a luxury, a misuse of a tool, and a lack of priorities. Give me a plunger, because I will not let our future—or my own—go down without a fight.
Now, even though I've used examples from real life, my point is not to criticize individuals. Nor is my point to romanticize the past of my grandparents compared to our own relatively pampered lifestyle. My point is to criticize our values and our priorities. My point is also to assert that this strength and resilience to overcome need did not only exist in Italy during World War II—they exist today, and we can call upon them any time. We have forgotten need. We have forgotten what it is to truly go hungry. Perhaps that excess of wealth over the last fifty years has taught us to be complacent. We have let ourselves become flabby. Perhaps that is why countries that have suffered terrible need, such as India and China, are now emerging and powerful markets. But we will find a way out of our own flabbiness—even if we have to learn hunger again. We are undergoing a stage, but not a permanent condition. Yes, we have many problems in our country. Yes, there is much greed, corruption, theft of funds, kickbacks, and more. I do not believe that people are innately good. I believe that people have an overwhelming propensity to choose the wrong thing, myself included. However, people can be whipped into shape, as any sports coach, choir master, or drill sergeant can tell you. What we need is discipline. This requires rules. No, we do not need to abide by rules rigidly or unflinchingly, for this can be stifling. But we do need to develop a very elaborate set of guidelines for a very large variety of situations. We need to establish our priorities and develop a regimen. We need to live FOR something, and iPod and gossip are just not going to cut it. My question is: what are YOU living for?
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