Search This Blog

Sunday, July 22, 2018

The Effects of Hiding With Black Cats


The Effects of Hiding With Black Cats

By Jill Jenkins


            Over 60 years ago at the height of the Cold War, I was born in a town nestled in the Rocky Mountains to over protective parents and nervous aunts and uncles.  Attempting to protect my siblings and me from a dangerous world, they taught us many useful lessons and some not so useful lessons based on superstitious beliefs and fear. Since the fear of the Cold War was ever present, they told us to escape into the mountains and hide if the Soviet Union ever invaded.  They taught us to follow the rivers downstream if we were ever lost.  They taught us to snare rabbits, birds and catch a fish using our shoelaces and readily available to willows.  They taught us to carve whistles or create bows and arrows from those same willows.  They taught us which berries and insects were safe to eat and which water was safe to drink.  They taught us how to construct a bed and a lean-to from branches and logs.  They taught us to create fires and knives from bits of flint.  They also taught us a ritual chant with appropriate hand gestures if a black cat ever crossed our path: “Ring around the cats ass, dot, dot, dot.”


    Likewise the knowledge we obtained in schools was both useful and nonsense.  We learned to read, write and decipher math, but, also, to duck and cover under our desks to protect us from nuclear proliferation.  Surprisingly, our generation to the shock and dismay of our parents’ generation eventually rejected the ideas they had tried to instill in us about women’s rights, racial prejudice and economic equality. We had learned the power of nuclear warfield and the lack of power of the black cat.  (That is lucky for me and my black cat, Lenny, who has lived with me for 15 years.)


            The lunacy of teaching children lies and half-truths to keep them safe only leads to resentment and anger.  The world is a safer place when everyone is presented with facts to make rational decisions.  Still I hear my more conservative friends complain that the public schools are teaching their grandchildren about global warming, encouraging recycling and promoting the Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, all of which they believed are liberal ideas created to brainwash their children and to make the population feel good about their attempts to solve problems.  To them I say, "Poppycock."  Factual based education will help students develop rational thinking skills to solve problems that are yet unknown.  Teaching students religious based and politically motivated hogwash will dilute their ability to think just like my dear aunt’s ritual of protecting us from evil black cats.  

           While I was teaching, there was a push from some parent groups to prevent teachers from assigning research papers and projects.  Parents felt that all knowledge should be memorized and regurgitated on tests, but learning involves examining facts and differing arguments and drawing conclusions from them.  The world needs a generation of rational problem solvers, not robots.  There is no hiding in the mountains or using black cat rituals to protect the world from global warming or the annihilation of endangered plants and animals.  Hiding under our desks never protected us from a nuclear holocaust and neither will it protect our children and grandchildren from lead polluted drinking water or air filled with polluted plumes pumped from oil refineries and factories. Finding solutions can only happen if the next generation is armed with the ability to make rational decisions.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

The Importance of Affirmative Action and Access to Financial Aid


The Importance of Affirmative Action and Access to Financial Aid
By Jill Jenkins


     When I was a child, my mother told me that women had three choices in life: to find a husband, get married and raise his children, to learn to type and take shorthand and become a secretary, or to become a factory worker. My mother’s limited view of the world made it difficult for her to imagine a life beyond her neighborhood. I chose to go to college and become a teacher, an opportunity that was only afforded me because of Lyndon Johnson’s dream of “A Great Society,” a system of low interest loans, the National Defense Loan and later the National Direct Loan available to low income students. Today’s students are often buried in loans because student loans have become privatized. During my college years, students who taught in Title One schools had their loans forgiven.  Since my loan had only a three percent interest rate, I paid it off as scheduled.  Racial discrimination limit many minority students. To alleviate this John F. Kennedy signed an executive order in 1961 creating Affirmative Action forcing universities and colleges to integrate.  Today, some Ivy League Schools often select wealthy African American students to make their quota instead of selecting students who lack the resources to attend college.   What is fair?  Even if the country added a financial component to Affirmative Action, more impoverished White students live in areas with better schools than those of impoverished African American students.  Better schools means better prepared students.  To level the playing field, a combination of Affirmative Action and more grants and affordable loans should be instituted. American poor need more grants, low interest loans and Affirmative Action to widen the view of all of our youth.  Unfortunately, like my mother, many children’s view of the world are limited.  What happens to these students is best described in Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem:”

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like
A raisin in the sun
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it sags
Like a heavy load?

Or does it explode? 

What I discovered by teaching in a variety of different socio-economic levels is our schools are not a level playing field.  Students from economically deprived groups, students from different ethnic or racial groups and from different cultures cannot compete fairly for enrollment in any college or university (let alone an Ivy League School); as a result, both adequate financial aide and Affirmative Action needs to be available.  What I have learned is students who have no hope of financially supporting their families through legitimate means turn to crime.  What I have learned is both males and females need a strong education to have access to more fulfilling careers and the greater opportunities for financial stability.  (Let’s face it, marriage is never guaranteed to last forever, nor does it always provide economic stability.)  What I have learned is people who are well educated are happier and live more economically secure lives. As a result, they are more likely to become a more involved citizen. 


            President Trump’s talk of dismantling Affirmative Action could have catastrophic effects.  First, intelligence isn’t limited to one socio-economic group or one racial group.  By limiting opportunities, America would be wasting some of the most creative and innovative minds.  Second, providing real hope and opportunity, reduces an individual’s likelihood of becoming involved in crime; thus, reducing the strongholds gangs have on some neighborhoods. Third, education increases the potential that an individual will achieve economic stability, a happy, healthy view of government and a higher likelihood he will become an active voting citizen.  This means less likely to become “a raisin in the sun”, a rotting sore or “ exploding” with violence. 




            If all students were competing on a level playing field, perhaps there would be no need for Affirmative Action or Financial Aid, but the truth is they aren’t.  I have taught in affluent schools where students live in houses filled with books and computers, their families travel the world, and their lives are enriched with private coaches, voice lessons, music lessons and they participate in an assortment of academic, artistic and athletic enrichment activities.  Some attend private schools whose classmates come from the wealthiest families and the academic demands far exceed public schools.  I’ve taught in inner city public schools where a student often works eight to ten hours a night after school in a minimum wage job to help support his/her family.  One student whose parents were both incarcerated went to school full-time, and worked full-time to support himself and four younger siblings.  These students are not lazy.  They are over-coming huge hurdles. Money can buy almost anything in America.  One year I was charged with selecting and preparing the graduation speakers. An assistant principal presented me with the name of one student and told me to make certain she was selected as a speaker because her parents had offered to donate money for the sports team. This was a public high school.  I could have followed the order, but instead created an evaluation rubric and selected three faculty members and three students to judge those seeking speaking positions.  Then, to insure a fair contest, I had the class officers tabulate the scores.  The corruption of money is everywhere.  The racial prejudice in this country makes their difficulty even more arduous.  Racial discrimination is even more prevalent. As a drama teacher, I took heat from my principal for casting Alice in Alice in Wonderland with an African American student, because some parents complained that she did not "fit" the part.   As a debate coach in Southern California, my debate team was comprised of many African-American and Hispanic students.  I would remind them that it was not enough to be as good as their adversary, they had to be undeniably better.  Unfortunately, in American, people see color before they hear what the students are saying. 


            When thinking about the effects of lack of hope, I am reminded of Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist.  In the book, Fagin has collects a group of homeless children and trains them as pickpockets in order to exploit them for his own financial gain.  To persuade young Oliver to join their illegal trade, Fagin employs Charlie Bates and the Artful Dodger to testify to the advantages. Like the Artful Dodger, peer pressure and the lack of hope encourage some students to become involved in crime to better themselves.  These students believe that their only future is a part time minimum wage job with no benefits or welfare may like Charlie Bates and the Artful Dodger believe that crime is a better alternative and holds more self-respect than allowing his family to become homeless and hungry.  As a result, they steal, sell drugs and participate in gang activities. Prejudice and economic insecurity land more people in prison than college. The United States has the highest number of incarcerations in the world for a reason.  That same child would become a productive member of society if he/she were give the opportunity to get a good education, and a well paying job. More of those incarcerated are members of minority groups.   Affirmative action could lower the crime rate and the incarcerations, saving everyone money.

            Finally our founding fathers believed that access to a free public education could create a more enlightened voter.  In today’s world to be successful, a K-12 education is not enough.  If we want an enlightened citizen who feels compelled to participate as a thoughtful voter, we need to provide affordable, opportunities for students of every racial and economic group.  People, who feel powerless in a society, do not participate in it.

            Affirmative action and financial assistance is important.  I feel that President Trump’s view of the world is as narrow as my mother’s.  He believes everyone should accept his/her birthplace in society.  Some may say that only the most qualified should be accepted to our colleges and universities; however, those with the money to afford a private education for their children or donate a million dollars would have a disproportionate advantage.  Intelligence and the advantages of wealth is not the same thing.  Creating a wealthy elite with exclusive access to higher education is not the America our fore fathers imagined. Educational opportunities provide those downtrodden with hope and a pathway to economic securities, a more meaningful and happy life while reducing crime.  Education prepares people to be responsible citizens.  Affirmative actions and financial assistance provide opportunities for a brighter future.