America’s Real Problem Isn’t Failure. It’s No Consequences

I was listening to a talk by Thomas Sowell yesterday. He noted that when businesses make poor quality or useless products that no one wants, they lose money and either learn something or go out of business. But when a government program fails, no lessons get learned. It isn't their money, it's the taxpayers. Instead, they ask for more money and do more of the same. 

One of the saddest failures today is our American education system. For years we've seen articles about the decline of education, including not only outcomes but expectations and standards as well.  

Here's just one example of how far we've fallen, a 2024 article in The Atlantic titled "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books," by Rose Horowitch. The subtitle sinks home her message: "To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school."

Horowitch examines how many students at elite colleges (e.g., Columbia, UVA) arrive unprepared to read full books—often due to high school practices favoring short excerpts, standardized testing, smartphones, and shorter attention spans. Professors note students struggling with long-form reading, getting overwhelmed by novels or multiple books per semester, and sometimes shutting down when facing unfamiliar or challenging ideas.

This feels shocking to me. I remember reading Dickens freshman year (A Tale of Two Cities) and having an "Aha!" moment my sophomore year while reading Cyrano de Bergerac. I have a hard time imagining an education without reading being a fundmental practice. 

Over the past decade, according to Idress Kahloon, staff writer for The Atlantic, American students’ academic skills have sharply declined, regressing to levels not seen in 25 years. Test scores have fallen to record lows, while the percentage of students reading at a “below basic” level has reached record highs. As staff writer Rose Horowitch has reported, a shocking number of American college students say they didn’t read an entire book in middle or high school. What exactly went wrong?

Some believe Covid is partly to blame, along with smartphones. But Kahloon believes there is aother factor a play: low expectations.“Schools have demanded less and less from students,” he writes, “who have responded, predictably, by giving less and less.”

When I read this I wondered if this is one of a primary issue is our country today: low expectations. When people fail to find a job, or simply make poor decisions, we

When I read this I wondered if this is one of the primary issues in our country today: low expectations. When people fail to find a job, or simply make poor decisions, we look for someone or something else to blame. The system. The economy. The curriculum.  

But rarely do we ask: What was expected? And was it enough?

Expectations shape behavior. When standards are high, people stretch. When standards fall, people settle. That’s not cruelty—it’s human nature. 

In my case it was expected that I would get good grades and I got them. My parents also expected me to go to college. In short, they set me on a trajectory. (There was also an incentive when I was in grade school. I'd get a dime for every A and yes, incentives matter.

Somewhere along the way, society began confusing compassion with the removal of standards. We didn’t want students to feel discouraged, so we made the work easier. We didn’t want failure to sting, so we softened the consequences. We didn’t want anyone left behind, so we lowered the bar.

But lowering the bar doesn’t lift people up. It simply changes what “success” means.

And over time, that redefinition spreads. If a student can graduate without reading a book, what else can be bypassed? If effort is optional, what happens to discipline? If discomfort is avoided, what happens to growth? Failure is painful, but it's also a prod that goads us to figure out the why. 

I once knew a publisher who had previously been a high school football coach in Texas. If you know Texas, football was a big deal for small towns there. He was recruited to coach a team in another town that had never won a game in several years, and frequently they were spanked quite badly. When he arrived, he quickly saw the problem. There were kids with talent, and heart, who loved playing foorball. But they were in the wrong division. It would be like college kids playing the Seattle Seahawks. By spearheading the division change, his team was suddenly competitive.  

The point here: failure is an opportunity to learn. And sometimes the solution involves thinking outside the box.

This is not just an education problem. It’s a cultural one. Thomas Sowell’s point lingers here. In the private sector, failure teaches. In public systems, failure can be absorbed, explained away, or funded again. The feedback loop breaks. And when that happens, decline can continue for a long time before anyone is forced to reckon with it.

The irony is that most people—especially young people—are capable of far more than we ask of them. The question is whether we still believe that. Because if we don’t expect much, we shouldn’t be surprised when we don’t get much.

From the Rat Race to Life in the Slow Lane: Finding Balance and Purpose

"Frazzled" 

While cleaning more folders and files from my office and garage I came across this quote about the pace of life and the pressures we're under.

The world is too big for us, too much is going on, too many crimes, too much violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in the race in spite of yourself. It's a constant strain to keep pace... and still, you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political world is news seen rapidly, you're out of breath trying to keep pace with who's in and who's out. Everything is high pressure. Human nature can't endure much more.

Atlantic Journal June 16, 1883

* * * 

I love this quote for several reasons. First, it seems comical to me that this was written 140 years ago last month. Was the rat race so staggering even back then?

It also reminds me of how many of the same issues that our forebears struggled with are along the same lines as what we're dealing with. Crime, violence, living under pressure, the speed at which political news flips across our consciousness like tumblers on a gymnastics team.... It makes your head swim.

It also raises the question regarding how we ought to live. Of course, the more money one has the more options as well. "I can do whatever I want" only applies to those who have the means to do whatever they want. 

Over the years I've reflected on this quote many, many times. It always surprises me to think the rat race didn't begin in the 1980s but was pushing and shoving people a full century earlier. 

Personally, I think a lifetime of being stressed out, always running to catch up but never being caught up, takes a toll on our health. How do we find balance then? How slow down? And if we can't slow down, how pace oneself so as to avoid burnout? How do we create spaces to refill our wells? 

For me, I have observed that life has seasons. Sometimes we're impelled to run, sometimes we're able to take a breather. Whatever we go through is a learning opportunity. There's a certain amount of energy generated when we have to meet deadlines. On the other hand, repetitive work that feels meaningless eventually takes its toll. The key is finding a pace that is right for you. 

* * * 

Slow Living
Here are some posts I have published in the past about the concept of slow living.

Slow Living Versus the Rush and Roar of Fast Track Life

The Slow City Movement

Slow Living and an Icelandic Illusion

San Francisco's School Renaming Spree Would Be Funny If They Weren't Serious

TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION DEPT.

A lot of people were probably surprised when mobs began tearing down statues in several cities around the country. What surprised people wasn't that statues were being torn down, but the kinds of statues being destroyed or defaced. It was no longer just Confederate generals, but presidents and people considered heroes in many quarters. 

Against this backdrop I was not surprised to learn that the San Francisco school board was renaming as many as a third of their schools because they were determined to be no longer acceptable. 

Yesterday I came across this disturbing article from The Atlantic titled The Holier-Than-Thou Crusade in San Francisco by Gary Kamiya. Here is the story lead: 

San Francisco has issued its latest grand moral decree, and bad ex-presidents would be quaking in their coffins—if they could stop laughing.

On January 26, the San Francisco school board announced that dozens of public schools must be renamed. The figures that do not meet the board’s standards include Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson, Paul Revere, and Dianne Feinstein. A panel had determined that the 44 schools—more than one-third of the city’s total—were named after figures guilty of being, variously, colonizers; slave owners; exploiters of workers; oppressors of women, children, or queer and transgender people; people connected to human rights or environmental abuses; and espousers of racist beliefs.

The lively writing is filled with zingers like this one:

The more than 70 million Trump supporters whose most extreme caricatures of liberals have now been confirmed...

and this one:

The city’s move to rename schools will provide invaluable ammunition to Fox News.

* * * 

Evidently the School Names Advisory Committee was assembled in 2018 to address the issue of inappropriate names for the schools in their district. Once they realized the power they had been given, they threw caution to the wind. Kamiya writes:

In keeping with the incorruptible, Robespierre-like spirit of our revolutionary times, the committee decreed that one sin (being a colonizer or slave owner, using an “inappropriate” word, and so on) was all that was required to send a figure to the guillotine. Once that decision was made, the severed heads rolled into the gutter of history.

I encourage you to read the article to see what got Robert Louis Stevenson cancelled. It's so absurd that it defies comprehension? Then again, this has been my biggest concern about PC and Cancel Culture: No Mercy. And the corollary: Facts don't matter.

You should also check out the misinformation that passed as fact which expelled Paul Revere from another school.

As Kamiya puts it, "This debacle is just the latest example of 'progressive' cultural censorship in a city once renowned as a bastion of free speech."

READ THE FULL STORY HERE:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/san-francisco-renaming-spree/617894/

* * * 

THE ACRONYM ISSUE

As if the above story weren't disappointing enough, the following is the one I was looking for when I stumbled upon the Atlantic article. This story, by Andrew Chamings, apeared in the SFGate. It is titled:

After renaming debacle, SFUSD says

acronyms are a sign of 'white supremacy culture'

Now I'm not afraid to tell you that acronyms can be a problem. For years I taught a class on writing in which one section was devoted to Acronyms. In that class I showed how every industry has its own set of acronyms. Since the goal of communication is to communicate, we should not use acronyms without explaining them. API means American Petroleum Institute in the auto industry, for example. 

I do know how demeaning it can sometimes feel when people use unfamiliar acronyms and you don't know what they mean but are afraid to show your ignorance. I get it. But to call it white supremacy seems a bit of a stretch. Is LGBTQ a white supremacist power play? I don't think so. 

The SFGate article begins with the re-naming of schools that has been taking place. Then it slides over to the issue of acronyms. 

Some in the district have now taken the confounding stance that acronyms are a symptom of "white supremacy culture" and are working to remove them from buildings.

Evidently the arts department, which has formerly been VAPA (Visual And Performing Arts) is now going to be the SFUSD Arts Department. Go figure.

In a Newsweek story about the acronym issue, Dem congressman Ted Lieu took to Twitter to say "This is stupid. Acronyms are not a symptom of white supremacy culture. They are shorthand to make communicating more efficient. For example, CAPAC stands for Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Much easier to say CAPAC. Or ACLU. Or NAACP. Or NASA."

Exactly. 

You can read the full SFGate story here:
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/school-renaming-SFUSD-acronyms-racist-15919053.php

Future Hype: The Myths of Technology Change

The other day a friend shared with me an interesting article that argued that one of our basic notions of how the brain works is completely wrong. The article, titled The Empty Brain, begins with this somewhat controversial fundamental premise: Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer.

A lot of us have grown up with the idea of our brain as something like a computer. We assume that our memories are stored in the same way the documents and files are etched onto a hard drive. It may not be ones and zeroes, but it's something akin to that. Our synapses, I've believed, were like electrical impulses that work like software protocols. And, as many a sci-fi writer has suggested, one day scientists will be able to patch our brains to real computers for augmented powers and other currently inconceivable experiences. I myself have talked about this as if it were almost a sure thing. In fact, my short story The M Zone is built on this premise, that we'll one day be able to access our memories by means of electronic devices.

The article comes at an interesting time in my readings since I've lately been voraciously consuming books about the future, about the world of tomorrow. Most striking is how varied these authors' pictures of the future have been. In fact, they're often downright contradictory, whether it's cars, geopolitics or the environment.

In the realm of computer science, some writers believe that an A.Il singularity will occur in our lifetimes. Others suggest it will never occur at all, ever. Some see humans living in space stations on Mars in the not too distant future. Others scoff as if this notion is ridiculous.

One of the books I've been enjoying this past week has be Bob Seidensticker's Future Hype. The title alone encapsulates the author's premise. Here's the book's description at Amazon.com:

Conventional wisdom says that technology is the greatest new growth frontier, coupling infinite potential with an ever-growing number of faster, more efficient, and more reliable products and instruments. According to this view, we live in an unprecedented golden era of technological expansion. ""Future Hype argues the opposite. Author Bob Seidensticker, who has an intimate understanding of technology on professional, theoretical, and academic levels, asserts that today's technological achievements are neither fast nor progressive. He explodes seven major myths of technology, including ""Change is exponential,"" ""Product cycle time is decreasing,"" and ""Today's high-tech price reductions are unprecedented."" Examining the history of tech hype, Seidensticker skillfully uncovers the inaccuracies and misinterpretations that characterize the popular view of technology, explaining how and why this view has been created, and offering specific strategies for measuring progress against what is actually known rather than against what its boosters have promised.

Over the years I've written several times about mistaken predictions by people supposedly in the know (c.f "Who Are Your Experts"). And being aware of this tendency (to envision futures quite wide of the mark) nearly all predictioneering begins with extensive qualifying statements that indicate that the author is fully aware that the further into the future we go the more wildly askew we might be.

In fact, this is one of the big question marks for those who write about A.I. No one can really know what will happen when the machines are so smart that they knowledge becomes exponentially greater than ours. It's a moment in time beyond which we cannot see. That is, if it happens at all.

This is what makes this book mentally entertaining. It's an antidote to the unbridled optimism some writers have expressed.

Here's an Amazon.com review from a reader named Byron Justice:
As an audio specialist these last 30 years, I've seen my share of technology hype. Even though history is littered from horizon to horizon with inflated expectations, broken promises, unfounded predictions, and a few outright lies, I'm always amazed at how easily people are goaded into throwing down their credit card for the latest tech toys. Of course, this book reaffirms that which I already know--technology for its own sake may be cool, but has no other benefits. I was predisposed to enjoy this book, and I wasn't disappointed. The guy who should read this book is the same guy who replaced his Beta tape library with LaserDiscs.

A reviewer named Brian wrote:
The people of every period in history tend to think that the time in which they live is somehow special: dramatically better than, or worse than, or in some way fundamentally different from all the times that came before. (And/or the people of today are *themselves* somehow different from the people of yesterday.)

* * * *

In one section of the book the author notes that although times have changed people aren't that different and that many times in the past there have been writers lamenting the fast pace of change taking place in their time. I myself have written about how people in many eras of history have felt this sense of being overwhelmed by the fast pace of change. An article in The Atlantic from the 19th century and another by Kafka back in the Twenties both expressed the emotional exhaustion caused by the breathtaking changes taking place and the feeling of being rushed, pushed, shoved by life. On the other hand, there are many who have become weary by how long the changes are taking place in our time. The author of Future Hype claims the rate of change is actually slowing down.

Seidensticker devotes the middle portion of his book to presenting specific myths and misconceptions such as (1) the idea that change is exponential, or that (3) important new high-tech inventions are arriving ever faster. He even calls Moore's Law a myth, or rather, the notion that it really matters. And even the changes wrought by the internet are overrated.

Ultimately the book serves as a nice antidote to the roiling media hype about all the "inevitable" changes that are moving toward us like a steamroller. You can find it here at Amazon.com.

* * * *
This book brings to mind an article I once read in Writer's Digest about making money by writing articles that are contrarian. This is certainly that kind of book. Nearly every argument has two side, and it is often quite easy to shoot holes in what are often popular misconceptions. (By mentioning "shooting holes" I'm not aiming to veer this blog post toward the topic of guns.)

Anyways, I'm fairly confident that this author enjoyed assembling his book. I also believe it can serve a useful function to keep things in perspective.

* * * *
If you like short stories and enjoyed The M Zone, you can find my Unremembered Histories at Amazon.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Just keep breathing.

The Case Against High School Sports

My brother is a practicing psychologist for whom the concept of balance is important. In a world with so many things out of balance, how does one find that golden mean with regard to issues such as anxiety, use of leisure time, giving, anger, industriousness, etc. There are a lot of things in life that are harmless, or can even be good, until they’re out of balance.

As I was passing through the Dayton Airport Friday I picked up the October issue of The Atlantic, in part because of Amanda Ripley’s feature highlighted on the cover, "How Sports Are Ruining High School." The story resonated with me because of a comment made by a retired teacher in our local high school district a few years ago. He said that in ten years they had not hired a new teacher who wasn’t also able to serve as an athletic coach.

Here's the intro to the article: “The United States routinely spends more tax dollars per high-school athlete than per high-school math student—unlike most countries worldwide. And we wonder why we lag in international education rankings?” How far do we lag behind? The U.S., according to Ripley, ranks 31st in international math tests.

She cites an economic study in which one public high school in the northwest was spending $328 per math student and $1,348 per cheerleader.

The article is sympathetic to the benefits of sports, including exercise, sportsmanship and perseverance, as well as school spirit. But at what price?

As school budgets get ever tighter, we see arts and music teachers being squeezed out altogether. But the marching band plays on. And taxpayers foot the bill for the stadiums they play in.

Speaking of taxpayers picking up the tab, the same issue of The Atlantic carried an excellent piece of investigative reporting on how the NFL fleeces taxpayers in all these stadium deals. Owners hold whole cities hostage unless they're willing to fork over the cash.

But we need our sports fix.

Confession: I'm a Browns fan. I also follow Major League Baseball during the playoffs. The question I'm raising is how do we find balance in all these things? Is NFL Football our modern equivalent of the Roman empire's bread and circuses?

Actually, the Bible has something to say about some of this. The author of Ecclesiastes, well aware our burdens and hardships, wrote "So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun." (NIV) Or as the King James Version puts it, "Eat, drink and be merry."

The entertainment industry, of which sports is a part, does serve a purpose. There was probably an amateur stand up comedian in every village in Europe at one time. Olympic games of a sort are as old as the Greeks. I'm only trying to open a dialogue on this matter of balance.

Meantime, life goes on... all around you.

Your Child Left Behind

Magazines make great travel companions when on the road, providing thought food or diversion, whatever your appetite. Last winter I picked up the December 2010 edition of The Atlantic and found a whole compendium of thought provoking content. One article that I've been intending to write about, beginning on page 100, was titled "Your Child Left Behind." As the name suggests, it's yet another somewhat scathing indictment of the quality of U.S. education.

Amanda Ripley's report is accompanied by a really informative illustration, a bar chart made of pencils getting shorter and shorter. The chart shows the percentage of students performing at the advanced level in math proficiency. The unique feature of this article, and accompanying chart, is that it breaks down the countries of the world and compares against the individual states within the U.S.

Worldwide, Taiwan is tops, at the 28.2 percentile. Hong Kong, Korea, Finland and Switzerland follow, in that order. Fifteenth on the list is Germany. It isn't till you reach the seventeenth pencil in the graph that we find Massachusetts. Three pencils later stands Minnesota. The good ol' U.S.A. ranks 31st against the nations of the world, which means plenty of states are performing abominably worse by this measure.

That our education is fluffy happens to be nothing new. When I was in college I took a fourth year Native American anthropology class in which one student built a teepee and got an A for the semester. O.K., I aced the class, too, but I at least read the material. O.K., full disclosure. It was a "grade yourself" class. (I took five in college, and got four A's.)

Ripley states that there's an attitude afoot that says, "Smart kids can make it on their own." Other countries see the smart kids as a worthy investment as future leaders and necessary for critical functions within society.

What brought this article to mind was another article which I saw posted on a friend's Facebook wall a few days ago. He himself is a math teacher and has noted America's woeful lack in this area. Titled "The 'Education' Mantra," Thomas Sowell introduces his theme in this manner...

One of the sad and dangerous signs of our times is how many people are enthralled by words, without bothering to look at the realities behind those words.

One of those words that many people seldom look behind is "education." But education can cover anything from courses on nuclear physics to courses on baton twirling.

Unfortunately, an increasing proportion of American education, whether in the schools or in the colleges and universities, is closer to the baton twirling end of the spectrum than toward the nuclear physics end. Even reputable colleges are increasingly teaching things that students should have learned in high school.

When I was in school I found it frustrating to learn that a football player with a four year scholarship could get college credits for taking the same math that I took in junior high school.

It's safe to say that not all learning is in the classroom. Nor does our personal education and development end upon graduation. According to one study at Buffalo State University, a commitment to lifelong learning is a critical component in personal and career success. But someone needs to light the fuse to get young people believing that study has value.

Citing examples from history, the Sowell article goes on to describe the problems our warm fuzzy course studies and meaningless degrees can lead to. It's a worthy read.

This Month's Atlantic

When travelling it is a custom of mine to pick up a magazine to read during the flight. I peruse the magazine racks (most airports have a fairly good selection) and acquire whichever most entices in the moment. Thus it is that mag designers splash as many intriguing article themes as possible because when all those covers are looking at you, just takes to put you over and pull the cash from your wallet.

Returning from Indy on Sunday I picked up the March edition of The Atlantic. In large block letters it features an ominous looking story THE RECESSION'S LONG SHADOW. The subhead, in yellow capital letters against a somber highway, empty and grey, reads, "HOW A NEW JOBLESS ERA WILL TRANSFORM AMERICA." The picture tells the story, but it's a good thought provoking read as well.

Other stories in this issue include, "Cyberwar: Pentagon vs. Chinese Superhackers", "Food Fight: Whole Foods Vs. Wal-Mart", and "Inside The Pac-Man Archives." But the cover blurb that led me to part with my money was "Management Secrets Of The Grateful Dead" by Joshua Green. Ironically, this last was not as gratifying a read as I had hoped because the management secrets were essentially a re-hash of the things I already knew from previous articles about the Dead. Green did present an interesting review of current events in their history, mainly ruminating on the archives that have been assembled and stashed in an undisclosed Northern California location which will be made available to scholars and historians in the very near future. The article exists no doubt to serve notice regarding the unveiling soon of this treasure trove.

On the plane I began at the front of the mag, reading the letters to the editor and getting a hankering to obtain the past issues which stirred these comments. Preceding that, though, is a table of contents page which features Jerry Garcia, contemplatively fingering the strings of his guitar. This image alone is worth the price of the mag for any Dead fan. And even for a semi-Dead fan like me. So, no regrets on that article. The rest of this issue would then be gravy.

After the Letters pages, a section called Dispatches follows. A small collection of interesting shorter pieces, the first focusing on a reality TV show in Kabul called Afghan Model. The next is called Sex-Offender City which deals with the problem of finding homes for sex offenders when everyone and their brother is shouting, "Not in my back yard." This was followed by a little story on the rodeo scene and a number of Brazilian cowboys who have become part of that scene. Exile in Greenville follow this, an article about NASCAR and environmentalists, told with a unique angle from a unique moment in time. I read each of these with relish.

The travel piece, Chet of Arabia, about a mom and three year old son who travelled in the Middle East, didn't engage me, but would likely have brought fond memories from my brother and his wife who were in some of these places last year (Petra, Israel, Jordan).

I skipped the Pac-Man article, and found an interesting piece called Myth-Diagnosis by Megan McArdle, which made the case that people without insurance are not more likely to die. It is one of those contrarian pieces that makes you think.

This was followed by an article about the reality TV show Lockup and it's sequel spin-offs. What will they think of next? It reminds me of Tom Wolfe's comment in the 1970's that fiction was dead and would be replaced by stories like In Cold Blood, truth told using fictional story-telling techniques. He may have been wrong about the demise of the novel, but television producers have learned that we live in a highly voyeuristic culture that invests great quantities of time peeking into other peoples' windows.

The 14-page feature on joblessness in America begins on page 42, with a photo of a kid in prep school attire carrying a hobo's pack. This is followed by the James Fallows piece called Cyber Warriors with the Dead piece fast on its heels.

The Grateful Dead article held its own, but was followed by the most significant article for me in this issue: Death Becomes Him, by Bruce Falconer, an in depth profile of Switzerland's assisted suicide industry in general and Ludwig Minelli's Dignitas in particular. I'm curious at the juxtaposition of a piece about the Grateful Dead and an article in which an assisted suicide community boasts of their "grateful dead."