It's Spring ... Now What? #3

In the salvo last week I alerted you to the shocking advice that perhaps college isn’t for everyone. An American audience would find this revolutionary because, after all, everyone these days is expected to go to college.

However, Professor X ~ writing in the June Atlantic ~ warns us that passing go and heading to the Quad isn’t for everyone. He and other professors of the English 101 ilk are the real hit men who have to parcel out the weakest link. In other words, college acceptance is for everyone but not all students finish the freshman year.

Part of the problem is in the numbers. Try as I might ~ I couldn’t come up with the exact figures on the internet but my guess is there are as many college and university places in America as there are high school graduates each spring.

Indeed, I remember my dear college counselor saying “there’s even a place for someone like you, Johnny” ~ this a few days after my feeble SATs arrived. (Thankfully, the next results were better)!

Here are some numbers I know by heart because I worked in Istanbul for nine years. In Turkey some 1.5 million school-leavers take an exam for 250,000 university seats. Yikes! That means there is a 6:1 ratio of applicants over seats.

Guess what that does to teaching, learning, curriculum and the other nicecities of academia? The competition is mind-boggling with older students (and parents) seeking out the best tutors, the best test-prep schools (Wednesday nights, Saturdays and Sundays) and an attitude ~ damn the rest of the curriculum ~ just get me ready for the TEST! In other words, if you don't study ~ very hard ~ there is not place for you.

Do some number crunching and you’ll see what there are so many dropouts in American higher education.

It's Spring ... Now What? #2

A characteristic of our egalitarian American way of life is the opportunity for everyone to attend college. This is true.

Those of us of a certain age (indeed nothing has really changed) will remember our high school counselor calling us into the office in the spring of tenth grade for advice (practice essay writing, take difficult courses and ~ by all means ~ stay involved in as many extra-curricular activities as possible). At the close of this short meeting the counselor would hand us the holy grail of his profession ~ the timeline: ominous registration dates for SATs and Achievement Tests, do-or-die admission deadlines, obscure post-mark threats and the like.

A lifetime later (spring of grade 12) you had as few or as many college acceptances in your pocket directly proportionate to how well you followed the counselor’s advice. For example, the morning of my first SAT exam (a warm and springy Saturday in New England) was also the morning of my first hangover which might explain my dodgy academic career. You took your chances.

Anyway, it was off to college.

Now Professor X ~ writing in the June, 2008 edition of The Atlantic magazine (The Basement of the Ivory Tower) ~ proffers the very un-American thought that college might not be for everyone. It is worth reading ~ not the least because he/she can’t risk signing the article for fear of losing his/her job.

Here are a few quotes: “no one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass.”

“Sending everyone under the sun to college is a noble initiative. Academia is all for it, naturally. Industry is all for it. Government is all for it. The media applauds it ~ try to imagine someone speaking out against the idea.”

“Yet [writes the anonymous Professor X – he/she of English 101 fame] for I who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required, they are in some cases barely literate, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, the very bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school ~ much less for college”.

Well, oh dear. This is heavy sailing. The letters to the editor on this subject should make for good reading.

More on this later.

It's Spring ... Now What?

Spring means many things to many people. However, for 17- 18 year olds around the world the meaning can’t be clearer ~ it’s the end of their formal education.

Call them “graduates” as we do in America ~ or “school-leavers” as the Europeans say ~ young people finishing up secondary school are now ready for the next step.

What step?

Forty years ago (“did I ever mention … when I was a boy”) the hierarchy of choices probably looked like this:

Packing off to college or university (stressfully)
Joining the workforce
Dropping out to visit Europe, Persia or Kathmandu
Enlisting in the military (reluctantly ~ remember Viet Nam?)
Finding a wife or husband and getting married

Today the options probably look like this:

Making a clever You Tube video and pocketing a quick million
Writing a clever software program and pocketing a quick million
Joining the tech workforce directly from school without the stress of college or university
Packing off to college or university (stressfully)
Joining the non-tech workforce
Enlisting in the military (reluctantly ~ remember Iraq?)
Finding a wife or husband and getting married

Given the vast changes in communications and social dynamics around the world ~ the next step is trickier than ever.

More on this later.

Floridians and the Environment

Floridians have a love-hate relationship with the environment this time of year.

Let me re-phrase that. My perception is that Floridians have a love-hate relationship with the environment this time of year. After all ~ who I am to speak for 19,000,000 other denizens?

Here’s why. We have the place to ourselves ~ the tourists, baseball players, snowbirds and college kids have all gone north. The weather is still picture perfect. The water temperature down at the beach where we swim is an indulgent 81 degrees. Not bath water yet ~ but very pleasant.

There has been no measurable rain since November and literally not a drop since early April. Thus, there is very low humidity and no bugs including the dreaded mosquitoes. There has been a stiff easterly breeze these past few weeks which gives the air a fresh feeling.

It is also dry. Very dry. Consequently, much of the state is on fire. A graphic on the television weather last night showed little flames flickering across much of the peninsula. Several big highways are closed due to heavy smoke. So, Florida is burning.

However, at the barber shop the other day the guy in the chair next to me said he was going golfing. He quipped that the aligators weren't out yet and that would improve his game. My barber replied that he was taking his boat out this weekend. No thunderstorms to send me in early, he laughed. And we had dinner the other night with our good friend who invited us to her club overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. I swallowed my first shrimp as the sun set over the sparkling blue water.

Go figure.

Tin Tin ~ who who?

Just when you think you know it all ~ or you think you think you should know it all ~ you stumble across something completely new or unexpected. Nothing profound this post ~ just surprised to discover the following.

So there I am lurking around Brussels Midi Station a few weeks ago awaiting the departure of the Euro-star service to England (see London in 3.6 hours). And yes I have plenty of reading material with me but nevertheless it’s always worth a look in the local bookstore to see who is reading what.

Here then is all the standard fare: The Times and Guardian, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeituig and De Telegraaf, El Pais, Nice Matin and dozens of other titles from around Europe. There is the magazine rack, too, and some novels in different languages.

But wait ~ what’s this? A whole wall of comics. A whole wall ~ the back of the shop ~ covered in comics. From the left side of the shop all the way over to the right side. I take a closer look. Who then is this Tintin?

Some cousin of Rin Tin Tin, the indomitable German Sheppard? ~ there are more people thumbing through Tintin than looking at the papers or magazines. Comics might not be the right word as the booklets are glossy and run to about 60 pages each.

Turns out that Tintin (how have I missed him all these years?) is one of the most popular figures to have been created in the last century. “The Adventures of Tintin” is a series of comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé ~ the pen name of Georges Remi who died in 1983. The hero of the series is Tintin, a young Belgian reporter and adventurer (hence the interest here in the Brussels train station)? He is assisted in his travels by his faithful fox terrier dog Snowy.

Better than the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew? I can’t tell you. Some of the titles are great, though: Tintin in the Congo, King Ottokar’s Sceptre, the Calculus Affair and the Red Sea Sharks.

Apparently there are millions of copies printed around the world.

There you go ~ something new everyday. If I had walked into the Cafe du Gare, there wouldn't have been half the excitment. Time to read this Tintin fellow.

The Other Monty in 3.6 hours

There are two Monty’s in my travel life.

The loveliest is Monterey, California with its big sweeping bay, the hilly peninsula, the expensive golf courses and the lingering presence of John Steinbeck.

The other is the administrative, commercial, medical and banking center of Northern Mexico in the state of Nuevo León. This Monterrey is less attractive ~ although the two “r’s” in its name seem to give it some sort of orthographical balance.

Monterrey is roughly halfway between Houston and Mexico City. The 2 R’s is surrounded on 3 sides by jagged, blue mountains. These are called the Sierra Madre Oriental range and the big peak looming over the city looks like an extracted tooth with a cavity.

The center of this Monty is divided by a wide, dry river bed, two highways on each side and a busy north-south rail line (check to see if your hotel is well away from the tracks as the “mournful” sound of the whistle can be heard all night).

I’m not doing this Monty justice. This is my 4th or 5th visit (yes, more international schools) so I tend to see the place through the eyes of acquaintances here. These are well educated, family oriented, hard-working, bilingual citizens of the Mexico that is trying to succeed under the long shadow of the US of A ~ just to the North.

The city is doing its best to avoid the drug-war related horrors of the Tex-Mex borderlands to the west and the denizens here feel that education, resolve and family values are the way to make it all succeed.

Sensible and I hope it works. This Monty is worth a visit.

Recruitment: Fair or Fracas?

For the heads of several hundred international schools around the world ~ the clock is ticking to fill the remaining staff vacancies for August. The long series of recruitment fairs which began last winter are nearly over. With the pressure mounting, the final fairs are more like a fracas.

To use a baseball analogy ~ it’s the 9th inning. To use a soccer analogy ~ it’s the 88th minute. To put it bluntly ~ time is running out.

I had the chance to watch a recruitment fair close up last month while attending a meeting in London. The meeting and fair were two side of the same coin: promoting international education and working with the many schools that provide valuable services to students and parents around the world.

Here’s the drill! Recruiters arrive on Wednesday. They review resumes and references on Thursday (despite advances in technology and e-communications, many recruiters still want to see candidates in person ~ or press the flesh as it were). Friday morning is the “round-robin” sign-up when candidates scramble around a big room to set up meeting times.

The remainder of the weekend is spent in interviews, confirming job offers and praying (for the recruiters) that potential candidates accept the positions.

Then there is the dreaded envelope under the door...

...Dear Sir: thank you for the stimulating interview yesterday. Your website is brilliant. The curriculum is dynamic. I know I could take the Mandarin program to new heights and I've always wanted to coach a sled-dog team. However, I've just signed a contract to teach in Xanadu. Thanks a lot.

Oh, dear! Three positions filled this weekend ~ four more to go. Four more to go … four more to go.

It’s going to be a sleepless night.

Sleepless in Seattle
Sleepless in Singapore
Sleepless in Santiago

London in 3.6 Hours

The writer Samuel Johnson quipped “when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”.

Johnson was writing a couple hundred of years ago before London became the really wired, hip, swinging, cool, multiethnic-and-working-nicely-thank-you place that it is today. If Sam was still writing he might say “when you are tired in London, just seek out one of her many green spaces for a bit of rest.”

While New York has a Central Park ~ London has so many that the Tourist Board has a separate brochure intended to help visitors find the right one. London ~ as has been noted by many observers ~ is just a series of villages surrounded by green.

Most visitors know Hyde Park (Speakers' Corner) or Green Park in front of Buckingham Palace. Take care if you are planning to meet someone in Hyde Park because of its size ~ about 650 acres. The park is contiguous with Kensington Garden which together (according to the guide book) is larger than the Principality of Monaco. See you by the yew tree at noon. Maybe.

If Hyde Park is not your cup of tea ~ then try Regent’s Park just to the north (at 480 acres). I had the good fortune of living in North London at one time in the 1970’s ~ roughly between Regent’s Park and Hampstead Heath. The “heath” is wild, rambling and hilly with its own ponds and woodlands. Stagger out of the Freemason Arms next to the heath at closing time and you had better know your way home.

Wimbledon is best known for its tennis but try crossing the Common in the rain ~ at 1,100 acres. Does size really matter? Further to the south is Richmond Park at 2,500 acres and the largest Royal Park (again according to the Guide) with its own herd of free roaming deer.

Just outside of London is Windsor Great Park at 5,000 acres. Cross all the way to the east ~on the Central Line on the Underground~ to Theydon Bois and there you can enter Epping Forest at 6,000 acres or 12 miles in depth. London’s “green lung” is how locals describe the forest.

Tired of London? Get real. Just go for a walk.