How useful am I?

As an academic, I question my usefulness. Society will always need carpenters (or plumbers or tailors or nurses or farmers). Their benefit is pretty clear and obvious. Will it always need historians? How important is my obscure research that might only be read by a handful of other obscure historians? Am I a producer or a parasite?

I think it is a normal to want to be a productive member of society. To know that the work into which you put your life force actually benefits humanity in some small way. Even to be able to ask these questions demonstrates a great deal of privilege.

On the one hand, academia is often criticized for being an ivory tower, from being divorced from "real life". On the other, academics are among the most engaged people I know. Rarely are they unconcerned with politics, society or human relationships.

In the hierarchy of academia, often the applied sciences and business are considered to be most useful - 80% of Canada's research funding is allocated to science and health. And in 2009, the Conservative government decided to increasingly allocate the social sciences and humanities research funding to business-related degrees. Already (as often decried during the most recent crash) so many of the best young minds are wasted in the financial sector moving money and creating paper wealth instead of solving society's problems. Even if I don't solve any major problems myself, maybe I will be partially responsible for teaching the generation that might do so.

Back to School in Iraq

This article Back to School, Back to Horror offers a good opportunity to compare some lifestyle differences between the invaders vs. the invadees, occupiers vs. occupied.

While American kids are getting settled in their new classes, probably after going on a shopping spree, Iraqi kids are also going back to school.

With the security situation grimmer than ever all over the country, just stepping out of one’s house means a serious threat to life.

"God knows how we could send our kids to school this year," Um Mohammed, a mother of five in Baghdad told IPS. "Our financial situation is the worst ever and the prices are way too expensive for the majority of Iraqis to afford. I might have to keep some of them at home and send only two."

The 40-year-old woman shed tears when she started to talk about the family’s financial now compared to what it was before the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

"My God, don’t those Americans have any conscience? We were not rich before, but life was easy and we used to celebrate the school season, watching our kids trying their uniform on and looking at the colourful pictures of their new books," she said.

Now, the state of American public education is somewhere between adequate and dismal (depending on which school district you look at), something for which there is no excuse in the richest country in the world. Iraqis face infinitely more challenges:

"The educational system in Iraq is destroyed and we are suffering all kinds of difficulties," said Hassan, a school headmaster in Baghdad who spoke on condition that his last name and the name of his school would not be used. "There will be a shortage of desks, blackboards, water, electricity and all educational supplies – as well as a critical shortage in the number of teachers this year."

Teachers, like other Iraqis, have fled the country because of threats from sectarian death squads. Some were evicted from their areas and moved to others inside Iraq for sectarian reasons.

According to Iraq's Ministry of Higher Education, as of February 2006, nearly 180 professors were killed and at least 3,250 have fled Iraq to the neighbouring countries. The situation has deteriorated severely since then.

Many children in the USA have little more to worry about than studying and socializing, with puberty and various crushes thrown into the mix for older kids. This is enough for any kid to deal with, and many American kids have other concerns on top of these: learning disabilities, bullying, child abuse, incest, family violence, gang violence, poverty, racial or ethnic discrimination, social exclusion, self-esteem issues, eating disorders, pressure to succeed... it goes on. Is it any wonder that kids have a lot on their mind and often experience mental health issues like depression, anxiety, or hyperactivity?

Now imagine life as a school-age child in Iraq.

According to an Oxfam International report released in July, "92 percent of children had learning impediments that are largely attributable to the current climate of fear."

The report added, "Schools are regularly closed as teachers and pupils are too fearful to attend. Over 800,000 children may now be out of school, according to a recent estimate by Save the Children UK -- up from 600,000 in 2004."

Photo from War News Radio

More on Children in Iraq

Other recent interesting posts on back-to-school: Surveillance, Control and the First Day of School and School, Take Four...

And speaking of school, instead of blogging, I should really be reading right now (Revolutionary Terrorism: The FLN in Algeria, 1954-1962)... time to get back to it.

Interview with a Young Afghan Girl: "If I go to school who is going to take care of my little brother and sister? "

Every day her mother makes her some Bolani (Afghan fast food) and sells each one for 5 afg, almost ten cents.

She is 9 years old and wishes to go to school one day. She wishes that one day they'll have food at home and a schoolbag for her brother. She wishes for the day when he will have shoes on his feet. She is tired.

I asked her if she likes to go to school.

"If I go to school who is going to take care of my little brother and sister? Who is going to feed my mother? We don’t have a home, we don't have food, and we don't have money. That is why I am coming to the street to sell Bolani and earn a little money, to buy food for my family", she answered.

I looked down at her feet in the old torn shoes. Her toes came out and were terribly harmed. She suffers from her long walks to reach this place to sell her bread.
"Look I have no shoes to go to school; I walk 30 minutes to get here. And here I am not comfortable also, because the traffic comes towards me, forcing me to leave this place. At night when I go back home I am tired and I can’t play. So I go to sleep and early in the morning I wake up again and take me and my breads back to this place", she said.

Interview by Afghan Lord.

Legalizing education for girls, and even building schools isn't enough to ensure the education of girls (or boys). The ongoing fighting and the resulting lack of stability means little economic activity and much grinding poverty for much of the Afghan population. Poor children, as illustrated here by this interview, cannot attend school, even when it is available. They do what they can to survive. Until the airstrikes and heavy fighting stop, the country cannot truly be rebuilt, poverty and womens rights cannot be dealt with, and things like womens' rights and the education of girls will continue to be only a dream. As I've said before, Canada and the other NATO countries are using the women of Afghanistan to justify their military occupation to their own people. For the Afghan people, the Taliban pose only as much a threat as the warlords pose - the warlords we are allied with.

- Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies during childbirth
- 87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate
- 30 percent of girls have access to education in Afghanistan
- 1 in every 3 Afghan women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence
- 44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women in Afghanistan
- 70 to 80 percent of women face forced marriages in Afghanistan
Source: IRIN News, March 8, 2007

Or maybe, as the Fraser Institute thinks, making them pay for education is the answer.

Violence at Virginia Tech and at Iraq's Universities Unacceptable

Think about how you felt when you heard about the terrible tragedy that happened yesterday at Virginia Tech. Think of those 33 innocent people who were killed, for no good reason, while they were going about their business. They had futures, which are now gone. They have families who loved them and who are devastated. Their friends, lovers, parents, neighbours, teachers, and even strangers like us are mourning their loss. There is fear among students and their families - what if this happens again? What if it's my school next? What if it is my son or daughter?

Now think about this: Iraqis face this every day.

Innocent Iraqi students, who also have bright futures, and families who love them, are killed or fear being killed every day.

Photo by Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty, from Iraqslogger.com
Students look at the scene of two explosions in front of Mustansiriya University on January 16.

The nation reacted in horror as students counted their dead by the dozens, all innocent victims of an indiscriminate attack violating the sanctity of the university campus.

Today, it’s Virginia Tech, the site of a horrific mass murder in which at least 33 students are confirmed dead in a shooting rampage by an as-yet unidentified gunman.

In Iraq, universities struggling to operate in the midst of a war zone have been struck repeatedly by bombings, shootings, assassinations, and abductions that have left behind hundreds of killed and wounded, victims and forced thousands of students and professors to stay away, or even leave the country.

On Monday, the same day as the Virginia Tech mass shooting, two separate shooting incidents struck Mosul University, one killing Dr. Talal Younis al-Jelili, the dean of the college of Political Science as he walked through the university gate, and another killing Dr. Jaafar Hassan Sadeq, a professor from the Faculty of Arts at the school, who was targeted in front of his home in the al-Kifaat area, according to Aswat al-Iraq.

In January, Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University sufferred a double suicide bombing in January that killed at least 70 people, including students, faculty, and staff. A month later, another suicide bomber struck at Mustansiriya, killing 40.

Read the rest of the article from Iraqslogger.com.

Yesterday as we huddled around our TVs and Radios, listening to the events at Virginia Tech and the subsequent analysis, we were putting ourselves in the place of those affected by the violence. We were imagining what if it was our son, our daughter, our wife or husband, or ourselves who were killed. We were experiencing our natural human gift of empathy. Universally there was an opening of hearts. What happened yesterday was a tragedy, and I think as human beings, we all feel the pain of those who suffered.

A wise woman I know once said: "When a heart breaks, it opens, and it can become a powerful force for love in this world". I hope our hearts stay open to help us feel the pain of others in the world, and I hope we are inspired to act and stop letting thugs kill and destroy, indiscriminately ruining countless lives.

Oh right, but I forgot. The most important thing is to make sure nobody worries about losing their right to bear arms.

Inspired by this and this.

Free Education Isn't Always Enough

But it's a start.

When I was in Mexico last month, I saw lots of kids that were not in school on weekdays. I asked a local why these kids aren't in school and was told that although Mexico has good universal public education, these kids can't afford to lose the few pesos they can make selling oranges and handkerchiefs to tourists.

Even when education is free, many kids simply can't afford to go to school. Their income may be essential to the family, frequently they have to care for younger siblings, sometimes they are just trying to stay alive, not to mention there are often additional expenses (such as books, transportation, and uniforms) incurred even at public school.

Nearly 300 000 children in South Africa can't go to school because they don't have wheelchairs, hearing aids, crutches or even spectacles to make their lives easier. (more)

It is clear that the logical solution to this problem is to help these children with their particular needs. A Right-wing think tank's solution, however, would be to replace public education with private education, and hope that private charity can help send the poor kids to school.

The Fraser Institute believes because universal free public education is not providing the kind of results we'd like to see, it is a failure of the concept of public education.

This week, the United Nations 2005 World Summit in New York will address the lack of access to education for the lowest-income families around the globe. Its admirable goal is to achieve “universal primary education by 2015,” through increased international funding and government administration. The educational plight of the world’s poor seems inevitably to result in calls for such responses.

Though the big stick* of government intervention seems like a powerful tool for good, in the field of education its results have been disappointing and suggest that government interference in education is part of the problem, not the solution.

Evidence suggests that free, state-run education has not resulted in anywhere near the universal educational outcomes its advocates have promised. In many parts of the Western world, that failure is still evident after more than a century of concentrated effort, in Africa after many billions of dollars in international aid grants. These are humanitarian tragedies indeed and we must consider seriously the reasons for the failure.

Does the educational failure of the world’s poor reflect the impossibility of achieving lofty educational goals, or does it reflect misguided reliance on public financing and provision? Increasingly, the evidence suggests not that poor families are impossible to educate, but that free, state-run schools may not be the best way to deliver education to them.

Groundbreaking research by the University of Newcastle’s Dr. James Tooley in the slums of Africa, India and China reveals that a perhaps majority of students not enrolled in public schools in these countries are being educated in unregistered private schools, paid for by their parents.

Tooley’s research indicates significantly higher achievement among private-school students even after controlling for factors such as parental education and income. His fieldwork findings also show that when visited unannounced, fewer public-school teachers were engaged in teaching activities than their private-school counterparts were.

A recent BBC documentary provided vivid anecdotal evidence of this when it showed footage of teachers sleeping in African public-school classrooms and chatting on their cell phones, while students were left to their own devices.

Though governments in the developing world do not recognize the existence or contribution of private schools, their value is fully acknowledged by parents, who make great personal sacrifices to pay the tuition. One parent explains, “If you were offered free fruit in the market, you would know it was rotten. If you want good fruit, you have to pay for it. The same is true of education.”

Here in Canada, private schools are equally unsung heroes of education for our poorest citizens. An OECD report released this week reveals that even after accounting for parental education and income, private-school students in Canada do much better on mathematics tests than their public school counterparts. Statistics Canada tells us that 29 percent, nearly a third of children who attend private schools in Canada, are from families with incomes of less than $50,000. This suggests that many poor parents in Canada also value private education, despite the financial sacrifices it requires of them.

In fact, there is reason to believe that private schools may offer lower-income families better value for money than public schools offer taxpayers. Evidence of this comes from Children First: School Choice Trust, a greatly over-subscribed program in Ontario that offers grants to lower-income families. The program pays up to 50 percent of tuition at independent elementary school for 800 children whose household income is less than twice the poverty line. The average household income of Children First families is less than $28,000 while the average tuition of their schools is $4,400, about 56 percent of what is spent per student in the public system.

Why are these poor families choosing private schools that will cost them dearly, when public schools are available free of charge? Some want relief from bullying, others religious education, others cite smaller schools with greater academic emphasis and respect for teachers, while yet others help for a special education need. Each family seems to agree with the African parent’s analogy of the free fruit and that educational value offered by private schools is more than worth their financial sacrifices.

Chinese officials told Tooley’s research team private schools for the poor were “logically impossible.” Like those officials, government bureaucrats* will continue to deny the existence and potential of educational entrepreneurs, despite the cost of their denial to those poor families they purport to serve. And while they do, the admirable UN targets for universal education will prove continually elusive.
My Emphasis
* Note the bogeymen: "big stick of government intervention", "government bureaucrats". Can't you just HEAR the venom dripping from their mouths?

What planet are they on? The FI's solution would make sense only in a world in which poverty means not being able to afford both education and an iPod. Yes I'm still annoyed about this.

Related

The Fraser Institute and Drowning Public Education in a Bathtub

So the other morning, on my TTC ride to work, I noticed something about the ads for Children First: School Choice Trust.

Maybe you've seen them, the ads with this cute little cartoon dude with his hand up. The ads encourage people to apply for partial scholarships for their kids to private schools (K-8) based on family financial need.

Children First: School Choice Trust is Canada's first privately funded program to help families improve their educational choices. Children First offers tuition assistance grants, so that parents who could not otherwise afford it can choose an independent elementary school for their children.

Despite seeing these every day, I had never before noticed this project is funded by the infamous Fraser Institute (cue Darth Vader music). Of course, they have an Agenda. The Fraser Institute wants to discredit the institute of public education. They seek to blame problems with our underfunded public system on the "public" part, rather than the "underfunded" part.

In an article on their website, The Fraser Institute asks the multiple choice question:

Does the educational failure of the world’s poor reflect the impossibility of achieving lofty educational goals, or does it reflect misguided reliance on public financing and provision? Increasingly, the evidence suggests not that poor families are impossible to educate, but that free, state-run schools may not be the best way to deliver education to them.

What's that you say? Poor families are not impossible to educate? How very charitable of them to say such a thing. Well, since it isn't impossible to educate the poor, our only other explanation is that public education results in educational failure.

This is not an unusual right-wing tactic. It is one of their main techniques for privatizing public services. If you starve a public service long enough, it will no longer be able to perform. Then, once it is small and weak enough, you can "drown it in a bathtub".

Because the Canadian people are very committed to public education, the F.I. has to be careful. They frame the Children First grants as a "hand up" for poor families trying to improve their kids' education - this sits well with Canadians. But it does nothing to improve the real problems with our educational system. Private charity is no substitute for widespread social policy. It's like putting a band-aid on a hemorrhage. Only a very small number of lower middle class families can be helped through this type of program, and it diverts public attention away from the real issues. It's the same problem with two-tiered health care. When those with money and influence do not inhabit the same world as those without, they forget about that world. When the upper and middle class parents no longer have an interest in the public education system, they stop advocating for its improvement.

I'll confess, the concept of private schools is somewhat foreign to me. Growing up in the West, I don't remember any private schools at all, yet somehow I managed to receive a fabulous education in all of the schools I went to. The quality of education at some for-profit schools may be better than that of some public schools. Quality of education notwithstanding, it is still no surprise that those who graduate from elite schools like Upper Canada College are so successful. It's all about class - as in which one you are in. It's like being in an elite club, with lots of opportunities for networking and nepotism.

Introducing a few proles into that elite club is not social justice. A few women or black CEOs does not solve sexual and racial discrimination. All it does is allow those in the club to sublimate their guilt, and delegitimize the important struggles for justice.

Funny Where You Find Bits of Truth

As the lyrics of one of my favourite songs goes:

"Once in a while
you get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right"

On my way to Edmonton for Christmas with my family, nestled in-between pages and pages of advertisements and "shopping guides", I read a good anti-consumerist article in the in-flight magazine.

The author quotes Roger Scuton who said as a society, we've become very good at "means" (ways to do things) but worse at "ends" (reasons for doing things). Reminded me of a question asked of Richard Dawkins: what can we do about the "why" questions that science can't answer. (Dawkins says those questions are invalid and nonsensical).

In our education system, science and technology are priviliged over liberal arts, humanities, and social science. In reality, though, what is more important for the health, happiness, and fulfillment of all people: figuring out how to build a better, more harmonious and healthy society, or how to build a faster jet or more deadly pesticide?

To Map a Green Line or Not

Peter Hirschberg: JERUSALEM, Dec. 18 (IPS) - "A directive by Israel's education minister that all maps in new editions of school textbooks must include the 1967 line that separates Israel from the West Bank has sparked a political firestorm, with right-wing politicians and religious leaders threatening to boycott the books if they are issued."

Read the rest

Stop the Abusive Teen Rehab Industry

Unregulated teen rehab "schools" abuse kids on their parents dollar:

As a teen at Tranquility Bay, you can't call home and are escorted between rooms by Jamaican "chaperones." Talk out of turn and your punishment might be that a trio of guards wrestles you to the ground. "They start twisting and pulling your limbs, grinding your ankles," a student told the British newspaper The Guardian.

Read the rest

Topics: Family & Children, Politics, Education

Education: state or private funding?

In this past issue of The Economist there was a huge feature on European universities. Something that really hit me was the central thesis of this feature was that European universities need to adopt the American model of privately funded two-tier higher education.

The premise on which this conclusion is based is the debatable assertion that US colleges are generally better than counterparts in European nations. The support for this is pretty flimsy. The magazine states that "America boasts 17 of the world's top 20 universities" based on the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings, which use strange criteria such as numbers of Nobel Prizes and Field Medals awarded to alumni and staff and research output, while ignoring things like quality of education for students, average class size, accessibility, diversity, and social responsibility. These other criteria are arguably as important, if not more so. (see Vilas Rao's article)

To fix the supposedly substandard European universities, they say, universities should be "set free from the state", meaning start charging fees so that universities can pay more for better talent. While this sounds fine in theory, it of course means less social mobility for a society. When university is beyond the means of the disadvantaged, they won't go. It is that simple.

The article dismisses this concern:

Higher education is hardly a monopoly of the righ in America: a third of undergraduates come from racial minorities, and about a quarter come from families with incomes below the poverty line.

Unfortunately the data does not support this statement:

Source: Anthony B. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose, Race/ethnicity and Selective College Admissions, in Richard D. Kahlenberg, ed., AmericaÂ’s Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education (Century Foundation, 2004). From Inequality Matters Conference Briefing Booklet

I'm all in favour of improving education, and I think, though only from anecdotal evidence, that many European nations do need to seriously look at the status of their higher education, there are many many alternatives to free market education! Increase state spending, for example. When universities are turned over to the market, they soon realize that liberal arts are not as profitable as technology and the nature of the offerings changes. Access by disadvantaged populations decreases. Contrary to the business press's favourite line, privatization and free-marketization are't always the answer!

Precarity and the scary world of Christina Hoff Sommers (long post)

Word of the day: Precarity

"Precarity is a term used to refer to either intermittent work or, more generally, a confluence of intermittent work and precarious existence. In this latter sense, precarity is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare." It refers largely to the growing group of temp, casual, part-time, freelance workers and unemployed. (according to Wikipedia)

Precarity as an identity - I guess it's kind of like reclaiming the word "queer". My opinion: collective protection is fine, but unfortunately opting out of our capitalist economy is virtually impossible on large scale over long term. On the other hand, action and experimentation is so important. It means the potential for allowing people to think in different terms, to see real alternatives, to consider that other forms of economic organization are possible.

These days there are two basic options for young people - work with the system without questioning it or opt for something else. If you opt for something else, you are left with crime, precarity or perhaps travelling if you have the resources. To go the first route, you have to agree with the division of humans into winners and losers and you have to decide you want to be a winner. You approach life competitively. You spend your education, free time and working time all towards the goal of getting into a good school, getting good grades, grabbing all the opportunities. But ... what about those who choose to win, but who actually lose? Try their best, get the ulcers to prove it, but fail due to the "wrong" skill set, luck, or the current economic situation... not everyone can win...

I got an email today (apparently it's been circulating for several years) of a "Bill Gates Speech". It is mis-attributed (actually by Charles J. Sykes - Read It) but nonetheless, I feel compelled to comment, in light of another equally scary book that has recently come out.

The Text of the email

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! To anyone with kids of any age, here's some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested! in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you agree, pass it on.
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!
If you are reading it in English-Thank a soldier!!

This post is already getting out of hand, so I will only comment on a couple of gems: rules 8 and 9. I also want to quickly underline the message at the end: "If you are reading it in English- Thank a soldier!!" What is wrong with other languages? And what soldier has ever defended the English language anyway? That's just weird.

The greatest fallacy in this list is that it presupposes that the primary goal of life is to accomplish, win, and work. It is simply typical capitalist propaganda, which reduces human citizens to an economic definition: producers and consumers.

"Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT." What, might I ask, defines a loser? Would Van Gogh be a loser? How about the philosopher Spinoza? How about a child born as a dalit in India who manage to eke out an existence? How about Mother Theresa for that matter? Is a winner whoever dies with the most toys? Or T-Bills? Someone who works hard all his/her life only to die of cancer at 55? How about the Queen? It only makes sense if we reduce people to their economic "worth" - a class or power division - either oppress (win) or be oppressed (lose).

I propose an alternative: Maybe we are actually all just people who "win" some of our life challenges and who "lose" others and hopefully learn from the failures as we go along. The author of this says life doesn't allow "many times to get the right answer". That's just wrong. Life is a series of wrong and right answers.

"FIND YOURSELF... on your own time." um... doesn't my time belong to me? Who else's would it be? It is true that an employer doesn't care about me "finding myself." That's why I have to do it myself. But an employer not caring about it doesn't make it unimportant... an employer also might rather I don't have a baby, but a baby is pretty important. Maybe it's worth considering, if I might be so trite, that the meaning of life might not be all about getting ahead in the rat race. Maybe "finding ourselves" is more important. Maybe our careers and wallets do not define us. Perhaps we might embrace the fact of life which is precarity and reclaim our time!

Speaking of things which scare me, Christina Hoff Sommers has a new book out: One Nation Under Therapy : How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance. I saw her on the Daily Show the other day and she seemed disgusted by kids playing a game called "Friendship Circle"... Sound poisonous and evil? Apparently she thinks so.

She is nothing but another conservative who believes schools need to get back to the basics and stop making kids feel good about themselves. She would apparently prefer to prescribe more ritalin and zoloft rather than have kids learn coping skills to deal with issues. I see the result: the CEOs of tommorrow (fortunate to have no serious mental health issues) and a lower class of bunch of drugged up zombies who can't think or feel but can be darn happy to work in a factory and spend the meager earnings on crap they don't need but are programmed to think they want... oh wait, that story has already been written... and that world doesn't sound too brave to me.

I suppose she's right, if we want our kids to grow up to be good little producers and consumers instead of happy, healthy functioning human beings

I feel like i've gone full circle here. it's probably enough for tonight.