Who's ready?

We're nearing the end of junior year, the most important year of one's high school career.  I remember our history teacher, Mr. Bolos, telling us "you are all overly prepared for college."  This was comforting, but not getting the score I was aiming for on the ACT was not comforting.  Testing scores aside, I agree with what Mr. Bolos said, but I don't believe that everyone at our school has received the same college prep through their classes as our group of American Studies students has.  New Trier high school has a very interesting leveling system, ranging from levels 2-4, including a level 9, combining levels 2, 3, and 4.  I read up a little bit in the program of studies and discovered that levels 2 and 3 focus on more concrete and fact-based studies, I've learned through our American Studies course that level 4 classes are much more abstract in their curriculum.  We'll be given an assignment, an 80 minute presentation for example, and it's on us to figure out how to do it.  The good thing about this is that abstract and analytical thinking is what colleges are supposedly looking for.  College professors are looking for a higher level of thinking than what's embedded in many of our brains, the "fact-heavy" courses that our high-schools provide.  There's more on this in an article from US news, which you can read up on by clicking the link.  This fact was unsettling for me, many people won't take a level 4 class at New Trier during their four years at the school.  Does this mean they're at a disadvantage?  Does this mean they won't succeed?  Definitely not, but taking higher level courses now and understanding the content will hopefully pay off later.  When I do my homework, my mom occasionally strolls over and looks at what I'm doing.  "I was doing that stuff in college, good luck" she'll say.  Are the classes I'm taking really preparing me this well for college?  Or has the entire education system advanced forward a few years to teach us more than my parents were learning.  I hope the former, but with my history teacher's reassurance, I'm sure we'll all do just fine.

West Egg: big enough to crack East Egg

I was sitting down talking to my cousin, Kirk, on spring break, who told me all about his road to success as a businessman.  Much like Gatsby, Kirk came from virtually nothing and worked all he could to get where he is today.  Starting off with completing three paper routes in the morning, then mowing lawns, then bagging groceries, and eventually working at a coal mill, he did everything he could to save money to get through college at Michigan State on his own.  Now Kirk lives what many would call "the dream" in the US virgin islands.  However, much like Gatsby, Kirk, even in his slice of paradise in the middle of the Caribbean continues to work tremendously hard.  This idea of making your own way in the world through hard work, the American dream, is one increasingly more relevant today.  In Forbes' 400 richest persons list of 2013, out of the 400 billionaires listed, 273 of them were self-made billionaires, and the remaining 127 of them were heirs to their fortune.  Unlike in The Great Gatsby, it seems like new wealth is just as equally respected these days.  Oprah came from nothing, and she is now one of the most well-respected and wealthy people on the planet.  In this way, old wealth and new wealth are not separate, competing factions, but instead just wealth.  On the topic of progress through history for our upcoming final in our American Studies course, I would argue that the notion of new wealth being as respected as old wealth has made great progress over time.  From what I can tell, from my cousin and from many of the new, self-made members of the world's top 5% , new wealth is indeed equally respected.  Does it hold true to your experiences as well?  Leave some thoughts or comments.        

Land is still wealth

No teenage boy hasn't had to cut the lawn before, it's one of the most common chores and parents can whip it out as a punishment, or put it on you as a responsibility in order to get your allowance.  But it seems like more and more people are turning to lawn services, maybe it has always been this way, but in Winnetka at least it seemed different in the past.  Back when I was in the 5th grade, I tried to start a lawn service but failed miserably because every person I gave flyers to already had "the Chalet" doing their mowing and other lawn care for them.  Many of my neighbors with smaller lawns still cut their own every once and while, but everyone with a lawn larger than the size of 2-3 of our American Studies classrooms combined has a lawn service doing it for them.  It's no question, larger yards cost more money, as does a bigger house.  What's interesting is that larger lawns also cost more to maintain, which leaves me befuddled that people wouldn't want to support a sweet 5th grade boy charging a modest $20 dollars for any size lawn.  Besides not wanting a random child to mow your lawn, paying for a high-end lawn service is yet another way to show off one's wealth, something done quite often in the north shore.  Just like in the past, as we see in the playwright The Kentucky Cycle, having a large amount of land is having wealth, which symbolizes power.  The parallel from then to now is that just like people pay to have others do their landscaping for them, landowners prior to the end of the civil war paid for slaves to work on their land.  The contrast is that instead of the immigrant workers we have now, slaves were the labor force in the past.  Whatever similarities and differences there are from then to now, it seems like an endless cycle as land still symbolizes power in these ways.

  

Winnetka's inclusive secret society

My summer job at the Winnetka boat launch (Lloyd beach), started up memorial day weekend.  If you're not down at the beach helping people launch, you're up by the road checking boats in, which involves turning away anybody else who doesn't have one.  Anyone with a boat can use the Lloyd beach boat launch, but if you don't live in Winnetka, then prices are doubled.  Welcome to being a boat owner, a secret society inside the already exclusive secret society of the north shore.  Even after paying your taxes, there's still a fee to use the boat launch, $35 for a resident and $70 for a non-resident each day you bring a boat out.  A season pass for a resident with unlimited launch is a modest $325 dollars, but if you live outside of Winnetka's boundaries, you pay $650 for a season pass with unlimited launches.  The most interesting thing about the boat launch is the crowd it attracts, it turns out Lloyd beach is the only boat launch in the north shore you can launch from if you don't have a pass, but also the easiest boat launch to get a pass for.  The inclusiveness of this beach attracts a very wide group of people, people from Wisconsin down to Tennessee (yes, they had a Tennessee license plate), to people from the deep depths of Chicago who don't speak a lick of English.  Everyone gets sent to the next beach over that don't own a boat to launch, which made me think all about The Great Gatsby and the secret society Gatsby is trying to work his way into by making his way up in the world.  The difference between Gatsby and the boat launch; however, is that all you have to do is pay twice the fee once you own a boat to take part as a Winnetka boater- in other words money can buy your way into this secret society.  While you may never own a house in the north shore, everyone still has the ability to have a taste of the north shore lifestyle through Winnetka's inclusive boater society.
   

New Trier: training for businessmen

This morning in advisory, we played a guessing game where we guessed which advisee wrote what about themselves in a survey we took last week.  One of the questions in the survey asked what we wanted to do as a profession once we graduate college.  It was interesting to find I was one of three people who doesn't want to practice law and/or go into business.  After all the diversity of classes at our high school, I was amazed at the number of people who wanted to follow in same footsteps as their parents.  This seems to be an area where no progress is being made, following in someone's footsteps and finding a job that you know will pay no matter what, instead of finding something you truly want to do.  Maybe I'm bring judgmental and people are truly interested in business, but I personally want to try and do something different, something that will keep me interested.  I'm taking my 4th year of Spanish now, and knowing a second language opens a world of opportunities.  I feel like we should be trying to expand our interests out instead of digging deeper in.  In a country where having an education is a necessity for success and a necessity to make it into the secret society of America's upper class, it's interesting how many kids who took part in this survey are interested in the same things as their parents, not thinking about anything outside the bubble we live in.  The specific type of education sought out begs the question if having an education puts you at an advantage, or if having a specific type of education, such as attending a law school, is the only way to be at an advantage.  This two-sided situation makes me wonder truly about America's ideals.  It's the land of freedom, yet for most of it's history many people had slaves.  It's the land of equality, yet all the founding founders and most of the presidents have been upper-class and of great wealth.  So is an education valued?  Or is it only top-tier education that is respected amongst the American population?                              

Let me sort out your problems for you

I got a letter from the school social worker this morning in advisory asking that I go see her.  I wasn't sure why, as I've never had any problems before with the school or anyone there.  I went to the room and talked to her after she grabbed me out of advisory, and she told me some rumors she'd heard the other day, and wanted to make sure everything was ok with me.  All set and done, nothing was wrong and the rumors were false, but after some of the questions she asked me and suggestions she gave me, I started thinking hard about the idea of a social worker.  It's a great idea, kids who need someone to talk to but don't have anyone can find that person at their school social worker, but at the same time, those who don't need help get more than they need, which I believe worsens one's ability to self advocate.  While this isn't the main problem, it's one a few social workers provide.  The main issue I've found over some research is that social workers aren't able to help a child/client because of the "constraints of their job", the guardian has an article you can read here.  These constraints means that if a child is in need, there are problems preventing that person to receive help.  For instance, child protection services can make the child feel "overwhelmed" according to association directors of children's services, they may make the problem even worse.  Social workers are a step forward to solving many of the people's problems at their school or area of practice, but do the positives outweigh the negatives?
 

Ying Yang: White and Black are not so in Balance, sort of

Everyone loves to take a trip to an all inclusive resort or hop on a cruise to a warm, tropical destination. For the past four years, my family and I have been traveling to a Caribbean paradise on the island of St. Croix; however, staying at our cousin's house is a lot different than having every need catered to you pool side.  While they may have an awesome house in a gated community overlooking the ocean (with all the standard pool, tennis court, and basketball court stuff), the fact that you have to leave during the day to find stuff to do really opens up your eyes to what life is really like outside of the resort walls; specifically the wealth divide.  While the island is owned by the U.S., it is mostly populated by native Caribbean islanders known as "cruzians".  On the other hand, most of the corporations, well-known companies, and successful stores are owned by rich white businessmen.  The distribution of wealth is definitely not equal by any means, the good thing is that there is still equal opportunity for anyone who wants it.  Nobody is holding you back to doing what you love, and you don't see high incarceration rates against people of color, because the policemen don't want to incarcerate their own people.  America is supposed to be a place of opportunity, freedom, and equality, and while the equality of wealth may not be that equal around here, the different races and social classes are all friendly and open towards each other.  Refreshing to see people of all different sorts brought together by a bottle of virgin islands rum and the sunset.