The American Dream

Sources:

The Other Wes Moore - Wes Moore

"Colleges and the Rebirth of the American Dream" - Arthur Levine

Hello, it's me again!

I've been mulling over my topic for this post for a while now.  Granted, summer break is full of wonderful distractions, and everyone needs to unwind for a bit, but I confess I felt a little guilty waiting so long after I finished Moore's book to comment.  I had to wait for the right time, the right idea.

Luckily, my approach to blogging largely revolves around "what did I read in The Chronicle of Higher Ed this week that stuck in my craw?".  So good news - I found something good to bring into conjunction with Moore's book!

In summary, The Other Wes Moore is a project by the author to compare his life and circumstances with a man who is more or less his same age, from the same rough area, and had a similar start in life.  Moore grew out of the bad influences that surrounded him while the "other" Moore ultimately succumbed to the criminal life.  One passage in particular caught me:  "

When we're young, it sometimes seems as if the world doens't exist outside our city, our block, our house, our room.  We make decisions based on what we see in the limited world and follow the only models available.  The most important thing that happened to me was not being physically transported - the moves from Baltimore to the Bronx to Valley Forge didn't change my way of thinking. What changed was that I found myself surrounded by people...who kept pushing me to see more than what was directly in front of me, to see the boundless possibilities of the wider world and the unexplored possibilities within myself.

 (Moore, 179)

Levine undertakes a somewhat similar mission in his article, revisiting his old Bronx neighborhood, his childhood haunts and home.  He notes the demographic shift in families and the foreign-familiar impression of the same geography with different flavors, colors, uses.  Levine uses this as a vehicle to consider the traditional ways of "moving up in the world" - namely a college degree, the subsequent good job, the career building, root-setting pattern that many followed ( that may no longer be our American success formula, but I digress).  Levine goes on to discuss financial aid for higher ed, and the difficulties people (kids, really, his students are young in this piece) have with navigating that system.  He holds that this ultimately locks them out of the "American Dream".  He references different foundations, such as the I Have a Dream foundation, that seek to bolster troubled communities and enrich the "social and family supports [that] have been frayed".  He advocates college itself as an additional lifeline:

If we cannot recreate the social structures that gave my old neighborhood a sense of safety, cohesion, and hope for the future, we must do the next best thing: open up the nation's campuses to better serve those populations and work with school districts and government officials to build guaranteed access and financial support.

"Guaranteed access".  That's seductive.  While I believe in *at the least* getting an Associates', and I'd love to see education beyond the baseline be not just a privilege (or a veritable albatross, when I'm feeling cynical and looking at my loan amount) but a right.  If it *was* more open, and if it did adapt to the myriad new kinds of student, higher ed could regain the value it once had and cease with the "13th grade" and "ivory tower" stereotypes attached to it.

So, before I wander off again, what is the harmony between Moore and Levine, aside from their tactics?  Both men played by the rules that American culture at large still values - get the diplomas, the job, settle down and prosper.  Even if I put on my best "contrarian" hat, I have trouble arguing with that....hell, I want the degree, and the career (even if it's in segments, or I change my path, or go in some other unorthodox format), I want to prosper (have a little town house, lined with bookshelves, my dog napping on the couch).  I believe in that!  So what's the deal here?

I'm hard put to find an arena that can succeed so well at broadening the "limited world", and introducing a person to "boundless possibilities" than an educational setting.  Yes, the military works for some, civil organizations, faith communities, or (how often I wonder) plain personal moxie gets a person out of their original place physically, mentally, and emotionally - but there's nothing like a classroom.  This is where I find my American Dream.  It's in formal settings, such as lectures, or even informal ones, such as a private sally into a library or museum, or anywhere, armed with the mental framework provided by my education.  (For instance, I still hear a particular art history professor's lessons when I look at an Italian Renaissance work, or an Egyptian sarcophagi).

So if I'm to accept even a basic college education as the path to the "Dream", how to I answer to its challenges?  That it's a giant VIP room, that the degrees are inflated, that the faculty is uncaring (ha!) and the administration unfeeling, that financial aid is a racket, and that there are no jobs on the other end.....I could go on, especially as a humanities major.  Detractors love humanities majors - I should keep an album of the most "witty" jibes against schooling.  If I'm in the pro- camp with Moore and Levine, what can I say other than agreeing with them?  How can I defend that which I'm lauding here?

Maybe the proof's in the pudding:  Moore and Levine (and hopfully me too!) succeeded because they followed a certain formula, they got out of their comfort zones, they (especially Moore) did whatever they had to do to not only avoid replicating the negative patterns they encountered, but to establish new ones that enabled them to gain access to what they wanted in life.  In Moore's case, and presumably Levine's, that was not simply the material advantages, but precious intangibles.

if you want the mobility, the trappings, whatever the thing is that you desire, whatever your version of the Dream, you have to stragtegize.  That strategy cannot simply be about beating your "opponents" for a piece of that deliciousness (still going with the pudding metaphor here), but considering how to improve your own situation.  I've told people many times in tutoring to "argue from the positive" - don't tell me how the other guy or the opposing idea is wrong, tell me how you're right.  This "strategizing", in our culture's current climate, involves not just plugging along for the piece of paper at the end of whatever institution you find yourself, but (goodness help me I hate this phrase) "thinking outside the box"...all those platitudes I rail against when I'm feeling low and cranky - "follow your dreams", "develop your passions", etc. 

Now, I'm happy today, so I will opine that that is a great course to follow, whether that passion's plumbing, medicine, or beekeeping.  Just do something other than the bare minimum and have a dream, any dream for pete's sake! 

At this point, I've reached the end of this post, and I think I've found the beginning.  The point is, from Levine, and certainly from Moore, is to have something, to keep the mind open and supple, to accept and foster opportunities rather than shying away.  That's what I got when I cooked these two down.  Now it's your turn:  What did you get from either piece - or both?  How do you agree or differ with either author, or with me?  What's your chosen path, your overarching plan, and does it involve formal structures like I touted?

I'm all ears at this point! :-D