So, humans have a tendency to remember the better parts of a situation and forget the worse. To me this seems good because all we have are our memories of it, for the most part--I admit that this is probably becoming less and less true--and I would certainly rather look back on a rose-tinted life in my old age than not; however, the problem arises when the realities of the present clash with idealistic representations of the past to create a wistful nostalgia that yearns for "the old days" or "simpler times." I think Americans are as prone to that nostalgia as everyone else and no holiday represents it moreso than the good ol' Fourth of July.
The United States was founded on idealism. I don't think that it was any more purely implemented then than now. Politicians were still politicians, and many historians have worked to peel back the godlike image that Americans have constructed around their founding fathers. Yet our national folklore relies on the morality of the Revolutionary War, or else why does the country exist at all? Thus all men involved are converted to saints because perhaps we are afraid we would have nothing left, otherwise.
Today is the day when we celebrate all of that. People gather up their families and have cookouts and watch fireworks and think about patriotism and freedom and all those wonderful things. And that is not a facetious statement: I truly believe that patriotism and freedom are wonderful things, or at least they can be. I wear red, white, and blue today not because I think America is the best country there is or that it can't make mistakes, but because I have hope that we can achieve change and a better future. To do that, however, we cannot cling blindly to the ideals of the past. We have to let go of some of that nostalgia and face the world with a fresh perspective.
Listen to me, speaking in nothing but generalities. I sound like a politician.
But honestly, I feel like so much of American folklore yearns for the benefits of yesteryear, when everyone knew everyone and there weren't the gritty, agonizing issues that we have today. To a certain extent, people just have to get over it. Maybe I'll never really know my next-door neighbors, but I can do something to help the environment, to try and engage the problems of today.
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... but I didn't realize how much of one it really is until I read this book, Overachievers, by Alexandra Robbins. It follows the specific cases of a few driven students as well as examining the trials of high school students nation-wide. There are some really fascinating and deeply scary statistics in there.
I'm only about halfway through the book at the moment, but my understanding of the problem is something like this: high school students feel pressured to do well, therefore they overreach themselves. That sounds like a pretty simple problem basically rooted in the students' own inability to judge how much they can actually handle. Robbins, however, paints a completely different picture. From her statistics and first-hand experience with the problem, high school overachieving is actually a social epidemic. The fault may lie with teenagers themselves, but no more than it lies with teacher, parents, college officials, or any of the other myriad of individuals who contribute to the frenzy. Students face insane pressure from all of these sources to get into top-tier schools and are subjected to SAT-prep course, sessions with college counselors, and even applications to elite preschools as a result.
So students work themselves to the point of exhaustion to reach the all-important goal: the Ivy League. Yes, the name-recognition is a boon in the professional world and they are good schools, but they have been held up as the ideal for every academically competent student. That is what is hopelessly flawed about this whole thing. Students who get into Ivy League schools are just thought to be on a whole other level from students who don't, but with around 16 students competing for every spot (that was the statistic that Brown gave me, anyway), how can you really be sure that one student is better than others? It can probably get kind of arbitrary, but now I'm just speculating, so let's get back to some hard facts.
What I do know is that (according to Robbins, anyway) college ranking systems are weighted so that Ivy Leaguers come out on top. That's just the way it is, and other colleges pull all sorts of tricks even up to the point of fabricating data in order to ensure a top placement. This leaves a student with an insane sense of competitive pressure to get into a school which may or may not be good for him or her. Of course, when I started talking about this in school, one of my classmates accused me of being a conspiracy theorist, so maybe I'm getting too worked up about this.
But isn't this something worth getting worked up over? I only started worrying about colleges my senior year in high school, so I'm not really a part of this overachiever culture. I do what I do because I like to learn and don't mind school, but some parents are directing their children's entire lives towards getting into Harvard, or some such. Even if they do get in, the question still remains:
Then what?
I'm only about halfway through the book at the moment, but my understanding of the problem is something like this: high school students feel pressured to do well, therefore they overreach themselves. That sounds like a pretty simple problem basically rooted in the students' own inability to judge how much they can actually handle. Robbins, however, paints a completely different picture. From her statistics and first-hand experience with the problem, high school overachieving is actually a social epidemic. The fault may lie with teenagers themselves, but no more than it lies with teacher, parents, college officials, or any of the other myriad of individuals who contribute to the frenzy. Students face insane pressure from all of these sources to get into top-tier schools and are subjected to SAT-prep course, sessions with college counselors, and even applications to elite preschools as a result.
So students work themselves to the point of exhaustion to reach the all-important goal: the Ivy League. Yes, the name-recognition is a boon in the professional world and they are good schools, but they have been held up as the ideal for every academically competent student. That is what is hopelessly flawed about this whole thing. Students who get into Ivy League schools are just thought to be on a whole other level from students who don't, but with around 16 students competing for every spot (that was the statistic that Brown gave me, anyway), how can you really be sure that one student is better than others? It can probably get kind of arbitrary, but now I'm just speculating, so let's get back to some hard facts.
What I do know is that (according to Robbins, anyway) college ranking systems are weighted so that Ivy Leaguers come out on top. That's just the way it is, and other colleges pull all sorts of tricks even up to the point of fabricating data in order to ensure a top placement. This leaves a student with an insane sense of competitive pressure to get into a school which may or may not be good for him or her. Of course, when I started talking about this in school, one of my classmates accused me of being a conspiracy theorist, so maybe I'm getting too worked up about this.
But isn't this something worth getting worked up over? I only started worrying about colleges my senior year in high school, so I'm not really a part of this overachiever culture. I do what I do because I like to learn and don't mind school, but some parents are directing their children's entire lives towards getting into Harvard, or some such. Even if they do get in, the question still remains:
Then what?
