Education may not be the great equalizer

I read this article in the newspaper (Deseret News Saturday Sep 13) that was so interesting to me. Any time there is an article about education, I read it. That's sort of a big part of my life right now with 5 kids and will continue to be for the next many years.

It's a commonly held belief that when you educate a child, you set them up for success. The idea is that if you educate those underprivileged, lower-income students and you change the trajectory of their lives. They'll get better jobs and be more successful contributors to society. Sounds about right, doesn't it? Well, this article goes against that idea.

From the article: "In 1982, Johns Hopkins sociologist Karl Alexander began tracking 790 Baltimore schoolchildren when they entered the first grade - and he followed them for the next 30 years of their lives. ... I was based on the assumption - one that dominated the literature - that schooling made the difference between rich and poor, between those who moved up the ladder and those who were left behind."

The result of the study found that the students ended up mostly where their parents were, regardless of their education. The thing that made the difference was family/social/employment networking. So if Dad or Mom had a good job and knew other people with good jobs, they would hook their kids up with good jobs. The kids followed the opportunities presented to them, which were equal to what their parents had.

So Alexander found that "things that were supposed to be great equalizers - like economic opportunity and education - weren't proving to be so equalizing. ... the poverty cycle is harder to break than we like to think."

I had never thought about that before but it is so true. I've always known networking is important and you hear about it all the time, especially with higher blue-collar and white-collar professions. Which is interesting. But I hadn't stopped to think that networking might actually be, not more important, but just as important as education. And so my take away is that those more fortunate should be more open and extend their networking to those who may not have it so easily available. Networking. Interning. Making connections. Volunteering. Those are all things that need to be considered by high school and college kids as they look toward a future career. Good things to think about.

In the News... honesty and temptation

I read the newspaper every morning. Not on the computer. I lay the newspaper out on the table and look through every page except the sports section. I feel like it helps make the world relevant to me and me relevant to the world.

Anyway, here are a few things I learned today...
(italics  within quotes are my own personal thoughts)

Dan Ariely is an author of a newly released book, "The Honest Truth about Dishonesty." His interview in the DesNews was interesting. His book says that when individuals are annoyed or depleted, tired, they make less rational decisions, more dishonest decisions. So the key, says Ariely, is to make important, moral decisions in the morning. Then he talks about depletion (I consider this a depletion of will-power) and the effect of temptation. He says:

"The temptation itself created a cost. Imagine that your morning is full of temptation: muffin, croissant, Facebook, YouTube, saying something nasty to your boss (or kids, in my case), the morning is just full of temptation. And you've been able to resist all of that, good for you, but by the time you've resisted all of them, you've already paid the price. And the price you've paid is the price of depletion."

So I've been so great at resisting temptation, but now I'm depleted of will-power to continue resisting temptation. So what is the answer? Get rid of the temptation! Remove the muffin and croissant the night before. Keep the computer off so there is no Facebook or YouTube. Then I have enough will-power to not say something nasty to my kids and be strong later into the day.

Remove the temptation. You cannot expect to be strong, honest and true if you immerse yourself in temptation. There is always a price to pay. Interesting, right? I'm thinking of all the different that can be applied in so many different circumstances...

Then he talks about teaching kids to resist temptation using the marshmallow test. Remember, where if the kids resist eating the marshmallow for a certain period of time, then they can have all they want, or something like that. Ariely points out:

"The kids who resist temptation don't just sit there and stare at the marshmallow. They do things. They sit on their hands, they watch the ceiling, they sing a song, they turn around, they do things. That, I think, suggests that... there is training. And Walter Mischel did this very nice experiment in which he asked the kids to think about the marshmallows as clouds, and that basically eliminated the temptation to a large degree."

Then he hits it home by addressing moms, by addressing me:

"As a mother, what do you do to get your kids to think about tricks for temptation? ... This notion that we have a central capacity for self-control and that we can learn tricks, we can learn to reframe temptation is very important."

Now I need to think about how to teach myself and my children to reframe temptation. Get away from it first, right? Like Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Another trick is to postpone instant gratification by doing something else. Postpone the food or urge to be online by going for a walk or reading a chapter in a book or talking to someone. Using tricks will most certainly keep me from becoming more depleted and then I will be able to make more rational and honest decisions.

Next Ariely is asked about what universities can do to promote and support this attitude of honesty and moral, rational behavior and how there is a contradiction regarding honesty in friendships (does this dress make me look fat?) and honesty in the business world (don't cheat on tests). University life is an interesting mix of both and sometimes it gets a little gray. (If I lie to my friend and tell her she is not fat, then can I cheat on my test as well?) He points out that rules should be clear-cut and in many cases, religion or faith-based  belief systems provide that structure better than society or business.

"One of the things that religion does, it doesn't just give you a rule, (like being modest, for example), it creates a connection from the rule to the deeper meaning."

I think sometimes we forget to tie our rules, as parents and spiritual leaders in our families and community, to deeper meaning. How much easier is it to dress modestly when you really understand what modesty means to God? I think about this a lot, trying to raise 3 beautiful girls and 2 stalwart boys.

In the end, the DesNews asked Arierly, "You study a lot of people who make irrational decisions, who lie, who cheat. How has this affected your faith in humanity?"  I love his answer.

"So it's true that I have a lower faith in human nature, but I have a higher faith in human potential. And the key is that unlike basically any other animal, we build our world, and we can decide which world we're going to build."

The potential is within us and we choose what we build. But build, we must. It is hard, deliberate work. Anything less wouldn't be worth it.