Down South, we start the school year earlier and end it earlier. Last night, Lizzie (my wife) and I were proud parents at the high-school graduation ceremony of our youngest child, Edward. For me in particular, it is a personal milestone. Today is the first time since the fall of 1973 (I am not kidding) that I do not have a kid at some stage in the school system. I am not finished with universities yet. Ed is off to the University of Toronto in the fall, and others are also involved in higher education in one form or another. But still, it is a relief to know that no longer, many days of the year, will the phone be ringing to or from Leon High School, often about late or non-attendance. (Well, if you start the school day at 7.30 a.m., what do you expect?)
Of the 350 kids graduating, there were 16 graduating summa cum laude. Edward and his chums were very firmly not in this group; although (to be candid) looking at where the kids are going to college, I was not sure that I saw much correlation between school success and future prospects and activities. Almost all are going on to somewhere in Florida, with Florida State, the University of Florida, and Tallahassee Community College by far the most popular. (Let me put in a plug for Tallahassee Community College. Our middle son Oliver left school in a state that, speaking euphemistically, qualified as “academically challenged.” After two years there, to his credit working very hard, he applied and was accepted at the University of British Columbia, from where he has just finished his degree in anthropology. I, for one, value community colleges highly.)
I do think it a great pity that today, in America, going out of state is so very expensive. As David Barash has pointed out, we know what is going on. Popular places like the University of Washington in Seattle are using the out-of-state fees to bolster finances, in a time when public institutions of higher education are being very hard hit by budget cuts imposed by legislators who think that they are prime places to reduce the fat and flab. (I know, I know, the legislators are faced with deficits. But how about closing a few prisons for a start, and releasing all of those people in jail for non-violent drug crimes? How about recognizing that America and drugs today is a bit like America and alcohol in the 1920s, and that prohibition just doesn’t work?)
In Canada—and please, this is not a column blindly praising Canada over the USA—kids from out of province can go for the same price as kids in province. (There are some exceptions.) The great thing is that young Canadians are far more likely to spend time away from home, learning about different parts of their country. I am amazed and appalled at how little so many of my students know about their country. True, most have been shipped up to Washington on a school trip, but elsewhere? You must be joking. A couple of years ago, when I took a bunch of my grad students up to Chicago, I think only one previously had been that far north. I am not saying that knowing more about the country to which they belong would at once make every student more tolerant and understanding—things which seem to me in short supply at the moment in this country—but surely it would be a start.
What I did note was that of the students graduating summa cum laude, of the 16 no less than 12 were female. These days of course this is simply not a matter of note. If it were the other way around it would be surprising. Education is simply becoming—has become—a success story for women from bottom to top. (I am talking about students.) As I have remarked before, the college at the University of Toronto to which Ed is going is 80 percent female. (And not because it specializes in nursing and like majors, but because it is one of the most desirable overall.)
As far as I can make out, very few people think this as significant and perhaps as worrying a trend as I do. Even mentioning it in some circles labels you a reactionary sexist and more. But it is important and I think it should be thought about a lot more than it is. It may not matter and surely is in some respects a good thing. There was a very interesting article last week in The New York Times about the medical profession and the changes that the influx of females is having on it. More and more, doctors don’t want to be private business people but want to work for salaries and have the benefits of regular hours. This is often directly related to the fact that they are mothers with children and want to spend proper time with their families. Expectedly, even without getting into speculations about whether women generally are more inclined to put the needs of others above their own enrichment and freedom, these people are much more favorable to some kind of universal health care scheme than doctors have been previously.
Back to Edward and his cohort. I wish them—and all other kids graduating this year—the very best. I don’t want to be one of them. I am with Agatha Christie who once said that each decade is better than the one previously. But I do envy them their futures and I hope to goodness that we who are older can start to do a better job than we are presently doing—to make America again the place of opportunity and excitement that has made it such a wonderful country to live one’s life to the full.