fear of working class folks living healthy lives

the title of this post might be a misnomer for what i'm thinking about, but it comes pretty darn close to it . . . this morning, as i was doing my daily ritual of scouring the new york times, i came across a few articles that made the wheels in my head turning (more than usual, i should add.)

it's kind of weird that there's such a distinct, under-the-carpet, subversive way that people talk about non-mainstream folks. and that might be ambiguous and misleading, but i'll explain what i mean when i say 'non-mainstream.' i'm referring to what the media portrays as what the mainstream should aspire towards - being raised by nurturing, well-educated parents, going to good schools, getting 1600s on the SATs (or whatever the highest score is these days, i'm prolly dating myself here : ), shooting for the ivy league, and so on.

getting back to the point, i find that there's this whole discourse around success, and the fear of too many people succeeding. and i do not actually understand this because wouldn't it be a good thing for us to raise children in a world where people are all thinking somewhat critically and aspire to achieve great things?

these are some examples of what i've heard and am inferring based on what i've come across:

• 'well, what if all the public schools had enough resources, and were actually able to reach out to every single kid in their schools. what would that mean for the competition to get into selective high schools, colleges, and grad programs?'
• 'what about the jobs that they would take away from the middle class?'
• 'who's going to do the blue collar work, if all the working class folks get proper educations?'
• 'what'll happen to the big corporations that thrive on (or prey on, rather) cheap labor supplied to factories, franchises, and so on?'

i just find this line of questioning to be so defeatist and fatalistic. i can't really even dignify them with actual responses because they defy dignity.

ah...well for more background on this, check out this article that i posted on this blog (i'm making an effort to not flood this blog with a gazillion snippets from NYT articles : ) i find this article to be a fairly blatant example of how we try to fill up prisons so as not to disrupt job security for others. the vicious cycle continues . . . so even if crime does go down, we'll hunt people down to fill up the prisons. is it just me, or isn't that really messed up?

in addition to this article, there's also the readings i've been doing on early childhood education. clearly, if children have enough structure and support in the early years onwards, then they'd be inclined to pursue the educational pathway to where ever it is that we all think we're trying to head (i'm still trying to figure out where that is : )

but of course there are never adequate resources to do this, and there's always one study after another to prove the obvious. i can name a few of them off the top of my head:

• 'teachers need to have the political will to be in public schools.'
• 'we need to believe that all children can learn.'
• 'the study has shown that a high level of collaboration is required to . . ."

political will, belief, and cooperation. . . do we really need studies to tell us that?!?!

oh well, i guess at some point in folks' lifetimes they just might see a small, but distinguishable light, and figure out what the difference is between equality and equity. and perhaps even put an iota of thought into what we have to let go of in order to get where ever it is we're going while ensuring human dignity isn't compromised.