The Atlantic: "Can the Middle Class Be Saved?"

Not mine, but quite applicable to the discussion nonetheless ...

"[T]o apply terms I have read in student essays, if you think we're doing students and this country's future a favor by calling their spade a diamond, you've got another thing coming. The statutes of liberty guarantee the right to the pursuit of happiness, but we're doing our students a huge disfavor by drawing lipstick smiley faces on everything from eagles to pigs, telling them they can fly, and then shoving the whole bunch off the cliff. You can take it for granite that if we keep going on this way, even their self of steam will go up in smoke."

 

Exactly.

I'm in hospitals a lot (for work).

It's almost shocking how many doctors are Asian or from the Indian Sub-Continent.

And, many are first or second generation, so they didn't necessarily come from great wealth.

 

Self of steam?

 

Definitely, DW about the popularity in other countries. I never felt STEM would be a good fit for me(and I think many people choose liberal arts/education is because they love it). You have to love a field to work in it comfortably.

 

And this is nothing new. When my brother graduated from a large, prestigious public university in a technology field in 1992 or so, I attended his graduation and was surprised to see that he was one of very few white, American faces in the crowd (technology majors -- physics, engineering, etc. -- had their own graduation ceremony).

The vast majority were Asian, a fairly even split between Asian-Americans and foreign students. This was northern California, which has a heavy Asian population and is, compared to the east coast, a bit more accessible to Asian students. Still, it was remarkable to see.

 

We love baseball because we learned it and played it as kids. (Sadly, no aptitude for it here.)

Math and sciences are the same way. I have no doubt my younger brother is an engineer today because of Lego and Tinker Toys.

A good math and science education has to start at a young age, and has to be encouraged by parents (or other adults).

 

I think that there is no more destructive sentence in the United States over the last few decades than, "Do what you love and the money will follow/the rest will take care of itself." (actual wording varies.)

 

I subscribe to that theory. So I drink a lot, hire loads of whores and buy lottery tickets.

Where's that blue font key?

 

I think the phrase is supposed to be, "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."

 

Self esteem ...

 

No, I've heard it the way Dick describes it too. Oddly enough -- and, sadly, because it's probably one of the more influential uses of the idea in current culture -- I remember because this is what Brandon Walsh's father told him upon graduation.

 

... taking for granite ...

Or maybe any other igneous rock.