"What do you want to be when you grow up?" is such an easy question for grown ups to ask a child. It will generally illicit an amusing or thoughtful response that allows the grown up the opportunity to either continue the conversation, or smile indulgently. My earliest career goals were alternately lofty and impractical. Having grown up in a small Indiana rust-belt town, the pinnacle of success to my five-year-old sensibilities was the carhop on roller skates at Kunkles' drive in. I would be that car hop, but I would do spins and turns as I delivered burgers and shakes, amazing all who saw me. The idea that such athletic skills would garner more tips, and the understanding that car hops work mainly for tips had not entered my untutored little brain at that point.
Being horse crazy without benefit of a flesh and blood horse, I moved on from my car hop career to exploring the life of a jockey. This was well before women had entered this particular field of equine adulation and at this point my parents were becoming concerned.
These were still the days when parents, having been raised in the 1920's and 1930's, had firm ideas of what constitutes appropriate 'boy careers' and 'girl careers.' My parents had worked hard for their college degrees, earning the necessary funds themselves. My mother, in particular, had forsaken her dream of being a writer or journalist for the more practical nursing degree since this was an education partially paid for by the state. It was amusing to them that I had wanted to be a car hop since I was only five years old. But now we had moved to St. Louis and there were more suitable 'girl' career possibilities just waiting for me to explore. Being a jockey was not on their list of suitability.
As happens with so many people, the guidance and support of someone for whom I had great respect guided my ultimate career decision. My Girl Scout leader, Elly Wright, a journalist herself, strongly encouraged me to go to journalism school. I did. Although, instead of print media, I chose broadcast media just as women were starting to enter that field.
Mine was not a storied career. I generally enjoyed what I did, but at a television station in Wichita I suddenly had my journalistic 'light' extinguish when having to return to the home of a family who had lost several children in a pre-Christmas plane crash. My camera kept malfunctioning and my news director insisted I keep returning until I got the story. It was disrespectful and inhumane. I evidently resurrected my humanity while losing my journalistic quest. Although it is not lost on me that the lives of the good people of Wichita would not be changed one way or the other due to my stellar report on this horrific loss of life.
Throughout the years that followed I was able to parlay the journalism degree into other jobs such as hospital marketing and private school admissions. But these were just jobs, not careers or activities of passion. They were paycheck jobs, although I truly believed in the mission of the private school for which I worked.
And that brings me to today. I have been paying attention to friends who are in their second and third act careers. They moved from what they had chosen to do in their youthful 20's, and the necessary family raising years, to what they really want to do in what may be their last...or second to last..act. I have also been paying attention to my daughter's career and those of her friends.
They are doing fun and exceptional things! Several have been taking classes and are now high school counselors, having been secretaries and accountants before. One young lady who had no idea what she wanted to do, having graduated in English literature studies, went on to graduate school in archiving and is now an archivist for a presidential library. A friend in her early 70s goes to China every summer, teaching English in one of the provinces. My mother, the Registered Nurse, has an interesting fourth act giving talks to organizations on the lives of the First Ladies of this country and their influence on their husbands...and the nation. One friend found herself the chairman of an Italian American organization that has lead to an interesting position with an Italian company to entice American business investments in Italy. My daughter is a passionate, skilled math teacher, having moved from a degree plan that involved international relations. Her future is still an open book, but her skills and passion have her perfectly poised for an outstanding contribution to society.
And my second (or third) act? So many options! I have no idea at this point where my wanderlust will lead. I need to find passion that will mesh with skills and interests. I need to find this magical mixture very soon! Time's a wasting.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
What are we thinking?
At every age each of of finds things that are vitally important to our happiness and well being. Did I get the 'cool' toy for Christmas? Is the right guy asking me to prom? Am I wearing the right label or am I having lunch with the right people who will catapult me to my next promotion? My trials and tribulations did not involve the basics of life. I was not faced with issues that so many find themselves tackling at the moment. The lack of affordable housing,or any housing for that matter, a lack of food, or good schools or even a safe place to live are not things I had to spend my time working through. Mine was the American dream. Mine was the 'Leave it to Beaver' life, and among my chief concerns was that I provide a life as good or better than mine for my husband and daughter.
Now that I have been through the early superficial stages of acquisition of things, people and jobs, I have had time to reflect. I find it incredible that many of our children will not live as well or better than their parents and grandparents. Our colleges and universities, while still attractive to foreign students, are finding the numbers of those students starting to drop. Part of the growing attraction is not the level of education, but the price tag. We are in danger of becoming a second tier bargain school nation for those seeking higher education. We are not cutting edge anymore.
And, our own home grown students...what are we thinking? An educated populace is the cornerstone of our democracy and the building blocks of our Republic. Paraphrasing from a favorite film, fat and stupid are not attractive traits for the offspring of a country that less than seventy-five years ago produced the greatest generation. That generation was hungry for the ideals and tangible things a future without Facism, Socialism, Communism and unknown 'isms' promised. They were willing to put their lives in harm's way to make that future possible. Today, school systems quibble over textbooks that provide alternatives to what has previously been accepted scientific and historic truisms. We can all become emotional and caught up in the discourse, but it wasn't too long ago that popular wisdom taught that the earth was flat. Even when proved wrong, it took a long time for the idea to become accepted.
Our students, those just beginning school and those of us who have pledged to be life-long learners must be taught how to learn and how to discern. Students must be able to ask questions and have teachers and a school administration equipped to answer questions. Are our teachers truly educated to teach and then are they allowed to teach in an environment that truly encourages learning? A lightening rod topic today is the discussion of creationism, intelligent design and the ideas promoted by Charles Darwin. If a student is in a school in which creationism is the sole scientific explanation for the development of humankind a teacher, backed by administration, should be able to say that there are alternate theories. Students should have the opportunity to either study these theories in tandem with the preferred theory, or given the information on how to research the theories on their own. This is a very simplified example of the need for holistic teaching, but it sets the stage for a broader approach to the dissemination of information and ideas.
We do not live in a vacuum. There are alternate ideas and theories for nearly every 'truism' known to us today. We must have the curiosity, intellectual stamina and intestinal fortitude to seek other thoughts, consider them and either add them to our list of what we strongly suspect to be true, or discard them as a result of knowledge based on study. Our children must be given this opportunity. We must rekindle the excitement of the search for knowledge and then we must talk about this knowledge with others.
Now that I have been through the early superficial stages of acquisition of things, people and jobs, I have had time to reflect. I find it incredible that many of our children will not live as well or better than their parents and grandparents. Our colleges and universities, while still attractive to foreign students, are finding the numbers of those students starting to drop. Part of the growing attraction is not the level of education, but the price tag. We are in danger of becoming a second tier bargain school nation for those seeking higher education. We are not cutting edge anymore.
And, our own home grown students...what are we thinking? An educated populace is the cornerstone of our democracy and the building blocks of our Republic. Paraphrasing from a favorite film, fat and stupid are not attractive traits for the offspring of a country that less than seventy-five years ago produced the greatest generation. That generation was hungry for the ideals and tangible things a future without Facism, Socialism, Communism and unknown 'isms' promised. They were willing to put their lives in harm's way to make that future possible. Today, school systems quibble over textbooks that provide alternatives to what has previously been accepted scientific and historic truisms. We can all become emotional and caught up in the discourse, but it wasn't too long ago that popular wisdom taught that the earth was flat. Even when proved wrong, it took a long time for the idea to become accepted.
Our students, those just beginning school and those of us who have pledged to be life-long learners must be taught how to learn and how to discern. Students must be able to ask questions and have teachers and a school administration equipped to answer questions. Are our teachers truly educated to teach and then are they allowed to teach in an environment that truly encourages learning? A lightening rod topic today is the discussion of creationism, intelligent design and the ideas promoted by Charles Darwin. If a student is in a school in which creationism is the sole scientific explanation for the development of humankind a teacher, backed by administration, should be able to say that there are alternate theories. Students should have the opportunity to either study these theories in tandem with the preferred theory, or given the information on how to research the theories on their own. This is a very simplified example of the need for holistic teaching, but it sets the stage for a broader approach to the dissemination of information and ideas.
We do not live in a vacuum. There are alternate ideas and theories for nearly every 'truism' known to us today. We must have the curiosity, intellectual stamina and intestinal fortitude to seek other thoughts, consider them and either add them to our list of what we strongly suspect to be true, or discard them as a result of knowledge based on study. Our children must be given this opportunity. We must rekindle the excitement of the search for knowledge and then we must talk about this knowledge with others.
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