Have you ever heard your parents say, “Back in my day, life was so much more difficult. Kids these days are so spoiled”? You would be surprised to know that they were the spoiled hipsters of yesteryear. As long as there have been Homo sapiens, there has been a generation gap and elders frowning upon it. One can almost imagine a geriatric Neanderthal rolling his eyes as his prodigy used the wheel or even before that, a Homo erectus grandfather looking suspiciously at his children living the easy life by using a fire to cook, leaving the good old days of raw meat dinners. From the complaints of Socrates turning young men against the establishment, to the small but vocal groups of Boomers on social media, there have been many examples of elderly backlash to changing times. One of the first documented episodes of such outrage goes back to Ancient Greece, from the 5th Century BCE onwards. During this time, a population boom and plentiful sustenance inspired philosophers and thinkers to question the world around them. In fact there is a saying, “All that I know is that I know nothing.” The young Athenians were educated to question everything, and this stung the established order. The noblemen condemned this wave of change and even succeeded in poisoning the leader of a major group, whom we know as Socrates, in 399 BCE. But the die was cast, and his doctrine spread under the likes of Aristotle and Alexander the Great. Despite the cry of the previous generations, change was inevitable. During the Industrial Revolution, from around 1800-1915, technology started ramping up, and new discoveries began to replace the established order. The younger generation of this period shook the world with the printing press and steam engines, as well as telegraphs. Gone were the days of horse-drawn carriages, messenger pigeons, and quill pens. As an example of such geriatric backlash, the famous Luddites smashed machines in textile plants all across southern England, but the resistance was quelled by 1815, and the rest was history. Fast-forwarding a few decades, we come to the tie-dye halcyon that was the 1960s. Their parents, who had been the brave heroes of World War II and the Korean War, with Victorian values and tough-knuckles education, had difficulty accepting what came after. Riding high on the Eisenhower economic boom, they had only one such musing: “Out with the old, in with the new.” Long hair, neon shirts, and peace signs became rife, as did the protests about war. Coming to modern times, it’s ironic that those same hippies that had run riot in the ‘60s were to become, you guessed it, just like their parents. With the rise of phones, game consoles, and computers, those very people who had once been at the forefront of change, condemned the newer generations, and all of their technology. At the risk of simplifying too much, is my generation’s addiction to social media, digital content, and video games and our iPhones, any different from our parents’ vices of television, VCRs, and Walkmans? I will leave you with a sobering thought: when we become our parents what will our generation be outraged about? It is hard to imagine, isn’t it? Perhaps this forthcoming generation will have their own addictions, as the VR, cybernetic implants, and artificial intelligence take over reality. Perhaps there will come a time when I, too, will say, “Back in my day…”
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“I, Pencil”: Diving Into Leonard E. Read’s Stunning Masterpiece
What could one essay, written in 1946, have anything to do with the present day? With me? With… you? I don’t—in fact, I couldn’t have—known Mr. Leonard E. Read personally. But that feeling of wonder, that unquenchable longing for something miraculous, the very thing that drives artists and writers on their quest for something beautiful, he knew. He understood. So he took something that human beings overlook. Something people glance at and think, “I’ve seen millions. It’s not exactly beautiful. It’s not expensive. In fact, there are billions of them scattered across the planet. Why should I gaze upon the common pencil with wonder?” And Leonard Read gave us a gift. A gift to quench the unquenchable. A gift to open our eyes to see the beauty in the simple things around us, the thing we overlook everyday of our lives. The things we don’t appreciate. So… what makes a pencil so extraordinary? It is not the shiny lacquered surface, the pink eraser, the ferrule. It is not exquisite. It is not breathtakingly beautiful. It is extraordinary because a pencil is more than purpose. It is more than outward appearance. It is symbolic of the beauty that human beings can create, without even knowing what they are doing! It is a symbol of human collaboration. It is something indispensable that millions help to create. Bits and pieces of a pencil come from all corners of the globe, people that don’t speak the same languages, don’t believe in the same ideals or religions, they are unknowingly united behind an item that will serve the multitudes. And that, friends, is the beauty of a pencil. Leonard E. Read wanted human beings to collaborate. He wanted us to see the profits of unity, how prosperous we become when we are working together. He wanted us to see the fruits of our labor, the beauty of collaboration. We don’t need a boss or an overseer. The government doesn’t have to control every interaction. We can join forces to create something indispensable because UNITY is indispensable. We all can become artists. We create only one piece of a world-wide puzzle. Leonard E. Read wanted us to see the beauty of spontaneous order. How, joined together, we can create something beautiful.
We Want Math, and Band Too!
In June of this year, I learned that New York City’s Mayor Adams was planning to cut public school funding, which, considering our already underfunded school system, was an extremely bad decision. My school’s budget was cut by 16%, and there was a threat of losing teachers and our beloved band program. I wrote a petition which was signed by seventy-five kids in my school in just one afternoon; I sent it to local politicians and newspapers and attended a rally in protest of the cuts. Many people did things like this, and much more. However, despite the efforts of teachers, students, and parents, schools still lost the little they had left. My school lost its band program — one of only two extracurricular activities we had. We used to have two music teachers, but now some grades are without music class because we have only one teacher for such a large school. However, even this is lucky compared to other schools, which might not have any music teachers. This is just one example of the many injustices schools in New York City and many other cities experience — and most of these challenges fall upon public schools in poor neighborhoods. In wealthy neighborhoods, it’s possible for parents to fundraise, so the cuts don’t have much effect. However, in poor neighborhoods, parents cannot afford to do the same. Wealthy parents are willing and able to donate and organize fundraisers so that their children can be educated in a comfortable environment; however, not all parents are able to do this. In the United States, the quality of public schools varies based on students’ family wealth: a school full of rich kids will have arts programs, sports, and small classes. A school full of poor kids will be lucky to have even acceptable conditions — besides good teachers and a wide range of activities, the school needs money for things like air conditioning, heating, and sanitary bathrooms. Many wealthy parents, too, will send their children to private schools. So, while much money is pushed towards private schools, public schools are left in a predicament. However, the government also doesn’t provide schools with enough money — this year, for example, New York City’s Mayor Adams claimed that he was “weaning schools off the pandemic money” (though COVID is still not over), and that schools didn’t need so much money because many students were leaving the schools. But this seems counterintuitive: students are less likely to come back to public schools if the schools’ budget is reduced; they can find a private school or wealthy suburban public school that is able to provide them with more than their old one. In much of the United States, schools also get money from property taxes. What this means is that if you live in a rich neighborhood, you are more likely to have a better school because the many people that live there own expensive homes and pay high property taxes. Because people that live in poor areas are often poor themselves, their schools are consequently underfunded. If students are provided with supplies and good learning conditions, they will do better academically — but where will this money come from? Many students in lower-income neighborhoods need counselors and therapists, but hiring someone like that is a luxury usually only available in schools with more money. And, though students in poor neighborhoods may need more individual attention because they have fewer resources at home, their classes are usually much larger than in schools in wealthy neighborhoods. It’s outrageous that the kids who really need extracurriculars (like music, art, theater, phys ed, after-school sports, and a variety of clubs) don’t get them, but the people that can afford lessons outside of school have everything. Basically, schools are given “just enough” to show that the government cares — and most schools get even less. But why are the resources given to schools calculated in this way? Why can’t we have more, which is what we deserve? We could be discovering more and more talent — because talent isn’t just something you’re born with, it’s a skill that you get better at. But so many people don’t have the chance to get better at anything because they don’t have enough money. For them, school becomes a babysitting system, designed to turn students into low-wage workers. These students will never discover what else they could be. The fact that politicians think that this is acceptable shows that they don’t consider education important at all. Quality education is a right, not a luxury. The common cry for working people’s rights is: “we want bread, and roses, too!” Well, we want math — and band, too.
