Publisher's notebook
How will our graduates fare?
Last week, we asked our readers to tell us on our online poll whether they felt that President Donald Trump should have fired FBI Director James Comey. The results were about as evenly divided as you can get. Exactly 50.6 percent said yes he should have with 49.4 percent saying no he shouldn't. You think the country is divided?
I doubt we are very divided about wishing all of our high school graduates the best of luck as they transition to the next stages of their lives. We may see many different opinions about this week's poll question though, which is "what are the prospects for high school graduates today?"
It is easy for oldsters like me to think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. After all we walked 10 miles to school every day in the snow with no shoes. That's how I remember it anyway. Certainly America, and indeed the world, is a far different place today than when I grew up. What will this mean for all the high school seniors we are picturing on our hometown front pages right now?
• Poll Option A: "Good - the world is an overall more stable place than in the past several decades." Your first inclination is to say that this certainly is not true. But what would the answers to this question have been if we asked it in 1940? Or 1860? Or 9/11/2001? Black Monday? The Great Recession? That's why I think that this week's poll question is really a thought-provoking one.
• Poll Option B: "Good - if they work hard to avoid poverty and/or debt." Do these kids know the value of hard work? Again, the reflexive inclination for us boomers is to say no way. The advent of technology makes it seem like all the kids do today is sit around and tweet or read Facebook on their phones. The very nature of work has changed so that is really hard to quantify. They do not seem to try as hard doing service-type work. But maybe they are just boring compared to what the internet world can bring them?
As for debt, I don't think any generation was worse at accumulating debt than us boomers. We have no room to talk. And we didn't usually graduate with six figure college loans either.
• Poll Option C: "Not good - our schools are not preparing our kids for the the real world." This certainly seems on the surface to be true, although I am not sure what the "real world" is these days. Are you? The schools have definitely been failing - test scores prove it. However, how much of that is the fault of the school and how much is the fault of the parents? Middle-aged moms are the worst offenders of being on Facebook all day than anybody.
• Poll Option D: "Not good - jobs that pay enough to support a middle-class lifestyle are disappearing." This seems to me to certainly be true. The old adage that "the rich get richer" appears to be getting more true all the time. It must be asked, however, whether my generation's fixation on bigger houses and bigger cars - the fixation on money - necessarily bought us happiness?
• Poll Option E: "It depends completely on the abilities and work ethic of each individual." That has always been true. In many ways the digital world offers talented and ambitious people an even greater opportunity than ever for personal growth and empowerment. Maybe this is the way it should be.
In summary, I think we all fixate too much on the material things. To me, the breakdown of community and family is the biggest threat in this brave new world. Yet we see millennials are the ones that want to spend time with their friends, want to live in the city. Me, I just wanted to move as far out in the suburbs as possible into as big a house as I could find. And I still have my mortgages to prove it.
Perhaps, if material things get harder to come by, people will once again find how to find happiness with just what is all around us. For free. Like The Post!
I doubt we are very divided about wishing all of our high school graduates the best of luck as they transition to the next stages of their lives. We may see many different opinions about this week's poll question though, which is "what are the prospects for high school graduates today?"
It is easy for oldsters like me to think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. After all we walked 10 miles to school every day in the snow with no shoes. That's how I remember it anyway. Certainly America, and indeed the world, is a far different place today than when I grew up. What will this mean for all the high school seniors we are picturing on our hometown front pages right now?
• Poll Option A: "Good - the world is an overall more stable place than in the past several decades." Your first inclination is to say that this certainly is not true. But what would the answers to this question have been if we asked it in 1940? Or 1860? Or 9/11/2001? Black Monday? The Great Recession? That's why I think that this week's poll question is really a thought-provoking one.
• Poll Option B: "Good - if they work hard to avoid poverty and/or debt." Do these kids know the value of hard work? Again, the reflexive inclination for us boomers is to say no way. The advent of technology makes it seem like all the kids do today is sit around and tweet or read Facebook on their phones. The very nature of work has changed so that is really hard to quantify. They do not seem to try as hard doing service-type work. But maybe they are just boring compared to what the internet world can bring them?
As for debt, I don't think any generation was worse at accumulating debt than us boomers. We have no room to talk. And we didn't usually graduate with six figure college loans either.
• Poll Option C: "Not good - our schools are not preparing our kids for the the real world." This certainly seems on the surface to be true, although I am not sure what the "real world" is these days. Are you? The schools have definitely been failing - test scores prove it. However, how much of that is the fault of the school and how much is the fault of the parents? Middle-aged moms are the worst offenders of being on Facebook all day than anybody.
• Poll Option D: "Not good - jobs that pay enough to support a middle-class lifestyle are disappearing." This seems to me to certainly be true. The old adage that "the rich get richer" appears to be getting more true all the time. It must be asked, however, whether my generation's fixation on bigger houses and bigger cars - the fixation on money - necessarily bought us happiness?
• Poll Option E: "It depends completely on the abilities and work ethic of each individual." That has always been true. In many ways the digital world offers talented and ambitious people an even greater opportunity than ever for personal growth and empowerment. Maybe this is the way it should be.
In summary, I think we all fixate too much on the material things. To me, the breakdown of community and family is the biggest threat in this brave new world. Yet we see millennials are the ones that want to spend time with their friends, want to live in the city. Me, I just wanted to move as far out in the suburbs as possible into as big a house as I could find. And I still have my mortgages to prove it.
Perhaps, if material things get harder to come by, people will once again find how to find happiness with just what is all around us. For free. Like The Post!