Tag: Education

SURPRISE: PLATO LIVES! — Philosophers Often Turn Out To Be Kings (& Queens) Of Business & Professions!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/for-philosophy-majors-the-question-after-graduation-is-what-next/2017/06/20/aa7fae2a-46f0-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html?utm_term=.db0db771aaec&wpisrc=nl_buzz&wpmm=1

From the Washington Post:

“Philosophy majors spend their college years pondering deep questions, such as: What is the meaning of life? Do we have free will? And what job am I going to get with this degree after graduation?

It turns out the last question isn’t hard to answer: Just about anything.

The idea that philosophy majors aren’t prepared for professional careers “is a little bit of a myth, to be honest,” said Thomas Holden, chair of the philosophy department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “Philosophy is not about sages sitting on mountaintops speculating about the cosmos.”

Graduates in philosophy inhabit Wall Street corner offices, roam the oak-paneled halls of the Supreme Court and reign over boardrooms in Silicon Valley.

Interest in the major has risen steadily in the past three decades. Although totals have dipped slightly in recent years, federal education data shows the number of students who received bachelor’s degrees in philosophy has doubled since 1987, peaking at 7,926 graduates in 2013.”

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Gee whiz! Who would ever have thought that teaching sound reasoning, critical analysis, effective argument, skillful defense of ideas, and creative problem solving skills could be useful in the “real” world? Certainly not the many politicos and supposed educational and business wonks who trash the liberal arts and glorify “trade school” education for everyone.

The world is a rapidly changing place.  And, folks who learn how to think, solve problems, and maintain a big picture perspective usually have the flexibility to “reinvent” themselves as necessary, even as their technical knowledge and skills become outdated or obsolete. And, intellectual curiosity and engagement are things that help outside the workplace or when things at work get rough. Critical thinking and creative problem solving are just as important for good mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, and brick masons as they are for chief execs, scientists, doctors, and lawyers.

Yesterday, I dropped by to see my good friend and colleague (and contributor to immigrationcourtside.com, http://immigrationcourtside.com/2017/06/19/the-hill-professor-andy-schoenholtz-of-georgetown-law-on-why-americans-should-be-grateful-to-the-9th-circuit-for-upholding-the-rule-of-law-against-executive-overreach/)  at Georgetown Law, Professor Andy Schoenholtz. I caught him “red-handed” perusing a tome of Immanuel Kant. He tried to cover up by claiming that he was just “cleaning out his bookcase.” But, of course, we know the truth (to the extent, of course, that absolute truth can ever be “known’).

No wonder Schoenholtz has accomplished so much in the real world as well as the academic world!

PWS

06-21-17

 

 

 

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DC Superintendent Of Education Understands Students’ Immigration Fears — She Was Undocumented Herself!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/08/i-know-the-fear-of-immigrant-families-because-i-was-once-undocumented-myself/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.b49dee569961

D.C. Superintendent Hanseul Kang writes in the Washington Post:

“The mother was serious as she approached the principal of her daughter’s D.C. school. Would the principal consider becoming her child’s legal guardian in the event she was deported, so her daughter, a U.S. citizen, could stay in the country?

It was a surreal question but one rooted in real fear.

The political rhetoric about immigration, along with high-profile enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has instilled palpable anxiety in immigrant families across the country, elevating a background level of uncertainty to an urgent concern. In the days after an ICE raid in Las Cruces, N.M., in February, more than 2,000 students were kept home from school. A Los Angeles community is reeling after ICE agents arrested a father moments after he dropped off his 12-year-old daughter at school.

Confusion is exacerbating fear, especially in young children, who may not fully understand the concepts of countries, borders and citizenship. During a class discussion at that same D.C. school, a student worried aloud that he’d be forced to move back to where he came from. When asked where he was from, he said Florida.

We haven’t seen any spikes in absences in the District, where Mayor Muriel Bowser has affirmed her commitment to being a sanctuary city and protecting the rights of immigrant residents. But ICE arrested 82 people in the region in a five-day sweep last month. Our schools have hosted “know your rights” workshops and fielded questions from panicked parents. At one meeting I attended, teachers pledged to parents that they would be arrested themselves before allowing ICE officials into the building. Still, it’s hard for families to know whom to trust.

I have some sense of what that’s like.

I was born in South Korea and came to the United States when I was 7 months old, on Christmas Eve, 1982. When I was 16 — excited to get a driver’s license and apply to college — I learned that I was undocumented.

In one afternoon, my world turned upside down. With all the trappings of a high school overachiever, I had assumed I could attend pretty much any college or university. But without access to federal financial aid, I might not be able to go at all. I couldn’t work, couldn’t drive, couldn’t travel outside the country. Even worse was the terrifying possibility that my family might be discovered and deported.

. . . .
That is my concern about the impact of this latest shift in rhetoric and policy on immigrants: that as a country we will convey, especially to our students, that we question their value and their abilities. Not only is that message dehumanizing, but it discourages the talent and leadership we need to continue to thrive as a nation. Even as many have spoken out in support of preserving Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, I worry that in advocating for a small exception to U.S. immigration policy — albeit for young people in a uniquely vulnerable position, those who came to the United States without legal documentation, or who fell out of legal status, as children — we miss the broader value of immigrants to our country.

Educators can be an important source of support for students and their families. They were for me. But it should not fall on an individual principal or teacher to protect a child or a family from immigration enforcement, and no parent should have to ask them to. We have to do better for our students and for our nation.”

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Superintendent Kang is a wonderful example of why Jeff Sessions and his white nationalist cohorts are wrong in failing to value the contributions of all types of migrants to the prosperity and success of the US. What kind of nation, with what kind of national values, intentionally creates a climate of fear among its youth who are the hope for the future?

PWS

05-13-17

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WashPost EDUCATION: Alexandria, VA School PTA Helps Families Deal With ICE Fears — Alexandrians Stand With Their Immigrant Community Neighbors!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/know-your-rights-clinic-in-school-cafeteria-aims-to-allay-immigrant-fears/2017/03/29/fe8af9cc-0fe9-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.a5bbff25be59

Moriah Balingit reports:

“In a school cafeteria adorned with whimsical children’s artwork, the men and women hunched over thick packets of paper one recent night, fiddling with pen caps and rubbing their foreheads as they confronted a challenge: preparing for what happens if immigration agents show up at the door.

Some at this clinic in Northern Virginia were undocumented, and others had relatives in that situation. Some had legal status but were not permanent residents, and they wondered what shifts in federal immigration policy would mean for them and their relatives.

Juan Torres, a carpenter from Honduras and father of four, has temporary protected status, but he has family members who are undocumented.

“Of course, I was very worried, because the majority of my family doesn’t have documents, and at any moment they could be arrested or detained,” Torres said.

He was one of about two dozen people who came to William Ramsay Elementary School in Alexandria to learn about their rights while President Trump moves to tighten immigration enforcement and speed up deportations.

Recent arrests in Alexandria and elsewhere have heightened stress. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “sensitive location” policy restricts enforcement actions at schools and churches. But agents last month arrested homeless men who had just left a church warming shelter in nearby Fairfax County and a father in Los Angeles who had just dropped his daughter off at school.

With anxiety rising in immigrant communities, educators and parents are taking steps to allay fears. The PTA at Ramsay Elementary sponsored the March 22 clinic, supplying pizza and providing volunteers to care for children of those who came to hear from immigration lawyers and other experts.

About a quarter of Alexandria’s residents in 2010 were foreign-born, census data shows. Hundreds of unaccompanied minors, many of whom fled violence in Central America, have entered the United States in recent years without parents and landed in the city’s schools. Students in Alexandria hail from more than 130 countries. Hallways at Ramsay Elementary display dozens of flags to show international spirit.”

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Try as they might, The Trump Administration is not going to be able to dislodge migrants from communities throughout the US. They will, however, succeed in generating massive resistance to their unrealistic, unneeded, and xenophobic policies. Sooner or later, either Congress must pass needed reforms giving some status and protection to migrants, or the resistance will eventually tie the already dysfunctional system into knots.

PWS

04-03-17

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Yemeni Students In Limbo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/we-dont-know-what-we-are-going-to-do-yemeni-students-unable-to-return-home-face-uncertain-status-in-america/2017/02/14/496927d8-f204-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?hpid=hp_local-news_yemeni-730pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.a079ca2b0c04

Emma Brown writes in the WashPost:

“Taima Aliriani, 17, center, with friends at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale on Feb. 7. Aliriani is from Yemen and hopes to stay in the United States. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
They left their families in Yemen nearly three years ago through an exchange program that aimed to introduce Muslim high school students from overseas to America. But when civil war broke out at home, they couldn’t return, and what was supposed to be a 10-month visit turned into an indefinite stay.

Now the State Department — which sponsored the program and has supported these two dozen students since they arrived in 2014 — has notified them that they’ll be on their own in a few months.

For these Yemeni students, most of them thousands of miles away from their nearest relatives, that means no more housing or living stipends, and no more community-college tuition aid. Perhaps most important, it also means no more student visas. That will leave many of them facing the prospect of losing their legal status as visitors at a time when President Trump has pledged heightened immigration enforcement.

“I don’t only have to look for a place to stay and a way to pay for myself and a way to pay for my education, but now I also have to worry about racism and legal status,” said Taima Aliriani, 17, who graduated from high school in Indiana and is now at Northern Virginia Community College. “I applied for asylum, but right now I feel like I’m probably not going to get it.”

Aliriani is one of six Yemeni exchange students who were trapped here by their country’s civil war and are now at NOVA. Six others are at community colleges in Wisconsin, and a dozen are studying in Washington state.

Last month, a week after he took office, Trump signed an executive order that barred refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Yemen was one of them.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has temporarily blocked enforcement of the order, but the new administration’s push to bar citizens of those nations has terrified many Muslims, including the Yemeni exchange students who wonder what is next for them.”

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PWS

02/15/17

 

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