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My Message to the Folks from the Occupy Wall Street Protests

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Our country has a lot of protests these days. First, there were organized protests against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Then there were grassroots protests from folks who eventually wound up calling themselves the Tea Party. Now, there are protests on Wall Street from a conglomeration of groups collectively calling themselves Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Typically, I don’t write anything about these protests because, frankly, I’m too busy to do the research and find out what these people are protesting. However, after I watched some angry, vitriolic, anti-Semitic garbage spewing out of one of the OWS protestors yesterday, I was moved to write something about the people out there chanting, “The people. United. Will never be defeated.”

The protestors are out there, but nothing is going to change. Photo from Tom Clark's Beyond the Pale.

I’ve got news for those folks – the people protesting on Wall Street, united or not, will always be defeated. Why? Simple. If your rank and file members are anti-Semitic or anti-any group of people, you will never win over the masses. Oh, sure – you might draw in a few thousand people in New York City and maybe even a million or so from coast-to-coast. But even if you drew in 1 million people to support your cause, you’d be a minor fraction of a percent of the American public. Here’s the simple math: 1,000,000 people who are protesting (and, apparently, don’t mind the anti-Semites in their ranks) divided by 320,000,000 Americans = 0.003125 percent of the American public.

That’s not even enough support to warrant one millisecond of any Wall Street banker’s day.

But that’s not my message – that’s just some discussion on what I saw in that hateful, disgusting video. Here’s my message to the OWS protestors:

You are mainly the cause of your own pain.

I’m in the rare position to be able to feel the pain that these protestors are complaining about. These are the kids who went to college, majored in the humanities, and now can’t find a job with their art, English, sociology, political science, gender studies, etc. degree. I feel their pain because I graduated from my college with a bachelors degree in English. The difference between where the protestors are in life and where I am in life is that I didn’t view that humanities degree as a means to an end. In other words, I never thought that getting that degree 1) guaranteed me a job after graduating, 2) guaranteed me any respect after graduating, and/or 3) meant anything other than that I read a lot of literature and cranked out a bunch of academic-style research papers.

The larger difference between the protestors and a guy like me, though, is that I don’t believe my own bullshit. Here’s a brief explanation of what I’m talking about… Thanks to my work with volunteering to my local fraternity, I’ve watched a generation of young kids grow into an unrealistic adulthood. Their adulthood is unrealistic because they actually believe the bullshit that they spew. For example, it’s not uncommon for me to encounter an undergraduate who tells me that his Father/uncle/cousin/Grandfather is a major executive at XYZ Corporation and that once he graduates he’s going to get a good job there (or some variant of that story). And, almost invariably, when it comes time for that undergraduate to move on from college they either don’t graduate at all or wind up working at a completely different company than the one that their familial relationship was supposed to just hand them. Regardless of that reality playing out time and time again, I see more and more young people coming into the academic environment with that entitled mindset. As one of my old professors tells me whenever we have lunch together, there are kids entering college today with the attitude of, “I have arrived!”

And no one gives a shit that they’ve arrived.

So if you are one of the many, many protestors on Wall Street who are complaining that you can’t find a job because of the evil corporations, what you should really be complaining about is a university atmosphere that served you a tall glass of bullshit-flavored Kool-Aid. That’s right – the very same ivory tower where you fell in love with Chaucer, literary reviews of British literature during the Industrial Revolution, or the gender equality struggle in the Middle East (which is something that I’m passionate about, too), is the same ivory tower that duped you into believing that your passion for these causes and issues would be enough to support your life post-graduation.

They lied to you. The professor that you fell in love with because you really believed and felt that they had a passion for their work – they are part of a much larger, much greedier institution than Wall Street. They push an ideal that has proven throughout the ages to never be sustainable – namely, that you can be a 100% humanistic, artistic society and thrive. It’s not possible. Someone has to actually do the work that moves a person, family, community, and country forward. Someone has to get up in the morning and make the donuts. Someone has to pump the gas. Someone has to mow the lawn. Those are the jobs that a civilized society needs filled.

We don’t need someone to sit around and debate the pros and cons of Shakespearean iambic pentameter in adequately representing the struggle for equality during Elizabethan times. Do people get to sit around and have this argument? Of course they do! Are those people ever going to be YOU? Not likely. The people who get to sit around and sip tea while having these high-minded discussions are the same ones who have been doing that for the last fifty years – and they’re not going anywhere any time soon.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend that the OWS protestors take that rage, take that anger, take that hatred towards a bleak future and direct it towards a societal system that nearly forces us all to go to college. The protestors are also complaining about mountains of student loan debt and no serious jobs to help them pay down the debt. Take it from a guy who graduated with a humanities degree (two, actually, when you count the master’s degree) and $121,000 in student loan debt – I feel your pain. You’ve been lied to all of your lives. However, don’t lash out like spoiled children are wont to do. Instead, now is the time to break free from the intellectual shackles that have been harnessing your free thought and true understanding of reality.

Rip off those shackles. Let loose your mind. Begin to think, seriously, about why the world is as it is today. Why are students graduating in a future where they see no hope? Why are corporations always going to put the concerns of their shareholders (i.e. profit) first? Why is it that your protests won’t mean a thing to anyone who actually matters?

Think about those questions as they exist in reality and work towards a reasonable solution. Strip your mind of the prejudices that an over-liberal education have harnessed them with and come to understand what the real world is like today, tomorrow, and into the future. Protesting the job creators is not the answer, folks. The problem is the perpetuation of a national standard that damn near forces its young people to enroll in a collegiate system that is hyper-focused on making a profit while largely shackling creativity by allowing students to graduate while still believing their own bullshit.

Fix that problem and everything else will eventually fall in line.

Who is to Blame? The Students or The Professors?

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As a member of the adjunct faculty at the local college, I receive an e-mail whenever someone from our institution is in the media. Most recently, I received a message stating that a professor and one of the administrators at the college collaborated on a piece discussing whether college students or professors were to blame for poor performance if, and when, it occurs. From the article:

This conclusion that students are not “all right” often takes the form of lamenting students’ lack of motivation, lack of interest, lack of preparation, excessive partying, excessive socializing, and a lack of enthusiasm for our teaching. Worse, some make broad claims that students in general “don’t read,” “can’t write” and “can’t think,” especially compared to students of yesteryear. But are these novel complaints? A faculty report once concluded that 25 percent of students admitted to Harvard in 1897 did not have the writing skills necessary to succeed in college. This does not bode well for progress in higher education over the past 100+ years.

Unfortunately what this does suggest is that the phenomenon of blaming students is more ubiquitous and may not be limited to teachers who are exceptionally egocentric, narcissistic, burnt-out, curmudgeonly, or those who would rather not teach at all.

Among the many items that I like in these two paragraphs, I think special attention should be paid to the description of certain professors as, “exceptionally egocentric, narcissistic, burnt-out, [or] curmudgeonly.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve had professors that fit all of these adjectives (and sometimes all at once!). I had a racist and sexist professor (who I’ve blogged about before) who was “exceptionally egocentric” while being narcissistic at the same time. It was amazing. This was a woman who actively worked against student learning if you were a white male in her classroom. It was unbelievable, though in some respects I think that her arrogance and downright racism and sexism have caused me to be a better educator today. I am now keenly aware of my treatment of minority students and my interactions with the male and female contingencies in my classroom.

Getting back to the article, I think that the writers (Gary W. Lewandowski Jr. and David B. Strohmetz) do a great job of explaining how professors may easily forget how they acted while they were college students. This is another issue that I try to be aware of as I’m teaching my classes. When I look at the students and I notice that a bunch of them are either not paying attention or have their heads down, I immediately change up my lesson plan to get them more engaged in the classroom. I believe that teaching should not be a process that is set in stone, but rather it should adapt (as/if necessary) to the environment. Luckily, I rarely look at the students and see them bored en masse though I do catch one or two of them going to town on their BlackBerries or text messaging like crazy. Which brings me to another portion of Lewandowski and Strohmetz’s article:

Students in our classes today do check their cell phones excessively. When we were students, most of us never would have dreamed of doing such a thing (mainly because there weren’t cell phones). But, if you had such a device as a student, I suspect that you may have found it difficult to avoid checking for text messages about that night’s social activities as well. Now that we do have these devices, how many of your colleagues (if not yourself) check their BlackBerrys or iPhones on a potentially excessive basis? Although there may be generation differences in the available technology, students and teachers of yesterday and today share the same desire to learn useful information, to be financially secure, to lead a happy life, and to be efficient, and to avoid wasting time engaging in seemingly meaningless activities. Ultimately, if we focus on the similarities rather than highlight the differences, we will be more effective in helping our students to learn.

Alright, point taken. And, in fact, I’ve even found myself sitting in the back of the room during my classes checking my text messages as they come in (though never responding). Oh, sometimes I sit in the back of the room to change up the atmosphere in the classroom. Throws some of the students for a loop, but it allows me to focus on seeing the lesson as they see it. I think I’ve done this twice so far this semester.

Again, I would recommend that if you have any interest in the college classroom or if you are a professor, teacher, engaged student, or just someone interested in knowing more about the relationships in the classroom, then I suggest reading this article. It is both interesting and thought-provoking.

Unnecessary Complications: Snnngt! *Cough* Snnngt!

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For those of you that don’t know, I’ve created the word “snnngt!” to represent the noise that a person makes when they suck in their boogers instead of blowing them out into a tissue. Think about it and try to match the noise to the action. Go ahead, I’ll wait… There you go. Keep that in mind until I explain why it is relevant below.

Some of you may have picked up that I take a class on Thursday nights at the local college. It’s a great class and, though it’s pretty long and thus exhausting, I do think that I’m making some good contacts and learning some interesting aspects of communication theory. But as you might expect, there is an certain aspect of this class that completely irritates the hell out of me – the person who I sit next to seems to be constantly sick!

It’s ridiculous! This woman sits there with a variety of crumpled up tissues and “snnngt!’s” all throughout the class! Then she coughs and hacks up a lung every once in a while. And after all of that, she lets out these long, exhausted breaths – think of the sound that, “Uuuuuhhhhhhhhh…” would make. It’s gross!

What the hell is wrong with some people? Look, I understand having to “suck in” the snot if there is no tissue around, but if you’re going to be sitting in a classroom (that is a SMALL classroom, by the way) you don’t have that option any more! You’re invading everyone else’s learning environment by constantly sucking in your goobers instead of blowing them out! And then to sit there and cough along with it? Really?!

Here we are in the midst of a nationwide discussion on whether or not we are going to be hammered by swine flu and part of that conversation is how college students need to be particularly aware of their health since the swine flu attacks younger people more harshly than older folks. And this woman comes to a class on a college campus hacking and wheezing and coughing up a lung? Seriously?!

Anyway, this unnecessary complication probably bothers me more than it does the other students in the class because she and I essentially share the same desk space so I’m right in the combat zone. It’s gross and it makes me want to vomit. The moral of the story is that you should not come to class if you are sick – stay home and e-mail the professor for the work, damn it.

The Real Benefit of a College Degree

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Every once in a while I’ll be engaged in a conversation with someone who never went to college or who didn’t finish their degree program. Sometimes, these conversations hit a brick wall when that person makes a reference towards how they don’t need a piece of paper to be smart or knowledgeable on an issue. On its face, this is a really awkward statement – I’m not sure if there are any people in this world who believe that obtaining a piece of paper will make them smarter. Well, maybe some of those people who think that Harry Potter is real would think that a piece of paper makes them smart, but they are few and far in between!

Whenever this comes up in a conversation, it’s usually a pretty depressing point in the discussion because it shows a severe lack of understanding as to what a college degree actually does for a person. Obtaining a piece of paper that says “Bachelors of the Arts” or “Bachelor of Science” in any particular discipline does not make you a know-it-all genius on that topic. Yeah, you may know more facts and figures than the average person, but that would be expected, right?

The real benefit of getting that piece of paper is gaining access to an opportunity. That’s right – access to opportunities is what that college degree gets you in the real world. How many times have you looked at job descriptions and they say, “Bachelor’s Degree required?” Even if you’ve seen that requirement just once, you’ve seen how that piece of paper can grant you access to an opportunity that non college graduates cannot access. It’s just the way the business world is these days.

That’s not to say that there aren’t a multitude of excellent, high-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree. And many people from older generations would argue that the best way to gain better access to opportunities is to enter the military. I would probably agree with that for certain segments of the population today, too. But that doesn’t negate the fact that a college degree is a tremendous help in obtaining access to certain opportunities.

What many college graduates will tell you is that there are other benefits to going to college. In particular, they’d probably cite maturing socially and beginning to build a broad professional network as the top two non-academic benefits. These two benefits can be achieved in any number of ways including joining certain on-campus clubs, fraternities, sororities, student government, honor societies, etc. Those students that choose to engage in a meaningful dialogue with their professors outside of the classroom are probably the smartest students on campus. Why? Well, if you’re a young person starting out, why wouldn’t you want to connect with a professor who might have come from the business world and thus has a large network of seasoned professional contacts? Talk about an easy way to get an internship or a job out of college!

That aspect of the college experience has worked for me. I received my adjunct professor job through the recommendation of two former professors who I got to know outside of the classroom. One of them has also gotten me an online teaching position at a different university. I would have never been able to get these teaching gigs without the network that I built while in college.

There are a lot of aspects of college life that are beneficial to the eventual graduate (and even more benefits to the eventual masters degree graduate or doctoral graduate).

I Absolutely Hate My Daily Commute

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Each day I drive an hour to Trenton and then an hour (or sometimes longer) back home to Tinton Falls. Once a week, I go from Trenton right to West Long Branch for the class that I take in communication. Some people who make a similar commute may suggest that it really isn’t an hour from Tinton Falls to Trenton and back, but rather that it’s more like 45 minutes – which is true, assuming that there is no traffic and you’re going 75mph the entire time. However, like all morning and rush hour commutes, it is rare that you don’t hit traffic on the road.

In particular, there are three things that I hate about my commute. First, I hate the length of time that I’m in the car because it really is wasted time. Second, I hate the additional expenses in fuel and maintenance costs for traveling so much. And third, I hate the fact that the commute completely exhausts me every morning and every afternoon.

It would be great if I could find a job that was similar to the one that I have now, but located in Monmouth County. However, that’s very unlikely to happen any time soon so I’m out of luck. I’ve always been taught that you typically change careers several times in your adult life and there is a possibility that I could be ready to change careers. Yet, I’m making okay money where I’m at and doing a job that I somewhat enjoy, so I don’t see the need to switch careers at this point. Plus, the only other occupation that I’d rather have right now is to be a college professor. In order to do that, though, I’d need to go back to school and get a doctorate degree and I’m not overly interested in going through that at this point in my life.

My job is somewhat flexible in terms of the commute in that they let me work from home each Friday. This is a great feature because I can run errands in the morning and do tasks in my home in the afternoon, but it still means that I’m wasting more than 8 hours each week by sitting in a car. And it’s not like I can even be productive during those 8 hours because the cell phone that I currently have has a broken 3.5mm ear jack port. Sure, I could use a Bluetooth connection, but it seems to me that no one can ever hear you clearly on the other end of those things.

So, if you have any tips on how to hate my commute less, I’m all ears…