As the country
prepares to take a hiatus from the hope, dignity, and white knuckle ingenuity
that has made it the unrivaled greatest country in the world to be "Great
Again," I want to reflect on a sign of progress that, until now I sort of took
for granted.
Yesterday,
while picking Naomi up from the computer coding program she attends I got the
chance to go in the makeshift computer lab, a neatly appointed room of desks,
chairs, and laptops in the back of our local Library, (shout out to NYPL) to
have a look at what she and the other children were about. Now, I'm not easily
impressed - my New Yorker cynicism, Samurai like stoicism, and bitterness of
one balding too soon provide ample defense against excitability, so my jaw
didn't quite hit the floor but rather hung somewhere around my knees when I saw
what they've achieved in just two sessions. They, each of them, had created unique
animations with sound that were interactive. The spilt screen layout on the
monitors displayed lines of code next to working animations. I was thoroughly…,
I mean, yeah it was alright. Ahem! Once
I managed to shift my jaw, and my inner Luke Cage, back into their respective
sockets I started looking away from the digital creations and at the creators. DING!
I can’t say I
was surprised nor was it particularly remarkable that 9 out of 10 of the
creators were girls most of them Naomi’s classmates, all of them in her year at
school. The one boy was in fact an older brother of Naomi’s friend. What makes this worth reflecting on is what
happens today – the inauguration of a genuinely unqualified, untrustworthy, and
unpleasant boor of a man to the office of the Presidency. For only a moment,
upon seeing what Naomi and her friends had created, I was a kid again just
wanting to join in on the action. And then, without warning, I was hoofed back
to reality when one of the girls joked about learning to hack so she can “Dump
Trump.” They all laughed in agreement, I squirmed. That’s what I get for
daydreaming. There it was, exactly what is at stake – our girls. It didn’t
matter whether the coders were boys or girls before HIS name was mentioned, but
it is impossible to feel comfortable with a man who thinks about women in the way
one might think about a steak dinner and not worry for our girls.
Growing up in
my family I didn’t need telling that girls are equal to boys. It was and still
is just the way of things. Just the way of things. As matter of fact, I grew up
with the quixotic notion that girls are inherently smarter than boys. Hmm,
wherever did I get that idea? I also have an older sister who delighted in
tormenting me, though, to be fair she was and, I’ll admit just this once, still
is clever.
That Man,
however, doesn’t show any such signs of respect for girls and women, or anyone
and anything that doesn’t orbit his grand ego for that matter. Neither is he
the kind of person to surround himself with people who might upstage him. Not
surprisingly, his nominee for Education Secretary is a nugget from the very
bottom of the barrel of qualified candidates. The person that will likely be
appointed to the post of Education Secretary has exactly the sum of 0+none
experience working in Education. Moreover, through past acts – generous
financial contributions to Private and Charter School lobbyists – she, Betsy
Devos, has shown a severe, and I mean absolutely menacing, disdain for public
schools and everyone associated with them. In her appointment hearing she
refused to affirm that all schools whether private or public, if they receive
federal funds, should meet the same accountability standards. She said that we
might need guns in schools because, and I kid you not, Grizzly Bears. You what?
She even flaunted the idea of defunding public schools (I really hope she
spends her entire term chasing that shadow). But the one admission of the
threat this new administration poses to public schools and public programs is
Betsy Devos’ flat refusal to say whether she will continue to uphold the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) known for insuring equal
education for children with disabilities. The amount of harm she could do in
four years is not to be underestimated. When the words equal and education are
used together in debates of such magnitude everyone should take note,
particularly girls and women. Equality
is still a work in progress, even a far-fetched ideal to some. It seems to me
that whenever equality goes through the machinations of politics, economics,
culture and all the other cogs and gears in this grand machine we call
civilization, it emerges with women being somehow less equal, regardless of the
context of which it went in.
This is a
message of hope. The changes about to occur are very worrying but I don’t believe
they will be impactful. Consider it a pause from sensible progress for a moment
of reflection and contrast. I’m hopeful
because of what saw at Naomi’s coding group yesterday. Encouraging girls to drop their dolls and
bedazzle tools to pick up hobbies like computer coding is still a novel proposal.
So, I consider myself lucky to witness nine capable girls being taught to code by
a female Polish/Swedish expatriate, who you know must be a feminist and socialist,
and enjoying themselves. Their cheerful celebration of their accomplishments
after just two meetings, roughly 4 hours of coding, served for me as
appropriate defiance for the times ahead. I witnessed the inexorable course of
progress. This administration could possibly undermine some of that progress, but
they cannot stop it. The will of our girls is inevitable. You can try to put
off the inevitable but eventually you stumble upon the place where inevitable
goes and waits, to be avoided no longer.
Therefore, as
the country prepares to take a hiatus from its higher values and status as
greatest country in the world to be “Great Again,” whatever that means, we are
going to be all right. There will be difficulties, no doubt, things have a
habit of going awry when morons and devils are given authority. Fortunately, a
lot of people still remember what is truly important, an entity that wields a
passive but arguably the most potent power – the next generation. So, whether
it be free pop-up computer coding classes for the duration of this new
administration’s “management” or protests or, most importantly, getting out to
vote next time round, reasoning people who like progress, and even those who
like looking back from time to time, will succumb to the irresistible pressure
of the next generation. I’ve had some insight into their dynamic; they want to
make good things happen and they will not be denied. If you’re looking for a
leader, a president, look no further than the dreams of your children, or your
neighbor’s children if you don’t have any. They will challenge you and demand
that you give your best and they will give you hope and make you a better
person. Those are first rate leadership qualities. So as the country
inaugurates a president, I’ve chosen my own. Her name is Naomi. She dreams of
becoming a Doctor, Scientist, Teacher, Philanthropist, Environmentalist, and Software
Engineer. Lead on.
Inlägg
