Life as a College Prof. I've just had my first two days of classes this semester and one of the things that's always impressed me is the abilities of students at Morehead State University in Eastern Kentucky. Even though Eastern Kentucky is one of the poorest regions in the country and even though most students come in from terrible high schools, the talent can be spotted almost as soon as students begin writing. The fact that most students show that they have abilities despite the disadvantages in this region is a sign that students everywhere, people everywhere, have talent. There is equality in the world.
The problem is that the vast majority of students don't believe in equality. Instead, they believe in the domination of those who make the right "choices" over those who don't. Students believe that the number of people who have what it takes is small while most people are dumb-asses, losers, or any other of the hundreds of words we use to characterize failure. Not realizing the extent to which everybody has talent, the most ambitious students find themselves constantly bothered by questions of whether they have real ability.
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Questions of equal ability notwithstanding, underprivileged students have major hurdles to overcome to even begin to achieve genuine equality. Students from poor rural communities, impoverished inner cities, or any situation in which they face sever economic hardships are at a distinct disadvantage compared to students with “equal” test scores, but major financial and institutional advantages. Students in this situation find that there is little possibility of continuing to acquire an education, and literally survive, without compiling enormous debt, in a system that continues to become more expensive, while limiting opportunities for economic aid.
“A Carnegie Endowment study showed that two young people of equal standing on intelligence tests […] had very different futures depending on whom their parents were. The child of a lawyer, though rating no higher on mental test that the child of a janitor, was four times as likely to go to college, 12 times as likely to finish college, and 27 times as likely to end up in the top 10 percent of American incomes.” (Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States, 663)
Most students probably do not believe in equality, and they are conditioned to believe in and accept ideas of domination. Those who “have” or “succeed” succeed because they are indeed better, more intelligent, more talented, or stronger. Inundated from an early age with images from a culture that celebrates dominance of the few at the expense of the many, it is not surprising that many of these students question their abilities or their prospects at achieving success.
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