College shouldn't be free, but ...

One day when I was in high school – either sophomore or junior year, I’m not sure – Mom and I were going through a box of her “memorabilia.” I’m not even sure what we were looking  for, if anything. But in that box, from a top shelf in her closet, were some of her mementos from high school, including a fancy embroidered, script letter “J.”  She had graduated from Jefferson High School, the same school and building that I was attending.  I asked, “What’s this?” She said, “Oh, that’s my letter for getting all A’s.” Wait, what? I knew my mom was smart, but seriously, all A’s? And not for just three years, but four, because back then 9th grade was part of high school. Also, the jocks got block letter J’s, but the academic people got script J’s, which I thought was peculiar. So I asked, “Well, Mom, why didn’t you go to college?” Because I knew that both of her brothers did, and my dad did. And I knew that her mom had been a teacher, and had at least gone to two years of college for teacher training. But, no, in 1938, there was no money to send a girl to college, even though there was a state college within bus/walking distance (at which she ended up working). Her oldest brother went, but partly with an ROTC kind of funding, I think. Her younger brother and my dad went later, after WWII, with the GI bill, or otherwise they wouldn’t likely have been able to afford it. They both became engineers, by the way.

Somehow, that day, I knew that I was going to be able to go to college but that I shouldn’t ever forget that it wasn’t an opportunity to be wasted. I studied. I read the assignments. I took it seriously, when some other students, mostly males, were more focused on having a good time. Because I couldn’t forget Mom and a lot of women like her.

I don’t think that’s why she shared that box of memorabilia that day, but you never know. Mom was pretty smart. She had that “j” to prove it.

By the way, I do know that it was even more difficult for men and women of color, especially in 1938 but also in 1969. I think that it is mostly better now, but we need to be vigilant.

Do I believe that college should be free? No. It should be affordable. There should be scholarships for people who don't have financial assets but have shown that they take their studies seriously. "A" students should get scholarships as easily as athletes do. Students might need to work in the summer instead of going to Europe (although I'm in favor of study abroad, but that's different). They maybe shouldn't go on expensive spring breaks. They maybe should have some skin in the game. I fear that making college completely free would devalue it, making it like free high school, less respected, less serious. It is, in fact, ridiculous that there are lists of "party schools," some of which are at least in part publicly funded. It's also ridiculous that some students emerge with crippling debt, but there may be multiple reasons for that and multiple solutions, including good financial counseling from the get-go.

But should any child growing up in America resign themselves to the fact that, no matter what their abilities and dedication are, they can't afford to go to college? No. Not because of gender, not because of race, not because of their parents' finances. We need those young men and women to achieve their potential. All of them.

Neo-Nazis I have known. Really.

In 1970, I was in Paris, broke, and 19 years old, so I answered an ad in the International Herald Tribune for a job as a secretary. Otherwise, I'd have to go home. Got a job in Switzerland. Went there. Witnessed this conversation, in French:

Guy 1: “You say jazz is black music because you don’t like jazz and you don’t like blacks.”

Guy 2: “You say jazz isn’t black music because you like jazz but you don’t like blacks.”

Then they turn to me and say, “Hey, Patricia, you’re American. Is jazz black music?”

Okay, I’m 19 years old, broke, and in the middle of god-knows-where-Switzerland, and have just realized that my  new employers are totally nuts. But I say, “Well, I have been to New Orleans, and I’m pretty sure that without black people, we wouldn’t have jazz.”  

Then they started talking about how they were neo-Nazis and, yeah, they were definitely racists.

That was just creepy, to have people openly admit that they were racist, proud of it, and arguing about what that meant about their musical tastes.

I didn't personally feel fear, and, yeah, I did get out of there, but I felt apprehension about what that meant to the world. Kind of like now. 

Math class

Math class

In 1968, junior year of high school, this happened.

I was in an “advanced” class in math based on texts by the School Math Study Group, SMSG.  We had taken tests to qualify for the SMSG program back in junior high. I was good at math.

One day, the teacher, a male, was doing a lesson on the famous “story problems” that required problem solving and logic to figure out how to set up an equation. He had drifted over into philosophy-logic, posing a riddle that was, he said, an example of a paradox, a riddle that has no solution: “Every man in town who does not shave himself is shaved by the barber. Who, then, shaves the barber?” The teacher explained that the barber cannot shave himself, because the statement is that only men who don’t shave themselves are shaved by the barber; someone in class suggested that the barber had a beard, but, again, the statement says all men are shaved, either by themselves or by the barber. I suggested that the barber is a woman. The teacher became flustered and said, “Women shave some places.” I said the original statement didn’t say anything about women shaving or not shaving, but that if the barber is a woman, the statement is not a paradox. (Clearly, you can change the statement to say “Everyone in town … “ leaving out gender, but that was not the problem as presented.)

Was the teacher impressed? Nope. He was angry. He did not like bright young women in his math classes, and he did not like to be shown up, especially not by a girl. He moved on to the next story problem.

And he was one reason why many young women, at least in that town, did not pursue studies in science and math. It was undoubtedly true in many, many towns in that era, and unfortunately may still be true in some places today.

How to be an optimist -- or not

In about 1975,  I was living in a small town in North Dakota, working at a twice-weekly newspaper, my first job after college. Some young entrepreneurs in town wanted to start a local chapter of the Optimists. It’s an international organization that works primarily on projects for children and local communities, plus I have always considered myself an optimist. They needed a certain number of people, I think like 30,  to sign up to get a charter, so my friend Marilyn and I said, sure, count us in. Word came back from the home office: Sorry, no women. The two guys trying to organize the local group said, hey, we’ll fight this if you want. I said, no, I don’t want to keep you from doing the good work. Build playgrounds and stuff. Don’t get distracted. I’ll pick my fight on something else. (And you know I did!) Their loss.

A few years later, when there was a big hoo-haw about Rotary Clubs, etc. and women members, I wrote a column in the newspaper at my later job, a slightly bigger small town in Minnesota. And what I said then, I stick with: If you need good works done, don’t turn away anyone who wants to do the good works. Because that’s not just discriminatory, it’s stupid. Your loss.

In 2016,  and actually much sooner than that, the Optimists, the Rotary Club, and a ton of formerly boys-only-he-man-women-haters organizations welcome women. I think they figured it out.

 Now, let’s get the nation to understand that it’s true of every gender, every race, every religion, every gender identification, every sexual orientation. You want the best people to get the job done? Invite everybody. Or it’s your loss.