Best of the week: the challenges of poverty and how to escape them

After finishing the documentary “Born into Brothels” the class received a firsthand view of an entire neighborhood that lived in extreme poverty and deal with hardships that suburbanite kids will most likely never have to face in first class, first world America. The ideas that just because the kids lost the birthing lottery they are going to be stuck in poverty and live their life in squalor is one that hits you right in the gut. The only way these kids were able to escape their surroundings is through the help of an outsider, a person who left their comfortable life behind to assist those who have none of the benefits she had received at home. She entered the red-light district and gave the kids something to work for, to live for, photography. This was the kids saving grace, had she not come and given them the ability to travel and capture the country their life would be no different than their moms and their grandparents, pimps and prostitutes. The outsider not only taught them but she fought for them as well. She contacted countless boarding schools to try and find a spot for these kids so they could get and education and leave their surroundings. She spent hours waiting in line and fighting the diplomatic process to get these kids documents allowing them to escape the red light district. She effectively gave them life.

The great deeds of an outsider and poor conditions that these kids live in are not what make this best conversation of the week.  To answer the best of the week question you have to consider another question, could these kids have made it without her help? What if the outsider never entered the red light? What if other kids were chosen for her photography classis? Would these kids still have been successful or would the fall into the same pitfalls that countless other had. As sad as it may be I think the answer to this question no. I don’t think there is any way these kids could have finished school, gotten into college and get degrees in medicine and law if someone had not come and fought for them to succeed. I don’t think they would have found the necessary support, the determination or the craving for education. I think they would continue to live in the brothels, continue to work for pennies and eventually sell their bodies to support them. So while the greatest thing for the week was in no way a good thing the thoughts and discussions that stemmed out of it as well as the extreme acts of kindness from a person who owed nothing to these kids make it the greatest thing for the week.

Connection: Richard Feynman and Hunter S. Thompson

A New York physicist who let his creativity guide him through life and a Kentucky journalist who straddled the line of reality to provide unique firsthand accounts of American culture, two men who followed a similar path even if didn’t appear so on the surface. There are obvious connections to make right off the bat, both Thompson and Feynman limited themselves to subject that only interested them and would both become infatuated in their work, obsessing about it, tweaking and adjusting to make it as good as it could be. They both also hit a major depression that almost destroyed them and hope for their work. For Feynman it was his part in the development of the atomic bomb. For Thompson it was the combination of drugs, alcohol, and the slow realization that he was no longer the great writer, his work had reached its peak. For these men to pull themselves out of their nosedives it took life changing decisions and the help of close friends. As these men struggled to pull their life back together they both reached the same outcome, working for fun instead of working for work.

           While there are the glaring similarities in the two men’s life there are also less obvious similarities that the men shared. Both Feynman and Thompson had divergent minds that blanketed a large variety of topics. Feynman loved everything from nature to the aerodynamics of a spinning plate flying through the air while Thompson was a lover of guns, drugs, American muscle cars. They chased down the rabbit hole to learn and experience their loves and interests and alloyed allowed their respective lists to grow and change. For me their lives spent chasing their interests and having fun doing it serves an example for how a life should be lived. Instead of throwing away a rare chance of being human they spent it how they wanted, breaking rules and raising hell. When life came back and bit hard they refused to let themselves be beaten, they picked themselves off the floor, unslumped themselves and kept right on kicking till their time on life expired or they felt that they had done enough and it was time for them to go. 

What if?: kids taught other kids.

The idea is simple, what if you took a bunch of children with varying strengths and weaknesses and placed them all into one class. There would be no set curriculum or subject in this class, but rather a mass of thoughts and ideas that challenge or support, combine or separate. Each kid contributes in his own way, adding what he wants to make the class better for all involved. This environment would allow for individual interests to be taught and shared to those who may not know anything of the subject. The class would essentially be one giant conversation on every topic under the sun. As the class moved on everything from math to philosophy would somehow be covered informally but productively. Hopefully kids would be forced from their comfort zone and encounter ideas that challenge their core beliefs. They would be able to learn about the opposing sides and learn how to defend their ideas or allow them to be swayed to a side they never thought they would take.

               A teacher may be present but not to teach or facilitate discussion. They would essentially be just another student and encounter the same environment that the students find themselves in. the only difference between the students and the teachers would be a single responsibility, to prevent a repeat of Lord of the Fly’s, or let it happen under supervision, which ever he/she would think would be more beneficial for the class. The classroom would be a member as well, being modified by the students to fit with the times. For example say you don’t like desks throw your desk away and bring a sitting apparatus that pleases you. Don’t like the corny inspirational posters hanging on the walls replace them with a poster of your favorite band or bring in a can of spray paint or other color making device and make your own wall art. As the year went on the room would go on constantly changing to provide the optimal learning environment custom made for its inhabitants.

               Would this work? Who knows but it would a hell of a thing to try.