Why can't we?

Taken from the Life Learning FB page:

Views are changing.

"I'm not anti-college. College is the right path for certain individuals and for certain specific career choices, yes. But.... college is not the be-all, end-all; and college is not the path for everyone; and a college degree should not be a status symbol. It's a tool (an expensive tool), and the decision to go shouldn't be taken lightly. The antiquated notion that *everyone* should aspire to go to college baffles me. There are many many different paths one can take to a happy, healthy, and productive life, and many of them do not involve college at all."

Robert Reich

I know a high school senior who can’t sleep because she’s so worried about whether she’ll be accepted at the college of her choice. This is nuts. It’s also absu...rd that a four-year college education should be the only gateway into the American middle class. Not everyone is suited to college, nor does everyone need it. We desperately need a world-class system of vocational-technical education. Many of tomorrow’s good jobs will go to technicians who install, service, repair, and upgrade high-tech machinery. Even today, it’s hard to find skilled plumbers and electricians.

Yet we cling to a cultural conceit that four years of college is necessary for everyone, and look down on those who don’t have a college degree. Germany – whose median wage (after taxes and transfers) is higher than ours – trains many of its young people to be world-class technicians. Why can’t we?

Someone who is unafraid to be herself

Ok so this would take an essay I know, but this kind of idea Emma Stone is expressing here is what I want to teach my girls about beauty. I don't always like the "redefine beauty" campaign ads because I feel like they keep the focus on appearance and I'd rather tell my girls something like,

"Yes, it's true - our culture defines beauty as A, B, and C, and cross-culturally around the world throughout all of time everyone has defined "symmetry" as beautiful. Which means how outwardly beautiful you are deemed is largely luck, and trying to change that tends to to be a soul-sucking goal on which to spend your limited money, energy and time on. The truth is also that most of us do it to some extent but "living an examined life" about how much you want to give toward caring about your outward appearance is very important, because everytime you give toward trying to be more beautiful you will have less to give toward other areas of life.

What I find helpful to remember is that someone else is always going to be more beautiful than you. The less that bothers you, the more space you'll have to become who you actually are - a woman full of confidence, humor and grace. And most people agree that those qualities make for a profoundly better life than traditional beauty."

The consensus also seems to be that the way in which I will have the most influence in helping them learn this is to believe it myself. I really like that.