The article for this installment of NYT Teardown is The Go-Nowhere Generation written by Todd G. Buchholz and Victoria Buchholz.  The basic thesis of the article is that Americans used to move all the time across the country to seek opportunity – if one state wasn’t great, they would get into their cars and move across the country to begin their life anew.  Think Mary Tyler Moore moving to Minneapolis.  Today, however, students and young people are staying home in droves, by and large avoiding improving their economic  lot.

Let’s look at the evidence that backs up such a sweeping claim:

1. Americans are less likely to move according to Census data (how less likely is not clear.  1%?  25%?  Such a magnitude would have been helpful)
2. More students are living at home after graduation
3. My favorite: A kid from Columbus who avoided a teaching career to work at a factory so that this person could stay in Columbus (and from a second-hand source too!)
4. Fewer proportion of young people getting drivers licenses
5. Too much Facebook usage (because, as we all know, that is the cause of everything)
6. Risk aversion due to cultural changes like a new Disney show called “So Random!” (a title that describes the evidence in this piece quite effectively)
7. Changing song lyrics from Bruce Springsteen

Convinced?

Perhaps I am crazy, but to say that the entirety of people under the age of 30 are going nowhere because of this level of evidence is ridiculous.  It certainly doesn’t meet the standards of the NYTimes.  While I question the thesis as a whole, I want to break apart the argument itself.

A more thoughtful argument would have looked at the relationship between college tuition costs, student loans, and risk aversion.  Students today are graduating with loan debt not seen by our forebears.  That is going to change the incentives to just get on a Greyhound bus and set out for a new land.  The hippies of the 1960s could get into their peace buses, and provided they made enough money for food and lodging, get by without significant fear.  Today, students have monthly minimum payments – there is significantly less room for error.

The Facebook argument is debatable, because the internet encourages people to spread farther away since their friends can always be found online.  Increased internet usage delays attainment of driving skills is perhaps not so surprising when one doesn’t have to go to the movie theater to watch entertainment.  That doesn’t prove that people lack labor mobility, it just shows that there isn’t a huge incentive to spend the thousands of dollars required to own a vehicle due to rising costs (like insurance, which was conveniently not mentioned in the article).

I want to specifically address the argument’s view on car ownership.  Due to increased financing to public transportation along with the continued shift of 20-somethings to urban areas, it would appear that fewer young workers even need a car to begin with.  Many new employees eschew cars for working and living in cities where mass transit is plentiful.  San Francisco actively encourages residents to avoid cars by increasing taxes, eliminating parking and otherwise making it an inconvenient mode of transit.  That isn’t economic failure, but quite possibly, economic success.  Why our national ID card is the drivers license remains one of the stranger historical oddities of the United States (really, no other country places such emphasis on this sort of license).

When we judge this argument critically, we notice that there is really nothing but a shell of nostalgia about a different era left in the article.  No, we don’t have route 66 or a new highway system.  We do, however, have the information superhighway, and before we start to attack an entire population for not moving, let’s consider the social and economic context upon which these decisions are made.  That’s not just good article writing, That’s So Raven (since Disney show titles are apparently proxies for actual arguments now).

It looks like his fashion sense hasn't improved. Picture from the Atlantic.

There have been dozens of news stories this year about the silly antics of presidential candidates.  From calling people snobs for wanting kids to go to universities to reopening the contraception battle, the issues are petty, weird, and bizarre: almost like a real version of the Twilight Zone (which, unlike the television show, never really ends).  What is most shocking about the race though, is not that presidential candidates make ridiculous comments, but the support they seem to garner in response.

Why is it that Americans, who by most counts are generally decent and rational people, can suddenly be whipped up into a frenzy to support positions against their own interests by such provocative language?  Considering the vast changes facing the white working class, who really represents the heart of the Republican party (the Tea Party tends to skew upper middle class), it’s a little surprising that they are the ones cheering for reducing scholarship aid or ending contraception.

There have been a lot of discussions about this issue, with talking head theorists discussing all kinds of different explanations.  I’ll throw my hat into this ring with my own theory, that of the psychology of decisions and loss recognition.  Let me explain.

Daniel Kahneman (along with the late Amos Tversky) developed a theory in psychology about how humans react to loss.  They found through experiments that humans actively avoid recognizing a loss, and will continue a losing endeavor even in the face of overwhelmingly clear evidence that such a decision is not the prudent course.  Thus, gamblers often go into massive debt, since to not play another hand would be to recognize a loss – and therefore force them to confront the bad decisions they had made until that point.

I believe the same kind of theory neatly explains the kind of denialism witnessed in the presidential race.  The economy has dramatically changed the rules of life, upending traditional notions of how one succeeds – particularly for the working class.  The metaphorical “factory job” that paid well and provided a middle class income without a college degree (or even perhaps a high school diploma) has all but disappeared.  The consequences of the decisions many of these people made who cheer in the stands for Santorum are now evident: they were poor decisions.  Terrible decisions.  And as we know from Kahneman and Tversky, humans actively avoid recognizing such bad decisions.

This leads to a combustible set of results.  I don’t think these people are against higher education, despite their seeming opposition to it.  Rather, I think deep down, they recognize that their course in life has not worked out the way they had intended.  Many would probably change their choices if they had the chance.  But the economy has conspired to make such alterations to one’s life course all but impossible.  And so what are these people going to do?  Live in despair, or live in denial?

Republicans – like all politicians in a democratic society – are predators.  They seek voters, lull them into a false sense of security with the right language and push for their prey to vote for them.  The denial that many in the working class feel about the economy today isn’t a problem – it is in fact a solution.  It is a means to ply for votes.  When Santorum denounces higher education as “indoctrination centers” (despite having three degrees himself), he is trying to make these voters feel better about their poor choices.  When he denounces contraception, he tries to provide moral support to the vast number of his supporters who had children out of wedlock – precisely because they didn’t use contraception.

While everyone says they want to hear realistic and truthful arguments from politicians, in reality, few of us are really prepared to handle some of their tougher messages.  No one wants to suddenly realize that their entire life course was a mistake, and that they are going to be in the lurch for the rest of their lives.  Politicians realize that they are up against tremendous psychology.  To expect them not to use their voters’ denialism in the pursuit of their own goals is really asking too much.

I don’t blame Santorum.  I blame a system of political economy that has left large swaths of our population behind.  Santorum and his ilk are not the problem, they are the symptom of a denialism that will be only more difficult to break in the years coming.

While Jeju Island is generally marketed (effectively) as a resort island, the island has a rich and deeply moving history.  One facet of this history is Jeju’s prominence in the Pacific theater of World War II, since its proximity to the Japanese mainland made it a likely last stop on the Allies island-hopping campaign to end the war.  Japan created an elaborate sequence of tunnels and fortifications on Jeju Island to protect against this invasion, mostly using Korean slave labor to build it.  Korea had been annexed by Japan decades before in 1910, but the needs of the war dramatically increased the pressures on the colony to produce more raw material and manual labor.  Like much of the rest of the Japanese empire during this time, there were numerous atrocities (something I also noticed in my recent trip to Singapore).

I visited one of these Japanese barracks on the island.  The taxi driver was a little surprised, because no one had ever requested to see the exhibits (he ended up coming in with me since he had never been there himself).  The following are scenes from that underground tunnel and fortification system.

The tunnels below Jeju for Japanese infantrymen

A weapons storage site below ground

The wardroom with (obviously) fake Japanese soldiers and officers

Jeju Island originated from volcanoes, and one of the most beautiful vistas available to the traveler is at Sunrise Peak (성산 일출봉 - Seongsan Ilchubong).  The mountain is located on the east side of the island, and if you come early enough, you can watch the sunrise begin to arrive over the ocean.  The volcanic history of the mountain is clearly obvious at the summit.

The caldera of one of the volcanoes that formed Jeju Island

Jeju Island has also been a part of the mythology of Korean Drama.  One of the more famous shows, 올인 (literally “All In”), was filmed on the island at this house.  When I was there, dozens of people from buses were out front taking photos.  A similar phenomenon happened with one of the most famous dramas of all time, Winter Sonata.  Shot at a resort, the drama led to an economic renaissance for an entire region of Korea.

Since the drama, this has been a major tourist destination for Koreans

On the way out of Jeju Island, I was able to see the governor’s house and a group of tangerine trees.  Tangerines are quite famous on the island given the more temperate climate compared to mainland South Korea, and there are literally hundreds of shops selling them at the airport and at every tourist site on the island.

The home of the Governor of Jeju Island during the Joseon Dynasty

Tangerines are literally ripe for the taking here on Jeju

This continual transformation of charities is the backdrop for my fears related to the most recent push to donate to Stanford.  I have previously written at Fiat Lux about my concern that the Senior Gift campaign wasn’t sustainable, since one-off funds are not all that useful in the context of higher education financing.  Now, there is a new push to donate again to the Stanford Fund [purposeful lowercase of the "the" intended] in a battle of the classes format to see which class can get to 100 donors fastest.

Why am I fearful of donating?  Because I am worried that by doing so, I am merely encouraging the sort of cynicism-producing activities that made me fearful in the first place.

Let me illustrate the different facets of my concern.  When I was attending Stanford and participating in activities, we used to write thank you letters to donors.  Makes sense.  But these letters weren’t allowed to just be custom written, or “from the heart.”  Instead, they had to match the Development Office’s very specific guidelines on what the letter had to include (including a final line that encourages further donations).  I wrote these letters because it secured the financing I needed, but it increased my cynicism about the underlying mission of my world-class education institution.

Now, I myself receive these letters.  I have so far received two letters from Stanford students thanking me for my Senior Gift.  I have also received three voice mail messages from other students who are obsequious in their praise of my financial sacrifice.  I know they are not sincere – I was in their position once, and I know that they are required to sit there and make these calls for an agreed number of hours.  And really, I donated $20.11 like most others in my senior class – how much impact did that money really have?  We are talking about $4.022 per student here.

That’s the cynical part.  The sophisticated part is the constant barrage of phone calls I receive to donate more money.  My home phone and my mother’s cell phone generally get a call from Stanford every 48 hours.  We also get postcards once or twice a month.  All this attention for $20.11!  I understand that research shows quite convincingly that getting me to donate regularly is important to increasing my level of donations.  Yet, that doesn’t exactly improve my level of cynicism.

I want the calls to stop, I want the postcards to stop, I want the fake letters to stop.  Here is what I want: I want to donate to something specific on an on-going basis.  Instead of just “Donate to The Stanford Fund,” tell me a short story that might make me interested.  Tell me that a student group needs money for traveling to a national tournament, or that there is a new scholarship fund for financial aid, or a new relaxation room in Old Union.  Inspire me to donate rather than making it a chore!  Connect me to some need that I am passionate about, and I will not only increase the frequency of my donations, but their significance as well.

I want to make my school better, and I want to promote things that I care deeply about.  But the Development Office is turning me off with their maximum engagement approach.  There are better ways to approach this problem that will increase my engagement (and my money).  And don’t call at 6:30pm – that’s my mother’s dinner time, and she is never, ever going to pick up that phone.

(This post is part of a continuing series.  For the last article, click here).

One of the first sights for many visitors to Jeju is the unique statuary that was created by the indigenous civilization on the island.  While Jeju is and has been part of Korea, the distance of the island from the mainland Korean peninsula allowed the local culture to develop relatively independently, and thus the local dialect and food is quite distinct from other regions of Korea.  These statues are made from the local volcanic rock available on the island.  The actual character depicted is typical for this type of statuary, and has symbolic meaning.

An example of the unique statues that cover the entire island.

One of the unique natural rock formations visible on the island are the hexagonal columns of volcanic rock that form during the cooling process.  The design’s geometric pattern is simply breathtaking, and seems almost alien in the natural ecosystem.  These particular photos were taken on the south side of the island, in one of the more well-known spots.

A birds-eye view of the hexagonal lava columns

A level-view of the hexagonal lava columns, emphasizing the columns

Other areas of Jeju also demonstrate natural erosion forces from the sea.  This next picture is also located on the south-side of the island.  If you look closely, you can see a mobile harbor for ocean vessels that was (I was told) developed by researchers at KAIST in the bottom-right corner.

Natural erosion forces have weathered this rock into a subtle pattern

As my photo from last week showed, it was quite snowy during my trip to Jeju.  While the island is generally regarded more tropical than arctic, the somewhat rare falling of snow did provide several excellent photo opportunities.  Here, snow covers a series of ash rock formations.

Not snow-capped mountains, but impressive next to the sea

Finally, there are several unique rocks that have been provided names.  One of the most famous is a rock that looks like a Black Dragon on the north side of Jeju, but the snow and wind were too strong for me to take a photo.  That site is particularly popular this year due to 2012 being the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac calendar.  However, another rock is well-known of a lady on the the mountain.

The "lady" looks up the mountain, ahem, face

The island is mostly known as a sort of lush paradise island (it is not classified as tropical, although at times the published pictures may lend Jeju that description).  However, that was not my experience traveling there this Winter.

My tropical island vacation – more like a winter wonderland

While the cold and snow were quite dreadful (plus the wind is downright deadly, maintaining around 30mph due to the nearby shore), the snow did provide for some beautiful photography against the ashen colored volcanic rocks widely seen in the island’s geology.

One of the most famous natural attractions on Jeju is the Manjanggul Lava Tube, a winding cave beneath the ground that was hollowed by molten lava that flowed through here thousands of years ago.

The entrance to the lava caves (ironically covered in snow)

Only a portion of the caves are available to tourists, but the available section is quite dramatic (enhanced by upgraded lights and bridges that have been placed in the past 5 years by an emboldened local government).

The tunnel inside the caves. I played video game music to heighten the mood.

An example of some of the unique stratigraphy in the rocks of the tunnel.

Once done with the caves, I travelled to the southern end of the island to visit some of Jeju’s renowned waterfalls.  They truly are breathtaking, and the color of the water is certainly helped by the feeling of the crisp winter air.

This is one of three waterfalls that are part of this river in southern Jeju

Another waterfall on the river. Snow flakes are just starting to fall again.

More pictures to come in the upcoming days.

At the heart of the holiday is a certain introspection regarding one’s age and ancestors.  Since the Korean age system is based around New Year’s day (one’s age increases for everyone in the country simultaneously on New Year’s day, as opposed to on birthdays) Acknowledging and honoring one’s ancestors is at the heart of the event, and many Koreans will trek back to their ancestral hometowns to visit grave sites of previous generations of their family.  At the same time, it is a time to commemorate another year of life and the continuing passage of time.

I participated in the traditions with a friend of mine here in Korea.  The celebration began in the early morning with the cooking of a banquet feast, including 떡국 (Tteokguk), which is the traditional food eaten only during New Year’s.

A colorful feast of fruits and various Korean staple dishes

In the same room as the food are pictures of the family’s ancestors on the wall.  Before the food is eaten, the men in the family (sons and fathers) performed a series of traditional bows to honor the ancestors before enjoying the breakfast.  Due to the small dining room, this particular family had men eat first, before leaving and allowing the women to eat as a group.

One large component of these festivities are gifts of money from grandparents and family relatives to the kids.  These came in envelopes from each of the families and were distributed to much excited yelling and screaming.

Later in the day, I travelled with the family out of Seoul into the surrounding countryside to visit the burial place of some more ancestors on the other side of the family.  Traditionally, wives visit their husband’s family in the morning, before visiting their own families in the afternoon (this transition is variable between families of course).  The grave site of the great-grandfather can be seen in the burial mound on this hill.  Behind it is another generation of grave sites, and they progress down the hill in linear fashion from oldest to youngest.

A traditional Korean burial mound on a hill

What was most impressive was the incredible view that these burial mounds overlooked. Unfortunately, the iPhone camera doesn’t really do the scene justice, but the view is spectacular in person.

A gorgeous view of the mountain ranges in Northern South Korea

[...] I firmly believe that we should embrace [gamification] and harness its best parts to drive the education of our children who grow up with online and mobile games.

But then we reach this sentence later in the essay:

And with points and stars and badges and the like both [types of students: the A and D students] are likely to want to spend more time participating, and will be more motivated when they do participate compared to today’s average classroom.

Vinod Khosla is wrong.  Dangerously wrong.

I want to start by saying that Khosla is certainly no small figure in the Silicon Valley community, and really, his track record of success is something to laud.  I also want to note that some of my closest friends from college are working on mobile games that teach arithmetic skills.  I think the work that they are doing is really interesting, worthwhile and useful.

Yet, there is a tremendous difference between having a game on a parent’s iPhone or Android and changing the entire U.S. education system to encourage the acquisition of arbitrary “points and stars and badges.”  It’s funny, but this approach has been tried for years in U.S. school districts, without success.  Those who want to read about it from an ardent critic can turn to the work of Alfie Kohn who rightly points out the incredible harm that this approach has on the development of children.

There is an incredible danger in the quantification of education.  Teacher accountability, student test taking, GPAs, points, rankings, percentiles.  The current trend is already moving toward gamification, except it isn’t really fun.  And that is just the problem with games as learning: they can’t really convince the unmotivated to learn, can they?  Sure, learning algebra by playing a mobile game may be better than reading a textbook, but no student is going to choose Math Blaster over Halo.  And no math game can be fun when you are required to get a certain score in order to pass (I certainly hated Mavis Beacon when I was little, and that had already been gamified.  And that was in 1995).

Dumping these sorts of entertainment toys into the toxic atmosphere that is American public schools is not going to solve our education problems.  In fact, it may even make them worse.  But that probably never occurred to Khosla, who like many ed tech pundits, is not and never has been a teacher.

At a time when creativity and originality are requisite skills for career success, why are we focused on developing technologies that take the creativity out of education?  Perhaps I get so angry and passionate about this because I just barely managed to get through public school before the current regime of test taking.  As I have discussed previously on this blog, it was the incredibly flexibility of my early teachers in elementary school that allowed me the opportunity to explore computers at a young age. Today, I am a product manager and majored in Mathematical and Computational Science with other interests in 3D animation, photography, writing and art.  No gamification needed.  To use Khosla’s example of A and D students: A students don’t need games and games won’t help D students.

Khosla does make a valid point regarding breaking up the lock-step approach of education progression.  He sees games as a potential avenue for changing that model, but then again, nearly every technology developed for education has personalized learning as one of its major motivations.  This personalization is going to change the way people learn and completely alter the role of the teacher in the classroom, but its success is still dependent on a willing and passionate student to get the most value.  Games are just a subset of this trend.

If start-ups in education want to make a difference, focus on enjoyment, not fun.  Games are fun: you can turn off your mind and lose a few hours shooting vampires or building human civilizations across the ages.  Enjoyment comes from accomplishment and developing something original, realizing that you have the ability to challenge and change your world.  To put it in concrete terms – don’t play games, make them.  But that requires a level of confidence in children that American prisons public schools just have not been able to possess.

Khosla provides some interesting ideas, but we have to be vigilant of thinking that there is an immediate technical solution to a problem of human psychology and human society. Maria Montessori believed that students, when given an open canvas on which to learn, will learn masterpieces.  That philosophy helped to create the Google founders, and it is exactly the kind of attitude the United States needs to educate students for the 21st century economy.

I visited Gwangjang Market a few days ago, which the Korea Tourism agency bills as the “first” market in the country (not really sure on how they define that though).  The place is also apparently known for its hanbok wedding gowns (the formal and traditional dress of the wedding couple) and thus it serves up many stores with these gowns available in a dazzling palette of colors.  Outside of the shopping, numerous food vendors were dispersed throughout the walkways offering snacks for the shoppers.

In addition to shopping, I managed to get a wonderful picture of large-flake snow falling in Korea.  The snow, when it isn’t making the place dangerous, can be quite beautiful at times (although it is still not enough to get me to leave California permanently!)

Sign to the opening of Kwangjang Market

Walkway in the market (and the ceiling colors are conspiratorially similar to the colors of the clothes)

Sale signs beckon from another walkway at the market

Colorfully bold Hanbok formal dresses are widely available at the market

Shoppers can purchase raw fabrics across the second floor

Random picture of snow (too bad I am too lazy to use Instagram)