Education to Change the World

A very recognisable quote as we rounded a corner in Boston

While in the USA, I visited a few of the 1 200+ schools* (see below). I was struck by two characteristics which I believe are common to the education system in America. One was the accessibility of the education and the other was the balance of the curriculum. 

For Americans who want to study, there are federal grants and bursaries and many of the universities, even those like Harvard, offer needs-based scholarships.  This means that if you have the academic ability, by and large, lack of funds need not be a stumbling block. This results in a diversity of students which I found exciting.

I was also very taken with the liberal arts core of the curriculum. Subjects like art, history, music and science, form the basis of an all-round foundation. In other words, graduates who are able to hold forth on a variety of topics, are being produced. Majors are only declared in third year. 

Education was the tool that the South African government used to oppress us…education was meant to keep us in our place. You were able to learn just enough for the jobs that you were expected to do; depending on the colour of your skin, you had enough education to become a factory worker, a maid or a gardener, or if you were lucky, a teacher or a nurse. 

My grandfather taught me that education was the one thing that the apartheid government couldn't take away from us; that they had taken away our rights, property and opportunities but they couldn’t take away what was in our brains, they couldn’t stop us from learning. I believe that it’s the same tool that was used to oppress us that must be used to uplift us. So many generations of people in our country haven’t had access to education. We’ve come a long way from where we were but we have to keep fighting so that our children, and our country, can have a better future. 

I know that the American school system is far from perfect, but I think that this kind of accessibility and well-rounded curriculum is something to strive for. 

*A four-year college or university offers a bachelor's degree. Programs that offer these degrees are called "undergraduate" schools. A "university" is a group of schools for studies after secondary school. At least one of these schools is a college where students receive a bachelor's degree

Jacob Lawrence and the Migration Series

The migrants arrived in great numbers - Panel 40

"Having no Negro history  makes the Negro people feel inferior to the rest of the world...I didn't do it just as a historical thing., but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today." 

Jacob Lawrence 1940

This quote sprang out at me from the wall of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). It is the reason that I need to start writing the stories of growing up in Cape Town during the 1960's and '70's. I was inspired by the simplicity of Lawrence's series of 60 paintings which records a significant era in American history.

One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North is currently on at the MOMA as part of a programme exploring the legacy of the Great Migration and its impact on American culture. From 1915 to 1970, almost six million black people fled the rural South for northern and western cities in search of a better life, thereby indelibly altering the demographics of the USA.

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) grew up in Harlem, New York but both his parents had been part of the mass relocation from the impoverished South to the urban, industrialised cities. He was greatly influenced by the colour and vibrancy of the community in which he lived and set about recording the songs, stories and experiences of his parents' generation through his art. 

By the time he was 23 he had completed the paintings which make up the Migration series. In 1941, at the height of racial segregation in the country, he was the first African American to have his work exhibited at the MOMA. 

A long table with a row of tablets giving access to a multi-media website, occupied the centre of the exhibition room. It soon attracted a group of school children tasked with a summer project of choosing their favourite painting to write a poem about...21st century technology providing the bridge to history. 

                                 

This painting illustrates how effectively Lawrence has captured the loss and suffering brought about by the human rights abuses during this period of American history. It's what he has left out of the picture which is most striking. 

The exhibition is on until 7 September. 

View the Migration Series here 
Image from Migration Series from MoMa website, click here 

A Walk in the Woods

"A path that vanished into a wood on the edge of town ...
A sign announced that this was no ordinary footpath but
the celebrated Appalachian Trail."

I had grand plans for reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods while in the USA and then actually walking a little of the trail in Maine. The plan to visit Maine didn't work out, so I was pleased to find that we could access the trail from where we staying on the New York-Connecticut border.

I'm a big Bryson fan, but for some reason, it proved easier to actually get out there and experience the trail than get into the book. I think that it was the moaning of his friend, Stephen Katz, which put me off, but then who am I to talk after only doing 1/300 of the 2 100 miles of the trail?

"The AT is the granddaddy of long hikes."

The Applachian Trail is the longest continuous footpath in the world, stretching along the east coast of the USA, from Georgia to Maine.

From Georgia ...

...to Maine

I did read enough to be warned about the merciless insects. The insect repellent was no match but, being from Africa and having observed many a zebra or antelope in the wild, we found that by swishing a small branch over alternating shoulders, we could stop the pests flying right into our mouths every time we tried to speak to each other. Perhaps it was a similar scenario which inspired those Australian hats with dangling corks. We could have done with one of those. 

It wasn't long before we reached the end of the woods and wandered along paths edged with metre-high grasses and rolling meadows. I repressed the urge to break out into song...we were already get odd looks from fellow-hikers when they saw our fly-swatters.

According to Bryson, every twenty minutes he and Katz did on the AT was further than the average American walks in a week. "For 93% of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans get in a car." That may be true, but I did get in at least twice as much as walking as I would normally do at home and, like Katz, I can say " the only thing that matters ... is that I hiked the Appalachian Trail". 

Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods, is published by Transworld Publishers, UK

Walking to Connecticut

It's been a while since I travelled to the USA, as mentioned in my last blog, and I'd forgotten about the effects of a six-hour time difference. It didn't take too long to settle in once we arrived at my friends' house in a village on the border of New York and Connecticut states, though. It helped that I could put on my tackies and walk across state lines...here are some photos of rural America taken on our many walks...

We arrived on the Independence Day weekend, so had the opportunity to soak up the American way at a barbecue, where teenage girls frolicked in the pool, impromptu games of soccer were played on the lawn and the noises of fireworks and college kids home for the summer were punctuated by the thwack of a baseball in a catcher's mitt. Desserts of peach cobbler, blueberry pie and other cakes dazzled with sprays of stars and stripes in red white and blue.

flags everywhere...even in the middle of a field

The jet lag was more of a killer coming back home, hence the delay in posting, but look out for more from "the greatest country in the world" (as overheard at the barbecue).