Considering Outloud

We have all been there. You are driving down the highway, and a car zooms past you, going at least 100 miles per hour. Or maybe you are like me, and you drive a smaller car, and you have a giant Ford F-250 rolled up on you just inches from your bumper, and they are blaring sunspot-level halogen lights. Or maybe this has happened, you visit a peer from work or other social circles, and you get to their house, and it is a sprawling McMansion where the couple and their one kid occupy a house built for the Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire. It seems in life that, everything gets bigger. Our waistlines, our meals, our homes, our cars. And we often (especially in Texas) say bigger is better. And we are encouraged to feel that way. Television commercials prompt you to enjoy 2X more beef! HGTV has home show after home show focused on bigger and better upgrades and expansions. All of this is in the pursuit of market share and price valuations. And it is also in the name of luxury because, after all – you deserve it.

Consider this. In 1950 the typical three-bedroom home in the United States was 950 square feet and lives on a lot 1/3^rd the size of the average home today. In 2014 the average home size ballooned to 2,700 square feet for a new home. And the average value of that home was about $40,000 in today’s dollars. The average home price in the United States is $340,000. No wonder new home buyers cannot afford a new home.

Now juxtapose that to car buying. In 2023 the average cost of a new vehicle hit $50,000 for the first time. 73% of Americans own an SUV or a Truck. The average weight and size of these trucks and SUVs have gone up 73%, according to a AA study in 2022. This has resulted in a monthly average car payment of $650 for families. And these upgrades in size and luxury come at a price. In the United States, deaths from motor vehicle accidents have increased by 33% in the past ten years and pedestrian deaths by 77%. Not to mention these vehicles weigh almost 200% more than their predecessors. This results in more road wear and tear and higher carbon emissions.

I point this out for selfish reasons. I drive a Hyundai Kona (a small car) and live in a two-bedroom apartment. I do this on purpose. First, it’s just my wife and I. We are empty nesters. I don’t need more cars and more apartments; I need less. Our small apartment is 1,079 feet or about the size of a 1950 house, and my car is comparable to a 1980 Honda Civic. And I love it. But the problem is that everyone around me is getting bigger and bigger, killing me. Last month my car insurance rose 33% from the previous term, and my renter’s insurance went up 40%. I am told this is to make sure everyone else has good coverage and that coverage costs. UGH!

I know Americans like big things, but can we tap the breaks a bit? My guess is if we were willing to reduce our car and home sizes by just a tiny amount (say 20%), that would have a HUGE impact on our environment, pocketbook, and stress level. Also, as we age, maybe moving into a condo or apartment to allow families to own a home could be a novel concept. And for the love of GOD! Let’s stop with the car and home inflation and live a frugal life. Trust me, it’s better out here when it’s lighter.

Sometimes you get lucky enough to find a book you last read years ago. This week I revisited a few books I read back in college that profoundly affected my life and how I see the world, primarily through an education lens. In 1995 I was an English Major at East Carolina University. I graduated that year with a degree in creative writing and a minor in history. I took my talents to Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, and that fall, I took a class on the history of education, and in the class, we read The End of Education. It was released in September and was “hot off the press” I immersed myself in the book and developed an educational philosophy.

Continue reading “500 (or so) words on Neil Postman”

It is 5:35 PM on a Friday, and I am sitting on a barstool at Oviedo Brewing Company in Oviedo, Florida, and I am thinking about the recent death of Sinead O’Connor. Sinead died this week; she was 56 years old. I grew up a big fan of hers. She stretched the boundaries of songwriting and challenged the commonly accepted traumas we inflict on each other. She was a complicated and often misunderstood person who had enormous talent. I knew her music before Nothing Compares 2 U because my favorite album by her was The Lion and The Cobra. But I digress – this is not a post about Sinead O’Connor.

But this is a post about time. Now, there have been a million posts about time and reflection and making the most of it – yadda, yadda, yadda. And this will not blaze any new trails, but recently, I have begun thinking about time and how time relates to me and my life. At this point in my life (I recently turned 50), I can reasonably expect to live to be about 90 years old. Given the state of healthcare and my stubbornness, I want to live to be 100, so let’s see. So suppose I do and die on my 100th birthday. That means I have, as of July 28, 2023, 18,072 days left on this planet. I have already lived 18,453 days, so I am over halfway home (if I am lucky).

Before Sinead O’Connor died, I recently read a blog post by entrepreneur Donn Felker. In his post and one by Tim Urban, I was already thinking about the time I have left and how I want to spend it. Who am I going to spend it with, what am I going to do, and what will I experience? How many more times will I listen to Nothing Compares 2 U or watch my beloved Miami Dolphins come up short yet another season? And then I started thinking about my best friend. Last year I lost my best buddy in the world. Dr. Adam Peck was the most important male person in my life. My father died in 2005, and he replaced him as the male person I depended on the most. He got to be on this planet for a total of 18,089 days. He lived a whole life but also had many other plans and dreams. I read this week that Sinead O’Connor was one track away from releasing her comeback album. Her producer said she was reimaging her voice and songwriting talents and using the trauma in her life to make a genuinely great album. One. Track. Away. I know that Adam was also working on a new book; he was so excited to see his kids go to college and looking forward to a time when he could do more travel. But time ran out on both of them.

I know time will run out on me too. I first started thinking about this a few years ago when Beverly Hills 90210 star Luke Perry died of a sudden stroke. He was 53 years old. When he died, Adam and I discussed how soon that was and how much we had left to do. We vowed to work harder and push ourselves to accomplish great things because you never know. And you know what? That was the wrong attitude to take. In the aforementioned Donn Felker post, he mentioned that the average parent has spent 90% of the time they will spend with their children by the time they turn 18 and go off to college. Even if they live close, the changes in lifestyle and family mean far fewer days together. This article shook me. I adore my time with our daughter Caroline and the idea it’s 90% over means I have to make the most of what we got.

For my 50th birthday Caroline and my wife, Nicole, gifted me a trip to Germany, France, and Belgium in September of this year. I get to attend a bucket list event and go to Oktoberfest. And while my default is to say no and keep working and not spend the money, losing Adam and O’Connnor’s death has made it clear my priorities were in the wrong place. But here I was this morning, knowing all of this, and still, I was not sure I should go. I get nervous traveling because I fear getting stranded; I often worry I look lazy or unproductive if I take time for myself, and so on. But then I had this conversation with one of my best friends, David. He is a bit younger than me, and, in his true millennial self, spoke to me, like Cher slapping Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck to “Snap Out of It,” he just made this whole discussion simple. We do it because we need more time, not the other way around. You are responsible all of the time and do it so you can take this moment, and when I get home, I will keep doing the work and killing it like I always have. But this time will be particular for me and the very people I worry the hourglass is evaporating from. It’s time to make the most of this time I have left. Time is the worst, but it is our only equitable commodity. While we all don’t get the same amount of time, each day is the same length, no matter if you are a Preston like me or Tom Brady.
I will end this post with some wise words I just heard in my ear pods as I wrote this post. The Poets, 311:

You’ve Got to Trust You Instincts
And Let Go of Regrets
You’ve got to bet on yourself now, Star
Because That’s Your Best Bet

They would echo these lyrics if Adam or my Dad were still here. Spend the time, go on that trip, and put in the work. Find the time balance and know that while you may only have so many slices of pizzas left or days with your wife and daughter, you need to maximize those moments. When you work, give 100%, don’t waste time, and get the most production you can muster – but the same goes for all the other living we all need to get up and do. Love you all – you are not alone.

When I was a junior at East Carolina University, I enrolled in an English Grammar course. Honestly, I had always considered myself a good writer but not a technical one, so I knew I would struggle. And struggle, I did. From the first week, I fell further and further behind. By the end of the semester, I performed so poorly on the final I did not even finish it. I just turned it in, informed my professor I would make an appointment with him, and walked out. Luckily, my professor took me under his wing and helped me navigate the course over the summer, and he awarded my hard work with a C in the class.

I earned that C because my professor knew I was working hard, but English grammar is progressive. Like math, if you fall behind, you will be forever behind. I tried to hire a tutor and went to the academic support office, but neither offered support for English grammar. So I was left to my own devices to make this happen, which was a recipe for disaster. If only there were a marketplace where I could find and work with a tutor who could help me with my English grammar needs. In 1994, this was relegated to a corkboard with 3×5 note cards or taking an ad out in the school paper. It could have been more efficient.

I am a fan of the idea of Disruptive Innovation. Most good ideas start as a reaction and challenge to norms in well-developed industries that aim to shake up the status quo. As higher education professionals, we often resist Disruptive Innovation. We love tradition and time-worn processes and techniques that work. And we love our tutoring centers. For the most part, all tutoring centers are the same. A team of professional staff hires student experts in a specific subject to serve as content experts in several courses. That sounds like a great idea. Well, for some students but not all.  

The traditional tutoring model requires the student to meet the tutor’s needs. The time of the sessions, the location, and the subjects are vital parts of this work. Some of these barriers have been reduced in the modern tutoring environment, for example, more online tutoring sessions and some improvements in one-on-one and group tutoring, but the traditional presentation of these services remains. You go to a center, sit with a tutor at an appointed time, and hope it works.

A few years ago, I read a few articles on this company out of Florida practicing Disruptive Innovation. The company’s name is Knack, and they provide peer-connected tutoring for just about any course you can think of. Knack CEO Samyr Qureshi began the company with some of his college buddies in 2016, and I learned about them in 2018 from this article in EdSurge. They started the company because they saw a gap in the tutoring market as college students at Florida Universities like UF and UCF. And it’s worked. Today, Knack is thriving and helping universities increase the number of students served, the subjects covered, and the populations of traditionally underserved students.

What was interesting was their commitment to career development for the student tutors who worked for Knack. Through an excellent peer rating system, tutors can level their employability skills and receive certifications for commonly sought-after skills like interpersonal relations and critical thinking. The guys and gals at Knack are disrupting the tutoring market by taking the learning straight to the market. You can book a tutoring session if you know how to hail and Uber. And the sessions themselves are affordable; tutors set their rates, but typically, a session is $20.

And this is the kind of disruption higher education needs. By harnessing the power of our students, we can create a winning formula for everyone. If I had Knack in 1994, I might not fall behind in English Grammar, and I would be a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, but it is a case of all that ends well. Now, if we can only get higher education to embrace these disruptive innovators . . . . .

Okay, let’s give ourselves up, Gen X. We do this ALL of the time.

Me: “Shirley you must be kidding, and don’t call me Shirley.”

My Daughter: “What are you talking about?”

Me: “You know – Airplane! The 1980 movie starring Robert Hayes?”

My Daughter: “No Dad, I have never seen that movie.”

Me: “Why not? Well, we’re gonna watch it this weekend.”

My Daughter: “UGH!!!”

One of the toxic traits we Gen Xers possess is the need to spread our idea of what is a great movie, band, or television show to anyone who will stand still long enough for us to grill them. And we are legion. From harassing the kid in our class with a Def Leppard shirt to name three songs to showing actual physical exasperation when a Gen Z has not seen Total Recall we love to be shocked and then make it our mission to educate this neophyte on the cultural importance of the 1990 Rom-Com Kindergarten cop starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pamela Reed. I mean, “boys have penises and girls have vaginas” is a line that is canon and must be passed on to future generations like the Magna Carta.

And I can tell you from the front lines of youth culture – we annoy them to no end. Here is the deal since the beginning of time, there have been over 500,000 movies released. 455 of them starring white-toothed heartthrob Eric Roberts alone. Over time nearly 13 million albums and millions of books have been released. Hell, in 2022 alone, there were 599 separate-scripted television series released in the United States. Every year provides an endless fountain of pop culture and actual art to consume, but yet we are aghast when some random 22-year-old can’t quote Back to the Future 3.

My own kid has yet to see a movie featuring the character Indiana Jones, and she has only seen one Star Wars movie “It was the one with Jabba, and Princess Leia was a prisoner or something.” So, it does not exactly have a huge impact.

I call this forced nostalgia. The idea is that somehow there is a shame in not knowing or consuming the culture of one generation by the next generation. And it’s annoying. Whenever a friend of mine complains that their kid has no idea what Knight Rider is or hasn’t listened to TLC’s Waterfalls, I often ask how many episodes of Insecure they have watched, do they know who Girl in Red or Don Tolliver is, or if they are into the Fault in our Stars, or which Hogwarts House they are a member of. I am usually met with a gruff.

Culture is informed by those making and experiencing it and has a shelf life. The older we get, the less relevant culture is to modern consumers. Take on this exercise. Start with the decade you turned 13 in (in my case, the 1980s) and list out the following; name 10 movies, 10 Actors or Actresses, 10 Bands or solo artists that began or had their top album that decade. Now do that for every decade before and since your 13th year decade. I guess you will do fine for two decades before and after. Beyond that, it starts to get fuzzy. That is because nostalgia works both ways. I know fewer and fewer new artists, and honestly, anything before the 1960s is lost on me. I can get a few in the 50s but the 40s and 30s? Forget it.

Look, nostalgia is great, and sometimes it will stick. My own daughter and I love the movie Young Sherlock Holmes, she listens to The Beatles (not exactly Gen X, but . . .), and she does her best. But I love that she has her own pop culture and connects with that. I learn a lot about her and find much of the stuff she loves is pretty great. So let’s give the kids a break and maybe let them discover what they think is excellent, and leave the nostalgia to all of us olds attending a Culture Club concert and going early to beat the traffic.

The news seemed to come and go with a bit of a whimper. Like the storm warning you were told would bring tornados and hail but only ended up getting some rain and a few thunderclaps. Last week Gallup reported that public confidence in higher education was at its lowest in some time. Since the early 2000s, the overall confidence in our universities and colleges has dipped year over year. In 2015, 57% of Americans reported a high level of confidence in higher education; by 2018, it had fallen to 48%. This past week, that confidence has dipped to 36%. Higher education now ranks alongside the media and government in terms of overall confidence. This is not a rain shower, this is a storm, and we must take cover.

Continue reading “500 words on Public Trust in Higher Education”

I am pro-Union, pro-Labor, and I hope the actors and writers in Hollywood get every dime they seek. I support the strike because it concerns the average working actor, the working writer, and those who support their work. Like professional sports, the studio system is known for “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” Still, most of these professionals have short careers, and the money is unpredictable. Let’s hope the studios come to their senses.

But I am afraid that this strike is in peril before it begins.

Continue reading “My 500 words on the Writers and Actors Strike”

I love a good walk. Walking is one of the most primal and core-centering activities one can engage in. As long as you have the ability and mobility to do so, I believe in walking for pleasure and health every day. I will be the first to admit I am not an athlete. I am portly, 50, and my back can give me fits. I could be more coordinated, and, quite frankly, I am not a gym rat. Many years ago, I ran half-marathons, and I enjoyed that, but the constant pavement pounding took a toll.

Read more: My 500 Words: Time to Join the Volksmarch Continue reading “My 500 Words: Time to Join the Volksmarch”