Back to school

It’s that time of year again. Elementary schools are circulating their supply lists, and parents are rounding up sundries for the coming school year. Parents of students of all ages are replacing and refilling wardrobes and college kids? They’re buying cars and small appliances.

When I was a kid, we used what were called “Big Chief” writing tablets. The quality of the paper used was somewhere between newsprint and particle board and was packaged in a red cover featuring a feather-adorned Native American. The branding wouldn’t win any political correctness awards today, but folks my age learned how to write our first words on those pads.

We also had pencil boxes, white gooey paste, a set of crayons (only eight colors) and huge “first-grade pencils.” Back when Bill Cosby was still funny, he once suggested that the pencils were so massive that we would have to rest them on our shoulders when we wrote. That’s a slight exaggeration, but those seemed to be the prescription for small, unsteady hands that had not yet developed fine motor skills.

Now, parents shop for backpacks that might hold the occasional textbook but are more likely to accommodate a laptop computer or a tablet device. Today’s kids will never experience the joy of making book covers out of grocery bags (back when grocery bags were made out of paper) and customizing them with photos of race cars, ponies, or for the rebellious characters among us, Union Jacks. Book covers were also a good deal because teachers would often make completed book wrapping our first reported grade of the school year, so anyone with access to a paper bag could start the semester with an A.

Now parents purchase bleach wipes. Bleach wipes? I try to steer clear of the tired rantings of old people who condemn “kids these days” as not being raised as we were. As I recall, our parents and grandparents said the same things about us, but as much as I resist condemning entire generations and try to remain optimistic about the folks who will shape our future, there’s something oddly discomforting about having bleach wipes as school supplies. Surely, there must be a warning about such things in the Bible.

This year, I am sending my youngest off to college. Our culture tells me that I should be profoundly upset about being a new “empty nester,” but I’m not. What I am is jealous. However tainted and unpopular universities are these days, I still miss the rarified air of academia.

There is a newness to it. It’s a restart of sorts where kids who may have gone through years of school with a relatively static group of classmates are thrust into a world made almost entirely of strangers. The dorms, the quad, the Greeks and the merger of multiple cultures are an adventure in themselves, but the exposure to new thoughts and ideas is intoxicating. It’s no wonder that after only two weeks of philosophy101, arguments about Nietzche and Heidegger spill out of the classrooms and into the hallways. It’s naive and pretentious, but electrifying.

Sadly, we now find ourselves in a bit of a culture war centered around higher education, and it’s not hard to figure out how we got here. When I graduated from High School, our keynote speaker said that those of us who went on to college would do amazing, innovative things that shaped the future of our nation. Those who did not go on to college, well, they would be OK too. It was an insult. A slap in the face, and I can’t blame tradesmen who have a bit of a chip on their shoulders about attitudes that once minimized the value of vocational education.

Now, the gap is further exacerbated by our current administration dangling school loan forgiveness as an election-year boondoggle. They can’t possibly admit complicity in the restructuring of student loans that dumped too much easy money into the system, so to the uninitiated, debt forgiveness looks inherently unfair. Shaving $10K from a few loans isn’t the worst idea, but doing so without fixing the underlying problem is.

Colleges would have been foolish to leave all of that money on the table, so now tuition costs have been pushed to a point where education for personal enrichment is no longer an option. Students who face graduation with a mountain of debt have no choice but to consider their return on investment, and what happens when they do the math? The liberal arts are out, and trade school is often the smarter alternative.

I’m glad that the trades are finally getting the respect that they deserve. It’s long overdue, but I can’t help but be saddened by the hard, cold reality that the college experience will be out of reach for so many. It can only add further division between cultures that should be working together, side by side.

As for the shopping season, many people are surprised to learn that August retail sales are second only to those associated with Christmas. Personally, I would have guessed Valentine’s day as the number two holiday, but no. It’s those darned backpacks and microwave ovens.

…and last, I need to issue my annual reminder to my friends who write copy for print and radio ads. “Back to School” is not a noun. We do not “get ready for back to school,” and “back to school” is never around the corner. Not ever. Enough said.