Comments on: Strategies for children: (Part I) saving them

By: Daria Werbowy Josh Hartnett

Daria Werbowy Josh Hartnett — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 05:05:39 +0000

Daria Werbowy Josh Hartnett…

I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….

By: Sergey

Sergey — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:53:55 +0000

What Africa desperately needs is the change of ruling elite, and it can be done only you have alternative group of prepared people to replace existing rulers. This should be the ultimate goal of every educational project here. And it still is much better if talented people could realize their potential anywhere than if they could not do it at all.

By: Jimmy J.

Jimmy J. — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 09:23:26 +0000

Sergey,
It might be a loss for Africa if these talented young women went to school in America. Why? I recently had a long discussion with a missionary who has been doing work in Guinea for over 30 years. He used to send talented students to the U.S. for medical training. It didn’t work. Once they finished med school they tended to stay in the U.S. He has finally established a med school in Guinea. The students now stay in Guinea to practice medicine.

Africa has many talented, intelligent people who can be trained to do most any modern career. What Africa doesn’t have is honest democracies with free market systems, which offer opportunities to their citizens.

Educating the children is only one part of the solution for Africa.
See:http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2007/01/the_mystery_of_html#more
to read my ideas of what Africa needs.

By: Sally

Sally — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:10:27 +0000

I haven’t seen the program, but by these accounts, it does sound like Oprah’s project is a good one. I don’t have a problem with the publicity surrounding the thing either — it may help the project directly, but even if it didn’t I wouldn’t begrudge a good just because the benefactor might also benefit (though I might wince a little if the motivations looked phony). I do have a problem with the exclusion of one gender, however — there are surely boys too who have “known terrible privation and yet hadn’t been beaten down by it”, who also possess poise and self-possession without arrogance, and who could be a great benefit to their society with the same kind of help. I agree that girls may be discriminated against in many African cultures, as they have been in the past here — but it would just be spreading our own mistakes to think that you can fix one kind of discrimination with another.

On the other hand, I agree completely with her decision to discriminate in favor of Africans, precisely for the reasons she gives (as quoted in Robert Schwartz’s comment above): “I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn’t there” — whereas it is there, in abundance, in these African girls. The only thing you might wonder is why she doesn’t ask what makes the difference? It’s not likely because the American kids, even in the inner-city, have a harder time of it, is it?

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:58:55 +0000

The Detroit Public Schools turned down $20 mill from a philanthropist for school improvement. Too much invested in business as usual.

Oprah, having more star power, might have succeeded in getting them to take the money, but it would go down the usual rat holes.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:05:48 +0000

I doubt that any serious improvements in US public education are possible until the whole paradigm of it is not drastically revised. And the education establishment can and will block this move. Only school voucher privatization can undermine combined political influence of teacher unions and educational bureaucracy. I know the system from my American friends, recent immigrants from Russia and Ukraine; they found it almost identical to that of Soviet Union, except for absense high-quality government-run “special schools” for gifted children.

By: stumbley

stumbley — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:12:58 +0000

Richard:

No doubt the African experiment will be successful. The kids I saw on the program were already head and shoulders above most in my daughters’ classes—and that was in a “good” school district—where Chemistry class for my oldest consisted of watching films like “The Right Stuff” (because rocket fuel had something to do with chemistry, I guess).

You make the world better one person at a time, I know.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:54:58 +0000

Stumbley,

You may be right about trying real hard, and with Oprah’s resources, quibbling about a bit of additional difficulty may seem ridiculous.

But it appears that she found it easier to discover the 152 kids in South Africa than in the US.

In addition, helping one striver in a dumbed-down inner city school where getting good grades could be hazardous to your health may not be as fruitful as taking care of a whole school whose learning environment is already good if underresourced. Which would be illegal in the US. Or at least fought by the various interested parties until it went away.

By: stumbley

stumbley — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:45:52 +0000

"This is why I disagree with Stumbley. It is, in my opinion, infinitely more tragic to have young people like this girl, filled with desire to learn and with natural intelligence and ability, denied an education." Jen, I couldn't agree with you more. And I suppose that if all you can afford to educate is 152 girls, then you do the best you can. But I'd bet that if Oprah tried real hard, she could find 152 kids (girls and boys) in the U.S. that fit the bill too. That's all I'm saying. I applaud the effort, I just question the location.

By: Joe B

Joe B — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:54:50 +0000

I salute Oprah for opening this school. I would like to suggest that they not expose the young ladies to Gangsta Rap videos as seen on BET and MTV. We wouldnt want them to think that we dont value young women and their minds here in the “first world”