The Best Thing A Teacher Ever Taught Me

Recently, one of my sisters forwarded me an email with an interesting story about a dinner conversation between a CEO and a teacher.  The CEO, trying to make his point that the problem with education is that students are taught by people whose highest aspiration is to end up with such lowly paid jobs, turned to the teacher at the table and asked her what she made.  Instead of giving the CEO a dollar figure, she turned the tables on him by listing the things she would ‘make’ her students learn – hard work, sacrifice, responsibility, determination, to have a questioning mind, etc. - and concluded that in doing so, she would ‘make’ a difference in the world when they turned out to be doctors and engineers and even CEOs.

It is a heartwarming story for those who have (or had) a teaching role in schools, at home, or elsewhere, that what they do has a significant impact on the society we live in and in the world of tomorrow.

The story caused me to reflect on my own education, particularly the teachers who made a difference in my life.  Teachers who had not only imparted knowledge but also the love of learning as well as an approach to learning that would be useful even after I was done with school. 

In high school, I struggled with two subjects: advanced mathematics and the Malay language.  I dreaded attending the classes because I could not relate to what the teachers were trying to get across.  It seemed to me that my math teacher was talking to the blackboard every time because, if he was talking to me, I had no clue what he was saying.  The Malay language teacher would bring up one ancient Malay poem after anther, reveling in the beauty, structure, and rhythm of each when it should have been evident that the class, which was entirely made up of Chinese kids, did not have a sufficient grasp of the language itself.  I dutifully took notes of what I did not comprehend, doubting that I would ever get close to understanding the subjects.  The following year, I had new teachers for the subjects and suddenly everything that had been seemingly incomprehensible the year before made sense.  How did that happen?  What changed?  The magic of their teaching methods cleared the fog in my brains and I was able to grasp the logic of advanced mathematics and the complexity of prefixes and suffixes in Malay. 

When I was in college, one particular lecturer stood out.  She told the class that she didn’t want us just to study hard but she wanted us to study smart.  She started by teaching us to look for the underlying logic and reasoning behind each topic.  She helped us relate what we’ve learned to real world examples so that the lesson wasn’t just purely academic.  She taught us to analyze exam questions before attempting to answer them.  She taught us to look for the different parts to a question, the total score possible for each part of a question so we didn’t spend too much time on a part that fetched only a few marks.  She gave us a feel of the kind of answers examiners would look for and what gets us points and what won’t.  More than just the tactics to learning and passing exams, she taught us see the big picture and not be always stuck in the details or waste valuable resources in trying to be perfect.  She knew that most of her students were not from rich family backgrounds and we had to be smart about getting through our coursework and exams. She understood that the end goal for us was not just to pass exams but to get a good job that would hopefully help us realize our goals in life.

Once I started working, I quickly learned that whatever I had learned in school and in college was but a tiny dot at tip of the iceberg.  I had to learn the business that the company was engaged in.  I had to spend long hours pouring through numbers and contracts and processes.  It was an exciting time and it was rewarding when I was finally able to apply my knowledge to my work, using it to improve processes, organization and, ultimately, profitability.  For all those wonderful experiences, I will forever be grateful to those teachers in my life that taught me everything I know and instilled in me the love of learning new things.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes, “Give a man a fish and he will have food for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  Keeping that analogy in mind, the best thing that a teacher ever taught me was how to fish.

It is unfortunate that teaching and class sizes will be impacted once the Federal and State budget cuts come into effect.  We can all try to pass the buck and push the cuts onto someone or somewhere else but there is no denying that we can’t have what we can’t afford.  My hope is that the cuts will help spur us towards more intelligent ways of teaching, helping our kids learn how to fish rather than just giving our kids a fish.  After all, education does not stop at the school doors.

Budget Battles

Let’s face it – even if the US is not faced with a looming deficit and at risk of defaulting on its debts if the debt-ceiling is not raised, Congress should still be debating what the nation is spending its revenues and resources on and how to extract the most out of every dollar spent.  Congress should never be complacent, as they have been during the years of economic growth and prosperity, about the inefficiencies and bad policies we see at every level of Government. 

The results of the 2010 mid-term elections carry with it a clear message: the voters are tired of the same-old, same-old.  The Independents, tired of having to choose between two sides that have become so similar that it is hard to tell them apart, voted in a whole new bunch that ran on the message that they want to change Government.  Indeed, some of them ran on pretty extreme messages but it seemed that the risk was worth it, if only to stir things up and get the fat cats out of their seats to start doing something to right the ship.   

If we could rise above all the rhetoric about the numbers and who would be to blame if the government was shut down because no agreement on the spending cuts, we would realize that the real issue lies in complexities of our laws, layered on year after year, creating bloat and inefficiencies everywhere, sucking up precious national resources.  As the saying goes, “a dollar is a dollar”.  We want to be spending it in smart ways that generate more economic activity which in turn lead to job growth and revenue, and not in paying for duplicative or unproductive processes and administrative structures.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform conducted a study and came up with a report in December 2010 which we should all examine and build on if we are truly serious about what needs to be done.  It is not a perfect document and dissenting views are clearly enunciated but it is a good start.  The report proposes various changes encompassing:

• Discretionary Spending Cuts
• Tax Reform
• Health Policies
• Other Mandatory Policies
• Social Security
• Process Reform

It is a must read for anyone serious about the debate on our nation’s fiscal health.  You can access it at http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/

In every area listed by the Commission, we need a ‘Reset’ button to push for rationalization and simplification.  Complexities lead to loopholes, creating an unfair advantage for those who cleverly exploit the loopholes and a gross disadvantage for others.

We need a Reset button for our tax laws to account for the shift in economic and political dynamics we are witnessing around the world.  Asia is fast becoming the biggest consumer bloc and our survival and success will depend on how adept we are at meeting the challenges ahead.  To that end, our tax laws must be redesigned to incentivize job creation, especially in the export of goods and services.  We need incentives that will help make the US more competitive in the global market.  We already have some of the best institutions of higher learning, a well-trained workforce, excellent design and marketing skills, and fertile entrepreneurial breeding grounds especially in new-age technology.  Yet, our existing laws favor the off-shoring of millions of technology jobs to other countries.  We need our lawmakers to help bring about the re-creation of those jobs in the U.S.   

We need a Reset button for our defense strategy and our national security.  We can no longer afford the price of being the world’s sole policeman.  Recent events in Africa and the Middle-East have shown us that any change towards a more democratic world must come from within.  We need to be smarter about how we screen passengers at security checkpoints across the country.  We cannot afford to layer on more and more scanners, personnel, and checks each time that Al Qaeda threatens another attack on the US.  The Department of Defense spending has more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, ballooning from $300 Billion to just under $700 billion, and that number excludes Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs costs.   

We need a Reset button on healthcare and medical tort reform.  Healthcare providers today do not want to risk potential lawsuits and higher malpractice insurance and consequently they will often (especially if asked) prescribe all recommended tests and treatments regardless of whether or not they will be beneficial to the patient.  We need a rational quality of care that is determined by a panel of experts, not lawyers.  We need programs that encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle. We cannot afford a growing population of expanding waistlines and higher incidences of obesity, including cases in the very young.  Beneficiaries of government assisted programs such as Medicare and Medicaid should be subjected to annual “performance tests”, monitoring their weight and waist measurements. If their deductibles and co-pays for medication increase along with their expanding waistlines, they would quickly join the pound-for-pound challenge on the Biggest Loser.

We need a Reset button on end-of-life care.  We cannot afford to confuse compassionate care for the dying with extending life artificially. Trying to postpone the inevitable outcome for the very sick and the very old while denying care to young children which will allow them to grow into healthy, productive lives makes no sense. The notion that we will be ‘killing grandma’ by rationing care is ridiculous when the alternative is to have grandma hooked up to a host of machines and tubes for feeding, breathing, medicating, urinating, etc., because we can’t let go. We’re adults and we must think and act as adults.  Advocating the notion that a logical plan for end-of-life care means ‘killing grandma’ is infantile.

We need a Reset button on our energy policies.  We need to end our addiction to oil.  Our dependence on foreign oil hurts us, making us subservient to oil producing nations and lender countries that have autocratic governments.  We need to raise taxes on gas-guzzling vehicles while encouraging more eco-friendly cars.  We need to revisit subsidies to big oil corporations.  We need to invest in new infrastructure that will help move our energy consumption towards sources that are renewable.  We need to expand our electricity grid so that we can bring solar and wind energy from solar and wind farms to the cities and towns across the country.  We need to invest in support systems for car-pooling and use of mass transportation.  The arrival of hybrid and electric cars are great but they alone will not make a significant enough dent in our total oil consumption.

We need a Reset button on government jobs, civil and military services.  We need to flatten organizational structures and end promotion and pay increases based on seniority.  We need to eliminate unnecessary paperwork, pencil pushers that add no value to a process, increase productivity through greater automation and move towards a self-service model through modern technology.  We need to consolidate departments that overlap in function and we need to eliminate outdated regulations that discourage businesses from setting up shop or expanding their operations in the US.  We need enforcement officers that are more attuned to the problems businesses face and who will help them meet regulatory requirements rather than act simply as a deterrent to lapses and failure to comply.

We need a Reset button on our policies on granting visas to bona-fide visitors to encourage in-bound tourism.  We have amazingly beautiful cities, national parks, and exciting man-made attractions.  We have museums and art collections that are the envy of many.  Tourism is a highly labor intensive industry and it will create jobs that will always remain in the US.  We need to end the levying of hefty visa fees and, more importantly, we need to end the discrimination against young, single women.  The trend, seen first in Japan and now around the world is for more and more single female workers with a disposable income for whom travel and shopping are high on their priority list.

There are many more Reset buttons that can be added to the list.  However not a single one will be in place if our politicians continue in their game of ‘chicken’ and care only about their ego and political ideologies rather than the nation’s needs.

We are living in a fast changing world and systems and processes that worked well in the past may not be sufficiently adept in meeting the needs of today. Lengthy budget battles year after year distracts us from looking at what we need to be doing to positively influence America’s economic future and its role in a freer, more global and more democratic world.

A Race To The Bottom

There is a new paradigm in the halls of power and the best description for it is “austerity”. 

In the aftermath of the housing bubble and a near complete meltdown of the global financial system, Federal, State and City governments are faced with a sudden and sharp decline in tax revenues juxtaposed against a surge in prolonged unemployment and an increasing demand for government assistance.  

With a sustained recovery still uncertain and debt loads at unprecedented levels, it is not surprising that lawmakers, governors and mayors are clamoring to reduce spending in government programs at every level, especially those categorized as ‘discretionary’.  There is no denying it, the prize is bigger than just a balanced budget.

There is no easy answer to what ought to be cut or trimmed and slashing across the board blindly is not a sensible thing to do either.  We have to bear in mind that the intent or objective of most government assistance programs are to help those who are most in need.  Cutting funding for those programs would deprive the most needy of a lifeline.  Whatever we do and however we do it, we must be extremely careful that it does not turn into a race to the bottom where the cuts will affect our country's competitiveness and future. 

One target currently in focus is Education spending.  While increasing class sizes in public schools will deliver savings in total teachers’ salaries paid, the possible long term impact cannot and must not be ignored.  Public schools are where most of the country’s middle income and poorer half send their kids for an education.  The cuts would further disadvantage the very ones who need a greater degree of attention to help them climb out of the reaches of poverty and to do better than the generation before them.  The gap between these kids and those from well-to-do families who attend private schools will widen, increasing the wealth gap and social class distinction. 

We cannot afford a race to the bottom where Education is concerned.  Already, Americans kids lag in many areas when compared to test scores of students in other countries. 

If we were to be honest about balancing the budget, we need to face the reality that we will be spending over a trillion dollars on defense in 2011.  By choice or by default, we’ve become the world’s policemen and we are faced with the hefty costs as a consequence.

The war in Afghanistan is still on-going after nearly a decade and, although the bulk of our troops are out of Iraq, the costs there are continuing to mount.  In 2007, the Congressional Budget Office issued an estimate that the total cost of the two wars will reach $2.4 trillion by 2017.  Yet, there is and has been no “War Tax” to pay for those costs and that fact is conveniently swept under the carpet in the nation’s budget balancing exercise.

Returning to the topic of “austerity”, a New York times columnist wrote that any cut should ‘make everybody hurt’.  I’m not sure how his mind works on that one – the rich do not depend on government help so any proposed cut won’t affect them negatively.  If the rich is to share in the pain, they would have to contribute to the revenue side of the equation, i.e., pay more taxes.

Businesses have benefitted from lower wages and interest rates; executives and CEOs of banks have benefitted from the government bailout and low interest rates and are once again reaping six and seven digit bonuses.  The value of their stocks and stock options have soared in the last two years.  If we have to balance the budget, they should be the first in line to participate in the pain of getting the nation’s finances in order, and be proud of the fact that they did.

Sadly, the opportunity to let the Bush-era tax cuts lapse at the end of 2010 or to roll back cuts that benefitted the rich was swiftly put away for political expediency.  As the 2010 mid-term elections have shown, politics is an expensive business and it takes a lot of money to get elected or re-elected.  If you think that the amounts spent on political campaigns were indecent then, brace yourself for worse.  The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has, for all practical purposes, removed restrictions on how much corporations (or individuals using the cover of a corporate entity) may spend in advertising to back candidates who are favorable to their causes. 

Here again is another potential race to the bottom that is most vile and undesirable.  We are at the edge of a pit of cronyism, bribery and corruption.  Take a deeper look at the social unrest sweeping across Egypt, Africa and the Arab nations and you will realize that the cause of the uprising is not Facebook or Twitter but the pent up frustrations of a people denied a dream.  Ignoring the needs of the underclass while pampering to the rich does not bode well for the type of Democracy we claim to represent or are trying to promote in other parts of the world.

Any program of cut should be targeted at weeding out inefficiencies, mismanagement and waste.  There are many systemic inefficiencies in almost all governmental departments.  Archaic organizational structures, systems and procedures must be reexamined, eliminated or replaced and resources freed for more productive use.  Paperwork, forms, files, processes, etc., must be streamlined and automated.  Taxpayers should be encouraged to make suggestions on how the services they need may be delivered more efficiently or to file complaints regarding poor public employee attitudes. Unions should, by law, not be permitted to retaliate against management for taking disciplinary actions against employees for cause.  Government departments should be made to bid for the work that they do against independent outside contractors to ensure that they remain competitive and cost efficient.  If you have any doubts about how much can be saved, you’ll be reassured to know that the Congressional Budget Office report in 2007 estimated that the cost of mismanagement and waste in the Iraq war alone was some $10 billion.

“Austerity” is a nice word, as are the phrases “balancing the budget” or “living within our means” but they should not mean austerity for some and a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for others.