I’d like to continue the discussion we had in class about chance and justice. As we were reading Borges’s “The Lottery in Babylon,” I couldn’t help but think how much stock we put into lotteries of our own. Of course there are the pay to play kind, where you buy a ticket to win, but there are others with much more weight (in my opinion anyway) as well.
For example, I saw Waiting for Superman when it came out last year. It’s a documentary that focuses on the education system in the United States, following several children and telling their stories. At the end of the film, every child is waiting to hear the results of a lottery; one that determines whether the child will be placed in a charter school or remain in the regular districted school. Although there are arguments about charter schools and what they do to the public school system, the fact remains that the quality of the child’s education was being determined by a lottery. The end of the documentary was filled with images of parents and children crying in sadness and celebration.
This is a literal lottery that we value for its impartiality. Not every child can attend a charter school, so chance determines who can and who cannot. On the other hand, any child who can pay for a private school has the right to attend that school. Parents can pull their children from public schools for an alternative, so long as they can afford it. Isn’t that just another type of lottery?
Although we as Americans love the ideas of equality and upward mobility, our reality doesn’t always reflect those possibilities. Over the summer, my roommate wrote a paper on integration that examined different levels of success in schools. In a discussion of her paper, a professor pointed out that many studies show that success in school is largely related to socioeconomic class. No individual chooses his class or, as we discussed in class, his family. These two things play a huge role in education, and we all believe that education plays a huge role in future success (I’m making an assumption based on the fact that we’re all at Rhodes). There is always the story of the American dream, bootstraps and bottom up and elbow grease, but how realistic is that fairytale? How much of our life is really determined by chance?
I agree with Sarah that the concept of chance within a lottery goes beyond the purchasing of a ticket with the hopes of winning a monetary prize, and that we should question what we deem in life as chance. I too saw the Waiting for Superman documentary, and what was deemed as a fair lottery by the laws of a charter school, was truly not fair or chance selections when considering how schools truly function as far as the pool of students. The movie itself exposed the inner workings of the public school system and how a majority of students are "tracked" from the moment they enter the schooling system, which has been practiced for decades. Race and socio-economic status serve as key factors in determining which school a child will attend, when considering the make up of a community and the wealth of the people within the community. Upon our personal group reflection I realized that this tracking is not mere chance, especially when I consider my years of schooling. Peers that I had classes with in elementary and middle school, who needed more assistance than others, became the students in high school that were given a different curriculum that required less credits but more classes that focused on vocational skills. These students with less challenging courses ultimately became the unmotivated high school drop outs, which I believe had nothing to do with chance. Yes I agree that we cannot choose our families nor our class, but we can make efforts to improve our present conditions or make advances, making that "American dream" goal as close to reality as possible; however, within these efforts to achieve the American dream come scenarios or situations that are presented to us as chance occurrences but in reality these are just barriers trying to keep many people in confined roles or groups of society.
ReplyDeleteResponse to “Game of Chance”
ReplyDeleteI agree to an extent with Sarah. Chance dictates your parents. Chance decides your physical attributes. Chance determines your initial socio-economic class. All of these characteristics an individual cannot change, and it is unfortunate that some individuals automatically have a disadvantage over others; however, Chance does not relay your life. If there is always a story of the American dream, that fairytale is realistic. I am biased, as I am the product of unlucky chance turning into the opposite direction.
Picture a house with dirt floors, and imagine walking on the dust (without shoes) every morning at dawn to go help with the family farm since the day you were born. This was the livelihood of my grandmother as a child and she hated it. What made her life turn around was not a system that provided individuals “the lottery” to what school she could attend, but it was self- motivation to displace herself from her family into the city. She did not attend an Ivy League school, or have some natural talent that enabled her to become the future Mrs. Bill Gates. Instead, she attended a community college and received a nursing degree. Not only did she manipulate her own life, but she positively affected the lives of her children, grandchildren, and future generations. Class has influenced my grandmother’s education but it has not inhibited her personal success. I believe that life can be unfair at times; however, quoted by the Rolling Stones “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might just find you get what you need.” America offers countless possibilities, and through this form of justice, any individual can make their life not a lucky lottery, but rather, a mosaic of opportunities.
To answer the final question, I believe that about half of our life is determined by chance and the other half is what we make of it. As Sarah said, we don't choose what families we are born into. The determining of what socioeconomic class we are born into is like the lottery for the outcome is totally up to chances. But no matter what situation chance may put you in, what you make of it is entirely up to you. I was born to a low income family in a terrible neighborhood, but by choosing my friends wisely and going to the best public schools in the city I still managed to go to college (and Rhodes College isn't just any college). It's all about knowing how to play the cards you were dealt. One's economic and social class may set the stage for your life to some extent, but every aspect is not controlled by chance. By making decisions we influence the course of our lives.
ReplyDeleteI think that life is an intertwining of chance and individual will. There are certainly aspects of life that are out of ones control but I don't think that means everything is. I think that through taking advantage of every opportunity, people can influence the paths of their lives. They can work toward achieving the things that they feel will make their lives better. Although there will always be the decided by chance obstacles that will cause the path to turn and become more difficult, people still have a certain extent of power to keep their lives moving in a particular direction. I think that chance is present and sometimes overwhelming but I don't think it defines our lives. It might determine how a person starts off and it probably plays a role in where a person ends up but it is not the only factor in determining the course of a life.
ReplyDelete