Travelling to Xanadu! A Year in the USA..PART 4


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North America
June 28th 2003
Published: June 28th 2003
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11. Split seconds increased momentum to (the police estimated) fifty-plus miles an hour.
12. Steering eventually became uncontrollable and the steering wheel slapped back with such force that it sent Daggi’s arm into the air. Like a stock whip breaking her wrist. There was no direct impact of her wrist on any object, and it snapped in midair!

It is all a salutary lesson how such things can happen. All I know is that life is fleeting and we have to learn lessons from all this if possible. Or maybe we should have stayed home in Bloomington and hidden under the bed, peering out only to vicariously watch something like this all happen to someone else on the Discovery Channel! (NOT!)

All I can say is thank goodness for the emergency gravel runaway truck ramp. It took sixty yards, and BRILLIANT and heroic driving from Daggi to halt the vehicle safely. When the steering wheel swung back it cost her her broken wrist and two months of discomfort, but she “saved our bacon”.

Another bit of luck was that our great old RV seems to look after itself and us. It held together remarkably well and the only damage seemed to be with the brakes and the wheel alignment. Had the RV leant over a few more inches it would have rolled onto it’s side, but thankfully it didn’t. Apart from that the only internal damage was a favourite whisky glass which broke in the shelf and a few objects which were thrown around.

Average Americans who stopped, witnesses to the accident, demonstrated the generosity of this country at its best and called for help on their mobile phones. The Wyoming State Troopers were wonderful, and went “above and beyond”. As for medical care for Daggi, it was second to none and if it had to happen, Jackson Hole has some of the best orthodontic surgeons in the world. They look after the US Olympic Ski Team and Jackson Hole is after all a major ski resort in winter. The surgeon who looked after Daggi, a Dr Rork, has worked in Germany and Austria in the Alps and has been invited and is itching to get back to Mount Buller (Australia) with his son Buller again. She is still in for a lot more pain, discomfort and inconvenience however and must now get used to being treated like the Queen of Sheba and not lift a finger!

Now we have to pay the bills. Insurance should help, but “life wasn’t meant to be easy” and it really is insignificant considering the horrible potential of this event.

23/8
Still stuck in Jackson Hole. It’s a bit like “Ground Hog Day” as this is our third day to wake up in the car park of "“Flat Automotive Creek” (how their sign reads.. actually “Flat Creek Automotive”. What a nightmare. The scheduled work waits to be done

1/9
Were back “home” in Bloomington thank goodness! We’ve now completed our fifteen thousand mile odyssey, covering twenty five US states and four Canadian provinces! Given our recent adventure, I haven’t really kept up to date with this final letter describing our journeys, so I shall try to scratch my brain to do so retrospectively.

If there is one abiding impression of our recent days, it is just how generous and wonderful our friends have been in our time of troubles. Total strangers likewise have been so open hearted and helpful.

Daggi spent two nights in St John’s Hospital, Jackson Hole after her hour operation. Who knows what they charged, but thank goodness our insurance picked up the tab. Likewise the vehicle repairs were picked up by our insurance at a cost of $80 US per hour labour. (obscene!). We did get free camping for three nights next to the garage with access to power however!

Jackson Hole is so expensive that it is known even to other Wyoming locals as “S… Hole”. It is supposed to be the most expensive and wealthy county in the US. Nurses and teachers in the town can’t afford to live there. One ranch of four hundred plus acres was on the market for $75 million. Harrison Ford has a ranch next door to it, and is held in high esteem by the locals, as a “local” who is “down to earth” and contributes to the community. He uses his personal helicopter to aid in local search and rescue. “Harry”, as he is known, is seen in Kmart and gives his occupation as a carpenter. He evidently still makes his own furniture. He began his career building sets, when he was “discovered” at Paramount. Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently, in contrast, is not well liked. He tried to buy a whole mountain near the town, and had a public tantrum when the owners refused. Vice President Dick Cheney has a house in Jackson Hole, as does Debbie Reynolds.

Too rich for our blood, both literally and metaphorically, so we finally “got out of jail” (that’s what it felt like!) and departed Jackson Hole. Before we left, we tried to make the best out of our visit and found it to be an interesting, quite picturesque little town, trading heavily on tourism and the Western myth. Visiting the local Internet Café to let everybody know of our plight, it was great to get an e-mail from our friend Paul Ahern, saying something to the effect of,..”if we made it to Jackson Hole (the irony did not escape me), make sure that we visited the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, sit on the saddles for barstools and order Rocky Mountain Oysters”. We passed on the last! For the uninitiated they are sweetmeat not available from cows! So we went there, and it was an anthropological experience indeed, right down to the bison skulls in glass cases; Western murals and a stuffed grizzly that was said to have been killed by hand by a local identity who dispatched the bear by biting it in the jugular. The bouncer, complete with Stetson, though he could hardly string two words together, was the Western stereotype personified.

Jackson Hole has an interesting town square, complete with entrance arches made from shedded deer antlers picked up in the forest (not slaughtered. Only the pronghorn antelope, rocky mountain sheep and goats are unfortunate enough to have horn that are not detachable). Tourists are driven around the square in a Wells Fargo horse drawn coach. The town pays for a free bus service, which we came to be very thankful for.

From Jackson Hole, we travelled to the Teton National Park, with their peaks rising abruptly to nearly four thousand metres. We saw cute little Snow Shoe Rabbits complete with strange looking white feet, who turn completely white in winter, hopping around our charming campsite that night.

Then to Yellowstone! My cynical nature made me want to doubt the hype about the oldest and first National Park in the world (1872). After all I’d been to Rotorua and seen thermal areas before, hadn’t I! Old Faithful geyser and all that, trumpeted as they have been, as so amazing. How wrong I was, and my cynicism quickly turned into wonder. The place is everything it is cracked up to be. Sure, the Old Faithful area was crowded with visitors. Nevertheless, unlike Rotorua, the thermal are is extensive, with unique and discrete areas, all with their particular beauty, separated so that you can avoid the masses if you wish. And as for Old Faithful, it is amazing, erupting a hundred and fifty feet every eighty minutes or so. Many of these thermal areas are a little like Dante’s Inferno, with unusual and stark beauty. The camera worked overtime. (I’ve now taken something like two thousand photographs on our trip with no processing cost..) Thank goodness for digital cameras.

Yellowstone has plenty of wildlife too. The hot springs are a magnet for them, particularly in winter. We saw wild elk and plenty of bison on our way out of the park, wandering along the road in large herds.

There are always two sides to a story.

Outside Old Faithful some young people were protesting the treatment of the bison by the National Parks. I have already talked about the fear of bruscillosis spreading from the wild herd to surrounding cattle ranches, being a pretext to shoot bison by the National Parks and the State governments. They were complaining that it was still going on. US Parks had an interesting disclaimer posted nearby stating that this group were exercising their First Amendment Constitutional Rights and their opinions were not endorsed by the National Parks. Quite the understatement!

Later we heard the “other” side from a very wonderful man we met, who helped us later on on our trip. How he did this, I shall tell you later. His name: John Hansen, and he was a real Wyoming rancher who, though he claimed to be “just a cowboy” (and he certainly dressed as such), was rather more than this. Apparently the problem stems from the fact that the Yellowstone area was the summer area for wildlife, and is just too cold in winter. So Bison etc stray onto the surrounding farms. John operates Australian electric fencing on his property, and suggested that money for a similar, larger system might be spent by National Parks, and Parks should feed the animals in winter. All of course meaning more money. There is never an easy answer.

Reluctantly leaving Yellowstone after travelling the beautiful Firehole Gorge byway, we passed the very impressive Buffalo Bill Dam (named for another collapsable American hero, William Cody) which reminded me of a smaller version of the Ord River Dam in Western Australia. Then we continued east through the stark and breathtaking Bighorn National Park in Wyoming. Some of the grades on these mountain roads were rather frightening after our experience, but the RV handled them well (or did it?.. more on this later!). US Parks were reintroducing the Bighorn sheep from which the park is named, as they had been wiped out by past hunting!

Blissfully driving east about sixteen mile past the little town of Buffalo Wyoming, we notice smoke belching from the back of the vehicle. Pulling over, Raymond, mechanical genius that he is, quickly located and diagnosed the problem. We had lost our automatic transmission fluid. Why? Due to our previous mishap we ended up discovering after Flat Creek Automotive had done their expensive repair job on the brakes etc. that the vehicle’s radiator had been holed by the gravel in the truck ramp. So we had to front up to Jackson Hole’s “Bob’s Radiator”. Bob was a nice bloke, and a real character, who seemed to be the only resident of Jackson Hole who did not overcharge. He did however make a potentially devastating and life-threatening error. The radiator on the RV was new and deliberately outsized to prevent overheating. It only needed a little welding. But because it was so large it was hard to remove and to put back. So old Bob forced the steel pipe carrying the autotrans fluid down next to the flywheel. Therefore whilst we were blissfully descending the 10% grades of BigHorn National Park, the fly wheel was grinding away at this pipe, gradually laying it open. I think someone was again looking after us, as it held out until we hit the flat country. The thought of having no automatic transmission fluid on those steep descents doesn’t bare thinking about.

Again we had to spend the night on the side of the road after fifteen thousand miles of near perfect performance of the vehicle (really only one fanbelt broken and a little wear and tear). The following morning local drivers were wonderful, as we hitched to the car parts place in Buffalo. Raymond and I bought a pipe cutter, and extra long replacement hose and clamps (to take up the part of the pipe to be amputated) and some autotrans fluid. It was John Hansen who picked us up on the return. What a man! Dressed in his Stetson, with his Australian Shepherd cattle dog, he couldn’t do enough for us. He brought us soft drink from his nearby farm, helped us with our repair and invited us home to take showers and even made us some lunch. His farm could have been in outback New South Wales. The terrain, climate and indeed the generosity of the locals are very similar . He is a marvellous man. We stayed long enough to check our e-mail on his computer and to meet his wife. After a reluctant farewell and copious thank yous, we were off again. This time with a vehicle with a totally clean bill of health, unlike poor Daggi.

That night we found our way the America’s first proclaimed National Monument, the Devil’s Tower, of Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” fame. I half expected to see Richard Dreyfus scaling the hights to meet a UFO. The National Parks people are a little snooty about the film, wanting to promote the educational and geological importance of the place rather than some film made way back in 1977 (yes, twenty-five years ago!) When I enquired if there was any info on the making of the film, the ranger suggested that I asked at the tourist places outside the park!

The Devil’s Tower is an impressive place. It is a large volcanic plug that seems to rise high from nothing out of the surrounding hills and forests. Its shape is like a very symmetrical cone with a flat top inhabited by hawks and eagles. Like Ayres Rock (Uluru), it changes colour in the most impressive way depending on the time of day.

The next day, finally we left Wyoming, and drove into South Dakota. We received a most friendly welcome at the Visitors’ Centre on the highway with plenty of freebees and information. Then we detoured down the Spearfish Canyon byway in the Black Hills National Park to see some wonderful waterfalls and a few of the sights associated with that great film “Dances With Wolves”. Kevin Costner was no where to be seen however.

The Black Hills are quite special. Apparently the hunting grounds here were so good for the Indians that the Sioux kicked out the Crow and other original inhabitants only a century or so before the Battle of Little Big Horn, showing that it wasn’t only the Whites who stole land!.

Then we arrived in Deadwood South Dakota. An anthropologically amazing town trading on the very thin mythology of the old West. The aspect of the town is not unlike Walhalla, Victoria only the town is larger. The surrounding scenery is similar rugged mountain forests and it was a gold town. Here however the similarity ends as Deadwood is primarily now a tourist town. Down one side of Main Street are numerous casinos trading on the old gambling past and bring money back into the community for restoration etc. On the other side of the street are the tourist traps and bars. There is even a mock brothel complete with scantily dressed mannequins adorning the upper windows. The only real claim to posterity is that it was at Deadwood that the thug Wild Bill Hickock was shot playing “the Dead Man’s Hand” in Saloon Number Ten. And there is the plaque to prove it!

And they of course have Boot Hill, where the gunslingers are buried. (Most of them really died of old age or from shot guns in the back at close range. The Dime Novels of “Deadwood Dick” (who never really existed) popularised the mythology of the draw-down on Main Street at fifty paces in the 1890s after it was all over. Black powder revolvers could hardly shoot that far accurately.)

Up and down the street ran the busses decked out like trolleys (Trams) of the period full of Senior Citizens. Then walking down the street I saw him. It was Wild Bill himself, dressed in full regalia including twin pearl handled replica revolvers (he said he didn’t get to shoot according to the plot!) And he was the dead ringer of the old photographs. I asked if I could photograph him but said I understood that he wasn’t supposed to smile. He said this was okay. Then I enquired of this actor, how many times a day that he was required to get shot in the back of the head for the tourists. He said four, and that it was a living! So that was Deadwood, and I and met Wild Bill!

Impressive was the gigantic unfinished statue of Crazy Horse pointing from the mountain to the surrounding Black Hills and saying something like, where my ancestors are buried, this is my land (even though the Sioux pinched the land themselves.) The carving is much bigger than the celebrated Mount Rushmore, and was the life’s work of a Boston Polish-American sculptor. His children have taken over and but will take years to finish it, but they are getting plenty of tourist dollars already, overcharging admission in the wonderful way of American entrepreneurs. We save our hard gotten money and photographed it from the road!

Then Mount Rushmore, and here it seems, totalitarian-style architectural monumentalism meets Disneyland and marketing kitsch.

They call Mt Rushmore a National “Shrine”, whereas the term is not even used for the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington.

We parked in the free carpark as , since National Monuments are supposed to be free, there was a parking charge close to the monument that we avoided. A ranger vehicle, complete with a rack of pump action riot shotguns (why on earth these were needed beats me) stopped and the fellow said we could park where we did if we moved a little off the road.

The statues of Washington, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt and Lincoln, or “The Presidents” was quite an impressive thing although somewhat smaller than we expected. Yet they very nearly were Wild Bill, Annie Oakley etc., as it was originally proposed that they would be figures from the Old West (the other great US myth). This myth was considered not worthy enough nor strong enough. The idea for the presidents only came in the 1920s.

I think more endearing, enduring and internationally significant American icons might have been perhaps Daffy Duck, Micky Mouse, Scoobie Doo and Bugs Bunny. Apparently, so the current joke goes, they couldn’t add Bill Clinton because it would require the sculpturing of two faces. Nonetheless, it’s a very imposing monument.

The surrounding structures, such as the marble colonnades on the approach are very Stalinist Russia in architectural style, being from the same period. In the forecourt were all fifty state flags and when they entered to Union. This was impressive. We of course found Minnesota.

Raymond jokingly said that today, Mount Rushmore wouldn’t have even been built. The Congressional Committees couldn’t agree; the Greenies would want an environmental impact study and Indians would protest about the desecration of a sacred site; the Unions would want penalty rates; there would be cost over-runs and the left would probably object to the subject matter. The National Parks would need to seek private sponsorship from McDonalds to be able to afford to do it!

Nevertheless we felt that it was importance to see Mount Rushmore. On the way out, we could have taken a 10% grade, complete with decent warning sign for trucks and RVs, one and a half miles, or do an eighteen mile gentler detour and backtrack to cover the same distance. We chose the latter!

Our next stop was at a private camping ground near Rapid City, at Peidmont Wyoming, which where was billed the “World’s Largest Petrified Forest”. Let me tell you, that it’s no where near the largest compared to the Pinnacles National Park in Cevantes, Western Australia. Owned by a private family and run well by them, it was a good testament to American private enterprise. This country is still a land of opportunity for people to make money with hard work and a good idea. The petrification was well explained, there was a good little museum and the hundreds of thousand year old specimens were fascinating. One ancient stone log sat next to a modern tree in curious juxtaposition. Many logs had been strangely fractured by the earth‘s ancient upthrusting upheavals, so they looked as though someone had run a chainsaw through them!.

Then we were on the home stretch. We detoured through the South Dakota Badlands National Park, with its stark, almost moonscape of brilliant coloured canyons and desert. We finally crossed the wide Missouri River, and left the West behind us.

Daggi wanted to do a detour to De Smet South Dakota just before we re-entered Minnesota. Though I’d never read the books nor seen any of the TV series ( they’re a bit “girlie” for me), it was all about America’s version of Jeannie Gunn’s “We of the Never Never”: Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “The Little House on the Prairie”. Again the site was an enterprising example of private ownership run by a very nice family. Daggi bought the books to help her through her coming months of “house arrest” with her wrist, and Jessie went on the excellent tour. Like a small Sovereign Hill or Emu Bottom historical park, it turned out to be real value for the five dollar charge. Jessie saw everything and it took over an hour.

Back in Minnesota, to Raymond’s delight, we detoured to the hamlet of Raymond, Minnesota, where we took photos of him by street signs saying such things as the “Farmer’s Bank of Raymond”; “Welcome to Raymond” and “The Reformed Church of Raymond”. There was another “Raymond” in New Hampshire that we had missed to our Raymond’s disappointment, so this made it up to him.

And now back to reality after a fantastic and eventful trip. Progressive Insurance has come good with all aspects of our mishap, both medical and property, and the adjusters we dealt with didn’t demur and couldn’t have done more for us. They were great. Our only regret is that our delay has made me a little late for work, and we have missed many of the end of Summer Vacation frivolity. Oh well them’s the breaks (sorry Daggi)

4/9/01
Back to reality! The first day at school and I started “behind the eight-ball”. Everyone was wonderful and so supportive and I survived.

Daggi got a truer persepective on the American health system. It sucks! Some of the best practitioners in the world are nonetheless primarily concerned with “running up the tab” on the medical insurance companies. As I have said, in Jackson Hole she had had the very best of treatment, if very costly for our insurance company. We found an orthopaeidic specialist firm/business in Minneapolis. They are really just money-making, obviously highly qualified but with a greed verging on criminal malpractice. I have heard of clinics discharging young Hispanic mothers with premature babies a day after birth because they didn’t have insurance.

Daggi had an X-ray, then in came the thirty-something surgeon who, inspite of perfect healing of Daggi’s injury, suggested another operation to replace the four pins (although they were doing the job perfectly) and put a plate in. Their clinic had missed out on the lion’s share of the insurance gravy train! They preceded to “can” the excellent treatment from Jackson Hole (remember that they look after the US Olympic Ski team), by saying that “we” don’t do it that way! Then when queried, bragged that they looked after the Minnesota Twins baseball and Vikings football teams. Big deal! Anyway, when Daggi declined the operation, that was it. The surgeon walked out with scarcely a word, and the nurses became decidedly perfunctory with her dressings. Thank goodness for private enterprise! Here a mixed system of health care with a real public component as well as private practice will never be possible because of that filthy “s” word.. “socialism” which is misconstrued to be synonymous with real public health.

(20 November 2001)

It's a couple of months since I have written at length, and so much has happened from the more mundane domestic front to the world events of 11 September and how that effected everybody. As our stay in the United States draws to a close, it is probably time (at the risk of boring you all) that I try to draw some of the strands of our life here together and to make some sense out of it all. This is as much for me to organise my thoughts and impressions as it is for you, the poor readers who will be inflicted with my ramblings.

Living and working in another country has been a fascinating experience. After a little bit of initial disorientation and even terror, subtle changes occur over the months, concerning getting about in a different society. They sneak up on you really. One day you suddenly find yourself completely comfortable, know your way around and can operate on all levels, from shopping to experiencing the best the new environment has to offer. You start to fully understand the environment you live in, to the stage where many days, you don't even consider any differences from home. You are accepted and begin to be part of your new "home away from home". The US is a very easy place to do this. Then, just when you are at your most comfortable and having developed a full understanding of your adopted home, it's time to leave!

I think the experience has effected us all like this. The hardest part of leaving will be saying "good bye" to our American friends. Jessie certainly found this when her friends from Olsen Middle School "sprung" a surprise farewell party for her. It will be hard to part from so many wonderful people, perhaps forever. Ce La Vie!

For me the people who I shall miss are the wonderful colleagues at Hidden Oaks Middle School. For the family, it will be our particular friends Alan and Mary Poulsen, Paul and Mary Ahern and neighbourhood friends.

We had our big farewell last Saturday at a most enjoyable Thanksgiving "do" north of Minneapolis. About fifty people came together. Australian (SA, QLD, VIC) and New Zealand exchangees and Americans who have been to Australia and been "Australiansed" (a partial lobotomy?). By now, everybody from Oz & NZ are looking forward to heading South, like the Canada geese.

Our American hosts, Chuck (yes!) and Julie Hedstrom are very nice people indeed. Chuck had been a ruckman for one of the funny little Aussie Rules country leagues up around Lake Bolac, where he'd taught in 1997.

The weather was wonderful (65 F) in the evening on their large country property, and all the kids (a mini-United Nations) ran wild outside. We chatted and compared notes on our travels over good Aussie red! It was great.

Jessie found a new friend in the host's daughter Kassie and she likes the oldest girl from the family who will be in Colac next year. (Our social butterfly. Today she is off to another birthday party. Life is hard being a teenager.)

I feel that some of the people who we have met here will end up being friends for life. The effects of this exchange will be with us for years to come.

Impressions of the USA and how have our thoughts been changed by living here? Where do I start? I think some of my ideas have remained essentially the same, although have been softened by this experience.

Firstly, there are some very different aspects to the American psychology. Differences, subtle and sometimes not so subtle, from other places on earth to which we have been.

Secondly, though we are no longer amazed by day to day things we have found, we remain very impressed by every aspect of American society. For me is that it works so well!

On the first point, I mentioned above that the experience of living in the USA has taught us something about the American attitude to their place in the world and to their country.

Earlier in the year I took a second job with Berlitz, the language people, as a "corporate resource" on Australian cultural differences. (putting "Australian" and "cultural" in the same sentence maybe somewhat of an oxymoron!). The idea was that I was to help American corporations who send people to work in Australia. It was very interesting.

I met the corporate psychologist person who was the main consultant for Berlitz in the course of this work. She was a very knowledgeable Welsh lady who is married to a Japanese, had lived in Tokyo, Sydney and currently New York with a flat in London.

With apologies to Max Weber and the people I have already bored with this story, one of her psychological/sociological theories I found quite interesting and with a touch of truth to it. I would emphasise that such theories are certainly not true in all cases, as they are only "ideal types" I daresay with plenty exceptions. Nevertheless I think it provides some insight.

She contrasted Europe, the US and Australia by analogy. Saying that Europeans (including the English) were like a coconut. The hard shell on the outside proved to show that they were difficult people to get to know, and put up social barriers. Once you got past the shell however, the inside was an open book (to mix my metaphors) and they were easy to talk to about anything: family, region, politics, history and morality.

SOME Americans on the other hand were like a peach. (They are rather "peachy"!) These Americans at first meeting appear open, egalitarian, welcoming and unreserved. All this in obvious contrast to the Europeans. However, once you delve deeper, there seems to be a hard kernel of social or ideological distance that is hard to fathom or breach. Such an American finds it difficult to talk about the "biggies" such as their history, culture, place in the world, relationship to other countries, religion, politics and morality etc. without being over-sensitive about these things and very defensive, or offended that an outsider dare comment on them. They tend to lack a self-critical facility.

According to our Welsh lady, Australians are neither of these, and are just "squishy". (maybe meaning that we really lack all substance).

Anyway, I have certainly found a good measure of truth in her metaphor. I think that much of this has to do with the fact that in so many ways, the USA really is the biggest, best and brightest, and so relatively, Americans know little about the rest of the world. They therefore have a tendency to become intimidated when they find that many foreigners know so much about the United States, perhaps even more than some Americans. I think this may account for the apparent sensitivity and quickness to take offence.

The recent crisis of the terrorist attack on 11 September has confirmed these thoughts. Not many Americans knew anything about Afghanistan or the Middle East prior to the tragedy.

Americans remain fascinated by Australia, or the idea of Australia, and some ask good questions. Mostly however, their questions indicate a near complete ignorance about Australia. This is both understandable, excusable and not their fault!

The whole rationale for such exchanges in a small way addresses some of these problems. That is, that we all have the opportunity to learn from one-another in a frank and honest exchange of observations, warts and all, free of rancour, free of fear of offence and of imputing other than honest motives to the correspondents. Only in this way, do I believe we can develop genuine insights and learn from one-another at a level deeper than a tourist watch a "strange" country pass by through the bus window.

Most importantly, we have to be willing to learn and to change our opinions based on what we learn as we go. After all, this is what life should be all about. We never stop learning, we never stop changing and we should listen to others without cultural blinkers, hidden agendas or closed minds. For me, this was the real point of this exchange and what I will take with me about America when I return to Australia.

No self-censorship at all and this correspondent may say the occasional thing that others may disagree with, but it's just my opinion after all, and may be cheerfully discounted as "that's just Rowan." My opinions are honest ones, written mainly for myself, but hopefully of interest to others. "You gotta take the good with the bad!" otherwise my observations such as they are, have a danger in becoming so sanitised that are meaningless and are not worth saying.

So where does this leave us talking about the United States? I have said that it is a wonderful and amazing country, full of opportunity and the very epicentre of the good things that our Western political and economic system can give. Many other Western countries, of course, have essentially the same values, and the US is not unique by any means in this regard. It is just that the US is the most important and influential example of Western values in the world today.

Although the values between Americans and Australians are very much alike in most important ways, America tends to be big and inward looking whilst Australia is largely the opposite. The US is a little like the ancient Chinese Middle Kingdom. It sees itself as the biggest, best, strongest, most advanced, most important and most democratic country on earth. It is! It sees itself as the hope of the planet, the "grand experiment" without peer in history. Maybe!? It therefore looks inward, seeing itself in most ways as THE world. Apart from the three week vacation to Europe, when Americans travel "the world", it is within the United States (and sometimes Canada and Mexico)

All this is quite understandable. The US is HUGE and so diverse, Its "lower 48" are like "the world". There is so much going on and there are just so many people, that it holds the interest almost exclusively of the American media and the education system. For these reasons people here cannot be blamed for knowing little about the rest of the world.

This I'm afraid has compounded the problems of the terrible events of September 11. Many Americans seemed incapable of understanding why they are disliked in some parts of the world. They were caught by surprise. There is minimal media coverage of this and there is precious little light being shed on it due to continued preoccupation with what is happening on the domestic front.

The country seems to have turned even more inward, and citizens take comfort from "showing the flag" and reminding themselves how great they are. Any moderating views are sometimes heard but usually given short shrift in the media. The US media is being censured by many Americans for showing picture of people killed by American bombing or giving any airplay to the Taliban point of view. Talk such as of conspiracies over Azubaijan oil; half a million dead Iraqi children since the UN/US embargoes began ten years ago; the plight of the Palestinians; or the inappropriateness of a declaration of "War" against terrorists, in what should really have been an international police action, ARE sometimes heard but most often discounted. So we are left with total media saturation of "America Strikes Back" or the problems of "Homeland Defence".

FDR's Fourth Freedom: "The Freedom from Fear" has gone out of the window and I fear in the long term this pre-occupation is deeply psychologically unhealthy for the country. This is far scarier than any anthrax hoax or attack. Customers at the Mall of America has fallen by seventy percent, and this weekend is Thanksgiving, but few will fly.

A wonderful story from one of our fellow exchangees is worth re-telling here. Brett, a real "dag" (colourful character) from New Zealand and his family are from north of the Bay of Islands. The Kiwis are having a much worse time than us with the exchange rate. Anyway, they are posted ("stuck") up in northern Minnesota at a one-horse-town called Grand Forks in the Red River valley. He says its like living on a cold billiard table, being so flat and featureless. It's near the Canadian border and boring old North Dakota. Anyway, he told a very funny story about all this Anthrax bull... which says a lot about Antipodean VS American attitudes. They got this letter, with "Anthrax" written on it in a kid's handwriting. They just laughed, tore it up and put it in the trash/rubbish. The following day, on the front page of the local Grand Forks newspaper, in banner headlines, something like... "Major Anthrax Scare, Two letters found, one missing." They panicked a little, and rang 911. Next thing, about half a dozen FBI agents interviewed them and spent half a day trying to piece the bits of the letter back together again. I think they had visions of "disappearing without a trace". They are laughing about it now but were a bit worried at the time (not about Anthrax, but about the FBI).

If the media is no help to bring the country back to normal, then education may provide part of the answer and in my own little way I might be a help. I shall say more on education later, but my contribution such as it is really a teaspoon in the Pacific Ocean. My experiences teaching about American institutions and history do illustrate part of the problem. There is no doubt that Americans have wonderful institutions that they have every right to be proud of. However a real tendency for them is to be seen as uniquely American, and so we have more cultural blinkers that are beyond the control of we mere mortals. It is not the fault of the kids, their parents or even their teachers. It's just the way it had been for two hundred and fifty years.

American history is even more problematic. American historiography is improving but suffers more so from the problem of Western history in general, being about the inexorability of White progress. History has too often been taught as hagiography and as a morality play. I think it might be a little worse in the US because textbooks tend to be written to market them to school boards who perpetuate THE view of history. I set slightly subversive "extra credit" questions for my kids. The better ones might develop their research and critical facilities a little. Next week we have Thanksgiving and my question for the week was to find out when the first permanent non-native people settled in what came to be the United States and why they are not well remembered. The second part of the question is more important of course. It was not our "Thanksgiving" Pilgrims in 1620, but African-(American?) slaves who escaped the Spanish settlement in South Carolina in 1526, forty years earlier than Roanoke, which the better kids can tell me about. The wonderful conclusions that some kids can draw from such questions are astonishing.

At Hidden Oaks Middle School at least, heroic teachers plug along valiantly trying to provide a more balanced view of all of the above, and by doing so give some hope for the future of America's understanding of its place in the world. I'm sure it is a good example of a little bit happening in a lot of places around this great country.

My second set of observations has more to do with day-to day living in the USA. Although we are no longer amazed by some day to day things we have found, we remain very impressed by aspects of American society. Not least for me is that it works so well!

The US is indeed extraordinary! One quarter of a billion people live in an area not much bigger than Australia. Most other countries would collapse under the sheer weight of numbers. Yet the US works, whilst having to trade off some of the advantages that Australia seems to enjoy by virtue of its smaller population. Generally all these people in the US live in harmony, committed to their democratic system and there is still plenty of opportunity to do well. The so-called "American Dream" really does exist, and people can succeed in making money and attain true success if they have talent and work hard. If they lack these abilities, then perhaps this is another story. Just to be able to feed all these people is a wonder of infrastructure and marketing.

On the environment, whilst there is quite a lot of waste in the US, Australia is not much better and it really is a question of relative population. In the US they are beginning to take recycling more seriously, but what a problem they have with packaging of their foods.

Shopping in general for non-food items is much better than at home. The range and quality of goods and the opportunities to purchase just seem so much better because of the larger population. The USA really is the epicentre of capitalism.

At one end of the spectrum you have a variety of choices available over the Internet to buy everything from Digital Cameras, books, household items, ornaments, clothes etc. The Net really centres on the USA. We have recently purchased via Net an Olympus digital camera and a beautiful "Savannah girl" statue. The original statue was a grave ornament in Savannah, which became famous as book cover for the novel "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". So much so, that the statue had to be removed to the museum because souvenir hunters broke of pieces.

The other end of the shopping spectrum and on the recycling theme, the United States have marvellous "Thrift Shops" (Charity run Second Hand shops) as big as supermarkets. These are truly a wonder to behold. You can buy everything from "preloved" clothing of excellent quality and range, to second-hand household items and electricals. Caring people donate these items. Whilst Hispanic people make up a large proportion of the customers purchasing goods at Thrift Stores, you see all kind of people. At times, a visit to a large Thrift Shop is like being at the Vic Market!

Apart from food in the US, which is of inferior price, freshness and quality to home, just about everything else you buy here (excepting woollens) is better quality, cheaper and there is much more choice. You really notice this in the Thrift Shops. American clothing particularly, even second-hand, is excellent. I think it has a lot to do with economy of scale. With a country of a quarter of a billion people, you can make things to last. In Australia with only twenty million people, if a company made things too well, they would kill any repeat business. A good measure of planned obsolescence has to be built in so things can wear out!

On energy and conservation, the housing is in a bit of a crisis. There is a real housing shortage in Minneapolis, and not a lot of attention paid to ecological considerations, though I think this is changing. Providing shelter for a quarter of a billion people cannot be easy. Out West, good land is gobbled up in new developments. The style of housing is dominated by "spec" builders who build instant estates with a few standard designs from quite "chinsy" materials such as aluminium cladding and stick-on tiles. With its great population, such alternative materials are maybe really necessary to build here. The houses are well insulated however. Houses are overpriced and leave a lot of people out of the market. Probably Australia is not much better in this regard, but we have the advantage of a smaller population and so less excuse to be architecturally unsound. As a counter to this in the US, there are many wonderful people who donate their expertise and labour to work with different church groups building housing for low-income people and the homeless. The problem remains a big one.

School! Teaching in the States has been a privilege. I am well accepted by staff and students. Everyone from Charlie and Dave, the "custodians" in my area; to the ladies in the Cafeteria; Linda and Julie in the Office; the Media people, right on up to Doug Kern and Cory Lunn in the Principal's office, have been without exception, wonderful to me and just so supportive. But most particularly magnificent, generous, helpful and tolerant have been my two closest colleagues, Lorinda and Chris, the two other Social Studies/Civics teachers. I shall really miss them all.

My students, by and large, have been great! The kids are similar to Aussie kids. As I discuss the bigger picture of educational difference, it is not "better" at home or in the US, only "different". To combine aspects of both education systems would approximate the ideal system! My bias, if any would be to have a little more of the American system (at its best) thrown into the equation!

Firstly, a look at the "big picture" with regard to education. Interestingly, the states of Minnesota and Victoria are in many ways, mirrors of one another on the other side of the globe. They are about the same area and population. Victoria is more urbanised, with Melbourne being about 3.5 millions and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul only a million or so. Minnesota is a place of small towns. So we have the same tax base. Spending on education in both places is about the same, although with district funding more common in the US, this is hard to determine exactly. There are roughly the same numbers of teachers in both places, yet in Minnesota there are approximately 800,000 students in the system compared with only 500,000 or thereabouts in Victoria. The pupil-teacher ratio then is much worse in Minnesota. Two of my classes have over thirty students each.

How do Minnesota schools cope with these larger class sizes? I think the answer is that schools are far more structured than in Victoria. Which is both good and bad. The positive is that there are far larger numbers of ancillary staff to take discipline and welfare burdens away from classroom teachers. The Minnesota system has a big infrastructure of non-teaching staff (deans , guidance officers, counsellors, special needs people) in a neat and well-understood hierarchy where everybody knows how they fit in. None of these people teach which I think is a mixed blessing, but at least they can devote their time wholly to the students. "Special needs" students have what is called an "IEP" or Individual Educational Programme. It can be a bit of a "cop out" at times for the student to avoid the rigours of the "main-stream", but sometimes good for the teacher to have them out of the classroom! The entire infrastructure certainly relieves the classroom teacher in many ways.

Promotion in this hierarchy relates far more to qualifications than experience with students. This too is a mixed blessing, as some administrators, I think it is fair to say, could benefit from more experience dealing with students at the "chalk-face". Nevertheless, American teachers, unlike in Australia, can gain rewards from extra study. They have a far better career plan and many more opportunities for promotion.

For the classroom teacher in Minnesota, it is rare that they teach more than one level or more than one subject. The advantages are that it allows the classroom teacher to concentrate on kids rather than content. I am ever amazed how different the classes are, and how I must constantly vary the delivery of the same material to cater for the differences in my students.

Classroom teachers are just as imaginative and professional as Victorian teachers if not better. Industrially they seem to be more accountable and less cosseted. They must regularly renew and renegotiate contracts, medical insurance, and so on. Probably less "dead wood" is carried in the teaching staff and incompetent teachers do not get their contract renewed.

Teachers in Minnesota have great opportunities to make more money, being paid for extras (which are voluntary), hall and lunch-room supervision, coaching and supervising sporting teams, Saturday and Summer School. If only we had this opportunity at home!

The teachers here also have less to worry about re-inventing the wheel in regard to curriculum. Curriculum seems to be centrally set by the school district based upon the purchase of a particular textbook. Perhaps this is a mixed blessing too. On the other hand teachers still have a large amount of professional freedom as to what happens in the classroom. Most seem innovative and few, if any, slavishly follow the textbook.

At my school district of Prior Lake-Savage, facilities are wonderful and far better than I'm used to. Prior Lake is an upper middle class dormitory suburb. A formula calculates money available to education through property taxes; based on the value of private houses that no one here seems to fully understand. What it means though is that areas such as this are advantaged. There are referenda held in the local school district at election time to increase education spending. The recent referendum voted an extra 2.5 million dollars for a new High School. As well, there is evidently some federal government spending to address disadvantaged school districts. How well this works, I'm not sure, but all I know is that Prior Lake-Savage is most well endowed indeed.

I have my very own carpeted classroom, shared very occasionally with other groups. The crème d' la crème of technology at my fingertips, a new Pentium 4 computer in my room. The school's computer system is as fast as lightning, and fully integrated. We write our reports and grades as we go and shoot them to the office on the school Intranet. Internet E-mails are the main method of communication. My "stuff" is on the school server and I can access it on any computer in the school when I log in. I can therefore, for example, show my famous Australian "PowerPoint" anywhere in the school. Also permanently in my room is a large, new, colour television. It has a "magic" little black box attached to it and the computer converts a digital computer signal into an analogue television signal. I can therefore run anything from the computer on the big TV screen. I use this for everything from marks, to seating charts and PowerPoint demonstrations. Fantastic! Of course a video cassette recorder is also rigged up to the TV and even a stereo music system!

I don't think American teachers (and specifically teachers in my school district) know how lucky they are or how good they've got it! We have the same odd staff room moan as we have at home, but such whining is really much less justified!

And what IS being taught in US schools about the world? Whilst individual teaching and educational facilities are superlative, curriculum and what students learn does not quite match that standard. Great things do happen, but US students are chronologically six months behind their Australian counterparts as the American school year begins at the end of August. Australian kids begin in February.

Other aspects of the US education system seem counterproductive to producing educational excellence. State testing does not bear a lot of relationship to what is taught in the classroom, and seems not accurately measure what the students know and can do. There is also a paramount emphasis on the GPA (Grade Point Average) which is the "magic number" to enable a student to pass and then graduate. Students and parents are so mesmerised by this, that there is little room for teachers to make constructive criticism and award realistic grades. Some students are given unrealistic expectations. The "C" student, particularly in the Junior and Middle years, tends to become a "B" or "A" student if they merely complete the work. The true "A" student doesn't get properly rewarded extended or enriched. Their "real A" tends to be devalued. The kids that fail do so usually only because they don't do the work.

American schools do not have the luxury of jettisoning 15-year-old students for whom school is not working, as we can in Australia. This poses other problems that are partially solved by giving these students "IEP"s and removing them from the mainstream classes. If this fails, then the school has to rely on the "School Police" who are a unit of the local Prior Lake Police Force. Our local police officer, Officer Goldhammer is a great fellow and patrols the hallways in plain clothes. He is however armed, and carries his "piece" in a "fanny pack"(US)/"bum pack"(Aus).

There's probably much more I could say, but high time that I spare you with further waffling. We've got nearly five weeks to go before we leave the US. Other observations might come to me. I daresay the full effects of the exchange will not be apparent in our family until well after our return. The friendships we have made and the unique experiences will be in our memories for years to come.


Home! The unpacking nightmare has gone on for several days and is still not over, and I was great moral support for Daggi! The garden was like "Day of the Triffids" and also needed much urgent attentions. This is why I took rather a long time to get this letter off. I'll start it now, as Jessie, our "social butterfly" is down with friends at Geelong already, and we are shortly off to visit them overnight.

(02 February 2002)

It's funny about perceptions on returning home after such a long time away. You see your own place with the eyes of a stranger. We couldn't believe how empty and clean Australian appeared after all those months in the Northern Hemisphere. The welcome home red carpet was put out by friends and family, and it was great to see them all again. Merrill and Jessica visited, and we compared notes. It was also great to get stuck into some familiar foods and drinks once more such as meat pies, fish and chips and a variety of proper, not overpriced, bread. Soon reality will well and truly set in when I am back to work after Australia Day, and I daresay within a week or so it will be as if we have never been away!

We picked up our world-famous German Shepherds from the boarding kennels, and they
appeared to hardly remember us! That was, I suppose, to be expected after all these months. After a couple of days with the dogs, however, it was back to normal, and as if we were never away.

We had a great several weeks in Mexico. Mexico is wonderful. In some ways it is very much a "Western" developed country, with public health insurance for the poor; new democracy and quite technologically advanced. In other ways it is "developing" with much poverty. It is expensive, on a European or American level. The poor appear to have a happiness about them, and a contentment with their lot in life that may have much to do with their belief system. Perhaps the discontented people in other countries could learn something from this. Their belief system is, on the surface, quite Catholic, but is very syncretic and heavily influenced by their pre-Christian religion. You see this influence particularly in the South with the Mayan people.

Arriving in Mexico City, we found this a wonderful city after the initial shock. It is just so big (the largest city in the world with over twenty million people). The notorious pollution was not noticeably worse than other places such as Bangkok or Jakarta. We stayed at a very friendly and comfortable Backpacker Hostel in Calle Moneda, near Zocalo (the central plaza) and spent over a week in Mexico City, as there is just so much to see. The Mexico City Metro system is wonderful, and you can travel anywhere underground for just a couple of pesos. Some highlights in Mexico City included the thoroughly superb Museo Nacional de Anthropologia, which is world-class and has a wonderful interpretation of the various ancient Meso-American cultures in Mexico. Other winners were, Teotihuacan (the Pyramid of the Sun etc), Chapultapec, Diego Rivera's murals, the Mexico city markets and food. Taxco, the silver and gold city, was just two hours away.

Then we "hit the frog and toad" to the Yucatan on a twenty two hour overnight bus. There we stayed at the beautiful old colonial city of Merida, hired a little VW and visited Chichen Itza and surrounds.

From there to the magnificents ruins of Palenque, set in the jungle; San Cristobel and Oaxaca (Wahaca): all truly awe-inspiring. Thence to Mexico City and the marathon home.

The patronising attitude of many Americans to Mexico is totally unjustified. We had been warned about being held up by Pancho Villa, and it never looked like happening!

The "unpacking".. Some conclusions about living in the land of the "Plastic Fantastic" as "aliens". As the Scots poet Rabbie Burns said, "Oh that the giftie gie us to see ourselves as other see us":

One of the curious things about many Americans is their inability to take criticism or even conceive that criticism of aspect of their beloved country could be informed and honestly motivated. They appear to be totally closed minded and brainwashed about "God's Own Country". An English-speaking, somewhat intelligent visitor, from a free, democratic and developed country is quite a challenge to them as they find such a person difficult to pigeonhole or look down upon a "lesser breed without the Law" (to paraphrase Kipling). In Australia, which is a much freer society in so many ways than the US, intelligent criticism is tolerated or welcomed.

Because I had been on and off, a little critical of aspects of US society, it was interpreted by some as rudeness, jealousy, insult or that we did not like our stay in the US. We loved our stay, but we didn't love everything about America. Yet I was chided like a student by the ex-primary teacher co-ordinators of the exchange in Minnesota for the occasional honest observation in my e-mails, and set up a barrage of back-door discussions between various American correspondents over the "high blood pressure" that I had evidently caused.

Only a few American friends we made in the US had the courage, intelligence, honesty and lack of hypocrisy to really enter into a meaningfully-refreshing discussion of some of the points in my e-mails, to both our gain. The rest seemed to whisper behind closed doors and leave us with a feeling of isolation and walking on egg-shells so not to bruise delicate American sensibilities.

So there is a clear limit to being allowed to express one's opinion in the US.

All this has given me a wonderful insight into aspects of the American psyche that might explain much about the motives behind the evil deeds of September 11. Yes, the US is not the haven of freedom that children have been indoctrinated to believe. Australia lets in many more asylum seekers than the US in spite of our recent bad press.

In most real senses the US is scarcely a democracy. Their sacred "Presidential System" does not make for democracies the world over. Only France, Germany, Ireland, India (the latter three examples being parliamentary republics on the model of constitutional monarchies), and recently Mexico and possibly South Africa, may lay claim to being democratic republics. Democratic Constitutional Monarchies, on the other hand, number more than a dozen, including the "Old" Commonwealth; Japan, Scandinavia and the Low Countries.

The US has a near-totalitarian, all-pervasive ideology based on the re-writing of American history as a story of the high moral ground. All these things and more are left out of American history: the British source of ALL American rights bar one; the countless evils perpetrated due American self-interest in their foreign policy and the hypocritical justification attempts for this (still happening today in Afghanistan); the Third World poverty of minorities and the Southern African-Americans (worse than the worst in Mexico for example); having an attitude to UN Human Rights treaties akin to the likes of Somalia.

Sure, there are "rights" as set out in the Constitution, but with the exception of the ludicrous Second Amendment, they all derive from British Common Law but have been elevated to Holy Writ. (Some of my students even confused the Amendments with the Commandments.. more than a Freudian slip). This means that governments are powerless to pass sensible legislation to protect citizens if it infringes their liberty, though this is of course fraught with silly contradictions, such as you must wear a seatbelt, but not a motorcycle helmet. States rights mean that in son many ways the US is less united than even Europe and free to pass ridiculous laws and compare apples to oranges when it comes to their hotchpotch electoral system. Above all, only a relative handful of Americans vote and so the Supreme Court has to finally decide which millionaire is the president.

Yet the Americans continue to see themselves as the centre of the universe and don't look to overseas examples that might work better. Less than ten percent of Americans have passports, and even President Bush only took a passport after being appointed president by the Supreme Court.

This attitude was reflected in some of the attitudes of the students who I taught. At once rather cute, sad and amusing, students asked me if I was going home soon. They would then say something like they didn't want me to go. When I said I had to, they asked why I wanted to go: "Don't you like it here?" Although I told them that I really did like the US, they become defensive and ask what was wrong with the US, as if being unable to conceive of people actually wanting to live somewhere else than "God's Own Country". Then they would say something like, "why, is Australia better than the US?" and I would answer, yes, that in some ways it was but in other ways the US is better. There is no "best", and in some way or other, all countries are better. This, they could not comprehend.

A young acquaintance from Singapore, studying in Chicago, had a similar experience. Americans could not understand that she had no desire to immigrate to the US!

This is why it is beyond US comprehension to understand the motives behind the sick events of 9/11 (11/9) and it is the same reason why, for example, they blundered into Vietnam. The sad thing is, I don't think that they will ever learn, seeing the "over the top" reaction to 11 September (11/9). Americans are brainwashed to really believe so fundamentally they are the "Best and brightest and God's Own Country" that any real international empathy is not possible.

Nevertheless, we had a great time travelling in the US, Canada and Mexico, and met some wonderful locals. The USA particularly is a wonderful country: beautiful and a land of opportunity for so many people. This is not to say that we didn't at times, find living in the USA difficult. In the USA, the cost of living for basic foods and utilities are double that of Australia. The impossible exchange rate for the US dollar further compounded this. The US dollar is now the new "gold standard" and its overvaluation bears little relationship to the actual state of the US economy, and its bad balance of trade. The Americans don't seem to worry or care about this, as they are immersed in their own hubris.

School is still pedestrian and very difficult to get enthusiastic about (what’s new?). It is a necessary burden enabling a different perspective on the US. Most of the kids remain good if a little uninspiring. The subject matter is difficult to get enthused about, but I continue to try!! I realise now that they are chronologically a year behind Aussie students. My Grade 9s are the same age as Australian Year 10s. I think the real highlight is most of the American staff I have met in my few months here. They are friendly, thoroughly professional, very helpful and welcoming!

Our family got little help from the Minnesota Exchange organisers, and were very much left to fend for ourselves. They seemed to have lost real interest in the program and were positively unhelpful and rude at times to us. This appears to greatly contrast with the welcome and help our American counterparts in Australia received. After Daggi's accident, we got not so much as a telephone call from the Minnesota organisers. Any help or advise on living in the US, such a home heating assistance, we had to find out ourselves.

The administration of the School District where I worked, from the Principal upward, were similarly unwelcoming, short of platitudes. The Principal did not even publicly farewell me when I left and seemed to view my presence rather as an inconvenience, seeing little benefit to the school to be derived from the experiences of a teacher from a small country on the other side of the world. I was clearly not part of his agenda.

The Principal was not an educator but rather a very young, immature and self-absorbed politically-motivated fellow. He had taught for only a handful of years, and done study sufficient to propel him on the upward political spiral. I believe that he was actually intimidated by students and did not particularly like them. He did however allow the students to set the school's agenda for all the wrong reasons. Students manipulate him. Above all students have to be happy, even if they learnt little, because that made the parents happy and ensured a tame school council to help the Principal and the other administrators in their career plans. The Principal will rarely, if ever support a teacher in the face of a parent complaint, and will do anything necessary to appease the parent.

The parents and students seem to care and understand little about true education. Whilst the school has wonderful physical facilities, it reflects a self-perpetuating infrastructure of vested interests and this should not be confused with actual education. Critical thinking takes second place to "checking the boxes" to achieve a Grade Point Average to get into a good University. Educationally unsound multiple-choice quizzes form a large part of this. Mediocrity is rewarded by giving students false expectations about just how capable they are, and the work of excellent students is not properly rewarded as their "As" or "A+s" are devalued. Everyone who does the work gets a "B" or better. Most problem students are mollycoddled by a large infrastructure of under-worked "tea and sympathy" types (guidance counsellors etc etc) who seem to invent problems and create excuses for students to avoid responsibility. Confusing test results with real education is perpetuated and institutionalised through compulsory state and natio


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