Editor’s note: This commentary is by Nate Denny, a former woodworker and teacher from Northfield.
It seems odd to me that our society is in such a hurry to return to the status quo ante that existed prior to the outbreak of the ongoing pandemic, as if the systems we had constructed were working well for Vermonters specifically and Americans in general (not to mention the thousands of species on the brink of extinction thanks to human activity). Think about it for a moment: Our schools fail to deliver, our financial systems go from boom to bust, our medical system is an unsustainable and unfair fiasco, and our children face a chaotic future in which they will be pitted against far better prepared and motivated international students and workers. So, what should we do differently?
One approach could be to impose a North Korean-style system of self-reliance and self-delusion, and take comfort in becoming impoverished together. The opposite solution would be to examine what other countries do well and adopt their superior systems of education, child-care and taxation, so that while more is expected from every citizen of the state, more is given so that few are homeless and no one goes hungry, particularly children. And no, this doesn’t mean socialism, but it does mean a slower rate of growth and less of a burden on the ecosystems that sustain us.
Such a society might not focus so shallowly on sports and entertainment, for example. Well-paid, professional and heavily subsidized child care could enable all families to enjoy some economic security by enabling both parents to work while knowing that their children are being both cared for and socialized. To accommodate the increased volume of scholarship that would have to occur, summer vacations would be brief. In order to focus primarily on academic achievement, interscholastic sports, for example, should be shrunk into intramural club activities. There might be less insistence on going on to university (and unmanageable debt) and instead a widely available system of technical schools, apprenticeships and internships must be developed and made available to more than just the well-connected.
In other words, we Vermonters have to get serious about preparing our children for the ultra-competitive world that they face. Why are we waiting for some other state to take the lead?
If we have the wisdom or courage to open our eyes and understand the future that we face in a globalized world, we have to take steps to drastically change the way we live. We must not allow ourselves to fall back into the delusion that we are special or exempt from global competitive forces. Or we can jump through hoops to hurry back to normal, to restart our sports seasons and plan our next spring break, as if the world isn’t constantly closing in on us, increasing the need to constantly accelerate the pace at which we run on the treadmill of life, headphones on, music blaring.
