Elisa Stern

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a link to one of the best short videos I’ve ever seen. The video is nothing more than a simple song, some graphics, and a speech by Neil Degrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist and cosmologist, but it changed my outlook on so much. At the beginning of the video he is asked the question: “What is the most astounding fact that you can share with us about the universe?” And he goes on to match this profound question with a thoughtful, moving, and introspective answer equally as profound. The answer is intricate and complicated, but these are my favorite lines from the response:

“I look up at the night sky, and I realize that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up at the night sky… Many people feel small because they’re small and the universe is big, but I feel big! Because my atoms, came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity: that’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant, you want to feel like you’re a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you. That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive.”

(15/10 recommend you go watch the video because it’s remarkable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU)

Before you think I’ve lost my mind, I promise I haven’t forgotten what class I’m writing this blog for. Admittedly, this quote is a rather grandiose one about our world, the universe, and each and every single one of us living here. It may seem like a stretch to you, but as I listened to it, one of the connections I made was how small this particular class has made the world feel.

This was my first experience ever being such a small part of such a large project; my first time being one single part of a project that spans 5 countries, includes hundreds of students, and has taken thousands of hours. As a psychology major, I’ve had my fair share of studies with participants and other people’s involvement. I’ve worked in labs both at Colby and other Universities, looking at social psychology and neurobiology related concepts, but none of the research projects I’ve done have been collaborations outside of a single institution… So nothing quite like this. I have a new appreciation for how fundamentally critically teamwork and collaboration truly is. Perseverance, understanding, and flexibility are all key components of research at every level, and this project has truly allowed me to comprehend and internalize that.

 I was the interviewer in my group, which meant that I had the fortune of having direct contact with Kostas (the student from the Croft School). We were incredibly lucky to have been paired with such a responsible student. He was online on time, never rushed through the questions, asked for clarification when he needed it, and overall was just a really fun, intelligent, engaging guy to talk to. Hearing some of my classmates’ experiences I know that this wasn’t necessarily the case across the board, but my interaction with Kostas could not have gone smoother. I can’t help but be in awe at how small technology has made this world. Kostas was thousands of miles away, and yet we talked about everything from the breed of his dog to Donald Trump’s election like he was right in the next room. As Tyson says, we are all so fundamentally interconnected.  Particularly given the climate of this increasingly globalized world, those of us fortunate enough to have the technological means have opportunities to make incredible transnational connections in a way that would not have been possible 20 years ago.

Tyson’s quote made me realize that no matter how small my contribution, this project would not be the same without the work of every individual involved. We are all a thread in the fabric of this curriculum, without which it would unravel. For instance, while I was the actual interviewer, someone else organized the fact that Kostas would be the one I was speaking to. Hundreds of email correspondences likely went into organizing those few hours of actual conversation between us. That’s pretty cool to think about. Thanks, whoever you are!!

The other piece of Tyson’s speech that resonated with me was the part about social connectivity. How, at the most fundamental level, human beings are social creatures. No matter how introverted or shy, at a very biological level, we crave belonging and purpose, and this project has done an incredible job of bringing so many people around the globe together. While we may not all know each other’s names or stories, we have all worked together towards a common goal. Take a second and just think about how incredible that really is… Colby can be such a microcosm, where we all get wrapped up in our everyday lives and challenges, and forget to pause and remember that there is, quite literally, a whole world out there. People we haven’t met, friends we haven’t made, obstacles we haven’t overcome. And despite the unknowns and the distance, these people are likely going to face similar challenges to those of us here at Colby — we are all human, at the most basic level. I understand that feeling like you have a “place” at Colby is so important, but this project has helped me conceptualize the fact that there is so much beyond what we see and what we focus on during our time here on the Hill. 

I’ve learned a lot from this class, and what I’ve learned extends far beyond Bourdieu’s theories and the implications and expectations of elite-ness. It’s allowed me to be a part of something bigger than a single assignment in a single class in a single semester at a single school. I’d say that’s pretty special, and the process of working with others to achieve a common goal in an academic setting like this isn’t something I’ll soon forget.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a few hours talking to a student at a private, co-educational school in a large city in Chile. His self-awareness about his socio-economic status (as well as the status of those around him) was astounding, and he had many insightful perspectives on the elite school he attends. His feelings about the incredible sense of homogeneity and lack of diversity in the school pervaded our entire interaction, and that got me thinking about other elite institutions in Chile. He said at one point that while his school did not offer financial aid (and thus eliminated the opportunity for anyone other than the wealthiest class to attend) other international schools in the area did, and were therefore slightly more diverse. I decided to put that theory to the test.

I focused my research on schools in Santiago, as it had the most robust collection of private institutions, and it’s considered a metropolitan hub. In Santiago, it seems that there are several categories of schools: British, American, International, Catholic, etc. Because of the large number of schools in the city, I dedicated my research to those schools for which I found the most information.

An alarming discovery I immediately made was the incredible difficulty in finding any information about tuition or financial aid. Unlike Colby’s webpage, which offers a comprehensive breakdown of the cost of attending the school, as well as how to apply for financial assistance, I found nothing other than “inquire at school” when it came to yearly education costs. To see if this was a high school versus university/college phenomenon, I looked up the high school I’d gone to in California, as well as several private elite institutions on the East Coast. All had a tab on “affordability” or “financial aid.” That got me wondering if this is a cultural differentiation, or that Chilean schools don’t have information about aid because it doesn’t exist…

Despite this little hiccup, I kept investigating the elite schools in the area. The first I focused on was the Craighouse School, a British, pre-K through year 12 IB (international baccalaureate) based school. Interestingly, the school has an English curriculum through 6^th grade, after which the primary language transitions to Spanish through graduation. While the upper level school promotes the IB program it also has preparatory courses for the PSU, the local Chilean college entrance exams. I wondered if this switch in language would attract a wider Chilean population, as opposed to only international students. Perhaps cost isn’t the only factor in considering potential for diversity.

The second British school I looked at was The International Preparatory School (TIPS), which has a curriculum based on the National Curriculum for England and Wales. Because the primary and middle schools are accredited by the Chilean Ministry of Education, while the high school follows the British system and is recognized by the University of Cambridge as an exam center, students can go on to take the As and A-level exams in England. On their webpage, they boast their “global capacity,” because their accreditations and connections to several universities in England “set their students apart.” Thus, this came across to me as a school with a largely non-Chilean student population.

The next school I looked at was the International School Nido De Aguilas (Nido). Nido is a K-12 school taught primarily in English, with a combined American and Chilean curriculum. Graduates from this school can earn three separate diplomas: U.S., Chilean, and IB. Because of this diversity, I assume that this school would appeal to the widest group of individuals.

Finally, I found Santiago College to be particularly interesting. A private pre-K through 12 institution founded in 1880, the school boasts it’s primarily Chilean student body. While American Methodist missionaries founded it, the school combines the Chilean national curriculum with the IB program.

Through this research, I found several similarities that I thought were quite interesting, and tied in nicely with the discussions we’ve been having in class. For one, older schools boast their founding date, while newer schools have a tendency to bury it in the subtext, or at the very least downplay its importance. Despite the origins of the school (i.e. British, Chilean, American, etc.), all of the school mission statements and school aims emphasize their cultivation of a “global thinker,” which I’m beginning to understand is a rather elitist aim. Finally, in tandem with the global citizenship aim, all of the schools ran on the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which was created with the intention of creating students ready for the global workplace.

All in all, I think that the student I interviewed had an interesting and incredibly eloquent outlook on his position in society. In addition to his own position, he seemed aware of the position of peers and his school as a whole. Through the research I’ve done about the international schools in Santiago, I think that he was quite correct in assuming many of them are quite similar in demographic and ideology. That begs the question, are these elite school unique to Chile, or are there aspects that are generalizable to all elite academic institutions globally? In other words, what parts of a school are unique to their culture, and what homogeneity does a certain level of elite-ness require? I’ll be looking into that from here on out…

We’ve dedicated a lot of class time to talking about Bourdieu’s analysis of the notion of ‘capital.’ The whole concept is new to me, and although I’m aware that my understanding of it is still shallow at best, these conversations have provided me with a new way of looking at who can, and what it truly means to receive a good education. Let me elaborate.

There are few other things in this world that human beings would willingly spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on, knowing it will require hard work and likely cause copious amounts of stress. Education is one of these few. Why? Our discussions in class have made me realize, that while the reason is indefinitely very complex, at it’s core it’s because education is an investment, and a means of accruing several forms of capital. This capital is supposed to aid your future endeavors. In other words, by paying for a good education, you better your odds of attaining a higher status in whatever you choose to do next.

There was a light bulb that went on at some point in one of our class discussions as I looked around at my classmates. We are all worth over a quarter of a million dollars. By the time one graduates from Colby College alone, not even considering the thousands of dollars put into getting him or her here in the first place, there is more money invested in their education than some people make over the course of their entire lifetime.

And realizing this got me thinking… does all this actually matter as much as we think it does? Is the payoff really worth the initial investment? According to an article published in the New York Times, the average tuition of a private university in the United States for the 2015/2016 academic year was a whopping $43,921. For a public university out of state, it was $34,031, and for a public in-state university, it was $19,548. Admittedly there is a wide range there, but when the starting cost is over $19,000, you’re fighting an uphill battle from the start.

So if the theory is that it all pays off in the future, where’s the evidence? Indeed, a study conducted by Georgetown University’s School of Education suggests that even after factoring in tuition costs and loss of time acquiring wage because of school, “bachelor’s degree holders earn 31% more than those with an associate’s degree, and 74% more than those with just a high school diploma.” It seems like every website has a different average income salary for high school graduates versus a bachelors or masters/phD graduates, but it appears irrefutable that there is indeed a much higher “payout” correlated with more years spent in (and on) academia. Bourdieu is clearly onto something here…

 (Click to make graphic larger)

These class discussions all happened in tandem with the research my group was doing on Chile, which got me wondering if this correlation exists as robustly in a global context. I had a shockingly hard time finding numbers illustrating the education wage gap on Chile (or really any Latin American country), but it seems widely agreed upon that more years in school means more subsequent income. In fact, the New York Times published an article in 2014 with the very clear title: “A Simple Equation: More Education = More Income.”

Honestly, researching this topic has left me with more questions than answers. Why is it so much easier to find data on the US, as opposed to developing countries? Is it simply because I’m using an American search engine? Or is it because of the neo-colonial system the US has seemingly transformed education into, where privatization for economic gain is the driving force? Is the US an anomaly, or the documented norm? I’m tempted to argue the latter, especially because of the Chilean student protests that call for loss of economic gain in post-secondary education. But then why is there a lack of accessible data? Additionally, I got to wondering how the “elite-ness” of a university education changes subsequent income. If a public state university costs around $19,000 dollars while a private university costs $43,000, is there a benefit to ponying up so much more money for private academia? Is it important globally, or just in the United States? Questions, questions, questions. Not so many answers…

“Where are you from?“: The question every TCK – or “third-culture kid”-  hates the most. Are you asking where I was born? Where I grew up? Where my parents live now? Where I live now? Where I’m ethnically from? Sometimes I’m tempted to retort: “I honestly have no idea.” Because when every one of those questions elicits a different answer, how can you really decide?

Home. It’s interesting – every person reads this same word and pictures a location unlike the person next to them. Whether it’s a physical house, a family member, or a town, what someone considers “home” is unique to his or her human experience. By the time I was 8 years old, I’d lived in 4 different places, in 2 different countries. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the school I entered in 3^rd grade became my home. A place where I could speak both languages I knew interchangeably, where I was surrounded by classmates who had also lived in several places and with teachers who understood that sometimes customs and cultures got muddled and mashed together. I discovered my identity as a “TCK”, by spending time with others who had some of the same struggles and perspectives as I did.

I was at “The American School in Japan,” in Tokyo; a private school with a great educational pedagogy and phenomenal teachers. Students came and went, typically every 3 years. There were a lot of children who’s parents were associated with the embassy, or who’s parents were the heads of the Japan branch of an international corporation. In that sense, I suppose it was elite. But in another sense, I feel like every student was humbled by a culture they didn’t know, and knew what it was like to feel like an outsider based on the experience they’d had moving to Tokyo. Our school was our home, and our friends were our family.

Honestly, the things I remember from my education at that school are not the ones from the classroom. They’re the field trips to the Atomic Bomb Memorial in Hiroshima, where all my classmates, Caucasian, South American, Asian, alike shared the same horrified look on our faces. They’re the Japanese culture days, where it didn’t matter “where you were from,” just that you wanted to participate and try something new. I took the usual classes like AP Chem and AP US History. The academics were great. But those experiences aren’t the ones that made me appreciate where I was. That isn’t why I think the education I received was stellar.

In my Junior year of high school, my life – educational and otherwise – changed pretty dramatically. My family moved back to San Francisco, California, where we’d lived for a while when I was really young. For my junior and senior year of high school, I attended a private institution that is considered one of the most elite in the East Bay. My transition from ASIJ to The Head Royce School is not one that I reflect on and call “easy.” I can’t even say I’d retrospectively do it again if I had the choice. I think the hardest realization was learning that the model of an open minded, culturally accepting classmate that I’d come to believe was standard, very much was not. The culture at ASIJ colored my perspective of schooling and multicultural peers, and because Head Royce could not provide the same level of authentic, cultural (as opposed to ethnic) diversity, I had a hard time fitting in.

The education that I received at Head Royce was binary – black and white, right and wrong. I learned study skills, time management, and hard work. Necessary, but not homey. My classmates were my competition, not my family. My teachers were there to teach and to discipline, not deviate from the curriculum.  That being said, I came to Colby feeling prepared by the academic rigor that my Junior and Senior year had provided. My graduating class only had 72 students, and I knew that I would thrive in a setting like this, where classes were small and teachers are engaging.

Despite having graduated from an “elite school,” I still feel out of place here sometimes. My elite school is 3,500 miles away from the ones that many of my fellow classmates at Colby have attended. It’s different than the cookie cutter New England boarding prep school that is considered “truly superior” here at Colby. Which begs the question: are all “elite” institutions the same? Are they all perceived the same way? I’d argue not, but what do I really know.

School, particularly in elementary, middle and high school, is where teenagers spend the majority of their waking hours. The atmosphere of the institution, the other students that attend, the teachers outlook and teaching style; all of these factors play into the overall experience. My educational experience thus far has undoubtedly shaped how I am, and changed how I look at the world, not to mention how I interact with those around me.

So that begs the question, where am I from? Despite the supposed elite academies I’ve attended, I still can’t quite figure it out. San Francisco is just where my parents are – where a physical house with my stuff in it is. Tokyo is where I grew up. I’ve lived longer now in Maine than I have in California. So when people ask, maybe I should just start saying “Colby.” Schools can become homes, right?