Never Walked In High Heels

Back in the classroom, Socrates was relentless towards the mind of sixteen year olds.

“Can we ever be untied? Look on a map, America is huge. Alaska, Kansas, New York all in one country. Let’s be reasonable.” Now he was doing his best to push everyone’s buttons.

I’ve been out of college a short while now and already two of my friends have needed to apply for handicap parking placards. Two years ago it was unthinkable, now they are applying for the blue placards which are permanent, rather than the temporary red ones. For someone who has found how we are all alike more interesting than how we are all different, the connection is striking. For most of us, as we age, America will be shrinking. What is different about disability rights from most civil right battles is that nobody will wake up suddenly being a different race, gender, or creed than when they went to bed. Life can change in an instant in that going for a jog one morning may be the last time we ever do it. This may be as simple as a bad knee or as traumatic as a car accident, but everyone’s body will fail him. Moreover the inaccessible America you  permit today is going to be the same one you will inherit tomorrow when your body breaks down. I’m not just advocating for my rights. I’m advocating for yours

But even the politicians, the ones who are supposed to be directly enacting the Constitution, remain blissfully unaware of how small America is on this issue. In between welfare reform and environmentalism, gay marriage debates and school vouchers, when was the last time you heard a story about disability rights on a news station? I can think of only one politician who consistently brings up the issue in her platform. Other than that, I feel like everyone else’s issues get debated in Washington except mine. Even though all men are ultimately feeble, the needs of all men are ignored.

What I learned that day in the classroom, took an additional six years to finally reach its full meaning. Like so many other things in life, you don’t realize what rights are until they are taken away. It’s as simple as someone in the grocery store insisting that I really want skim milk when I’m reaching for the two percent. Most people when they think about disability rights think of assisted care or special services. I don’t need that. I just want to get where I’m going unimpeded by a staircase, someone who thinks they know my limitations, or even an overbearing special service. Don’t give me add on’s until you’ve figured out how to fully give me my unalienable rights. This doesn’t mean I don’t have those rights yet. I still have them, America (or anywhere else I’ve lived) just hasn’t figured out how to respect them. Special care facilities, special education, even special funding is no replacement for freedom. Any revolutionary in American  history could’ve told you that. They could also tell you that sooner or later, that freedom eventually came. Even after living in the real world, I cannot give up hope that I will join them.

“I’m still waiting for an answer.” He looks at what we are all looking at… the clock. Our books are still being clutched to our chests in anticipation. “Miss Stevens, you’ve had your hand up for some time now.”

“Maybe the phrase all men expands as civil rights expands… Uh… It could’ve meant all males with property then but now it means all humans… or-or at least it should.”

“Go on.”

“It just expanded to incorporate more and more people until today, everyone is equal.”

“So the history of America-“

“The history of America is the story of the phrase ‘all men’ expanding.” He looked at me and nodded approval. The bell rang.

That’s what I said one rainy August morning when I was sixteen. It would take me years to learn the weight of what it meant.

The preceding is a narrative from Athena’s book The Perfect Sole due out this winter.

“What  kind of kooks would claim equality as a birthright? I mean the idea’s insane. Can anybody in this classroom, in 2000 give me any absolute proof that the man who wanted to wash my windshield for a buck this morning and Bill Gates have an equal chance in life? Anybody?” The teacher was already passionately walking around in circles and raising his voice. “You can’t do it, just look at the world.”

People who pass me on the street tend to see what I can’t do when really, they don’t know the half of what I can do. The idea that God made all men equal is great in theory, but hard to believe in practice, particularly at first glances of other people’s conditions. We live in a world, I came to find out later, where most people will define you by what your abilities are not, not what they are. Oddly enough, this way of defining humanity is precisely what splinters people so that we question the meaning of “all men.” By categorizing everyone so that “we are all different” there is no longer a solitary unit of mankind. If there was, nobody would question what was meant by “all men” in the first place. Thus we do not allow Jefferson’s ideal to be fully accomplished.

“I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what ‘all men’ means,” he says after a brief tangent about the Civil War. “Did the constitution change when we freed the slaves? Don’t think you are getting out of  here without answering the question. I don’t care if the bell does ring.”

I realize now, that my so called “America” ends with the first unramped sidewalk  I come across, regardless of what the law says. Certain doors, both metaphorically and physically, remain impossible to open and you can recite what lawmakers say until you are blue in the face, it doesn’t mean anything. If America is a place where people are “endowed by their creator to certain unalienable rights,” then you don’t realize how small America actually is when your are sitting in your high school U.S. History class in your wheelchair. You can’t know that, because all the same teachers see you everyday, they know you for you, meaning that there is nothing to prove, and every day you open every door, even if it means asking a janitor, in Spanish, how to unlock it. Then when you get through the graduation line and out into the public you’re shocked by how many variable friction door handles there are which, of course, you can’t hold onto, how many huge cracks there are in public sidewalks from endless cycles of ice freezing and melting, and how many oblivious people there are out there who don’t listen and can’t stand the thought of either themselves or me being independent . Outside of a classroom, American progress rarely goes in a straight line.

Jefferson’s promise was scrawled across the board in half dead dry erase marker. Circled were the words all men. Our first day back for junior year of high school, the man in a sports coat at the front wasted no time in making us think. He demanded to know,  who was classified under the term “all men?” Did that include women, minorities, every age, creed? What about the fact that when these men wrote the Constitution, they clearly didn’t mean slaves, or women, or for that matter any white male who didn’t have the good fortune to own land? I looked out of the window at the rain pelting down, as it did every August to discourage us from even wanting to be outside. Summer was, without a doubt, over.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the first time I realized that I was entitled to certain rights, even if society refused to grant them.

Speed ahead six years and I’m in the so called “real world”. And I have discovered that certain bus drivers refuse to let me on their buses, in public there is a very vocal, albeit small, amount of people who don’t think I’m educated enough to go shopping on my own, and I am constantly plagued by experts telling me that they know more about my life than I do. A concerned teacher is continuously calling me and insisting, not suggesting, that I move out of my newly unpacked flat on the fourteenth floor of a high rise I love and into one that’s on the ground floor for “health and safety reasons.” When I try to tell her that I couldn’t find a ground floor flat which suited my needs, she told me I “don’t know how to go about looking properly.”

At twenty three, I’m wondering how to go about declaring my independence from the people out there who can’t stand the thought of me being independent.

Being a disabled woman these day is like living in your own private American Revolution without the petticoats and bayonets. It means starting from square one and having to convince every person you meet that you are, indeed intelligent, capable of making your own decisions, and deserving of being listened to. It means finding subtle ways to display your capacities. There are numerous daily examples of this. Calling a waitress by their name on the tag alludes to the fact you can read. You bring up current events and dare to debate where disagreement is uncommon (citing your sources of course). And if you can see from the onset that a person is going to be over bearing, you avoid them at all possible costs, even at the expense of being slightly aloof.

Not that I knew any of this my first day of junior year. Sitting, listening to the bald man at the front, I thought the idea that God made all men equal was just a given to Americans, excluding the bigoted idiots of course. We had the Civil Rights movement, women’s rights marches, and every amended law in between so that America was the land of opportunity for all people. I never thought that I would be one of the ones still having to fight for Jefferson’s promise to be fulfilled.

Apparently, I’m a fire hazard.

              I was not made aware of this until I was rejected from an internship last week. The theatre I was looking to work at is up three flights of stairs above a local pub. I frequent the theatre all the time, climbing up the staircases and making my way into the theatre all the time, occasionally putting a little extra weight in my escort’s arm. I was aware of the stairs when I chose to apply for the position. I was equally aware that I could navigate the stairs by myself safely and effectively. The stairs were a non issue for me. It should have been likewise for the theatre company.

              But then again who am I to say what I am capable of?

I never asked for a reason as to why I didn’t get the position. The company willfully offered it on their own in an email. “Although we understand the nature of your disability allows you to climb stairs, we are concerned that in the event of a fire, you would impede safety for yourself and others in the building.” And that was the end of their reasoning.

        What’s most troubling about this situation is that it occurs at least three times per year. Because a building is not accessible, the potential employer hides behind health and safety law as a means of negating any form of disability discrimination law. To be able to escape the compensatory obligations of one law by hiding behind another law represents a failure on the part of lawmakers to form a cohesive code of conduct. Worse still, it prevents society from ever effectively progressing. During the 1950’s in America we found ourselves equally able to escape the law via other laws. We called this heinous situation the Jim Crow laws and they are looked upon now as a disgraceful barrier towards civil rights.

        What is, perhaps, the most disturbing about being called  an occupational fire hazard is that it takes values such as choice and independence out of my hands. No longer am I able to decide for myself when I am able to safely walk up and down a flight of stairs. Furthermore, achieving the goal of being able to do so is no longer enough. Rather, it is up to an outside source who knows very little about me and my condition, to decide what I am capable of. Outside sources, governing experts and pragmatic cautions overstepping their boundaries often result in putting more shackles on the individual, not safety  features.

        Assuming of course that the only reason I didn’t get the position was because I would prove to be a fire hazard in the workplace, I appreciate the theatre’s desire to keep me safe. But really, that decision should be my call. I know my capabilities and limitations. I weighed all those considerations before I applied for the job and they are not their choices to make. Oddly enough, if I prove to be such a fire hazard, I’m surprised they didn’t saying anything about me going up three flights of stairs to pay them money for a ticket. I guess occupational hazards only occur when the money flows in a certain direction. 

Written for the Las Vegas Review Journal September 3, 2009

              I was very frustrated when I read the LVRJ article this morning on yesterday’s county commissioners’ meeting. It stated that there was a “compromised reached” between the residents and developers at Mountain’s Edge regarding the building of future parks in the area. This is simply not true. The only compromise which was reached was pre-established between Commissioner Brager and the Focus Developers. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Review Journal seemed to miss the even bigger story, that democracy has become relative in Las Vegas.

              Brager stated during the hearing “I am willing to go against my constituents to do what I think is right.” Since when has this ever been the role of an elected official? Her job is to represent us and our wishes, not single handedly alter and mold her district into her visions of what it should be, no matter how noble her intentions are. Out of those of us that spoke at the meeting, there was only one man who agreed with her proposal, constituting less than five percent of the opinions heard. The other ninety five percent were in stark opposition. Commissioner Brager continued to insist that the majority were “wrong,” “foolish,” and even “unsympathetic” when we are no longer promised the parks we were guaranteed upon investing in our homes.

              For the past year Commissioner Brager has consistently treated her electorate like children, while doing everything possible to allow big business to squirm out of obligations to residents. Behind closed doors she agreed with Focus Developers to a scaled down version of the parks we were promised. The proposed plans at the meeting were ones we had never seen before, nor were there enough printed yesterday by Focus to allow ten people to examine the changes, let alone the 150+ who had to take time off from work to advocate for their homes.

            Commissioner Brager chooses to appease big business rather than advocate for the citizens she works for. To her, democracy is a relative term as is the word guarantee. Brager chooses to be a democratic leader only as long as her voters agree with what she thinks is best, otherwise she will become patronizing. She says she can’t understand why we would reject the parks the commission is giving us for free. What she fails to acknowledge is that we here at Mountain’s Edge aren’t asking for anything to be given, we are asking for her to help in ensuring we receive the parks we were guaranteed by Focus when we took out our home loans. In a commissioner, we don’t need a nursemaid, we need an advocate.

            Brager’s actions yesterday illustrated just how relative democracy has become these days. Her behavior is indicative of the feelings of superiority and expertise which has crept into every corner of our government. Brager was elected to be a civil servant, not to insult our intelligence with fallacies and back room deals. Her job is to express the will of her constituents, not chastise them. Failure to understand this, as many on the federal, state, and local level, now refuse to do, means that people like Commissioner Brager, may soon be out of a job. 

Last week’s death of Eunice Kennedy Shriver left the country mourning a wonderful woman. I was told about the loss in an email from a friend who then followed the news by saying “What an amazing woman. You will be just as inspirational, if not more, to millions some day, as well.” I know what she was trying to say. I love her for the encouragement she meant to send me. I just couldn’t help but be very frustrated by it.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver boldly started the Special Olympics during a time when there were no such opportunities for persons with conditions such as Downs Syndrome and Autism. This should be praised. Somehow, in the American Public’s mind, the mentally disabled population got transformed into the idea that a Special Olympic athlete could be anyone with any disability, be it physical or mental.

For much of my teenage years I was training as a Paralympic hopeful. The difference between the level of competition between the two is striking. Whereas the Special Olympics takes the attitude that “everyone here is a winner,” most people will come home from the Paralympics without an award. In the latter the competition is fierce, frightening, and very real. So, growing up training on the Great Lakes Navy Base in the middle of January, if a well meaning teacher told the class I was getting ready to participate in the Special Olympics the result was a tornado.

The confusion between the Special Olympics and the Paralympics disturbs me on two levels.  The first is that the latter seems to lack the media machine which the former has. (Or maybe it’s just the fact that the Special Olympics is blessed enough to have the name Kennedy behind it? Either way…) Most Americans are still clueless about what the Paralympics are. The games still seem to stand in the shadow of the Special Olympics. The fact that the confusion still exists is distressing to every Paralympic athlete I have ever known. It would be like telling Tiger Woods that he had to compete in the Pan-African Games when he isn’t African in the first place.

I also feel that the prominence of the Special Olympics has served to create the association in people’s minds that all disabilities are mental disabilities.  I find this consistent fallacy enraging and have done so ever since I was very small. This presumption is, in essence, the sort of mass funneling and insistent misclassification of all persons with disabilities. After being wrongfully shuffled off to special education classrooms and insults from strangers who assume that they know what’s better for me than I do, the association makes me more than a little on edge.

The work of Eunice Kennedy Shriver was brilliantly admirable. I just regret that it has seemed to cause so much miscommunication. For all the good that was done by her efforts, it created a very frustrating response in my own life. By assuming that all persons with disabilities fit into one specific category or could be served by one specific charity, those who thought they knew about the Special Olympics ignored the wealth of diversity and gifts that were right in front of them. Which is, I think, just the opposite of what Eunice Kennedy Shriver intended to do.

I’m disabled, I live in a socialist country, and I live among those very  strange people called artists. My monthly healthcare premium is exorbitantly high due to a preexisting condition. If anyone should be pro universal health care it should be me.

Obama’s current push towards free health care fills me with dread and little else.

Now there are some healthcare practices which everybody should have for free. And if there ever could be such a thing as free universal health care the world would doubtless be a much better place. But on this planet, the terms “free” and “universal” are very often mutually exclusive.  

If someone could just answer a few questions that I have, I would feel much better. The first is: in a government hospital, who do you sue when malpractice occurs?  I only know to ask this question because I have two childhood friends who became disabled from blatant medical malpractice in an army hospital. The problem, of course, comes in when you’re looking for a malpractice lawyer willing to try and sue the US government. And even if you are fortunate enough to fine the one self sacrificing attorney willing to jeopardize his career to prosecute his country’s government, what makes anyone think that the courts will be imperial? In a world where politicians think they are also doctors, who heals the justice system?

People have often reminded me when I bring up this question that I am ‘focusing on the exceptional situation, and the exceptional situation will always be the exception  not the rule.’ Maybe because I consider myself to be an exceptional person, I find this concern valid. Problem is, I don’t know anyone who isn’t “exceptional.”

This ‘exceptional argument’ leads me directly into my second question: when government starts making medical care decisions, who is going to keep politics out of the operating room?

Any healthcare system is going to be working with the problem of limited resources and limitless ailments. Any medical professional that engages in the battle  for health is admirably fighting a loosing  and highly inefficient war.  Government, on the other hand, is inevitably about pragmatism and finding the best answers for the greatest numbers of people. Everyone forgets that ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ focuses on being efficient and that such smooth running bureaucracies cannot  leave room for exceptional people.

And so, inevitably, when you add politics and government to medicine, everything becomes about cost and value. Limited resources, such as beds, will be  dived up according to which life needs to be saved for the greater good and which ones will be a drain on society.

In America’s national healthcare debate, no one is bringing up that there was a society which tried universal healthcare back in the 1930’s. It was Germany and it lead directly to  the Holocaust via Action T4. For those out there who know their history and still think I am leading to an exceptional leap of logic, let me ask: do you really think that Nazi leaders were all that different  from us? Are we not, as humans, made from the same stuff?

I really don’t have a problem with universal heath care in America as  long as someone could address these issues rather than repeating an ideal. But any attempts to define the limits and concerns about the system are met with harsh accusations of conspiracy theory. These are logical questions  not being addressed, which makes me wonder: what  else will be ignored in the name of pragatism? 

“Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”

As I grow older, it can sometimes be an increasing disappointment. In my quieter moments I can hear an ongoing mantra, as consistent as the clicking of a train on the railroad tracks across from the neighborhood, as it grows into the ebb and flow of the nightly schedule. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, the world wasn’t supposed to be like this. “

I’ve heard my friends say this numerous times, but not the way I mean. They say it in reflection of poverty, unrest, and fragility. And I can see where they are coming from.  When we were children, we weren’t expecting the very harsh reality of a fallen world. But there’s something even more sinister lurking in this society. Nobody ever told me that people will rest on your ability and use it as an excuse not to foster their own. 

I don’t know why this is surprising, it was evident for me to see in the grade school math class where we were forced to work in groups. All of the sudden, I had so many friends that  kids were lining up to sit at my table. And everyone else’s grades shot up, except mine. Eventually, the smarter kids in the class would get fed up and try to sit together, only to have the teacher claim that the new seating arrangement made her “uncomfortable” and that she would have to change it.

In recent years I have witnessed the death of personal responsibility. Maybe it was dead when I was a kid, but I was taught that assuming the mantle of personal responsibility was the first step in protecting one’s precious personal freedom. You cannot be free and still remain dependent on anyone, nor can you be free and be forced  to save others who do not value their own freedom. The now consistent demands of government and intelligentsia that those who have succeeded should now share their success with those who haven’t even tried only discourages success. What is the point of moving ahead if it only guarantees another chain around your ankles? Why bother trying to earn more money if it’s only going to force you into a higher tax bracket? Why take personal responsibly for yourself if it forces you to become responsible for everyone else as well?

Thus we breed irresponsibility. 

Finding someone who loves his freedom is becoming next to impossible, and thus have ended a good many potential relationships on my side. Someone who recognizes the intrinsic value of his freedom can only then know the vast and irreplaceable value and potential of any human life. I couldn’t see myself with anyone who didn’t appreciate that his life and freedom was connected directly to his actions. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who didn’t love being free. 

There’s got to be some people left who recognize that the motor of the world is man’s mind and that are willing to hold themselves to the standards it takes to ensure progress.  I’m not that last person to love my life and my freedom, am I? If I am, it explains a lot. Now I know why people find me intimidating. But these are visions that I cannot give up in a world which demands self sacrifice from its most successful. As much as I am hopeful about finding these men, if I don’t find them, I cannot compromise  and bring in someone who does not value his life and his freedom enough to keep his standards high. 

Life wasn’t supposed to be like this. Opportunity and innovation was to go as far as a human mind was willing the pave the road forward. We were never meant to be held back by a by a government that was there to protect us. But the people who refuse to recognize their own value cannot ever recognize mine. And if that means it will be while before I find a partner to meet my standards, that is fine. I can wait.

As long as I don’t have someone, who encourages dependency, tied to me, I’ll be fine. 

“Hello, remember Gandhi? When are folks gonna realize that kicking young people off trains is a bad idea? It can only lead to trouble.”  - Athena Stevens

“Sorry, we can’t get you this one either,” he says to me for the third time in a row. It’s rush hour in London, a time that can only be classified as every man for himself. It’s a phenomenon which I can’t even complain about as, during the hours of seven to ten in the morning, I’m as savage as any of my ablie-bodied peers and nearly twice as fast. The past three years have given me a post doctorate degree in defensive driving. I weave in and out of bodies better than most footballers looking for a breakaway. Morning rush hour leaves no excuse to be late as the best thing you can do is pick up your feet and keep moving, 

Unless you are reliant on public transit. 

“Why not?” I contest back to the rail worker. “Seems to me there’s enough room to get on.”

“No, no. We need to wait for the next train. People like you really shouldn’t be out  and about during this hour anyway.”

There it is. I was wondering when I was going to find the arrogant chink in his seemingly paternal armor. I wasn’t supposed to be going to work with half the city of London. What possible appointment could I have at this time of day which would be of any importance? Why would I have a schedule to keep so tight that I actually spent my own money to buy a more expensive ticket to travel during the peak periods of the day? What could it even matter if I was late for work? 

Transit is a very strange business to be in. The things that can go awry while going from point A to point B is almost infinite once you add the Human Element. The idea is simple enough,  but in the process of trying to get everyone where they want to go, transportation has become the battleground which nearly always precedes the war of social justice. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, she challenged the whole of the American racial hierarchy. When Gandhi was thrown off a South African train, it caused one man to shift his entire world view, thereby shifting the world. And in the 1970’s the disability rights movement began by people chaining themselves to London busses in order to demand equal access. Clearly, we’re still in the trenches on that one.  

History should have taught us by now, refusal to give people reliable transport is a surefire way to start trouble. 

“Put me on this train now, please,” I slowly say between clinched teeth desperately trying to rail in my temper.   “I need to get to work.” He doesn’t move. The train passes. I am now officially late. 

The movement towards civilization has been founded on the movement of people  getting to where they want to go. Without the rails, roads, the very veins of the city our opportunities are limited to what’s just past our front door. For many, this limitation continues to be unmoved. In a world where we assume that just because there’s a little wheelchair symbol on the map means that everything is accessible, we forget that attitudes often stand more immovable than any concrete barrier. 

“So where do you work sweetie?” He’s trying to get on my good side. I’m now trying to call my boss. 

“I’m a consultant for the transit system here in town.” The truth slipped out so easily that it almost sounded sarcastic. 

“I bet we can get you on the next train.”

Yeah, funny how that works. 

As the next train rolled up he put down the ramp with a smile, and I thanked him by name. The outside began to flash past in an ever increasing cadence. I was on my way and almost on time. I thought about how far this world had to go in learning to accept the frailty of the human condition. It is a place that no motor will take us, save the drive that comes from knowing that all men are made equal;  the ones who have refused to forget that, even while simply commuting, have done a great deal to change the world. 

In the list of the few teachers I didn’t get along with, there has been one name that has come back to my mind in recent months. He was loud, obnoxious, and arrogant, always interrupting students the second we got off course. He used to strut, yes strut, in front of a classroom full of seventeen year-olds, waiting to write the next discussion point on the board. Looking back, he was the only teacher I remember from high school who dared to grade papers in red pen. I’m sure I had more teachers like him, but this Economics teacher was fiercely Capitalist, supremely self-righteous, and made Ayn Rand look like a soccer mom. 

These days, I wish he taught kindergarden. 

Why do we insist on not teaching our children the basics of Economics? In between the Maths, Sciences, and Phonics, all the building blocks which are supposed lead to a full functioning member of society, there is no time to learn about the basic bedrock of what holds society together: money. The word problems in arithmetic class aren’t enough. “Sally sells seashells at seventy cents” only serves to teach young people the value of numbers, not the value of money. We give them no concept about how taxes work or how money stabilizes a society until they a practically full fledged members themselves, and even then the value of money is rarely discussed. In the affluent public schools we teach that charity is done by giving money away, not by acting on the problem. We teach to give to the poor without question, rather than teaching that even alms can be an investment. And in doing all this we teach that the best way to solve a problem is by throwing more money at it, rather than seeing where the money is already going.

This form of financial education only serves to create a bigger schism between classes. We divide the world into haves and have nots, keeping the latter dependent on the former. Resentment naturally becomes a two way street.

There is a common thought, I suppose, that often leads young people astray in the first place: “Let kids be kids,” we say, rightfully protecting the innocence of youth.  But there comes a point where a chick has to battle with his own strength against the reality of the shell protecting him. If you break the egg for him, the chick never develops his own strength and dies in a relatively short  time. To intentionally keep a child ignorant about the basics of life represents a grave failure as a parent.

If you think I’m overreacting, I’ll make it concrete. I recently spoke with a young woman who is currently getting her masters. She graduated from one of the top liberal arts colleges a few years ago at the top of her class. And she was horrified to learn that when she makes a deposit in the bank, the actual cash doesn’t just sit there until she is ready to take it out. She didn’t understand what it meant to be FDIC insured and had never heard of some stocks going up in a recession.

How is it this student went to some of the best schools in the world and managed to miss this information not only in Economics class but also in History, Math, Government, Art History…

We should be teaching the basic principals of saving, credit, and interest from the day children are able to understand that money exists. We should be teaching teenagers how to follow investments in a mock stock exchange competition. And nobody should be allowed to graduate high school without knowing how to do taxes, set up a long term savings account, and handle APR. Failure to do so creates a system that combines two of the most crippling elements in the world: fear and guilt. Fear, from not knowing how to handle money, and guilt from having it in the first place. 

My teacher was a man who, sadly, didn’t have many of the qualities a good teacher has. I’m sure he drove the school administration nuts. (More power to him for that!) But he understood the fact that if people didn’t appreciate and even respect the value of money from a young age, economic chaos was certain. 

As I remember this teacher’s behavior whenever a student finally conceded that he was right, I hope we don’t give him a chance to strut during this modern economic period.