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Tuesday, June 01, 2004 High School, Education, and Marriage I was wandering around Classmates.com on a whim--even though there are precious few from high school that I'd want to keep up with--when I stumbled upon their survey page. The idea is that you answer a few questions yourself and then you can see how your results matched up with others from your graduating class. Some of the results were definitely interesting, especially the highest education level and martial status numbers; they should be fairly accurate since it looks like around half of my class is registered with the site. Thus far, 34.6% of my class finished high school and went no further. They didn't even make it through some college or technical school. This was surprising, but then again many of my classmates weren't the most ambitious of people. In an interview for a documentary on Michigan schools and statewide testing mandates, the current superintendent described the South Redford School District as blue-collar and multi-ethnic. (Read: black and white. I only knew of two other Asians in my high school during the time I was there, not counting my brother. Why is it socially acceptable to have a group entirely comprised of African-Americans consider themselves "multi-ethnic"? What about Asians and Hispanics and the rest? Or do we not count?) While it may be blue-collar, that shouldn't preclude the possibility of higher education--there are decent community colleges in the area. Only 7.7% of my class has finished their bachelors. Oddly enough, the same percentage reported that they'd completed their masters. Impressive--that'd be a masters within five years of high school graduation. The truly shocking statistic: 7.9% of my classmates say they are divorced. That'd be around sixteen people. And I remind you we only graduated five years ago and no one--at least to my knowledge or that of my friends--was married while we were in high school. Even the oft-touted 50% divorce rate statstic hadn't prepared me for that one. But perhaps it shouldn't be so astounding; apparently the first year of marriage is the hardest because it requires the most change, the integration of two lives. We as a culture tend to make one of two mistakes in thinking about marriage: One, we take it too loosely, vowing "till death do us part" but preparing ourselves for the "what ifs" of life. Primarily, "what if we fall out of love?" As though we just "fall" in love. As though we have no control over it whatsoever. Love is an emotion, yes, but it is also a commitment. Otherwise our vows mean nothing. Two, we place too much emphasis on the other person being everything, the One who is supposed to fulfill every need--which no one person could possibly do. And it doesn't help that so often the support structures for a married couple could be better. Where are the older couples who will show them how to stay together? Another problem is many couples become consumed with themselves after the wedding, neglecting their friends until those supports weaken. Or they move to a new city and have trouble integrating. Part of the problem there is we don't emphasize community, especially after college, the way we should. We need communities, but we've isolated ourselves instead. Suburbia doesn't help this, and neither does postmodern society in general. When are we going to change? ^ Top | 10:59 PM | | | 
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