Oh, yes - good point that not all of Appalachia is like this. We have our spectrum of wealth. Our houses with vaulted ceilings, our doctors and lawyers and even our Rockefellers. None of it really resembles much of my life growing up, IMO... but then I wonder if some of you, if you were able to see video footage of my childhood, wouldn't think that it was appalling and heart-breaking. We were certainly poor.
And about rural people being less-educated that people in cities, do you mean inner cities? I'm thinking that those children are being failed in much the same way. I mention this because it shows the ideas that we hold about places... when one person thinks "NYC" they think about Manhattan, huge lofts, etc. Another person might think about underserved populations of children growing up in neighborhoods where gangs are prevalent, literacy is down, drug use is rampant, and survival is more important than getting an A on a test.
And the problem is not that it's a rural area, really. I think that rural living can be very fulfilling and healthy. Even in very isolated areas. Rural living is, to me, the ideal! There are other things on top of the isolation that is inherent in rural living (and exploitation by people who are profiting from the area is one of them).
One thing about the pull yourselves up by your bootstraps idea is that it is rather flip. There are many, many people who would see a person who was suffering from clinical depression, and they would say: Cheer up and get over it. And they'd find it difficult to understand why that person chose to stay miserable. My uncle, when his wife told him she felt like she didn't know who she was, that she needed to find herself, said, "There you are. Now you're found." And he SERIOUSLY thought that he was being reasonable in that response. But obviously he was missing a lot, and it bordered on obtuse.
There IS a level of defeatism that permeates the area. I do not ever deny that, and it can be very frustrating. A lot don't try, because trying is pointless in their understanding. And saying "get over it and make it happen for you!" is analogous to telling a person who was depressed to quit being sad. On a fundamental level, yes, that is what needs to happen. But goal-setting isn't something that is even possible for them, they haven't learned to do it. A lot of us do it naturally, not realizing that at some point, it was modeled for us, explained to us, whatever. I think that for some people in these situations, goal-setting is a luxury... their only goal is surviving one day to the next, and getting whatever pleasure/comfort they can along the way, even if that is just a Mountain Dew.
Working as a mentor for rural families, one of the things we spent almost all our time on was learning to set goals, to even figure out what is wanted from life. That right there is HUGE. Because without that, you live a default life, taking whatever work comes your way, doing what people around you are doing, doing what it seems is your "lot in life." And then to begin to work to show that these goals might be POSSIBLE, that there are steps that they can take, and to see barriers as something to work around and not "Oh, see, I knew this was for Other People." It is hard. It is so difficult, and this is working one-on-one with families who have sought you out to help them towards self-sufficiency (independent, off TANF, secure). They've already overcome the first barrier of "this is how it has to be because this is how it IS" (which is the downside of the intense pragmatism of the area) and it is still not an overnight shift to "I can do anything! The world is my oyster!" It's a process.
My issue with the woman who got her GED is that ... she worked SO HARD once she had that goal, she worked and pushed to accomplish it. Once she committed, she was on it. Hopefully that will help her to see that she can set and achieve other goals... but because that goal was told to her by someone else, and externally motivated (I think mandated?) it's not the same as having the skill of saying, "what do I want?" and then "How can I get there?" I hope that she gets the support that she needs to do just that. AND more importantly, IMO, I hope her daughters take what she's accomplished and learned, and build on it in their own lives.
And about rural people being less-educated that people in cities, do you mean inner cities? I'm thinking that those children are being failed in much the same way. I mention this because it shows the ideas that we hold about places... when one person thinks "NYC" they think about Manhattan, huge lofts, etc. Another person might think about underserved populations of children growing up in neighborhoods where gangs are prevalent, literacy is down, drug use is rampant, and survival is more important than getting an A on a test.
And the problem is not that it's a rural area, really. I think that rural living can be very fulfilling and healthy. Even in very isolated areas. Rural living is, to me, the ideal! There are other things on top of the isolation that is inherent in rural living (and exploitation by people who are profiting from the area is one of them).
One thing about the pull yourselves up by your bootstraps idea is that it is rather flip. There are many, many people who would see a person who was suffering from clinical depression, and they would say: Cheer up and get over it. And they'd find it difficult to understand why that person chose to stay miserable. My uncle, when his wife told him she felt like she didn't know who she was, that she needed to find herself, said, "There you are. Now you're found." And he SERIOUSLY thought that he was being reasonable in that response. But obviously he was missing a lot, and it bordered on obtuse.
There IS a level of defeatism that permeates the area. I do not ever deny that, and it can be very frustrating. A lot don't try, because trying is pointless in their understanding. And saying "get over it and make it happen for you!" is analogous to telling a person who was depressed to quit being sad. On a fundamental level, yes, that is what needs to happen. But goal-setting isn't something that is even possible for them, they haven't learned to do it. A lot of us do it naturally, not realizing that at some point, it was modeled for us, explained to us, whatever. I think that for some people in these situations, goal-setting is a luxury... their only goal is surviving one day to the next, and getting whatever pleasure/comfort they can along the way, even if that is just a Mountain Dew.
Working as a mentor for rural families, one of the things we spent almost all our time on was learning to set goals, to even figure out what is wanted from life. That right there is HUGE. Because without that, you live a default life, taking whatever work comes your way, doing what people around you are doing, doing what it seems is your "lot in life." And then to begin to work to show that these goals might be POSSIBLE, that there are steps that they can take, and to see barriers as something to work around and not "Oh, see, I knew this was for Other People." It is hard. It is so difficult, and this is working one-on-one with families who have sought you out to help them towards self-sufficiency (independent, off TANF, secure). They've already overcome the first barrier of "this is how it has to be because this is how it IS" (which is the downside of the intense pragmatism of the area) and it is still not an overnight shift to "I can do anything! The world is my oyster!" It's a process.
My issue with the woman who got her GED is that ... she worked SO HARD once she had that goal, she worked and pushed to accomplish it. Once she committed, she was on it. Hopefully that will help her to see that she can set and achieve other goals... but because that goal was told to her by someone else, and externally motivated (I think mandated?) it's not the same as having the skill of saying, "what do I want?" and then "How can I get there?" I hope that she gets the support that she needs to do just that. AND more importantly, IMO, I hope her daughters take what she's accomplished and learned, and build on it in their own lives.
