Flying Today-Comfort or Wall-E?

On my way to Madrid, I was stunned by the amount of “screen time” the passengers were subject to.  I had not been on an overseas flight in years, and the screen time had definitely increased.  First, there was music playing while we waited for the plane to take off. Then, the safety instructions were on the screens. After that, there were three movies shown for a seven-hour flight. Watching the movies definitely made the time go by, but being stuck sitting in one small spot watching TV and being fed for seven hours felt like being in a comfort-cage.  To make a movie-to-movie connection, I felt like one of the future humans in Wall-E, who never move out of their chairs, ignore the people around them, continually watch their virtual friends on a screen, and drink all their food through a straw in a to-go cup.

School Uniforms (If only they could all be British!)

School uniforms are a controversial topic in America. Some people think they keep the students focused, some people think they repress them. My purpose is not to discuss whether students should have uniforms or not-it is why the uniforms look the way they do and why schools decide to have their students wear them. 

The look of school uniforms is reminiscent of old-fashioned English school children. The uniforms are commonly trousers, button down shirt, tie and sweater or sweater vest for boys; and a polo shirt under a plaid jumper with knee socks for girls. Rarely, girls have a pant option. This dress aesthetic is very conservative, traditional, country club-esque. Children do not usually dress this way unless they are going to church or a polo match perhaps. The use of plaid in most uniforms is also a link to the motherland of Great Britain as plaid was invented there. The look of these clothes tells you that they are little ladies and gentlemen who are ready to be serious and studious, and that they are either really rich, or really poor.


The use of school uniforms in the United States had been limited to private school children in the past. Now, some public schools and almost all charter schools require them. Seeing the stereotypical rich, white child in a starched uniform told you the class and status of the child and their family immediately. This can be seen today around the country in the most prestigious of schools. The progressive, independent schools never have uniforms, and although the children are just as rich, the families want to promote individuality-in contrast the child might get to dress him or herself. The social class is rich and intellectual.

Public schools with uniforms generally have them as an option, or as an unenforced rule, usually so the children cannot tell who is rich or poor by their clothes-but since it is unenforced you might see children in regular clothes, children in half-uniform and children in full uniform all together. The idea is that the school cares, but it is the parent’s choice.

Charter schools are under the mission of providing a private school education as a free public school. They are a business that must have a successful product (smart kids) to stay in business. Part of this is to create and uphold the right image to attract the customer (families/press/donors). So you take poor, black kids and dress them as their rich white counterparts dress for school. The uniform is not optional. The design of the uniform for very young children can actually impede them from learning (ties that are played with, belts that are hard to undo causing lots of accidents, girls not having pants and having to constantly tell them to sit/play so their underwear do not show) but as the director says, “The uniforms just pull on the donors heart-strings.”

Although children all over the world wear school uniforms as an alternative to play clothes, New York City always has to take it to the next level. For better or worse.

Living Together vs. Going it Alone

The culture of the east and west is different in the obvious ways- food, dress, language, arts, etc. What is more interesting is the invisible ideology in the west and east that shapes the minds and lives of all in the culture-without most people being aware of it.

In chapter 3 “Living Together vs. Going it Alone” of Richard E. Nisbett's book Geography of Thought, the author outlines the basic differences between eastern and western ideology. Westerners are taught that individualism is good, individuals are in control of the choices they make, personal achievement is honored, people want to feel good about themselves, people want equality in relationships and that rules apply to everyone the same.

In contrast to this, the eastern ideology is to honor group goals and harmonious social relations over individual goals. Individual distinctiveness and equality is not desirable. Everyone knows their role and obligation and carries them out for the greater good. In Chinese there is no word for “individualism”, the closest word is the one for “selfishness”. The amount of western selfishness I have seen is stunning. Vandalism, rudeness, capitalism, healthcare, etc! I saw a Japanese movie once where a mother and child were on a train and the baby touched the window. The mother wipes off the fingerprints before they left. The thinking is that if there are things that a person does that annoy others or makes their lives more difficult, they should stop them so they can fit in.

The way these differences affect family and the structure of growing up is very interesting. Western babies sleep in their own rooms or beds to promote independence, while in the east babies commonly sleep in the same bed and they are always with their mothers growing up. In the article a survey is referred to where they asked eastern and western people how much they wanted to be with their mothers, and the easterners wanted “I want to be with my mother all the time” as a choice. This feeds into living with multiple generations of family in the same home, compared with the western way of each child having their own room, each family having their own house-even the elderly generation living alone in a house or nursing home.

The western adolescent is greatly affected by the notion of choice and freedom to live however they see fit. They are an individual and can be anything they want. The eastern adolescent has a much more limited sense of possibilities, but more security in the future. The parent praises the child’s every act of independence, the adolescent feels overwhelmed with choice, “Who am I? Do I want to be like my parents? How should I dress and act? What will I be?” The adolescent usually rebels against the parents and does the opposite to prove their independence. The parents don’t like this, but they know it is “good”. The pressure to be individual and different from the family base causes a lot of discord and can break families apart-geographically and emotionally. Usually the rebellion dust settles and the young man or woman becomes more like their family–and more like themselves-again. This process affects the whole structure of families in the west, but is not the same in the east. 

It is sad that each culture is so extreme, when a blend would be ideal. People would grow in a balanced way with choice and family structure. These ideologies affect the micro to the macro, and with the global culture can have very positive and negative implications.