Christopher Schroeder

Category: national

  • More Public Media Concerns

    More Public Media Concerns

    I was relieved that WBEZ ended its fall pledge drive yesterday and resumed its regular programming. However, I was reminded even before the broadcast began of my Chicago Public Media concerns.

    I had to listen to two sponsor spots on my smart speakers on my smart speakers. Then I lost count of the number of these and other disruptions such as show promos and apparent advertising — one lauded an antacid? — before I couldn’t listen anymore.

    I didn’t clock the minutes but couldn’t endure any more disruptions. I had spent too much time listening to something other than news, which is the primary reason I listen, and support, public media in the mornings and afternoons.

    I also predicted based upon experience that some of these segments from both NPR and WBEZ would be recycled for afternoon and weekend broadcasts. And I’ve begun to notice more excerpted podcasts on these news shows than original reporting.

    I realize that WBEZ and NPR are confronting challenging financial circumstances even without the incessant pledge drive reminders. I also still am, and have long been, a public media supporter, and long for a government-funded approach as is used in other countries.

    I’m still surprised that NPR and WBEZ hadn’t prepared for these federal funding cuts given how often conservatives have threatened to do so, which seems almost irresponsible. I’m moreover bewildered by the seeming inconsistency between the impression presented in the recent Chicago Sun-Times wraparound for example and these and other experiences, including ones with support staff and upper management, since these funding reductions and even earlier.

    I’ve volunteered for an upcoming usability test for < chicago.com >, which is its latest initiative. I’m skeptical that Chicagoans are seeking a synthesis of social media and reliable reporting but might misunderstand the scope and goals of this initiative.

    I just hope that Chicago Public Media can restore my confidence in it, and convince me to reverse my own financial support reductions, soon.

  • Why We Work and What We Need

    Why We Work and What We Need

    Don’t retire, says oncologist, bioethicist, and Affordable Care Act advisor Zeke Emanuel in his new book. This recommendation, which is considered his most controversial, reflects the reality that jobs provide purpose, structure, and socialization, which must be replaced by those who do decide to retire or otherwise leave the workforce.

    Emanuel reportedly wrote this book as a result of his frustration with the wellness industry that he argues offers unproven, and expensive, health recommendations, such as the recent peptide craze. Emanuel instead wanted to provide a science-based, and straightforward, approach to healthy living, such as sufficient and satisfying sleep, healthy and balanced diet, and adequate physical activity.

    Emanuel isn’t wrong about the part jobs can play in preventing cognitive decline. However, he overlooks the precarity and other risks of anchoring purpose, structure, and socialization to employment for anyone, including older workers.

    Perhaps this suggestion reflects the challenge of find these elsewhere as my retirement experiences revealed. Other retirees seem to have similar challenges finding encore careers, which are often more about impact instead of income.

    Such pursuits needn’t be as elaborate as the ones at Harvard for example or Stanford where participants spend a year and $50,000-$60,000. Still, more options, or sources of structure, purpose, and socialization, need to be available for everyone, including older people.

    Otherwise, our society risks more widespread cognitive decline, especially given the numbers of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. These might feel more pressure to stay in jobs, and spending the one life they get doing something that should be a means, and never an end.

    That could actually apply to all Emanuel’s recommendations as well.

  • Once Again

    Once Again

    Yoni Appelbaum, an Atlantic editor, asks in a recent article about American history in terms of its past and future.

    In it, Appelbaum highlights the need for a “coherent national story” as a way of surviving our politically polarized times. He explains that a more mainstream work-in-progress narrative he reports is contested by a “settler-colonial,” and white supremacy account, which appeals to the left, and a timeless American values version, which appeals to the right. He concludes by reporting that some consider this lack of a shared story as the beginning of the end while others hope that such a possibility will motivate Americans to renew its commitment to a more perfect union.

    Appelbaum’s survey of competing narratives might be a useful way of understanding contemporary political conflicts, but its central insight about the need for a shared perspective isn’t news, or new. Similar observations were offered in the middle of the 1980s culture wars by E. D. Hirsch Jr., who used his literacy research to challenge American education.

    Hirsch, who was alarmed by the state of literacy, confirmed conclusions about comprehension and context. These led him to challenge both educational pluralism, or the common belief that locally-relevant content should be taught in schools, and educational formalism, or the widespread belief that reading, writing, and presumably thinking are skills that can be separated from content.

    Schools instead should teach cultural literacy, or a shared cultural context, especially in English and history that like math and science need a canonical curriculum. Such an approach, which would challenge cultural fragmentation, would also increase students’ reading and writing abilities and even potentially their social participation.

    Hirsch’s perspective has problems. He oversimplifies both the politics of cultural literacy for example and differences among ways of reading, writing, and thinking (i.e., his “linguistic literacy”), which are better understood as cultural practices.

    Nonetheless, Hirsch seems genuinely concerned about a more equitable society. He both recognizes the value of cultural diversity and acknowledges the existence dominant culture without defending it. He also argues that a cultural literacy approach is especially useful to ethnic and economic minorities, who are less likely to be exposed to this dominant culture outside of schools and as a result are more likely to be marginalized and excluded if not introduced to it within schools.

    Hirsch in other words argues for a shared perspective, which he calls cultural literacy and what every American needs to know, as the basis for understanding each other and participating in society. In doing so, he suggests that this perspective, which goes beyond a shared historical narrative, is a challenge he was confronting in the 1980s culture wars that we’re still apparently debating today.

    Hirsch’s account also alludes to a bigger issue. Both Appelbaum and he frame their concerns as American, but Hirsch’s account of his and others’ research suggest that these could quite possibly be human concerns, ones that might be more evident in culturally diverse communities and societies but nonetheless are relevant to human comprehension and communication.

    Shared cultural contexts might be necessary for humans to understand each other and collaborate together, in which case these challenges could be much older, and at the same time ones that our ancestors have managed for millennia.