Entry 5

"I ask the driver where he's from. He says he's from Afghanistan. Turning in his seat, he gestures at the street and shrugs. 'if you don't, as an American, begin give these kids the kind of education that you give the kids of Donald Trump, you're asking for disaster."

This quote really resonated with me because as Americans, I feel that we are both acutely aware and blissfully unaware of the global community's eyes. A child devises a master plan to get away with a wrong, and their mother sniffs out the mischief in a matter of seconds. American government is much the same. We carry on with a sense of cavalier arrogance and we literally bathe in our decadence, meanwhile the world is observing us with the same skepticism found in the eyes of American inner-city children from coast to coast.

The quote also struck me because the one who spoke it was from a country that exemplifies a truly unequal education system, if not a lot less subtle. A classroom without a single female is much more striking to one’s conscience then perhaps another without much diversity, and certainly without any information regarding social class. Still, this man, a taxi driver from another country, could point out the pedagogic injustice with ease. He even provides a comparison to Donald Trump, or the wealthy, to solidify his argument.

Even after over twenty years since he made that statement, his opinion still holds merit; perhaps even more so after America’s war left his home country in disrepair, never mind the education system.