Getting your high school student ready for college

I went through this process as a single parent and it's not easy, but here are some ideas that helped us. Hopefully they'll help you as well.

Check out The Colleges That Change Lives consortium.  There are about 40 participating colleges, and the concept grew out of education columnist Loren Pope's bestseller about what these schools offer — a focused commitment to the student; smaller class sizes; programming and support for out-of-classroom experiences; an academic and communal experience that transforms the student in positive ways. Their tuition ranges vary as well. Just because they're not part of the Ivy League brand does not make them inferior by any means. My own child attended one of the CTCL schools; it lived up to its promises. (Contact me if you want details).

When you attend college fairs or make campus visits, prompt your child to get to know faculty/staff key to the admissions process, not just pick up brochures. Have your student dress for the occasion as he would for a job interview; you wouldn't believe how many kids show up for college fairs dressed for a day at the beach (in shorts and flipflops). When particular colleges capture his interest, have your child exchange business cards with those key individuals, and send a follow-up note that thanks the faculty/staff member for their time, and includes more pointed questions. As with sales touchpoints, this helps to build the relationship. And trust this: very few teenagers take this approach, so if your child does this, he'll stand out. And he should ask questions, because it's four years of his life that he'll be investing with them, not just the other way around.

You can create a card for your child (see illustration) that profiles him as a candidate. Leave the GPA blank so he can handwrite the latest as he gets deeper into the process. Include AP classes, SAT scores, unique capabilities, anything you want flagged for attention. Again, very few teens do this, so he'll stand out.

You'll be able to sense when a school has a smart enrollment management strategy. For starters, it'll be more than "bodies in/bodies out." A ho-hum, lackluster admissions representative is a poor showing. The admissions counselor of my daughter's college was enthused, engaging, and extremely proactive about recruiting her. They traded emails that addressed her questions about life at the college. Another incentive: if she applied by October of her senior year, they'd waive the application fee. When each college charges fifty to a hundred bucks in application fees, this is a big help, especially if your child applies to more than three or four colleges. 

You might also check out the FAFSA website (www.fafsa.gov). That's the Federal financial aid resource. In January of your child's senior year in high school, you'll want to fill out an application. It's allocated on a first-come-first-served basis: the sooner you do this in the year, the better your options (ie, January versus July). Do it every year your kid's in college. Do not worry that the info you give them may be subject to change. The financial aid offices of the college will fine-tune as your child's circumstances become more imminent. 

Being a transfer student might ease the process. We didn't do this but a lot of families have their kids attend the first two years of college in a local school close to home, to benefit from in-state cost breaks. This also helps the child adjust gradually to living away from home, and affords the family a couple more years to save for tuition. Then they have their child transfer to the college of their choice, because sometimes it's easier to get in as a transfer. This isn't always a desirable solution, but a solid alternative.

Have your child create a web site or social media presence showcasing special talents or interests. For example, is your child eager to study creative writing? Every writer in the world is urged to create a platform, and this will show she's savvy about social media, professional about her passion, and knows how to communicate her ideas to a larger audience. She can also start a Facebook page for the same purpose. With every new blog post on her web site, she can also post it to her Facebook page, Tweet it, even load it with images onto Pinterest. It doesn't have to be perfect: just make it exist with a professional tone. She can then encourage admissions folks to visit those sites.

About social media.... After he applies, the colleges will likely have a work-study student check out his social media. This is a great opportunity: have your child synch up his social media identity to be consistent with how he wants colleges to perceive him. You wouldn't believe how many kids apply and say, "I'm a passionate student of international relations and read The Economist weekly," but their Facebook pages are riddled with behaviors like "F**k you, man, I'm going to blow it out my *** this weekend!! KEGGER!!!" True story. Don't let a deal-killer come from temporary lapses in judgment.

Putting together the next college class is intentionally creating a new community, not just about grades but about who each freshman is as an individual. Sorry to be longwinded, but this can be a daunting process and I wanted to "pay it forward." If I could get through this, then you can too.

Twilight's Last Gleaming: The Role of 9/11

A photo montage with a portrait of each 9/11 victim

I lost no one on 9/11/01, but every year I try to read about some of the victims — who they were, where they were in their lives, who they left behind. There was the firefighter with the older-model Wagoneer that was constantly breaking down. The EMT who should've had a day off, but turned on his heel to run back into the first smoking tower. The bright-eyed middle-schooler on her first flight to another city. 9/11 gave us a new "Spoon River" anthology of lives, cruelly interrupted .

My father was in New York City that day with a Chinese film crew, and I had three or four friends traveling in commercial jetliners like the one that cartwheeled and vaporized over a Pennsylvania farm field. My family and I tried all day to reach Dad, were finally relieved to learn he was unharmed. My loved ones were inconvenienced by 9/11, and their safe return enables me to feel a level of empathy for those who did lose loved ones that day. For several hours, that possibility had been ours. 9/11 refreshed a public component in our sense of empathy: caring for the plight of strangers is not a bizarre thing to do.

Empathy being a vital part of public grief

There are diverse attitudes about 9/11, one being that only New Yorkers have any right to mourn it, since the attack epicenter was in their neck of the woods (hello! Pentagon on line one). Another deplored our day of "grief porn," that a nationwide mourning of 9/11 is somehow maudlin and self-indulgent.

Neither works. Far more than American lives were lost that day, and far more than American lives were in jeopardy during the hours of uncertainty that followed. More than 90 countries lost people in the attacks. 9/11 was a global event that happened on American soil.

Our nation, among these 90 others, experienced butchery on a massive scale, and for a while we engaged in an unprecedented sense of community and compassion. Then it devolved to polarized discourse, fingerpointing, spitefulness, and all levels of social, political, and emotional violence. The same Congressional chamber that saw Americans rising to their feet to applaud the widows of Flight 93's "Let's Roll" heroes also saw, years later, Congressman Joe Wilson screaming "You lie!" to a newly elected POTUS. 

Today incivility characterizes our most ordinary dealings with one another, from Little League ballfields and mall parking lots, to workplaces and groceries. 

And yet when we applauded the Flight 93 widows, nobody stopped to ask if their dead husbands had been liberals or conservatives.

The role of public grief

So ... back to the role and value of public grief (that it's public only means it's widespread, not histrionic) —

Grief enables the living to try and understand (if not accept) the breadth and depth of their bereavement. It helps us to reflect on those lost, and what they mean to us. It gives us an opportunity to honor memories, whether one does that by laughing over anecdotes, burning incense in a place of worship, making a pencil rubbing off an engraved memorial, or buying a tacky souvenir from the 9/11 museum shop.

The more abrupt and violent the loss, the more unpredictable the grieving process. To those who have lost a great deal in the cruelest manner, a day of public grief gives the rest of us a chance to stand with them, to offer care and support, even if they are strangers. That's being humane, not "pornographic."

Self-ordained for what?

As a culture, this nation has gotten good at self-ordination based on sentiment versus fact. We're skilled at identifying how we're entitled. Some of it's been to the positive, and some has been gasbag punditry and blatant hatemongering. 

Over a decade later, despite the violence that was done to us on 9/11, we've become a more violent nation. And we've yet to find the common ground we share with other nations much less among ourselves: currently we're more invested in being morally triumphant than in finding unprecedented solutions. And we'll get no closer to finding common ground by telling others their most heartfelt emotions — such as grief — have no place in public discourse (Sandy Hook parents). 

Lively debate is one thing, but to believe you can make someone else change their moral vision is a presumption of correctness that's wrong for the times in which we live. Don't forget, it was moral intractability that drove the terrorists to act as they did.


So what?

9/11, as it turns out, didn't bring us closer to agree but to disagree. Its consequence was — and remains — our greatest opportunity, because in disagreement we find new ideas, even fresh collaborations. The same convictions that got us here won't be the thinking we need to get us out — and over — to better solutions. 9/11 awakened those who'd been spiritually dormant, and galvanized those already engaged in social justice and geopolitical accords.

Twilight's last gleaming? If we can't do compassion, can we at least try civility? 

America's Son

File this one under "Our Workplaces Do Not Exist in a Vacuum."

One foggy evening, I'm leaving a West End meeting with a client and in the darkness at a stop light, a hooded figure — a black guy — starts running towards my car. I glance at my doors — and he winds up running past me because he's trying to catch the bus on the other side of my car. 

Does this make me racist?

A black mom advises her two teenaged sons not to wear hoodies, nor to walk around with their hands in their pockets. 

Post-Trayvon, does this make her over-reactive? 

Post-Trayvon, journalist Charles Blow recalled telling his sons to watch how they run, because a black man in motion usually makes people nervous and suspicious — not what is he running to (like a bus), but what is he running from (like a crime)? 

I've been in a handful of race relations workshops, at least one of which turned emotionally violent because the issues quickly polarized. One observer, a Canadian mayor from a city of at least 14 ethnic groups, shook his head and asked me, 

Michael Brown at age 16:
He wanted to attend college and
one day run his own business

"Is it only about black and white here in America?" 

Is my adopted hometown of Atlanta — this city symbolized by a phoenix rising out of the ashes — is this a city "too busy to hate," or just busy enough to sidestep a crucial conversation that's never been properly discussed, not anywhere in this nation, but especially not in places like Ferguson, MO? 

Is Mrs. Brown just another grieving low-income black mother (one of those social elements identified as "tearing apart the fabric of society"), or is she my neighbor, another mother who struggled to keep her child in school? If we buy into the notion that the fabric of our society is supposedly being torn apart by black men without work ethic, or black women bearing children without husbands, does it then make it okay to shrug off Michael Brown's death (or the death of any other youth from those presumed circumstances)? 

By criminalizing and dehumanizing both the youth and his circumstances, are we who are not black thus morally absolved of what happened last Saturday in Ferguson? 

Or is the hifalutin sacred fabric of our society even more threatened by what happened — because America's sons can die so violently in their hometowns, their bodies left on our streets for hours, while authorities scramble to understand how such things could've erupted in the first place?

Is the death of Michael Brown a social justice problem for just the black community, or is this one that belongs to all of us? 

I'm not asking you to give an answer. Just trying to round up the questions.

"It must've been my evil twin!"

I deliver a class on (workplace) civility and we talk a lot about cultural influences behind the incivilities we experience today. Reality TV shows, for example, are loosely scripted around escalating conflicts.

The rudeness people experience on social media is an odd phenom: everyone agrees it's deplorable, but nobody's responsible for those acts of incivility. I've concluded we each have evil twins running around, indulging in low-brow conduct.

Anyway, here's a rundown of what I'm talking about:

• Willfully misunderstanding the other person to position them in the wrong (and to put yourself in the right). If you don't understand their point, ask for clarification.

• Willfully (mis)characterizing the other person's motives. Before you make an accusation of their moral or intellectual inferiority, get an accurate picture of their motives first — from them.

• Name calling, insulting, baiting, goading, profanity, sarcasm. If you normally wouldn't say it face-to-face, then best not to launch the salvos from behind the medium. Remember that their loved ones may be following the thread. I've had to keep my 20something daughter from entering the fray when she felt I was being unfairly attacked. 

• "If you don't think the same way I do, you must be evil/moronic." Well, let the witch hunts begin.... Your moral indignation and their public shaming will not reverse any opinions. About the only thing that changes attitude and value judgment is careful listening: if you listen, you'll have earned your right to be listened to.

• Discounting someone else's personal experience as irrelevant or petty. Personal experiences lead us to our most closely held opinions! The more profound the experience, the more deeply set the opinion will be. (As a single mother, I might disagree with notions that "single mothers are tearing apart the fabric of society.")

• Understand that you can't fix the world's problems on social media, you can only try to understand the issues better via access to assorted viewpoints. At best, agree to disagree (so many of my Facebook threads have ended this way).

• If you post the topic, you're the host or "curator." It's the equivalent of having friends, acquaintances, and colleagues in your living room. Do you favor only the ones with whom you agree? Are you going to stand by, grinning, while others "gang up" on an individual? You need to be sure everyone behaves to your terms of conduct. You need to have terms of conduct.

• Always end the discussion as positively as possible. Wish everyone a good evening. Thank them for bringing their viewpoints to the table. Remember their spouses and families. It may be a cranky, begrudging finish, but try to leave it as friendly as possible. If you're a "guest" leaving the thread, thank the "host" for posing the discussion.

Engaging in debates, arguments, and discussions is not the problem. The problem is the way people choose to behave once emotions run high. This country was built on public discourse, even when volatile and polarized, but social media has provided us a screen to hide behind. And I don't mean to be holier-than-thou, because I remind myself of these points each and every day, and I don't often measure up. #dietrying

About the illustration: Pawel Kuczynski, a Polish artist, has worked in satirical illustration specialising in thought-provoking images that make his audience question their everyday lives. His subjects deal with everything from poverty to social media and politics.

Here's one for the Curiosity Book

How long does the American public care to follow a news story before it loses emotional heat?

I've watched this in an informal way and — with the exception of stories like the OJ Simpson trial, 9/11, the disappearances of Laci Peterson and Elizabeth Smart, or Kate Middleton's evolving wardrobe — it appears to average about two to three weeks. And then we move on to the next crisis, the  next controversy.

The Georgia "hot car death" story began trending within hours after the father was arrested (around 6/20/14), with reactions and opinions voiced on Facebook threads, but faded shortly after his bond hearing and his wife's hire of her own attorney (after the July 4 holiday weekend).

Even though the case itself has gone quiet for now, it's spawned flash-in-the-pan stories in the news: with the nation now hyper-alerted to children and animals left in hot cars, last week a Georgia woman was arrested after she left four kids, all under the age of six, in hers when she ran into Kroger's for about 20 minutes. An Asian couple in Brea, CA, was arrested after leaving their 3-year-old alone in the car.

The Curiosity Book

I love being a designer, especially in publications. In addition to working with all the elements of design like fonts and colors, one of my favorite parts of work is learning on a continuous basis from my clients just by reading their copy before laying it out. I love learning about the issues that inhabit and challenge their worlds.

A long time ago I started a habit of jotting down any questions that occurred when reading my clients' content. Then whenever I had time I'd Google around, jot down book titles, and talk to people to try and get answers to those questions. For years I've kept a "curiosity book," perhaps what the British would call a "commonplace book," a repository of quotes, facts and figures, and answers to questions. For example, some of the questions in mine:

What happened to the von Stauffenberg children?

What is humanism?

Which countries were part of Arab Spring?

What forces cultural change?

Process of Rwandan reconciliations?

What I've learned is this:

•  Sometimes we don't fully understand what we know. We only think we know it, but often what we really have is a conventional "derivative" of the topic, and that can be shallow or homogenized. (The Valkyrie plot failed and all the conspirators were executed.... Yes, but they had families, loved ones. What happened to them?) 

•  Humans beings are fascinating! Human effort is layered and textured, rich with hidden backstories about petty rivalries, unspoken love, and thwarted intentions. For good or evil, these are the motives that drive effort. Despite our many wars and conflicts, the bigger part of our nature is to create and discover. To do better than before.

•  Creativity is an interdisciplinary act, so it helps to know a bit about everything. The world of work does not exist apart from the world at large. Our workplaces do not exist in a vacuum, estranged from life itself. Maintaining a habit of curiosity keeps life amazing.

•  Some questions are unanswerable. They should either be tackled from multiple viewpoints, or the answers are still works in progress. Oddly, there's a sense of adventure and safety in knowing some of these questions will never be answered in my lifetime.

Creativity and emotional fraudulence

When I was a student at Carnegie Mellon University, one of my favorite professors, my drawing teacher Bill Haney, used a phrase that I still refer to today: he encouraged us to keep our visual vocabularies replenished. In present socio-cultural terms, it probably means "inner resources" — having emotional, spiritual and intellectual reserves to tap into that not only define our lives, but help us understand our experiences. (Nearly 40 years later, I was honored by Bill Haney's invitation to be in network on Linked In).

Creativity belongs to all of us. Everyone has the creativity "muscle," and it's usually got to be spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually nourished. How that's done is as individual as you are (travel, reading, music, visiting museums, hanging out with loved ones).

But I will also tell you the one feature that separates strong creatives from weak ones, and that is the ability — actually, the will — to live in an authentic, truth-seeking way. Originality, creativity, and critical thinking are closely tied.

Without those, design becomes merely ornamental; writing reads like pomposity; and sales pitches lack a sense of caring and commitment. And trust me: your audience is smart enough to know the difference. They may not voice it, but it can be felt at a gut level.

Whether you write plays or cast TV commercials or plan sales strategies, you can't hit that chord of truth unless you know how to be truthful in your own life. That chord of truth is the magical thing that makes others laugh out loud, wet in the eyes, or agree to buy services from you — because somehow, without using neon signs to say "I AM REAL," you've just shown them something authentic in raw, insightful, or very funny terms. It signals that you get it. You're not afraid to commit. You will deliver.

And it's really true: the unexamined life is not worth living, because if you're constantly sweeping things under the emotional rug, over time you're living without a lot of authenticity. Shallow relationships become easier than real ones. Forget about having crucial conversations; you stop bothering to even ask the right questions. You watch a lot of TV and come to believe celebrity highlight reels are the best life a person can have — so you watch more TV. Your relationships become more like possessions, and your possessions start to feel like achievements.

There are emotionally fraudulent people in the world. It's not that they're bad people, only that their inner reserves are skimpy, sterile, or shallow. They don't bother to replenish them, because to do so means first looking at their lives for what's missing. That can be a harsh reality to face.

Instead they prefer to lead lives that are morally convenient and/or materially comfortable. They borrow this 'n' that belief from popular TV shows or social media posts, and present such convictions as their own, to render themselves engaging and palatable. Closer to the truth, they'd rather sit home and admire their golf clubs or new rims than spend a couple hours listening to their kids' opinions. They have an uneasy relationship with the truth so they duck it at every turn.

And yes, by necessity, we all wear masks. Sometimes it's just good manners to do so, but it's no way to live. A contrived human being cannot exercise creativity any more than a copy of a copy can be called original. If you can't be honest with yourself, why on earth would anyone else trust you?