No Loss for Words

I spent all day Monday being a guest speaker at Snohomish High School. My friend Tuck Gionet teaches Economics and Government to high school seniors in all of his five classes. He was gracious enough to allow me to interact with his students as they discussed whether government’s role should be to insure to citizens quality of “opportunity” or “outcome.”

This was the fifth or sixth time for me in Mr. Gionet’s class. It was the first time I spent the day talking about their subject matter rather than focusing on my candidacy for office. My assignment was to work into the discussion my political perspective without actually campaigning. Mr. Gionet and I did not tell the kids in advance too much about my political persuasion, he wanted them to figure out my political point of view based upon my responses to the questions during the discussion. That idea went out the window right away since I couldn’t come up with any applications where government had a role in guaranteeing the outcome of anything.

The students are required to write a paper this week comparing and contrasting the two, declaring a preference for one and then defending the choice. It was clear from the interaction that some had given the assignment some thought already because they asked me good questions. It became clear to the students in every class that I had strong feelings about both sides of the argument.

The most challenging aspect of the day was remembering what part of the subject matter I had discussed with which class. All five classes were doing the same assignment and I wanted to standardize at least a part of my presentation for all of them then launch into the actual discussion with the kids. After you have done your spiel two or three times, you forget whether you shared a particular anecdote that demonstrated a point or not. By the end of the day, my feet were sore, my voice was hoarse and I was really parched. That teaching thing is a tough job!

It’s hard convincing some kids that education is an opportunity rather than a given. We talked about how our state constitution calls for education to be the paramount responsibility of state government. We weren’t so clear about whether it meant the opportunity to get an education or the guarantee that all students would get one. We talked about how some kids put more effort into school work than others and as a result got more out of the experience.

I tried to demonstrate to them that as they get older and encounter choices in their lives the quality of their opportunities will ultimately determine how far they get in life. Most of the kids have so few life experiences they fail to grasp the importance of quality opportunities until they are lost. Many of the kids have been so sheltered from the realities of the world that they already have a sense of entitlement. That distresses me!

In the course of the day, discussions in each class went in a different direction. As a champion for “opportunity” I tried to steer the discussion to the importance of “personal choices” and taking responsibility for them. In a free society, people need the opportunity to choose how hard they are willing to work to achieve a level of success. Government does not have a role in guaranteeing a successful outcome for any segment of society except those individuals with demonstrable handicaps that would prevent them from taking advantage of available opportunities.

The other argument that came up on more than one occasion was the role of government in curtailing opportunity for some when it substantially damaged others. “Ethics” in life and business might be a topic for discussion another day, but Monday the regulatory role of government did not fit with arguments supporting the “opportunities” of capitalism and personal initiative.