State of the Village

This past Tuesday, President Obama had the main stage in national politics.  The State of the Union Address is always amazing to watch, regardless of your politics.  The standing and clapping (or lack of standing and clapping) is entertaining on its own right, and even the predictable and partisan responses after the speech are part of the spectacle.  The whole experience left me feeling part of something important, part of something special.

From Politifact

My wife ran across another way of looking at our place in nation, in our world, and even in Fishers, Indiana.  Last week, she sent the information below.  I found it to be thought-provoking.  In light of our President’s speech, you also may be interested in a “State of the Village” report:

If the world were a village of only 100 people, there would be:

• 60 Asians,
• 16 Africans, 
• 10 Europeans, 
• 8 people from Central and South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean, 
• 5 from the USA and Canada, and
• 1 person from Australia or New Zealand

Source: www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php

The people of the village would have considerable difficulty communicating:

• 17 people would speak a Chinese dialect (12 of them Mandarin) 
• 6 Spanish,
• 5 English,
• 4 people Hindi/Urdu, 
• 3 Arabic,
• 3 Portuguese, 
• This list accounts for less than half the villagers. The others speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Russian, Japanese, Javanese, Lahnda, German, French, and over 7,000 other languages.

Source: www.enthnologue.com/statistics/size

In the village there would be:

• 32 Christians,
• 23 Moslems, 
• 15 Hindus, 
• 16 Nonreligious, Agnostics, or Atheists,
• 7 Buddhists, 
• 6 Folk or traditional religions
• 1 All other religions (including Judaism, Baha'i, Sikhism, Shintoism, 
• Taoism, Zoroastrianism, to mention just a few.)

Source: www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/

In this 100-person community:

• 51 would live in cities. 
• 23 would live in substandard housing. 
• 74 adults (age 15+) would live in the village, and 16 of them would be illiterate. 
• 14 would suffer from malnutrition. 
• 11 would not have access to clean, safe drinking water. 
• 20 people would not have any electricity.
• Of the 80 that do have electricity, most would use it only for light at night. 
• In the village would be 56 radios, 22 televisions, 93 mobile phone subscriptions, and 9 computers (some villagers own more than one of each).
• 40 people would use the Internet. 
• 17 people would own an automobile (some of them more than one).
• 8 people would possess 83% of the entire village's wealth. 
• The poorest 70% of the people would receive only 3% of the income of the village. 

Sources: CIA World Factbook; 12 World Bank, World Development Indicators; UNICEF; International Energy Agency; International Telecommunications Databook 2103, Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook; Oxfam International, “Working for the Few,” Oxfam Briefing Paper, January 20, 2014.

State of the School

This perspective provides enlightening food for thought about our place in the world.  It would be an interesting exercise to see what we would find if we completed a “State of the School” survey.  What would a village of 100 HSE students look like?  I wonder if we would be surprised by any of the findings.

Thanks for all you do for HSE, for our nation, and for our world.  It does, after all, take a village….

Phil

Several final thoughts from our Presidents on education:

• “Think about every problem, every challenge, we face.  The solution to each starts with education.”  –George H. W. Bush
• “And when it comes to developing the high standards we need, it’s time to stop working against our teachers and start working with them.  Teachers don’t go into education to get rich.  They don’t go into education because they don’t believe in children.  They want their children to succeed, but we’ve got to give them the tools.  Invest in early childhood education.  Invest in our teachers and our children will succeed.”  --Barak Obama
• “Knowledge—that is, education in its true sense—is our best protection against unreasoning prejudice and panic-making fear, whether engendered by special interests, illiberal minorities, or panic-stricken leaders.”  --Franklin D. Roosevelt
• “The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.”  --Gerald Ford
• “Leave the matter of religion to the family alter, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions.  Keep the church and state forever separate.”  --Ulysses S. Grant