Growth Industry
December 26, 2014
We have wondered why Michigan’s high schools would enroll more J-1 visa students than in any other state, as well as more J-1 and F-1 visa students combined than the schools of any other state. It certainly can’t be our weather!
Like schools in many states, Michigan schools are looking to foreign countries to fill classrooms where enrollments have been falling, and they are looking to the tuition dollars of international students to help fill the hole of declining state funding.
And schools across the US are finding a hungry market, especially in Asia where families are willing to pay almost any amount to give their children the kind of educational opportunities their own countries don’t, including a leg up in gaining admission to a US college or university.
One unique contributing factor to our state’s leading totals is the late date when public school classes start in the fall. International students who miss the start of school in states which begin classes two, three or four weeks before Michigan can still try for a placement in Michigan where public high schools cannot begin classes until after Labor Day.
These late, scrambling and sometimes inadequately vetted enrollments are one of the many problems attendant to the increasing numbers of J-1 and F-1 visa students enrolling in Michigan each year. More serious are the “pipelines” that, for example, direct basketball players to some schools and ice hockey players to other schools.
It makes some people feel warm and fuzzy, but a lot more people get hot under the collar, to observe a foreign exchange student become a suddenly successful basketball team’s high scorer and rebounder, and then later be given a Division I university basketball scholarship. Or be the leading scorer on an ice hockey team that posts its best record and deepest MHSAA tournament run in the school’s history.
My wife and I have hosted an international college level student in our home for almost two years. I know the benefits to both parties. And I also know that there is a growing number of problems related to sports and profit that need to be stopped, or at least sent to some other state.
The Subjunctive
January 3, 2014
As a frequent traveler to foreign lands and also as a college English major and high school English teacher, my ears perked up when a speaker said recently that there are some languages that, unlike English, do not have the subjunctive verb mood or mode. I love the subjunctive!
That’s the mood of what might have been, the speaker said. For example, “Had I studied harder, I would have received a better grade.” And “If I were you, I would have studied much longer.”
The subjunctive can also be the mood of excuses, I thought. For example, “If the official hadn’t made that traveling call, we would have won the game.” But I digress.
The subjunctive verb mood is used for the hypothetical. This makes it most valuable as a mindset before taking any action. It helps one think of unintended consequences.
But the subjunctive mood is also useful for the remedial: “If we had done this or that differently then, perhaps the result would have been better.”
Thinking in the subjunctive mood as we plan before initiatives, and then also as we evaluate after plans have been rolled out, are the one-two punch of effective project management.
What we must avoid, however, is thinking of the subjunctive as the mood of regrets. “If only I had . . .” And then doing nothing to try to change the future.
As we think about the year just past and about the year ahead, let’s use the subjunctive mood for its better purposes – planning and evaluation, not excuses and regrets.