American Hampshire Sheep Association: Fill & Download for Free

Yes, I think so. In fact the opposite migration movement, the return of Franco-Americans to Québec, is much neglected by the historiography and there is still a lot of things to search in that direction I guess.First of all, you have to realize that unlike Irish or Italians, there is no ocean to cross. There is no need to pay for a boat ticket. You can just take the train between New England and Québec. This is something Mexican-Americans would quite relate to : they were in a cross-border flux all the time and would simply follow the money.Let’s take the example of a late Franco-American woman, Elmire Boucher.First, why did she came ? Same as everyone else, POVERTY. Yes, in those years we were poor as f**k, in a similar way to those Mexicans that would go to the US. They also had the option to go to our local big city, Montréal, but it was quickly saturated and there work was seasonal and in the winter there was no work.« En 1899, mes parents ont décidé de partir pour les États-Unis. La vie était difficile sur une terre qui était trop petite pour nous. Nous étions 16 enfants, bien vivants. Nous avions déjà des tantes aux États-Unis qui faisaient de la propagande pour leur coin. Elles étaient aux États-Unis avec leurs familles depuis une dizaine d'années. Ils étaient anglicisés, ils vivaient à l'américaine. Ils ont dû partir en 1899.Nous étions au Bic, à côté de Rimouski. Nous habitions le troisième rang. C'était une terre plutôt rocheuse, c'était des montagnes. La terre, 16 arpents sur 40, était trop petite pour la famille qu'on avait. Il n'y avait pas la machinerie d'aujourd'hui, tout se faisait à force de bras. Papa allait à la pêche six mois par année et il vendait son poisson. Avec 16 enfants, ça faisait 18 personnes à nourrir.Quand les garçons avaient besoin de vêtements, il fallait commencer par élever des moutons, filer la laine, la tisser, puis la coudre. Dans ce temps-là, l'étoffe se faisait à la main. Maman travaillait d'un soleil à l'autre pour fournir. Tout se faisait à la main: le savon, le lavage au bord de l'eau, au « batoi »comme on disait. C'était une espèce de planche sur laquelle on tapait le linge pour faire pénétrer l'eau et le savon.Mes parents ont vendu la terre et tout le roulant. Je sais que notre installation nous a coûté 400 piastres. On était meublés modestement mais confortablement. On n'avait pas des froids comme au Canada.Moi, j'étais l'avant-dernière. J'avais cinq ans quand on a émigré aux États-Unis. J'ai fait la belle vie, moi. J'ai profité du système américain. Je n'ai pas eu la misère qu'ont eue les plus vieux.Dans les rangs, on avait deux voitures, cinq par voitures. Ça faisait dix seulement qui allaient à la messe. On était 18. Alors, ça voulait dire que ma mère n'allait pas à la messe le dimanche. Comme il y avait des bébés à tous les ans, elle restait à la maison. C'étaient les plus grands qui allaient à la messe. L'hiver, avec les mauvais chemins et les mauvais temps, la messe était plutôt mise de côté. On observait le dimanche, mais à notre manière, à la maison. Pour l'école, c'était la même chose. Les enfants allaient à l'école les belles saisons. Mais l'hiver, ils restaient à la maison, car il y avait un mille à marcher pour aller à l'école. Les plus vieux n'ont pas eu l'avantage de se faire instruire à cause de ça. En plus, il fallait qu'ils travaillent sur la terre. Le père n'était pas toujours là; il allait pêcher. Ce sont les plus vieux qui travaillaient la terre.Les cousins de mon mari étaient allés aux États-Unis pour faire un coup d'argent. Le père était venu avec trois filles et deux garçons. Ils avaient un poêle, quatre chaises et une table. Ils étaient venus pour se ramasser de l'argent et acheter des instruments aratoires. Dans ce temps-là, les cultivateurs ne touchaient pas de l'argent pour leurs travaux. Maman, par exemple, faisait de la couture pour un homme qui, s'il produisait du grain, laissait quelques poches de grains à la maison. Ou bien, le magasin disait: "Veux-tu me faire une couple de paires de bottes? » Ma mère arrivait au magasin et prenait de la farine, des cotonnades pour habiller les filles. C'était le troc, ni plus ni moins. Il n'y avait pas d'argent. C'est pour ça que les gens s'en allaient aux États. »“In 1899, my parents decided to leave for the United States. Life was difficult on a piece of land that was too small for us. We were 16 children, well alive. We already had aunts in the United States that did propaganda for these parts. They were in the United States with their families since about ten years. They were anglicized, they lived the American way. They had to leave in 1899.We were in the Bic, near Rimouski. We lived in the third range [rang]. It was a rather rocky land, it was mountains. The piece of land, 16 arpents for 40, was too small for the family that we had. There was not today’s machinery, everything was done manually. Dad went to fish six months a year and he sold his fish. With 16 children, it made 18 people to nourish.When the boys needed clothes, it was necessary to start breeding sheeps, spin the whool, weave it and sew it. In that time, cloth was handmade. Mom worked from a sun to the next to supply. Everything was handmade : soap, washing the clothes near a waterway, using the “batoi” like we said. It was a sort of plank on which we banged the clothes to make the water and the soap penetrate inside.My parents sold the piece of land and all the wheeled vehicles. I know our settlement costed us 400 piastres [dollars]. We were modestly but comfortably furnished. It was not cold like in Canada.Me, I was the second to last one. I was five years old when we emigrated to the United States. I had a good life. I profited from the American system. I did not have the poverty the older ones got.In the ranges, we had two carriages, five per carriage. It made ten people going to the mass. We were 18. Therefore, it meant that my mother would stay at home. It was the big ones that went to the mass. During the winter, with the bad roads and the bad weather, the mass was left aside. We observed the sunday, but our own way, at home. For school, it was the same thing. Children went to school during the good seasons [summer]. But during the winter, they stayed at home, because there was a mile to walk to go to school. The big ones did not get the advantage to be schooled due to that. Moreover, they had to work on the land. The father was not always there; he went to fish. It was the older ones that worked on the land.The cousins of my husband went to the United States to make big bucks [faire un coup d’argent]. The father came with three girls and two boys. They had a wood-burning stove, four chairs and a table. They came to collect money and buy agricultural tools. In those times, farmers did not get money for their work. Mom, for example, did stitching for a man that, if he did produce grain, would leave some bags of grain at the house. Or, the store said: “Do you want to make me a couple of boot pairs?” My mother arrived to the store and took some wheat, some cottonades to dress the girls. It was barter, no more, no less. There was no money. It was for this reason people left to the States.”SOURCE : Jacques Rouillard. Ah les États ! - Les travailleurs canadiens~français dans l'industrie textile de la Nouvelle-Angleterre d'après le témoignage des derniers migrants, pp. 87–90.It also happens that Elmire Boucher also went back to Québec.In the US, she lived in Fall River. However at that moment there was no future anymore in Fall River, the window of opportunities was over. At that moment, it was the era in which a lot of railroads were being built in the Canadian Federation, and so they went to Ontario, in a town called Chapleau (with a name like that, you can be sure it was founded by Franco-Ontarians) in 1919. Her husband would try to work there.However, it didn’t work as planned so Elmire Boucher came back to Québec and settled in Montréal at last.Often, Franco-Americans never severed the link with Québec. It was not uncommon for them to send their children to study in Québec. There is for example the case of Alma Drouin at the time of WW1. This case if very well documented due to the letters she wrote to her entire social network, something that is actually common from immigrants at that time for whom letters was a huge part of their lives.Alma Drouin was born in Laconia in New Hampshire (27 % Franco-American in 1910). Culturally, her family was quite anglicized : her main language was rather English despite she did know French and she would most of the time write letters in English. She was from an unusually rich family as her dad Cyrille had an unusually good job since he was carpenter for a train corporation. The children of that family were quite very anglicized : they listened to jazz, would go to danse parties, played baseball, did pajama parties, read a local comic called Mutt & Jeff and would decorate their rooms with banners associated to USAmerican baseball teams. All of that was quite exotic for Quebecers back then. The clergy for example was not quite sure what to think about baseball : was it a bad influence to reject or could it be digested, and rendered soluble into Quebecer culture ? The last option prevailed : it was given French terms (for example, homerun was a word that was in flux and eventually it fixed to coup de circuit) and the clergy did try to make it more Quebecer. This is the exact same way baseball was digested into Hispanic Carribean cultures, such as Cuba, with a twist : in Cuba, it was associated to their struggle for independence because it was a social happening for then’s independentists. Ellen, Alma’s mother, was quite not a traditional mother in a typical Franco-American family. Just like the Chicano culture in the US, Franco-American cultures gave an extreme importance to the transmission of the catholic religion and the language and this was the duty of the mother, and she also had to produce children : the survival of the entire nation rested on the shoulders of women, and so Franco-American moms were supposed to be the guardians of the culture. This was not the case here. In fact, being called Ellen and not Hélène was already a bit of a “betrayal”. So in that household, English was the main language and French was the secondary language. USAmerican culture was the main culture and Quebecer was the secondary culture.Her parish school in Laconia was bilingual. Half of the day was in English and half of the day was in French. That sort of things would turn illegal accross the US starting in 1921, and in both Maine and Louisiana this would be later repressed. To her it was very strange : the version of history taught from an USAmerican perspective and from a Quebecer perspective was quite different.However they also did typical Quebecer stuff. They were members of the Chevaliers de Colomb, a popular catholic association in the parishes accross Québec and they were member of the Forestiers franco-américains, the Alliance nationale and the Association canado-américaine.None of Alma Drouin’s friends in Laconia were from a francophone background, excepted for one Franco-Ontarian.Alma Drouin came to Québec in 1912 to Nicolet (Québec) to study in the convent of the Sœurs de l’Assomption, but in fact her hometown was so small she was actually intimidated by Nicolet, and so she was sent to Baie-du-Febvre, that was smaller and “more home like”, and later was in the convent of Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, where she taught English to third graders. Of course since a town like Nicolet was intimidated to her, you can guess Montréal was quite frightening and so she could not go beyond the train station the first time she visited in 1912. However she would come back in 1915 and start to like the city, and even grow to adore it, because it was so much FUN. There was so much things to do there ! She went to cinema, theatre, small restaurants in the downtown, there was skating, music performances in the churches, she visited the Lachine rapids… She also attended social activities that were frowned upon by the church : like dance floors, an amusement park (a small one of course, not our current La Ronde that did not exist). The big city was also scary, there were back then weird rumors of a sort of “white women trade” in which women were drugged with hypodermic needles…Her mother wanted her to come back to Laconia in the US so she came back and stayed two years, and came back in 1917.Since she was so culturally anglicized, she did have cultural shocks in Québec, despite she knew French. As she lived in Québec for more time it would start to gallicize her English. She found that life was quite very communal in the families : she found Quebecer households always had company, always got visits from their neighbours all the time, and so were never alone. “I never saw people have so much company in my life” she said. She did not approve the destiny that was offered to women in Québec, that of marrying soon and have tons of children:“I don’t want to get married now. Believe me, Boy, there’s nothing like your independence and your own little pay envelope, and when I marry, I want to be sure that I’ll have as good a home as what I’ve got and enough money to support a family on. I’m willing to help but not willing to follow the example of some families around here [. . .] when a girl is once married, she’s finished. […]. I’d rather be a nun.”(Journal of Alma Drouin, 28th of February 1919)Of course it was her the strange one in Québec. These things were not so much questioned in Québec back then, however francophone feminists wanted to glorify the job of housewife (ménagère). There were schools in which women were taught a “scientific” version of being a housewife and they kind of aimed to become sort of housekeeping scientists and specialists that had social prestige. The women that founded these schools went to study in Bavaria to acquire the professionnal competence to be “scientific” housewives. In these schools Quebecer women were taught chemistry, and so the oxido-reduction reactions that would occur on kitchen utensils, they learned the speed air moved and so learned to optimize the aeration of a house, they learned to optimize their “work station” and practice taylorism for doing domestic activities, and decompose cleaning the house in movements to work the fastest possible, the most efficiently possible. They considered the family was a sort of enterprise, that the woman was the accountant of the family and that buying food for the household was like an “investment”. So this was that way francophone feminists empowered women back then in Québec. They tried to turn acceptable social roles for women into more “scientific” and dignified occupations but did not question having to stick to these occupations. (Source : …well, uh, the researchs of another student in the notes of a teacher of one of those schools, in the National Archives of Québec.)Education in Québec was less liberal. History classes back then included Holy History and the point of view over North American history in general stressed a lot the heroism of catholic missionaries. Alma Drouin would think that Quebecers were way more judgemental: “They pass more remarks.”In Montréal at that moment salaries were a little better than the US so she worked for companies like the Imperial Tobacco (in the advertisement department), Murphy’s and Birks (jewelry) and would in the night attend stenography classes, and study when she had a pause at noon. It was the outbreak of the Spanish influenza epidemic in Montréal that made her afraid and she went back to Laconia in New Hampshire, where she was bored in a job in the Laconia Car Company. That epidemic was of course a disaster in Québec, like everywhere else : people were being put into earth hastily without even proper sepulchers.Alma Drouin witnessed the WW1 Conscription Crisis in Montréal : she saw the “spotters” harrass and mistreat the population, capture young men all over the city, she saw riots and brawls between anglos and francos. She was quite ambiguous : in the federal election, she supported the anti-conscriptionist Wilfrid Laurier against the conservative Robert Borden, however later she had contempt for those “Mammas boys” that refused to enroll in the army, while at the same time being sad of their departure…While Alma Drouin was so culturally anglicized… she nevertheless was very loyal to francophones, while at the same time speaking about them as if she did not belong to that group. Once, the Scottish singer Harry Lauder said racist stuff about francophones in Québec and it made her super mad:“Believe me, if he ever shows his homely mug of a face here again in Montréal the French Canadians will show him what kind of blood runs in their veins. The d—n close fisted Scot. If I was a man I’d smash him in the eye. He’d be a shining light for few weeks.”(Journal of Alma Drouin, 29th of November 1917)In 1918, Alma Drouin wanted to become civil servant in Washington D.C. and got a score of 81 % to her exam to enter into the Civil Service Commission. She became secretary in the US Department of War in 1919 and was paid 1 100 USD/year.In 1924, she married with a Catholic (of course) Irish-German.SOURCE : Magda Fahrni & Yves Frenette. “« Don’t I long for Montreal » : L’identité hybride d’une jeune migrante franco-américaine pendant la Première Guerre mondiale”, Histoire sociale / Social History, pp. 75–98.

According to the International Agricultural Exchange Association (IAEA), the United States isn't a major producer of sheep. However, the top 5 producers are :TexasCaliforniaColoradoWyomingSouth DakotaLarge sheep operations are located primarily in the Western United States. Texas and California have the most sheep. Small producers, those owning less than 100 sheep, comprise the majority of sheep operations.There are several different types of producers of sheep in U.S.A.Meat Sheep: In the United States, most sheep and lambs are meat-type animals kept primarily for the production of lambs for meat or dual-purpose breeds kept for both meat and wool production. Meat sheep producers sell either slaughter lambs or feeder lambs. Slaughter lambs are usually purchased for immediate slaughter. Feeder lambs are lambs that are usually fed to heavier weights before being harvested. In a meat sheep enterprise, the primary factors which determine profitability are percent lamb crop, lamb growth rates, and market prices.Lamb Feeding: Commercial lamb feeding is a traditional sheep enterprise in the U.S. and is becoming more popular in other countries. In some parts of the U.S., lamb feeding is a seasonal enterprise, occurring primarily in the fall and winter, after pastures have stopped growing and crop residues are available for grazing. In other areas (e.g. Texas, Colorado, and the Corn Belt), lamb feed lots operate year-round.In a lamb feeding enterprise, feeder lambs (50 to 100 lbs.) are purchased and fed to finish weights of 100 lbs. or more. Lambs can be finished on a variety of diets: complete pelleted rations, whole grain rations, or high-forage diets. Corn-based diets are becoming less economical, as ethanol mandates have pushed corn prices significantly higher.Colorado is the most concentrated lamb feeding area in the United States. Other states that feed a lot of lambs include Texas, California, Iowa, and Oregon.Hair Sheep: The declining value of wool relative to meat, along with the decreasing number of sheep shearers, has contributed to an expansion of hair sheep, not only in the United States, but other countries as well. Hair sheep naturally shed their coats (mixtures of hair and wool fibers) and do not require shearing, crutching, or tail docking. Hair sheep tend to be more resistant to internal parasites and other pests than wooled sheep. Hair sheep are usually promoted as an "easy-care" alternative to wooled sheep and traditional high-cost production systems. Hair sheep ewes are often lambed on pasture. Lambs are commonly grass-finished. Many hair sheep producers sell their ewe lambs as breeding stock and their male lambs for meat.Wool Production: Wool was the first commodity to be traded internationally and is the product the public most commonly associates with sheep. However, the importance of wool (as a product) relative to meat has declined dramatically. In the early 1900's, the majority of income from a sheep operation was from the sale of wool.Today, it is the other way around. While wool is still important on many sheep farms, lambs almost always contribute the majority of income to the operator.Feeding, housing, health care, and handling are all critical to the production of high quality wool. It goes without saying that fleeces should be skirted. Skirting is when the undesirable parts of the fleece are removed: belly wool, top knots, leg clippings, tags, stained wool, cotted wool, and short wool.Sheep Dairying: Sheep have been milked for thousands of years and were milked long before the first cow was milked. The dairy sheep industry is very small in the United States, but growing. Most sheep dairies are located in the Upper Midwest (Wisconsin and Minnesota), California, and the New England states. The two dairy sheep breeds raised in the U.S. are the East Friesian and Lacaune.Sheep's milk is usually made into gourmet cheeses. Some milk is made into yogurt and ice cream. Fresh sheep's milk is seldom consumed. After milk is cooled, it can be shipped to a processing plant or frozen for later use.While fresh milk may result in a product of slightly higher quality, frozen milk has been shown to produce very acceptable products. The ability to freeze milk on the farm and deliver large quantities to the processor at infrequent intervals allows the establishment of sheep dairies great distances from a processing plant.Club Lambs: Some sheep farms specialize in the production and sale of club lambs. Club lambs are "feeder" lambs (ewes or wethers) that youth purchase to develop as market lamb projects to exhibit at county and state fairs, regional and national shows. Market lamb projects are usually "terminal," meaning they start with the purchase of a lamb and end with the sale of the lamb for slaughter.Hampshires, Suffolks, and crosses between these two breeds are the most common type of club lamb, as well as the most competitive. Dorsets, Southdowns, and Shropshires can also make good club lambs. Some shows separate lambs by weight increments, while others separate lambs by breed.Vegetation control: Using sheep for custom grazing may prove to be the most profitable sheep enterprise. While the demand for lamb and wool seems limited, society seems willing to spend "unlimited" amounts of money to enhance the environment. Increasingly sheep (and goats) are being viewed as a natural and environmentally-friendly way to manage landscapes. At the same time, land managers don't want to own sheep. They want to contract grazing services.While any kind of sheep can be used for grazing, a flock of mature wethers could prove to be the best choice. They are easier to manage and can be pushed to eat undesirable plant species without adversely affecting productivity, as wethers have not productivity.A website you can check out is Home - American Sheep Industry Association

Some days are harder than others. Some weeks too. Some months and years as well, for me at least. I think many others might agree.This week counts as tough not because I have had some trauma of some sort, but because others I know have. Here is a recap:At a brunch with a couple of exceptionally bright students we talked about what they were going to do now that college graduation is on the horizon. One of them talked about all the pressure she feels from her family to land a name brand Fortune 500 job. Before long there were tears. We were in a public space but the pain was too much for her hold in. The smiling confident joking persona failed. Trying to please parents, find a job, keep up with honors projects and multiple activities have taken a mental toll.Another former student called from New York. This student has been out for 2 years at one of the top 4 consulting firms. From the outside all looks great. The City, the job, money, and prestige. The student broke down and confessed to going through nearly unbearable depression. The hours, the travel, the expectations from parents to make it big, the constant competition from friends who work with the big banks, and a feeling that the work it took to get to this place did not prepare for the emptiness of it all, and the soulless emphasis on profits. The student cares about social justice and sees politics and profit over all else mentality here and abroad as creating misery for far too many. The student sees the consulting company focused on money money money. The student hates this ideology but is so depressed that looking for alternatives seems akin to climbing Everest in a winter ice storm. Now in intense counseling the student has thought dark thoughts.Another student talked about the academic program she’s in. She is doing very well but virtually all of her peers are slackers. They make her feel like a nerd or like someone who does not know how to join the group and have fun. She feels alone and feels untethered as she is from another country and has no family to turn to. Her tears came in a public place. She wants to make her family proud, wants her friends to like her, wants to learn even though she has to spend massive amounts of time to do assignments native speakers can do in a few minutes. They put pressure on her to go out and enjoy when all she can think about is keeping up. She’s rethinking the wisdom of going abroad because some of her peers don’t understand how hard it is to immerse into another culture and languageThese are just 3; unfortunately, there were several more conversations like this over the course of the past week. I am sure there are many conversations a lot like these going on at every campus in the US on most days and perhaps most hours. The level of pressure on students is the highest I have seen in 3 decades. More students seek counseling, more students are depressed, more students are worried they can’t find 'real' jobs than before when a degree from a prestigious school virtually assured some open door-- real jobs that require great skills and not jobs that don’t require a college degree.Why am I writing this? I am trying to evoke some emotion. I don’t expect readers to cry, but I do hope they will learn a bit about the struggles that many are going through right now on campuses across the US. There is, however, another reason I am writing this. I hope I can convince at least a few people to think about the way they categorize the students who apply for admission to highly selective schools works.Let me start with some quotes from someone who is now a professor:For most of my life, I have taken for granted how my upbringing and my loving, educated, and involved parents made it possible for me to strive for excellence. Nearly everything has worked in my favor well beyond whatever natural gifts I possess. I attended excellent schools in safe, suburban neighborhoods with healthy tax bases. I had teachers who encouraged my talent and creativity. I had parents who supplemented what I was learning in school with additional studies…In high school, I attended boarding school in New Hampshire…My senior year, I received an acceptance letter to an Ivy League college. I was in the campus mailroom. Everyone was buzzing as they learned of their fate. I opened my letter and smiled. I had been accepted to all but one of the schools to which I applied. I allowed myself a quiet moment of celebration.How do you feel about this student? Do you feel she is the embodiment of what we encourage students to do to reach their potential? Or do you feel a bit judgmental because she has had advantages that most do not have and that these advantages have given her a tremendous boost in getting accepted to an Ivy?I ask these questions as I have read a number of things recently that lead me to believe that students like this are often looked at negatively by some in education. To me, I think we should be holding students like this as models to follow.*********************************************************************The one writer who has achieved some fame talking about students who attend elite schools is William Deresiewicz. His book Excellent Sheep and New Republic article depict the vast majority of students as unthinking drones who jump through hoops in order to get into elite schools and once there do little except to pad resumes and lead unexamined lives. While I strongly disagree with his categorization of most of the students at elite schools as excellent sheep (go here for some of the reasons why), I do think his portrayal of the internal state of many students at top schools is accurate:Look beneath the façade of affable confidence and seamless well-adjustment that today’s elite students have learned to project, and what you often find are toxic levels of fear, anxiety, and depression, of emptiness and aimlessness and isolation.We all know about the stressed-out, overpressured high school student; why do we assume that things get better once she gets to college? The evidence says they do not. A large-scale survey of college freshmen recently found that self-reports of emotional well-being have fallen to their lowest level in the twenty-five-year history of the study. In another recent survey —summarized by the American Psychological Association under the headline “The Crisis on Campus”— nearly half of college students reported feelings of hopelessness, while almost a third spoke of feeling “so depressed that it was difficult to function during the past 12 months.” Deresiewicz, William . Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful LifeThese words support what I have found in talking with students who have excelled in virtually everything they have tried. Many of them have been working non-stop their entire lives. They have been pushed by parents and by others around them who also want to excel. They tend to be in schools that stress achievement and provide rigorous academic opportunities in APs, honors or IB classes. I would hope that some reading Deresiewicz ‘s words would then feel some sympathy for what these students have to do in order to stand out in an increasingly selective process to get accepted to top schools. The competition is now global (as with almost everything else in life) and each year the acceptance rates to top schools drops down and now hovers well under 10% at the most selective schools. These students have to be nearly perfect to get in and it often takes a huge psychic toll to accomplish this.Unfortunately, there are far too may people in and out of education who don’t have much sympathy for these students. Instead there seems to be some shadenfreude going on. There is, if not glee, in hearing about the suffering of these students, there isn’t much going on in the media that comes across as supportive.The reason that many don’t seem to feel both supportive and sympathetic toward these students is that instead of understanding how much work it takes to stand out in order to get accepted to elite schools many focus far more on how much money it often takes. Educators and pundits comment daily it seems on how these students from wealthy backgrounds have received a huge boost from parents who seem to care little about anything except the name of the school their child gets in and how they can buy whatever it take to get them there.If you think I am overstating my case, here are some things that have been said by well respected writers and educators about students accepted to elite schools that lead me to believe that the ideology of class warfare has clouded their vision when it comes to understanding what these students are really like and how they live their lives:“Most of the entering class at very selective universities (like the Ivy Leagues) had the advantages of very wealthy parents who have no problem opening their wallets to university foundations, private tutors and nannies, SAT summer camps, never having to work a part-time job in high school, and the best private schools - any mediocre talent can get into an Ivy League university with all of those advantages (any many do.” Comment from an educator on a discussion group about selective admission“If you were shut out of an elite school, that doesn’t mean you’re less gifted than all of the students who were welcomed there. It may mean only that you lacked the patronage that some of them had, or that you played the game less single-mindedly, taking fewer SAT courses and failing to massage your biography with the same zeal.A friend of mine in Africa told me recently about a center for orphans there that a rich American couple financed in part to give their own teenage children an exotic charity to visit occasionally and mine for college-application essays: admissions bait. That’s the degree of cunning that comes into this frenzy.Maybe it tells you merely that these colleges attract the budding plutocrats with the greatest concern for the heft of their paychecks. Is that the milieu you sought?” Frank Bruni, NY Times Columnist And here are some quite different comments from the person who I started with, William Deresiewicz:"It almost feels ridiculous to have to insist that colleges like Harvard are bastions of privilege, where the rich send their children to learn to walk, talk, and think like the rich. Don’t we already know this? They aren’t called elite colleges for nothing. But apparently we like pretending otherwise. We live in a meritocracy, after all…Not being an entitled little shit is an admirable goal. But in the end, the deeper issue is the situation that makes it so hard to be anything else….Wealthy families start buying their children’s way into elite colleges almost from the moment they are born: music lessons, sports equipment, foreign travel (“enrichment” programs, to use the all-too-perfect term)—most important, of course, private-school tuition or the costs of living in a place with top-tier public schools. The SAT is supposed to measure aptitude, but what it actually measures is parental income, which it tracks quite closely."I have a whole lot more comments like this and almost included the whole group I collected from comments over the last few days but have decided that these 3 will do so long as readers know that these comments are common and represent what I would call the knee-jerk reaction to the way that students get accepted to highly selective schools. In other words, I am not as the logicians say, cherry picking data that does not represent a fairly large group of people. I still find it odd that the reaction on the part of so many to students who work hard is so negative. I have written about this issue a number of times and in a number of ways, but I have not had many who seem to agree with me that the comments and opinions above should be looked at with a critical eye and that perhaps it is time to question whether critiquing the parents and students who do all they can do develop skills and passions and talents should not be the ones we look down upon.Each of the comments I have quoted raises the same thing in slightly different way: wealth, patronage, and buying a place at a selective school.Based on these comments it would seem that there is a strong belief that rich kids can buy their way in to schools. While there are a few students like this who are accepted each year, the number is very small (Malcolm Gladwell says he has heard it takes 20 million to get a place. I don’t think he has data to back this up but even if it were true the number of families that could drop 20 million for a child is tiny.) Anyone running data on the Ivies and donations from parents with college going kids could find out how many 20 million contributions came in in any given year. I would be willing to bet that the number would be smaller than the number of fingers I have.Gladwell asserts 20 million gets students inWhat’s far more important, however, than tracing the tiny number of super trust fund kids who get in, would be to get a somewhat agreed upon definition of what privileged means. The medium income (in 2011) for those at the top 1.5% in the US is $250,000. Is anyone above this percentage above amount to be categorized as rich? A thought experiment might help. If a family has two children and they live in a city with poor public schools they will likely make the sacrifice to send their children to private schools. The prices can range from 10,000-30,000. Boarding school is about 50,000. In addition, living in large cities costs are great deal of money as does living in some areas outside the cities in nice suburbs with great public schools. While these families are not suffering economically, I think it is not accurate to say they can buy their way in to elite schools. Even the top .1% of income earners wont find it easy to drop 20 million to buy a space (assuming this statement by Gladwell is even remotely accurate). The number of parents who have high school seniors and who make 250,000 is small. It is one of the reasons colleges have had to import many full paying international students. There simply are not that many rich kids to go around given the costs of schools these days. The elite schools have more than enough students, from all income levels that they can admit, but I think it is inaccurate to assume that families who make less than a very high sum are busying their children's way in to schools. (Here is one data point to support my contention, taken from Jeffrey Selingo’s book, College (Un)Bound, which is well worth reading as it is a treasure trove of data that isn’t published many places: "At the top is the total number of eighteen-year-olds, some 4.3 million in 2009. The ones that filter out at the bottom are those with above-average SAT scores and family incomes over $ 200,000 a year, who also want to attend small, private colleges in the mid-Atlantic or Northeast regions. That number in 2009, according to Lundquist? Just 996 students." Selingo, Jeffrey J. College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students)While these stats do not apply to the Ives for example, they include all the top and less than top small liberal arts schools that proliferate in these regions. The fact is that there are not that many rich kids, even kids who are near the bottom of what some would call rich. It’s worth noting at Harvard for example 1 out of every 5 students in Pell Grant eligible, meaning the student comes form the bottom of the income distribution, Colombia’s low-income percentage is even higher. These skills are not filled with only students from penthouses and villas and who take private jets to get to campus. Not even close.The second issue I have with the class warfare comments is that each of them seems to assume that parents care first and foremost about buying places in college. I don’t know how many of the commenters I have quoted above have spent untold hours with the parents of students at some of the top private and public schools in the US, but I have spent hundreds. I have continued my interaction with students and parents outside of school settings around the world and have logged in thousands of hours talking with students. And I also have personal experience with my own child negotiating through the application process for selective schools and most of her peers came from the top income distribution. In all that time, I found that parents were not plotting to buy their kids a spot. Did they try to encourage their children to play instruments, to play sports, to learn to do service? Yes. But it never seemed that the reason they were doing so was to buy a kid in. Most parents, of any income bracket, want their children to succeed. Those with means will try to find options that will help develop their children that may make them productive citizens. Are there a few who think money is the only thing that matters? Yes. Are there many? I certainly have not met many of them. I think that most parents want to give their children opportunities to learn first and foremost. I think it would be naïve of me to think that some of the things they support might be thought of as helpful in admission. But most do not start every act or expense they make for their children as something that will end up being listed on an admission application. The cynicism on the part of educators about parents who make more than most seems overstated and not based on data.Finally, I want to highlight what seems to be a disconnect between what people know about students who attend elite schools and yet what they perceive them to be. Deresiewicz. And anyone who works at a selective school knows, that the stress level among students is alarmingly high. Counseling centers are overwhelmed, students are depressed in record numbers, tons are on medications. Educators know this and yet it doesn’t seem that this elicits much concern in the public. Rather than attempting to address these issues it seems many would rather define these students as, to use Mr. Deresiewicz’s phrase, “entitled little shits.” If so many of those attending elite schools are psychically wounded do the all really feel like entitled little shits too. Are they both? Maybe there are some of both on campuses but my experience this past week and over many years leads me to conclude there are many more of the former than the latter. If I am right about this, then there ought to be a lot more comments and published pieces about helping the brightest students in the land negotiate their years in college in ways that will produce learning and health. If most teachers at colleges, if most who work in offices at universities, if most of the country thinks these kids are shits, don’t you think this attitude filters down to them? These kids are, I think it fair to say, not dumb. They can perceive the snarky remarks that come their way and these actions don’t help to bridge the gaps in income culture or experience in any useful way. The years when it was assumed that college is the best 4 years” seems to be over. Kids have to work timelessly to try to find the jobs they hope will bring them security for the future. Just because a student seems to have everything together on a resume or even speaking in public, it does not take much to see that underneath are young adults struggling to define themselves. Calling them shits won’t help them and won’t help anyone else either. It’s time to rethink the discourse that is being used by too many in education today.*********************************************************************I began this answer by talking about my bad week, and here is where I will end. There are a lot of exceptional students who love to learn and work tirelessly to succeed some because they want to and others to please parents but many of these students are struggling. They are depressed, have eating disorders or worse. Some don’t know if they can get through school despite having all the numeric rubrics that predict success. My plea is for people who think that anyone who has money has it easy should spend some hours talking to some of these “rich kids” before saying things in public in the media or behind closed doors that purports to tell the truth of what these students are like and what lives they lead. I think if there would be more communication between educators and these students who work as hard as they can to do well and take full advantage of the support of parents there might be less of what I would call contempt for them.Am I saying that there are not rich kids who are jerks? Of course not. But there are poor jerks too. Most students I know are good people who care and try as best as they can to do well. I tend to know students who have achieved exceptionally well and the group has been a huge resource for me in terms of learning about the world. I am honored that they talk to me about their struggles and fears. For those who don’t know many of the overachievers personally I would suggest looking over a number of interviews I have conducted with these kinds of student on this blog. Enter the word interview and then spend a few hours reading about students, most of whom are full payers, who have done things in their lives that I never could, in and out of the classroom, and almost all of these things have nothing to do with money. These students have chance to make positive change in ways few do. Why not try to give them some respect and support rather than contempt and inaccurate stereotypes? Name calling does not help them one bit and it won’t help the others who don’t have the chance to do what some of these students might if they had the support of people around them. These kids are under enough stress. Do they need to feel that most dislike them because they don’t have to go into debt to get an education? That seems counterproductive at the very least. It also seems mean-spirited and small-minded.The person’s story I quoted from above who had supportive parents, lived in great neighborhoods and went to boarding school has some more detail I will add here:My senior year, I received an acceptance letter to an Ivy League college. I was in the campus mailroom. Everyone was buzzing as they learned of their fate. I opened my letter and smiled. I had been accepted to all but one of the schools to which I applied. I allowed myself a quiet moment of celebration. A young white man next to me, the sort who played lacrosse, had not been accepted to his top choice, a school to which I had been accepted. He was instantly bitter. He sneered and muttered, “Affirmative action,” as he stalked away. I had worked hard and it didn’t matter. I was exceptional and it did not matter. In that moment, I was reminded of my place.This African American student earned her spot. Yet at the moment she should have been celebrating she was insulted. I bring up this story, as I wanted to ask a question. Would the writers who call people from good incomes and attend boarding schools lots of names also call her an excellent sheep or an entitled little shit who waltzed into an Ivy? Probably not. Her race means she has had to overcome many things the rest of us have not. But she is still part of the community of students who attends these schools and has the backing of parents. To paint anyone who attends an elite boarding school and who then goes on to an Ivy entitled little shit would include this student and thus add insult to injury.If a white or Asian student had just received great news from an Ivy and someone said right then and there, ‘entitled little shit and stalked off, I imagine that would hurt too. Or is there a part of you that thinks there are kids who deserve this epithet and that it feels just a little bit good to say it? ??While this last epithet is not at all the same thing as a racial epithet, each still dehumanize and categorize people into a group. I thought the educators were dedicated to changing this kind of thinking. These students, or at least most that I know, are vulnerable, insecure and still have a lot of growing up to do. But almost all of them have worked incredibly hard, and have earned their spots too. Instead of judging them negatively from the start, it might be useful to them and to the rest of us to keep the discourse civil and thoughtful.Maria Popova sums what I have tried to say here clearly and succinctly: "To assume that one’s voice and cultural contribution don’t count because one was born into “privilege” is as narrow and toxic as to deny one’s voice because one was born into poverty.