This is the age of competition. I have come to believe that this slogan and its operationalisation might be the reason that we are failing to create a self confident and innovative manpower. Competitions are in the nature of races. Races are possible only on well defined narrow tracks. By forcing our young people to confine themselves to such narrow tracks while running these races, we are shaving off the personalities of many multifaceted individuals.
The judges of the races work hard to define the rules and shapes of the tracks such that the results can be given in a few digits. Qualities outside the track parameters are disregarded. We are looking for cloned individuals, and the premium on being successful in the race tends to produce only limited robots. Those who fall outside the boundaries are sacrificed and damaged badly. Rich and innovative personalities, some with charming quirks, are not wanted.
All this effort on the part of the official measuring and grading systems is aggressively helped and encouraged by the large coaching industry. This industry can succeed only in producing robotic clones, sometimes destroying the diversities of well rounded human beings. You could not coach a Gandhi, Franklin, Einstein or the inventor of the first desktop computer. We seem to have decided that we do not want any mediocre of that category! We only want a tunnel vision industrious variety at this stage in our development!
The sad thing is that we are doing all this with a feeling that we are engaged in a great educational venture. It is possible that a whole generation of beautiful young people is being sacrificed.Only when we learn to teach and evaluate in a manner such that all coaching becomes redundant and superfluous, we would have arrived. There seems to be a conspiracy that we do not move in that direction I wonder who is conspiring?
Our Nations veterans are a national treasure. That’s right… a treasure. Unfortunately in today’s culture, veterans are rarely acknowledged. I mean sure, you can ask someone if they know a vet or if they respect a vet and most will readily say yes, but where is their action? I can tell you… I am a combat veteran, and much of the social perceptions and cultural understandings of sacrifice and commitment of veterans is completely misunderstood, ignored and even looked down upon by many young people today. Now, due to the Iraq War there are many young veterans and they of course understand this issue and the problems veterans face, and they are all heroes! However, there are many others who really have no clue. For this I am disheartened. What I am however, is impressed by the motivation, policy and movement by our government in creating more resources, programs and systems for veterans. The Veterans Administration is committing a great deal of funding and man power to helping veterans today. I am impressed by the action of many of our leaders in helping veterans today in finding employment, helping with housing, mental health, substance abuse, suicide, family issues and many other problematic conditions plaguing veterans. There seems to be a call for duty among our leaders to help these hero’s! However, there is still much work to be done and many are still suffering! If we are to combat homelessness and other veterans problems it will take ALL OF US.
Homelessness
According to the Veterans Administration there is an estimated 200,000 veterans chronically homeless. On any given night during a year there is an estimated 400,000 homeless veterans. According to the Urban Institute on Homelessness approximately 23% of all homeless people are veterans; about 1 in 3. Of course, these stats are not accurate. There is no way to accurately quantify the number of homeless veterans; it is estimation, and one that is unacceptable!
According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, many of the homeless veterans (about 96% are male) and about 4% are female. Many come from poor communities, have little support structures of family, suffer from mental illness (about 45%), have substance abuse problems (about 50%), many served for 3 years (about 67%), and many served in combat zones (about 33%).
Why Are They Homeless?
Understand that many suffer from ecological conditions beyond their control as well as individual choice issues. They lack affordable housing, a livable earning wage, they lack consistent health care, lack of support structures and many suffer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse issues (NCHV, 2008). Furthermore, it is a compilation and a manifestation of many issues and problems for which homeless veterans find themselves living on the street. One interesting fact is that much of the funding in the system to help homeless veterans are structured in good faith to help veterans and their families and or woman from becoming homeless; however this leaves single male veterans at very high risk and the evidential outcomes prove such statements (NCHV, 2008).
Even with the Veterans Administration helping veterans it is estimated that they only reach about 25% of needing veterans. This means that there are many areas and needs for programs that will reach veterans in many areas they have been missed (NCHV, 2008).
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