Nepali D.N.A. in N.Y.C.

On February fifth, twenty fifteen, I was on my way home from a day at work. I usually take the R train which allows me to be seated with ample time for reading but I was running late and I wanted to get home quickly. So I hopped on the 4 train which goes express up to 59th street.

It was about six thirty by the time I got on the train. Thirty minutes later than my usual six o’clock train meant an even more crowded ride home.

However it took me an entire day after the ride to realize and write about the four kids in the train. When I had boarded the train it was moderately full and a little too crowded by the door. So I made my way through the crowd to the middle of the compartment and ended up standing in front of two boys whom I will name Joe and Timmy. They were probably between the age of six or seven. On their left were two other kids who were most likely older than ten but no more than twelve or thirteen, whom I will call Tyson and Albert.

So here they were, four brothers sitting in the train occupying the space usually three adults occupy. I don’t know if they were really brothers for certain but from what I could tell they had to be.

They behaved like most boys their age do. The young ones, Joe and Timmy, were playing with each other, laughing and roleplaying some action character that I could not figure out.

The two older kids were goofing around a bit with each other as well. The bigger of the two, Tyson, seemed more playful and less mature. He pretended he was dozing off and falling asleep on Albert’s shoulder. Meanwhile Albert seemed very annoyed with Tyson’s act and kept pushing him away.

It wasn’t very long when, Albert, authoritatively told the other three boys to behave themselves. I found this quite strange considering his smaller built and age compared to Tyson. Then, Albert proceeded to study by taking out his binder from his bookbag, while Tyson dozed off leaning his head straight back; Timmy and Joe fooled around in their seat next to Tyson.

Eventually Timmy pulled out a book from his bag and asked Joe to read it. This hinted that Joe and Timmy more or less were in about the same grade. Joe however, wasn’t having it and the book got pushed back and forth at which point I was afraid it might tear and neither of them will have a book to read. Fortunately the book held and made its way back to the backpack.

But the play continued meanwhile Tyson who had fallen asleep at his seat woke up and secretly snached Timmy’s hat and hid it. Timmy being the younger one, could not figure out who had taken his hat. And as joe was sitting nearest to him opted to blame him.

Since he couldn’t find his hat, Timmy began to cry tearlessly. He was scared that he would be punished if he lost his hat since it belonged to his father. There wasn’t anything special about the black hat, it was probably made of polyester and looked last winter. Full of lint balls and no washing.

Somehow the hat proved very significant to Timmy. He went back and forth between Joe, Tyson and even blamed Albert, who was focused on his homework, for stealing his hat. Albert didn’t pay attention and just asked Tyson to return the hat back. But, the playful hiding of the hat  and Timmy’s crying continued for few minutes and until Tyson decided to return the hat. Timmy seemed relieved as he stopped crying.  

The playful nature continued between Joe and Timmy while Tyson sat bored watching Albert do his homework. Albert broke the tip of his pencil and could not continue doing his homework. He asked if any of the three had another pencil and Timmy was the only one who pulled out a pencil from his bag to give to Albert which also turned out to be broken. So Albert was left without a pencil to continue his homework.

After a few stops, I got off the train at fifty ninth street to transfer and the four brothers Timmy, Joe, Tyson and Albert remained seated making their way up towards the Bronx.

The four boys stayed in my mind for a while till my happiness of getting home replaced them.

I woke the next morning, followed my usual routine to go to work and left my home. Read “Shame of the Nation” on my ride and spent a productive and fairly relaxed day at work.

It wasn’t until evening, I started pondering about Kozol's words from the book, about Pineapple and her sisters and other inner city kids.My mind wandered back to the four brothers. Almost twenty years later many of his words were echoing in the lives of these four brothers.

First thing that struck me was the hour the four boy were returning from school. I thought they must have been returning from an after school program. Yet I was not in agreement with myself because six thirty is fairly late for kids that age to be returning home from an afterschool program.

Even more alarming to me was that they were making a journey home that seemed relentlessly long for kids their age. I predict somewhere from Brooklyn to Harlem or the Bronx. One could argue that maybe they got off at the next few stop.

This made me question; Why the long journey? Was the school they attended that much better than the one near their home? Did the parents choose to have their children go to school so far from where they lived? Why are we not building every school to a standard for every parents to be proud of in their neighbourhood?

This is a scenario that hasn’t changed for the last twenty years in NYC. Perhaps it might be largely based on human nature to seek a better standard for their children.

Comparing this scenario to many students from third world countries leaving to a developed nation for a better education. This is the same scenario where parents in south Bronx sending their child into manhattan of Brooklyn for a better education.

Why is this happening? Is the school budget based on number of students or based on how much money the parents in the community makes? Wealthier the community, the more money in the public school in that area? Maybe, you know the richer parents would complain if certain standards were not met? Not so much if you look at the parents in a poorer neighbourhood. Most parents can’t even afford to make it to most parent teachers conference, forget about PTA meetings.

Reading recent news and events regarding parents making choices not to vaccinate their children has gotten me to think whether the problem extends to the sector of education. It is disheartening that an "educated" adult is unable to dig up research data or articles that show whether vaccination is good or bad. Maybe they simply don't care to take a logical approach and make decisions out of fear or a trend? 

Doing few quick searches around the internet there seems to be logical sounding concerns regrading vaccines: Autism, Thiomersal, MMR Vaccine, Vaccine Overdose, Aluminium and etc. Studies have been done by scientist to see whether these concerns are something we should worry about. Yet It seems that those who are against vaccination are persistent in using the same reasoning over and over again to opt out of vaccinating their children. According to an article on Huffing Post by Dr. McCarthy these are the top seven reasons that parents do not want to vaccinate their child:

1. These illnesses are rare. 2.These illnesses aren't all that bad. 3. Vaccines cause autism. 4. Vaccines have side effects. 5. The preservatives in vaccines are dangerous. 6. It's a conspiracy -- the pharmaceutical companies and government are keeping secrets from us. 7. I trust my family, friends and community more than my doctor.

Another article on the people's chemist by Shane Ellison, MS; points out three reasons why he does not vaccinate his children:

1.Vaccination Does Not Always Mean “Immunization” 2.Vaccines Expose Kids to Toxins 3.Kids Can Build Immunity Naturally

In addition there are many site that give data on why vaccine doesn't work and that there are other reasons for lower outbrakes and data that shows that vaccine as a cuase of outbreaks like Polio in other countries.

At the same time it is harder to read articles that shows immense data why vaccine works since most of the time these data comes from scientist and they are written in a dense language that most adults do not care to spend time reading. Even watching the news most of the time we are bombarded with information like how drinking a glass of red wind or eating chocolate is better for your health instead of presenting research and bringing scientist to explain their findings.

Yet this scenario extends to a younger age where teachers make science boring to most kids. This is not to say anything negative about teachers, however the scenario is such that our curriculum and our results of students preformance are solely based on memorizing facts and formulas and very little on thinking and doing science.

In NYC, most classrooms I have visited (Physics classes) have been geared towards taking the Regents exam or AP Physics exam. A year is spent doing problems, memorizing formulas and learning to take the test to increase students scores. Yet in the same year very little time is used on how to think scientifically. How to read a scientific journal. How to question and look for answers.

So with this type of teaching I won't be surprised that many in the US don't have science literacy. Unable to process facts and think independently and question the research presented to them.