as a teenager, I read a number of books on American education.
I was interested in what was broken and how to fix it.
One book I read that I can’t track down since, contained a large study done on teenagers to test their intelligence on a number of levels. It may have been early college goers.
if I remember right, there was a group that was identical in every way educationally and emotionally with the only real difference, their family’s status. (parents careers basically)
they revisited the group 30 years later, scattered all around the world because they had come to the college from all around, whoever they could track down.
each had a story to tell.
they all used their intelligence and emotional stability in where they landed up.
but a few cases left me in tears.
The saddest was a middle-aged man who successfully finished college as much as a full academic scholarship gave, but after that, lacking family connections, he went back to the family farm in the midwest and tended it best he could.
Verge of suicidal when they found him. his room filled with grand notes and ideas about the things he studied but there were cows to tend and a family business he had to hang onto.
was it a case as you say of a family member prized over one’s own success?
possibly but i don’t think it could’ve been any other way, at least not at that time.
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