so what do you think about a year or two of public service
well i know it's hard for young people to think about giving up their years you know free their carefree years but people that i have known that have done that i like from other countries especially Germany and Finland
uh-huh
yes yeah
they are just they have such a better more mature outlook on life and i think they're better people because of it they're much more responsible i know um
um-hum
the church that i go to um the young men give two years of their life when they turn nineteen you know they're encouraged to do that missionary work and i believe i really believe that the people that do that
uh-huh
are better people and uh make our society better
you know i i really agree with you um i uh though i've never done that myself i i'm was a basically an education major when i graduated from college and i accepted a job that at the time was just slightly above the poverty level to teach
to um very rural children in a very low income district and i spent a year teaching there and i think it was probably one of my largest eye-opening experiences because i come from nice
uh-huh
middle class white suburban home and i did it um
um-hum
for one reason i wanted i was working on a masters degree so i wanted to stay close to where i was working on a masters degree but also because i just thought that it would be interesting to live someplace else so totally different than my own upbringing and i it changed
um-hum
it probably changed my political views it changed my understanding of the world around me
uh-huh
and i think um in fact if if i had to do it all again i you know i i after that you know you never think of it because i guess because i paid for all of my college education myself i never thought about
doing that because i had all these college loans i'd started paying back
hm
um because so that was that was one reason why i never considered it but now that i'm further along and i'm still paying these college loans
i i think realistically you know you can have your college loans delayed now because i had them delayed because i'm back in graduate school at thirty years old
yeah
um i've had them delayed because i'm back in graduate school and on that form it says if your joining the Peace Corps you can have them delayed
hm
uh and i thought that was you know very interesting and i i would have thought of that earlier i probably would have done you know just like is that is this is that the Mormon church
yes yes but if
that does that um-hum because one of my neighbors uh did that in Pittsburgh from Pittsburgh and i thought you know that really now that i'm thirty years old i think that one or two years out of my life would've probably like you said
uh-huh
to be able to travel someplace else whether it be the United States or outside the country i think would've been a very good um experience for me
uh-huh
well i think so it puts you out on your own and and in a time after high school um
um-hum
there's kind of a selfishness i mean teenagers in our country are kind of
kind of a year that parents don't look forward to and and things like that and i think that it would help people to become less self-centered and to be more responsible when you're out on your own trying to um
um-hum
yes
um-hum
um-hum
thinking less of your own needs but of other people
yeah
and i think you know we have such a need now you know i taught you know i i think i was paid
uh about nine thousand dollars to teach for the year and i worked in a very rural school district and i i one of the things i taught was a computer class and these kids
um-hum
uh-huh
um you know every girl i taught except for one was pregnant many of the boys in the room had children and they were they were high school juniors
oh no
um-hum
and i and i just there you know they came from poverty they were going to continue in poverty
and it was it was the school district couldn't hire many people it was very difficult for them to hire and i think you know in the sense that aspect of public service for education in some of the inner cities
right
for um just social workers in some of the inner cities and some of the rural areas where they just need advice on medical um
things i think it's a really good idea and even if it is overseas see i never i i tell you sometimes i worry about things overseas because we have such problems right here in our own country
um-hum
yes
um-hum
it would really um and i don't the people that i've known like from Germany and Finland that have done that are they do military service which you know i don't exactly recommend but still
yeah
um-hum
yeah
they have benefited from it and um you know although i wouldn't want
right um-hum
military military to make people to go off to the military voluntarily but it's it has helped them and they are just a lot more mature than the average student and
um-hum
um-hum
yeah i think it would also help them if they then went on to college i know that my first couple of years of college were um
uh probably too carefree at the beginning and then at the end i had to be too serious
um-hum
well that's right a lot of people they flunk out or they get they just
um-hum
are so excited to be away from home they just spend all there time partying and they do a lot of things to themselves and that we don't really want our young people to be doing and
um-hum
yeah that's true
um-hum that's right
i yeah i think i think this was this was a very interesting topic
um
yeah
uh because it's something that you know we don't talk about in this country probably enough
um-hum
uh you know
because because we're so
we love our freedom and our freedom of choice
um-hum
yep that's true
and um having people but you know our like in our church it it is you're free to do that or not you're encouraged to do it because um you know it it helps you and
um-hum
of course we think it's helping other people and so
oh i think it is
i really think i think um people you should i you know the kids today i teach i spend a lot of my time teaching college students
uh-huh
and um i find great disgust in them in their in their um their self-centeredness
um-hum
and their inability to understand um multicultural or multiracial situations and i really you know they don't understand uh how other people live um they don't understand
um-hum
and they're preoccupied with drinking
um-hum
yep i think that's uh just just having a good time
uh-huh and
i uh a friend of mine is a psychologist and he always refers to it as uh short-term pleasure oriented i guess he's a technical aspect he likes to apply to it
um-hum
you know today's young people are short-term pleasure oriented and everything has to be an immediate reward and it has to be fun
that's true
that's really true
um-hum yeah
yes well i i don't know how that would ever happen here but at least um
well they say i think i um have read recently that uh the Bush Administration has increased the uh funding for the Peace Corps
oh really
uh-huh because i guess because of the changes in Eastern Europe
uh they've increased funding for the Peace Corps some of the i guess it's some of the peace dividend in the sense you known when they're decreasing some of the military spending some of that money has gone into the Peace Corps and some of the other overseas programs uh
um-hum
hm
well i have seen a big change i think in high school kids that my relatives and friends that um i know when i was in high school i had an idea of what i really wanted to do with
um-hum
um-hum
what my what i was going to study and at least i had some interest in a lot of the youth that i come in contact with are they say oh i want to be a doctor i want to be a lawyer why because they make a lot of money
yes yeah that's true
and they don't have a goal they don't have a goal they don't have an interest in their own field of study they're just looking what's going to pay the biggest cash
um-hum
yeah that's very true you know how many is it they say we have so many lawyers in this country and i guess i i live near Washington being in in Baltimore it's something like one in four people in the Washington
um-hum
area yes
area are lawyers
and and i i just sort of think that's ridiculous yeah with
yes there's too many people
you know with the great needs that we need today in science and biology and uh you know the the problems we have with AIDS and cancer and and that how come everybody is a lawyer you know you know
um-hum
that's right and not enough people want to do that to for
um-hum
uh because of a service that they could provide you know if you want to be a lawyer because you know that you can provide a service that people need because you have to have lawyers in this country um but if you're just doing it because you think that's the best way to be rich
right um-hum
um-hum
yeah you saw statistics that lawyers and doctors make the most money in the long run yeah that's true
um-hum
that's kind of sad well anyway well i guess i better go
that's interesting um-hum
okay hey thanks so much for the conversation
well good luck to you i enjoyed it
well thank you very much bye-bye
thanks bye-bye
