"Many of the men blamed themselves for their isolation. They described lacking confidence, social skills, self-esteem, or initiative. They felt they needed to “fix themselves” before they could build relationships.
Clearly, confidence and social skills matter, but Sam and Soren arrived at a different conclusion: disconnection is a societal failure. The burden should not rest entirely on isolated individuals to solve a problem created by the erosion of community institutions."
I agree with this point and the policy prescription, but I think there is something else that is missing in this equation. Our education system is not addressing something that causes these men to lose connection when they are taken out of the high school environment. They exist in a system that moves them along and when the system stops working and moving them along they lose their ability to navigate. Our education system needs to focus on helping more people develop a way to connect to their own experience and to develop meaningful connections with others. As it stands, you can be a passenger in the education system and the system almost rewards you for passenging. The system assumes that some people have agency and others don't, but agency and self-determination is a set of skills that can be taught and learned.
"Many of the men blamed themselves for their isolation. They described lacking confidence, social skills, self-esteem, or initiative. They felt they needed to “fix themselves” before they could build relationships.
Clearly, confidence and social skills matter, but Sam and Soren arrived at a different conclusion: disconnection is a societal failure. The burden should not rest entirely on isolated individuals to solve a problem created by the erosion of community institutions."
I agree with this point and the policy prescription, but I think there is something else that is missing in this equation. Our education system is not addressing something that causes these men to lose connection when they are taken out of the high school environment. They exist in a system that moves them along and when the system stops working and moving them along they lose their ability to navigate. Our education system needs to focus on helping more people develop a way to connect to their own experience and to develop meaningful connections with others. As it stands, you can be a passenger in the education system and the system almost rewards you for passenging. The system assumes that some people have agency and others don't, but agency and self-determination is a set of skills that can be taught and learned.