Becca Predicts the Future

Becca: “You know, when I'm a teen and come to Epcot, I'm going to look at this and say, ‘Look, there's the Big Ball of Boredom.’” The future looks interesting indeed.

Just Thinking

I almost didn't publish this. It's been written for several days. But after listening all day to teachers, it seems apropos. I don't think it will change anything, because this train left the station a long time ago. Take it for what it's worth.

This is my first vacation in, well, forever, that I don't have to worry about prepping (or feel guilty about not prepping) for the upcoming school year. Nevertheless, as summer rushes to a close, my brain circuits are still wired to think in those terms, even about a school year that won't exist, at least for me.

Lest you think this is some maudlin moan about not teaching or the death of a career, let me quickly disabuse you of that notion. I'm enjoying this pressure-free time and, at least to this point, have no regrets. Neither do I need to worry about the fact that I’m not doing the assigned boring summer reading of the latest education-savior (currently Marzano). Okay, I wouldn’t have done it anyway and wouldn’t have worried about it, but still….

What I do wonder, however, is if I could have gone a little longer had not the time allotted for the annual recharging of my teacher batteries become more and more compressed. Were I teaching this year, the meetings would have started in the first week of August, with classes the second week. That is closer to the rule than the exception, at least in Missouri. Contrary to popular administrative belief, the advent of before school meetings actually had in an inverse correlation to my enthusiasm for the upcoming year.

 Were I still planning to place my well-worn backside into that equally well-worn saddle for one more drive, I'd have about a week between getting home from vacation and the start of meetings. My vacation would have been either interrupted by using the briefcase full of books I always carted along for reading or planning, OR made less relaxing and enjoyable by the guilt of NOT using the briefcase full of books I always carted along for reading or planning. The school year, which now already encroaches on June, has also been increasingly extended with even more meetings and required reading (outside of what is necessary to plan a successful year).

Maybe this sounds like whining after the fact, but good teachers need, more than anything, time to recharge their batteries so that they can give their next “herd” (continuing the cowboy analogy) the care and attention they deserve. The myth of summers off has been exactly that, a myth, for a long time, and those summers have been getting shorter and shorter, with more and more interruptions in any case.

The drive for ever-increasing productivity from teachers may, like many efforts to cram more into less in the name of efficiency or accountability, be counter-productive. Artists don’t get better from externally imposed structure and pressure. More than anything, artists need time. Trust me when I tell you, the true artists are always thinking about ways to improve their art or how to forge new paths to their performance goals.

As my career protracted and the demands increased, I know my resentment followed a similar arc, and, because I feared it would spill over to the detriment of my kids, I knew (among other reasons, of course; and maybe it did anyway) it was time to go. As I look at the (now hypothetical) schedule for the upcoming year, I know I made the right choice.

Two final thoughts: Kids, too, need time to recharge. I will now confess (probably to the surprise of almost no one) I never graded (although I did read) the summer assignments that were mandated by the school, because I didn’t believe in them. Read, learn, explore. That would have been my assignment, but it didn't fit the model. I also used to oppose (for mostly selfish reasons, I admit) the year-round school concept. I changed my mind on that years ago, but a year with more extended breaks is worth considering. It would, of course, have to be implemented (more or less) on at least a regional basis, and while that’s not likely to happen, it doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy idea.

Smokin!

I understand there's nothing more obnoxious than a reformed sinner preaching against his/her erstwhile vice, but I'm closing in on a position of banning smoking everywhere except a person's own residence. Having dined in Kentucky I was reminded of the absurdity of a non-smoking section of a restaurant (as someone already opined, like having a non-peeing section of a swimming pool).

I'm not as good at holding my breath as I used to be (may have something to do with the years I spent as a smoker). Here's the problem. Being outside doesn't makes your fumes less noxious. I hate having to run the smoking section gauntlet to get into a restaurant or mall or store. Laying by the pool or walking down the beach can be spoiled by the stench of tobacco. 

If you're still a smoker, want to continue to damage your health*, and don't want to see an outright ban on your vice (which, I agree, wouldn't work, but would at least get the smoke away from those who don't want to breathe it), might I respectfully suggest you indulge in your "right to smoke" in a way that is extraordinarily considerate and realize that just because you're outside doesn't mean we can't smell what you're dealing.

* This does not deal with the costs that all of society bears in terms of more expensive health insurance, lost productivity, etc. That's a whole 'nother topic.

Unintended Consequences of a Punishment Society

This piece was started, but not completed, prior to the predictable verdict in the George Zimmerman case, which, while helping to create the impetus for thinking about the topic, is only one example, and perhaps not the kind you think.

It seems to me that far too many people in our society are focused on punishment, specifically punishing someone (else) for perceived slights or injustices, or to somehow evening the score as they see it being kept. People take it on themselves to hand out punishments to those others they think have somehow avoided the appropriate consequences for actions that violate some kind of code.

I admit that it irks me when people seem to be getting away with something that I’m sure I would be punished for, or that is self-centered or self-serving, to the detriment of society. However, I’m much more likely to just shake my head and move on than to decide it is somehow up to me dish out some kind of punishment. I’m not so obsessed with rules (maybe because I had trouble following them myself) that I feel any need to take on any enforcement responsibilities. Mostly, though, I’m just not an angry guy.

Some religious leaders reinforce their congregants’ anger by spending lots of time passing judgment on those who have transgressed, in either major or minor ways. Inadvertently or not, those leaders encourage their followers to take on the role of righteous punishers themselves. 

Politicians certainly reinforce anger as a way to generate support from those who are frustrated at the way things are going, be they bankers or welfare recipients (as either perpetrators or victims, take your pick). When politicians talk about reform (immigration, welfare, voter fraud, etc.) today, look closely at whom they are trying to punish, because you won’t have to work hard to find their target.

Isn’t punishment what the nasty divorces exemplify, one spouse getting revenge on the other however (s)he can, including using the children or poisoning the parental well? Isn’t that also really what passive-aggressive behavior manifests, punishing first, with an explosion, and then rationalizing the outburst? 

Looking at the Zimmerman case, I wasn’t surprised at the jury’s decision (reasonable doubt is a tough standard; just because you or I think someone is guilty doesn’t make them so in the legal sense of the word). I didn’t follow the case closely enough to know how I would have decided were I unfortunate enough to have been selected for the jury. I don’t know who is guilty, or who is at fault, and neither do you, because none of us were eyewitnesses. Even if I had been an eyewitness to the tragedy, what I saw (and heard) would have been colored by the prejudices I bring to the party.

I don’t know George Zimmerman, but I’ve known too many people like him – Wanna-be cops, bullies suffering from Chronic Outrage Disorder.* That is my prejudice. But Zimmerman is also one example of my point; he wanted, maybe even needed, to punish someone, perhaps anyone, for what he saw as an ever-expanding threat to life as he knew it. That doesn’t make him guilty, of course, nor does it make Trayvon Martin innocent.

It does, however, typify the problems created by the need of some people who feel it is their duty, their prerogative, their right, to punish those who they believe are so deserving. No matter whose story you believe, either partially or in its entirety, either Zimmerman’s or Martin’s, one (or both) decided the other was deserving of punishment. Ironically, whatever violent response to the verdict may arise will be just another example of the punishment motive.

Punishment attitudes also explain many cases of “road rage.” Because some other driver appears to be not following the rules, and getting away with their “sin,” the self-appointed enforcer lets his/her anger drive the need to punish. Such an attitude can also explain the classroom teacher or administrator who becomes a bully, using discipline not as a tool to maintain order but to punish a kid or kids who may or may not be deserving, but who represent all that is “wrong” with schools or the world. These types, too, I have known.

How many have seen the neighborhood or playground enforcer, yelling at kids (or even other adults)? How about the frustrated parent who is driven to teach his/her kids lesson after lesson through punishment? “I’ll teach you!” The level of anger often has little relation to the gravity of the transgression, or perhaps even to the transgressor.

I don’t object to consequences for actions that cause disorder in or create danger to society. Those consequences may involve punishments, from mild to severe, but those consequences and punishments need to be administered by someone tasked with that obligation and meted out to a specific miscreant, whether to one’s own child by a parent or to a criminal by legal authorities (who follow codified procedures), not by some self-appointed surrogate for misplaced anger or aggression. Punishment is a tool, and like any tool, dangerous in untrained or unauthorized hands.

* My student-teaching cooperating teacher was one such person. For fun he rode with the Moline Acres Police Department (think now defunct St. George in South County) as an Auxiliary Officer in the evenings, carried an expandable metal baton, and actually liked “Tree Duty” at McClure HS, where we sat in his Dodge Charger (think Starsky & Hutch) with some kind of snack taken from the cafeteria and did surveillance to catch kids smoking. I can not imagine a much worse way to spend time but he enjoyed both the catching and confrontation.

What If I'm Wrong?

It’s not what you don't know that is necessarily dangerous. It’s what you think you know and are wrong about. If you’re one of those who are never wrong, there’s nothing to see here. Just move along.

It’s being absolutely certain that you’re right and acting upon that certainty that gets you into trouble. How many tests have been failed or botched because you knew everything? How many relationships have been destroyed because you were certain that the other half had, or had not, done something. How many fatal accidents come from knowing you can get around that truck on a two-lane highway, or some other vehicular misjudgment? What if you know that climate change is, or is not, primarily caused by human activity? Both people’s lives (and livelihoods) and the planet’s future hang in the balance of your certainty.

Although I’ve a longer piece on the stove inspired by the Zimmerman-Martin tragedy, no matter which side you’ve chosen, if you’ve reached a conclusion based on limited and contradictory evidence, one, or the other, or both knew something about their opposite; either or both were probably wrong, but at least one acted on his "knowledge" anyway.

At the risk of creating “paralysis by analysis,” let me suggest a simple question to ask before acting: “What if I’m wrong?”

Book Review: People of the Book

I won’t pretend that this book will grab everyone, but it sure did grab me. Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks put together a story tapping into multiple interests of mine, based on my life in the last 15 years (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t personal, given that I’d never heard of her until I was given People of the Book as a parting gift from one of my parents). Set at least partially in Bosnia as the war is winding down and concerning the (his)story of the medieval Sarajevo Haggadah (an actual book starring in a novel), it hit a trifecta.

Because it’s the first “real” book I’ve read in a long while (most of my time has been spent on lots of YA fiction, non-fiction history and biography, the occasional “beach” read, and The Week, which IMO is the best news weekly going), I also appreciated a story with multi-layered characters (none of whom are American, by the way) and a complex plot that bounces between centuries.

The journey of this manuscript from its creation in Spain before the expulsion of the Jews, through its survival of the Inquisition (it wasn’t only people who were destroyed), the Nazis of World War II, and the Bosnian War, its double-rescue by a couple Muslim academics from each of the latter conflicts, and the historical search for the truth of its journey (with some CSI science thrown in), made it an exciting read. I loved the message that, despite conflicts and biases, who we are and what we value is the result of the intersection of multiple cultures over centuries, and that we cannot selectively destroy even small pieces of that identity without negatively altering our own.

I also admit that at least part of the book’s appeal was that it was so thoughtfully chosen for me, recognizing my background and interests. That it was a heartfelt gift certainly made me pick up a book that I would have never chosen on my own, but when added to my connection with both the St. Louis Bosnian and Jewish communities in the last decade and a half, and finally combined with my appreciation of the intersecting threads of history.... What a great read for me.

Patriotism is in the Eye of the Beholder

It's the 4th of July, and I spent the morning at our community’s annual parade, which gives rise to thoughts of patriotism. What does that word mean, exactly?

Does patriotism mean the same thing to a Tea Party Patriot as it does to a member of the ACLU? How about to the Klucker marching in his hooded robe and waving the American flag? Is Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor? What about Daniel Ellsberg? (Pentagon Papers, 1969-71. He, branded as traitor by conservatives and others back then, apparently thinks the patriot description is more apt.)

Who is the patriot in Egypt? Or Syria? Do we like the military coup in Egypt because we dislike or fear Morsi and the Islamist party he represents? Never mind that he was democratically elected. But do we despise the revolution in Iran because the Shah (deposing another democratically-elected leader in a coup orchestrated by our CIA) was on our side? Was Ronald Reagan a patriot or did Iran-Contra make him just another violator of the Constitution?

Revolutions are tricky things. The winners become patriots while the losers are either tyrants or radicals. Case in point, the Boston Tea Party could have gone down in the history books as another example of terrorist vandalism by radical colonists had Washington and his army been captured in New York in 1776.

On the 150^th anniversary of Gettysburg, dare we ask if Robert E. Lee was a patriot or a traitor? Had the South won, would General William T. Sherman still be considered a military hero or a vicious barbarian?

Is saying, “I love my country” enough to qualify as a patriot, or do I have to love it the same way you do? Do I have to love it the way I saw it was back in the good old days or can I only love it the way you hope it will be when we’ve progressed to true justice and equality? Can I believe that universal health care is a fundamental citizenship right and still be a patriot?

Can I only be a patriot if I am an absolutist on the 2^nd Amendment; or can I still be called a patriot if I believe that perhaps the country is enough different 225 years later that some modifications should be discussed? Can I be critical of our country and still be a true patriot? Can I recognize errors or historic missteps and still be a patriot?

Because I’m flying my flag, am I more of a patriot than my neighbor who doesn’t? I took off my hat when the flag passed by a the parade: am I a patriot but the guy next to me not? Is my neighbor who served during Vietnam more of a patriot than I, who didn’t? How about the pacifist protestor who served in the Peace Corps, can she be a patriot, too? Does wearing a flag pin in my lapel make me a patriot? How about a flag-themed tie or t-shirt?

Can I be a patriot if I don’t vote, or if I lie and cheat to evade my share of taxes? Can I be a patriot if I lay off workers in this country to increase my profits by using a sweatshop in Bangladesh?

With unanswerable incendiary questions like these, it’s no wonder we symbolize this holiday with explosions and fireworks.

I don’t pretend to have the answers to these questions. I am, however, thankful that we live in a country where I can ask them.

Happy July 4^th! 

Missed Opportunities

History doesn't have to bore kids. The stories of history are the stories of real people, and we need to take the time to help kids connect the dots, to see that history never occurs in a vacuum, that there are always threads to the past. Of course that means you will need to be aware of those threads if you're to provide connections for others.

In the course of prepping a previous entry (Worst Part of Coaching), I had to look up the name of a town (Untergruppenbach) and its castle (Stettenfels) in southwest Germany. I remember that summer experience well because we helped renovate that old castle. Actually, I think we were used as youth labor to turn it into a tourist spot. Probably someone should have become suspicious when the American youth contingent was assigned to dig, by hand, with shovels, a swimming pool. (I missed out on some of that because my French, being the least bad of our group, got me a short gig as the Yugoslavian bricklayer's assistant.)

In any case, I learned a lot, some of which became the foundation for various life lessons to students that I may resurrect later in this space. None of what I learned, however, came close to touching on the history of the castle or even Germany. Admittedly, we were there to work in a youth camp, and our "adult" chaperone was way more concerned about ingratiating himself with future leaders of the sponsoring church's youth group than much of anything else, so maybe I'm being harsh in my assessment that those of us on the trip were cheated out of learning something historically important. I’m in no way suggesting that there was anything nefarious in this. Actually, I'd bet the guy in charge of us was so shallow he never even thought to consider the building’s history. I am saying that there was a huge missed opportunity.

I'm under no illusion that, as a teen, I would have been this enthusiastic participant in some castle genealogy presentation, but I would have been polite and, even then, the words "Holocaust," "Nazi Germany," and "Aryanization" would have grabbed my attention. I'm pretty sure that most of the other kids would also have liked knowing that the castle on which we were working had been stolen from its Jewish owners in 1934 as they fled to South Africa. (It was restored to the family in 1951; they then sold it in 1957 to the guy we ended up working for.) That historical perspective could have been important to us back then, and I'm sure I could have used it a time or six in the last four years, or the last 40, for that matter.

These are the kinds of bits of information that make history both relevant and interesting and help kids connect to the big picture stuff. I wish someone had shared this piece with me.