Twelve Grand Truths of Leading a Workshop

January 27, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

Dear Workshop Leader,

Don’t take this personally. I’ve been where you are right now, plenty of times, and I know it’s not an easy task.

Any time you’re trying to drag a roomful of teachers through required district PD, or breakout sessions at a conference somewhere, or state training on the latest curriculum hoops, it’s a tough gig. Teachers make the worst students.

But if you’ll allow me to be so bold, a few words of advice from someone who’s also been where they are right now… far too many times?

You don’t have to be the funniest, smartest, or most energetic person in the world to run a successful teacher training. In fact, there are some fairly straightforward things anyone can do to dramatically increase the odds of a decent workshop.

Here, I’ll use big letters so it’s extra serious and true:

Twelve Grand Truths of Leading a Workshop

1. Have a plan. Flexibility is great, but meandering through the day without clear direction or explicit goals is both insulting and frustrating for your audience. Just because you have tons of time to fill doesn’t mean you should blatantly waste it.

If there’s a good reason to change direction, that’s great – but make it a clear change, not an utter lack.

2. Learn the technology ahead of time. I realize you were promised a certain set-up and it didn’t happen, or you asked for internet and it’s not available. But you’ve known for at least a day or two that you were going to be leading today, so do us both a favor and figure out how stuff works ahead of time.

Come early and use the provided computer. Test the projector. Practice opening apps and closing windows, and try pulling something from your flash drive. There’s no shame in struggling, but need we watch?

Of course you never RELY on technology to cooperate. Just like in class, have a plan for when the computers rebel. But you know this… right?

3. Don’t read your presentation or the handouts to us. You think I’m kidding, but despite being something of a cliché for the past decade, people still do this to us ALL the TIME.

If there are excerpts which simply must be covered verbatim, fine – but reading Powerpoint slides? Perish the thought. Same thing with written instructions, prompts, etc. If we can read them, let us read them. If you wish to tell us what to do, then tell us – conversationally, in your own words.

If I’m to be read to, I’d at least like a bottle and my blankie.

4. Someone already finds you credible or we wouldn’t be here. If there’s a need to explain who you are and why we should listen to you, do it up front, and briefly. Better yet, put a short bio in your handouts.

Constant references to former students, cool people you’ve met, or fancy events you’ve attended, are fun lunch chatter – but when you work them into every conversation, you sound insecure.

We get it – you’re awesome. Your methods are impeccable and your scores are tops. You’ve read all the best books and been to all the best places.

Yay for you; let’s move on.

5. A little diplomacy goes a long way. If someone wants your opinion about homework, textbooks, or classroom management, then give it. Keep in mind, though, that plenty of other sincere, experienced, just-as-smart-as-you educators have different opinions.

Speaking in absolutes doesn’t strengthen your credibility – often the impact is quite the opposite. Plus, there’s no benefit in alienating or annoying your participants, making the rest of the day less effective and leading to negative evaluations.

Examples of diplomatic responses:

“You know, I’m personally a big fan of ___________________”

“I’ve never had much luck with ____________; my problem with it is _________________”

“With my kids {insert age and demographic clarifiers}, I usually __________; have you considered trying ___________?”

While I get that you don’t want to seem wishy-washy, you’ll generally sound thoughtful and wise when you recognize that not everyone’s style is like yours and not every roomful of students are the same.

6. Participants often appreciate the books you think we should read, websites we should visit, or videos we should watch – so compile them ahead of time, or during lunch, or at the end. They should be addressed in a clump.

Recurring stoppages to address the book/website/video that just popped into your head derail whatever flow you’ve established, and disrespect participants’ time. Then, of course, everyone has to ask how to spell the author’s name or if you’ll repeat the URL, and suddenly they all have these other books/sites/resources everyone should know about and dear-god-kill-me-now.

7. If you’re going to assign us to read or do something, give us time and space to do it. Don’t ask questions if you’re just going to immediately answer them yourself, and don’t pretend subjects are open-ended if you have a ‘correct’ response in mind.

I know you’re not doing it on purpose – some of us feel very insecure relinquishing the reins, even for a few minutes. If it helps, set a stopwatch for yourself and MAKE yourself allow some time. Walk around and listen, but don’t jump in unless asked.

It’s one thing if participants are clearly finished or totally off-topic, but don’t step on participant work time or insert yourself into every conversation just because you’re bored or uncomfortable.

8. Unless this is a purely informational workshop (i.e, you’re explaining the new budget or covering important changes in the AP Exam), don’t talk so much. Watch the clock – if you’re in front of the room pontificating for more than about 10 minutes, we’re bored. You can be as offended as you like that we’re on our phones, but you’re the one rambling on and on.

If we’re here to learn strategies, let’s do the strategies. If there are parts worth discussing, stop and let us discuss. Heck, leave the room for a few minutes and get a drink – it keeps things moving for you as much as it does us.

If there are entire blocks of time scheduled with nothing for us to stop and talk about, or to do by ourselves or in small groups, you’re doing it wrong. Period.

9. Assume your audience are capable professionals, but don’t assume they all have the same body of content knowledge. We all teach different grades and subjects, and come from different backgrounds – but we’re all teachers, so have a little respect.

It’s tricky to know what to assume ‘everyone knows’ and what to explain. That’s where reading the room and being tuned in to your participants comes in. That’s a teacher skill, and you’re a teacher – right?

10. Never go to the scheduled ending time. If the email said 4:00, start wrapping up at 3:30. If you MUST go to 4:00, make sure the email says 4:30. And never never EVER no matter WHAT keep them past the required time.

Ever.

No.

Don’t!

11. There is no Eleventh Grand Truth. We’re cutting it so we can wrap up a bit early…

12. Sometimes you’ll do everything right and your participants simply won’t cooperate or care. If you can solve this or adjust, then certainly do, but if not…

Don’t take it personally; teachers make the worst students.

Blue Serials (1/24/16)

January 23, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I think the metaphor is obvious.

Most of #oklaed are currently focused on budget cuts, rhetorical shenanigans from our elected leaders, and the upcoming legislative session. Any recent contributions to such discussions are compiled on #OKElections16, along with pithy commentary and analysis from yours truly.

Somehow the rest of the interwebs carries on, however – including…

Stuff you simply SHOULD NOT MISS from this past week in edu-bloggery:

Making Room For Uncertainty In The Required Curriculum – Bill Ferriter of The Tempered Radical writes this brief-but-essential piece in reponse to an Mindshift post you should also consider perusing. “There’s a constant tension between what we SAY we want our students to know and be able to do and what we LIST as priorities in our mandated pacing guides…” Isn’t THAT the truth? Make following @plugusin on the Twitters a stated priority – then follow through.

Addressing Teacher Quality Post-NCLB – P.L. Thomas of The Becoming Radical tackles the myth of ‘teacher effectiveness trumps all’. Teacher quality absolutely matters, he argues, but he can in the same class period be a great teacher for lil’ Bobo and a completely inadequate teacher for Mary Lou Kaputney. And while “we must address teacher experience and qualifications/expertise at high-poverty, majority-minority schools,” Thomas reminds us, “without social reform that alleviates the burdens of poverty on the lives of students and their families, we are unlikely to see the sorts of changes in data that would justify any in-school only reforms.”

Follow @plthomasEdD on the Twitters for more face-slapping reality and the occasional comic book character analysis.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Removing Grades – Peter Anderson on Mr. Anderson Reads & Writes shares some of his experiences as he moves away from using grades as fish to be dangled in front of dolphin-children so they’ll perform our litle hoop-jumping tricks, and towards… what, exactly?

“And this is when the real work comes in. And the fear. How will I get children to work? How will I manage a classroom? How will I communicate with parents in an age of grade-surveillance and instant communication? Will I give homework? What skills will I focus on? How can I convince children to embark with me on an unknown path bereft of signposts and cardinal directions? Will they trust me? Will I trust myself? What starts out as a quiet act of revolution quickly metastasizes into real existential-occupational dilemmas. These dilemmas force you to make choices with actual consequences. You will find yourself, perhaps for the first time in your professional career, fully in charge of your classroom…”

Follow @MrAndersonELA on the Twitters and let him not give you a letter grade.

Drowning Bunnies to Raise Graduation Rates – Peter Greene of Curmudgucation highlights a modest university in Maryland trying to reduce its ‘dropout’ rates in a somewhat horrifying way. The situation is specific, but the lessons are many – When you put non-educators in charge, you get non-education results. When you judge an institution by magic numbers, its purpose tends to mutate in order to serve those numbers. On the other hand, when you give a few students freedom and a pen, they sometimes write truth to power and change the course of bigger things than themselves. Boo-yah. Follow @palan57 on the Twitters and ensure no animals are harmed in the writing of his posts.

Finally, this piece in the Tulsa World from Blue Cereal favorite Nour Habib…

Area high schoolers among protestors booted from Trump rally – While I certainly try to maintain the same sort of neutrality towards Trump that I do towards, say, genocide, lynching, rape, or the Kardashians, this tale warms my cynical, bitter little heart. We talk a good game about young people getting involved and following their convictions – who knew they’d sometimes take us seriously and do it?

“King-Sellars said he thinks the protest went well and that the group accomplished its goal — having its message seen by both Trump and the cameras before being kicked out. ‘We didn’t get beat up, so that was great,’ he said…”

Indeed.

Follow @nourhb on the Twitters and subscribe to the Tulsa World whether you live in this half of the state or not. Come on – I’ve seen what you’ve got to work with in that other paper. Yech.

OK, Listen To Me –

Don’t let facts get in the way of truth this week. Teach as if there’s hope, push as if there’s strength, and love as if that were enough. Reality is way, way overrated.

I choose to believe.

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Top Ten Education Myths (Part Two)

January 22, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

In a previous post, I counted down the first half of my Top 10 Teacher Myths. I broke the post in half partly due to the length, but I also wanted to solicit #11FF thoughts on the remaining five.

It was perhaps cruel to leave you waiting for Part Two. Fear not, however, my Eleven Faithful Followers – our long national nightmare is over. Here are my Top 5 Teacher Myths:

#5 – Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. I didn’t want to use this one because I thought it was too archaic. After reader feedback, however, it’s clearly not – they find it flung about like primate poo whenever education is discussed.

Here’s a simple way to dispel this lamest of illusions. You non-teachers out there, choose whatever it is you’re best at – doing taxes, working on teeth, selling dishwashers, trading stock… whatever.

Now go teach it to 30 teenagers at a time who are there against their will. One hour a day, five groups a day. Continue until 90% of them can pass a multiple choice test made by people who don’t do what you do – the taking of which is nothing like doing your actual thing.

Those who can, teach; those who can’t, can kiss my-

Sorry. A tad bitter.

#4 – Teachers aren’t in it for the money (so abuse them at will and why pay them at all?) It’s true most of us didn’t sign up in order to tap into unlimited wealth and fame – but this is a false dichotomy. It presumes there are only two types of careers in the world – narcissistic, money-hungry, and exploitative, or caring, selfless, and would rather not get paid at all.

Nonsense.

Even those pushing for teacher raises usually miss the rhetorical mark. We don’t need better teacher pay so that we can draw the ‘best people’ to the profession (although it might help with those already IN the profession who’ve fled to surrounding states). We need better teacher pay so that those called to the profession – the ones on their way to becoming the best people for it – can pursue that calling and still make their car payment and feed their family.

It’s not the NHL – we’re not trying to secure a right-shooting defenseman without hitting our salary cap. We’re trying to scrape together enough that those willing and able to serve without riches or glory can do so.

Duh.

#3 – The Number One Factor in a child’s education is the quality of his or her teacher.

No it’s not. Teachers matter, but parents matter more. Poverty matters more. Upbringing, and ZIP code, and culture, and home life, and all sorts of complicated things schools can barely impact, matter more.

Lots more.

We wish they didn’t, because we want to believe we can fix it all by force of will and a dash of talent. But the issues are bigger and deeper and more complex than any number of inspirational memes can solve.

That being said, none of this is an excuse for educators. God grant me the serenity, and all that. Step up and teach as if you ARE the most important factor in their worlds – as if you and you alone stand between them and destruction.

I mean, if you’re particularly concerned with reality – boy, did YOU choose the wrong profession!

#2 – Such and such kids will learn anyway / succeed anyway / be fine no matter how big their classes or who teaches them.

When confronted with shrinking budgets, it’s tempting to pack the ‘honors’ kids into the fewest possible sections in order to maintain manageable class sizes for the rest. When not every faculty member is a superstar, it perhaps makes sense to assign stronger teachers to those most likely to get you on the ‘needs improvement’ list – leaving the ‘good kids’ with the ‘leftover’ teachers.

Whatever arguments may be made for such maneuvering, we salve our consciences by proclaiming that ‘those kids will learn anyway’ – as if they’re fully developed, self-starting little learning machines.

Ridiculous. Maybe they won’t be getting into serious discipline trouble, or failing their end-of-the-year exams, but the suggestion that any subset of children will learn and grow the same amount whether we’re even in the building or not is insulting – and blatantly false.

The ‘best’ students – academically, behaviorally, whatever – need to be pushed and challenged and understood and driven just like any other kid. Often they need it more than others, being the least likely to have experienced meaningful challenge or engagement before.

We’d like to keep our bottom 20% out of prison, but we’ll need tomorrow’s leaders and world-changers to know and be able to do stuff, too. Thinking creatively, chasing truth alone or in groups, the value of mistakes and resolve – these aren’t genetic traits; they’re inculcated by great teachers.

Do what you must to handle difficult logistics, but let’s not coat it in prevarication just so we’ll feel better.

#1 – If you’ll just do X, your students will Y – flip the class, eliminate grades, ask about their feelings, model enthusiasm, make it about the kids, make connections to real life, etc.

This is number one AND the one we most inflict on ourselves. Every time someone has a new idea, or strategy, or approach, and it works for them, it becomes a silver bullet for all times, all teachers, and all situations.

Why would we even begin to think that could be true?

I’ve learned much from teachers who ‘flip the lesson’ – I think it’s a great idea in many circumstances, and I’d have never thought of it. I have plenty to say about how we treat our kids from day to day, and how that impacts their willingness and ability to learn. And if taking out all the desks gives you a jump start to learnify your lil’ darlings, more power to you!

But there’s no Holy Grail we’ve simply missed for two hundred years. There’s no secret which, once unleashed, will change everything for everybody and finally solve the great educational crises of our day.

That’s silly.

It becomes destructive when we convince struggling teachers or ambitious administrators that they must ignore everything their eyes, ears, and guts are telling them and DO THE FINALLY RIGHT THING until the MAGIC HAPPENS. Every time some pedagogical potentate in a bow tie writes a book the superintendent likes or a couple of principals have a particularly good conference weekend in Vegas, they think leadership suddenly means they can mandate the #$%& out of something and all will be solved.

Great ideas are great ideas. Important discussions are important discussions. Keep sharing them, and having them, and trying them. But stop trying to build pedagogical vending machines – insert idea here, win improved test scores, or maybe a tearful thanks from Lil’ Enrique!

OK, that’s it – that’s what I’ve got. What did I leave out? What would you change? I look forward to hearing more from you.

Who knows? I might like your ideas better and revise the whole thing in a later post so I can take credit for them. Now THAT’S a thing teachers actually DO.

RELATED POST: Top Ten Education Myths (Part One)

Top Ten Education Myths (Part One)

January 20, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I don’t do many numbered lists, but I notice they’re going out of vogue and figured that was the perfect time to do one more. It’s like wearing cargo shorts, or getting excited about Kings of Leon.

Go on – judge me.

Anyone in education for more than a week is deluged with clichés and presumed bits of wisdom which rarely play out as promised. They’re not usually malicious, but neither are they reliable. Like a mirage, perceived substance vanished when you’re most desperately relying on them.

In an effort to reduce the volume of sand in our collective edu-eyes, here’s the first half of my Top Ten Education Myths Countdown.

#10 – The students will make you crazy. There are certainly times that my students leave me frustrated, bewildered, or even frothing towards neurosis. They can be a difficult lot, no matter how many inspirational memes you retweet each week.

That being said, it’s not the kids who truly hold the power to undermine your sanity – it’s the adults. The higher up the ladder, the more likely they are to zap you with the crazy ray when it’s least welcome and not at all necessary.

If you’re not nodding in silent assent as you read this, thank your leadership effusively and often. They’re the exception.

#9 – The teacher students like the best is the best teacher. This is not without elements of truth. It’s difficult to reach kids who DON’T like you, and teachers who are comfortable with and care about their students tend to give more, and get more from them.

But a teacher may be wildly effective because they’re consistent, know exactly what they’re doing, and demand big things of those not accustomed to being considered so very full of possibilities. They may receive ZERO Starbucks cards at the holidays but deep thanks from former students years after they’ve moved on and have a little perspective.

Conversely, there are very ‘cool’ teachers who are strong on the bonding but weak on the ‘challenging’ or the ‘knowing stuff’. Correlation is not causation –you may know many good teachers who are totes down with the kids, but that doesn’t make it a ‘rule’.

#8 – Teachers are afraid of accountability / Teachers’ unions are there to make sure their members aren’t held to any real standards. We, as a profession, are largely culpable for this perception. There are few things more horrifying to watch than a teachers’ strike on the news – horrible slogans, bad hair, and chants beginning with “2, 4, 6, 8…”

You’d think we were collectively thrown off of American Idol during Hollywood Week and just couldn’t accept that our slow, tender version of “All About That Bass” just wasn’t up to snuff.

But think about your elected leaders – the ones who make you go nuts on Facebook or Twitter with their inane comments and proposals. Better yet, recall the most difficult relationship from which you’ve ever had to extricate yourself, especially if it involved being judged or misconstrued – the more irrational the better. Ask yourself if you’d want that person in charge of your income, your profession, or your major life decisions. How about letting them tell you how to raise your kids? No?

That’s what it’s like when people with zero track record of having any idea what they’re talking about continue to insist on telling us what good teaching looks like, how to handle our students, etc. And they have power over our meager lil’ paychecks as well.

It’s enough to make those horrible slogans seem encouraging.

#7 – Teachers have it easy / Teachers work longer and suffer more nobly than any other profession in the history of mankind. We may overreact to tired old cracks about ‘having summers off’ and whatnot, but far sillier are our efforts to establish that we do, in fact, martyr ourselves in ways that leave slackers like Gandhi and Mother Theresa bathed in shame and inadequacy.

There’s that email showing what we’d make if we were babysitters (something in the hundreds of thousands annually), and all those tortured tales about our 60-hour weeks and the resulting personal dysfunctions. “Yeah, but did MLK every have to buy his own SCHOOL SUPPLIES?!?”

I’m not saying no one does it that way – just that it’s not the norm. Nor is it healthy for extended periods. Sure, I put in plenty of hours before 8:00 and after 3:00 prepping, grading, and occasionally trying to learn a few new things.

But then I go home. I read books. I watch hockey. I have a family. So should you.

#6 – Such and such kids won’t learn no matter what you do.

Maybe. Or maybe I just suck and haven’t tried the right thing. Maybe if we could find a better setting – more structured, less strict, different peer group… Maybe if more of our faculty looked like him, or more of our curriculum mattered to her.

Then again, maybe not. Sometimes it’s not us – it’s them. The moment this becomes an excuse to write them off, however, you’re doing it wrong.

Don’t beat yourself up over every kid you can’t reach – chances are their issues go way deeper than you can spelunk in an hour a day with 152 others to inspire. But if that ever stops bothering you, eating at you, making you question everything you thought you liked about yourself… well, then you suck.

Time to let you in on a little secret.

I know exactly what my Top 3 are going to be, but I’m torn about #4 and #5. I have some ideas, but I’d like to know what YOU’D put on this list before I finish it in a few days. Comment below, or email me if you prefer.

Bonus points if your suggestion is already one of my Top 3.

RELATED POST: Top Ten Education Myths (Part Two)

MLK, Wobblies, and National Insecurity

January 18, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s MLK Day, and while there’s much to celebrate, the skeptic in me can’t help but focus on some things we conveniently ignore or write off as ‘no longer relevant’ in King’s legacy. There will be plenty written today, as there should be, about all he said, and did, and the positive impact he had. I’d like to suggest we not forget along the way some lessons to be learned from how the United States and the ruling classes therein responded.

MLK and the Civil Rights Movement in general were treated with hostility and violence, ugly words and ugly actions. Social and political leaders took the lead, demonized those involved, and used the tools of power to subvert those exercising their very inconvenient human rights. While white commoners gladly spouted racist ideology, respectable types were more likely to explain their concerns based on ‘national security’.

The FBI tapped King’s phones, and threatened his life. MLK was labeled un-American, a tool of foreign powers intent on subverting our way of life. Government leaders – those specifically chosen as our collective voice – condemned him as a liar, and officially categorized him with other ‘hate groups’. It wasn’t just J. Edgar Hoover or a handful of overzealous individuals; this was policy, from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on down. Why? National security, of course.

Even after it was beyond doubt King was no Communist (and so what if he was?), government policy was to keep pushing this idea in the media through leaks, innuendo, and good old-fashioned name-calling. But it was justified, because… national security.

When MLK came out against the Vietnam War – a position fairly common in later years, but still somewhat “un-American” at the time – these accusations seemed substantiated. Who but a subversive tool of foreign powers and ideologies would oppose America’s light-shining and democracy-building overseas? Come on, people – national security!

Perhaps the Reverend’s greatest sin in the eyes of the establishment was shifting his focus from racial equity alone to a ‘war on poverty’ in general. It was a dangerous mindset – that perhaps being poor was not a character failing or the natural results of some people being smarter or working harder than others, but rather the results of a corrupt – or at least broken – system. The proverbial playing field was in no way level.

Today we celebrate King’s movement for its non-violence, but media at the time fixated on the sporadic exceptions. They painted even those outside the movement who destroyed property or threatened individuals as evidence of what MLK was really about. No matter how often King and others denounced bad behavior, the movement was constantly accused of supporting violence because they didn’t denounce it enough. Clearly they were a threat to… national security.

The movement wasn’t perfect. There were internal disputes and inconsistencies, as there always are, and individuals and moments which didn’t fit the larger picture, to be seized upon by critics as proof of what they’ve wanted to believe all along.

But most of them didn’t want to hurt anybody, or even break anything. They just wanted to be treated like ‘real Americans’, real humans, and have access to a shot at the same American Dream as everyone else. That in and of itself, however, was a very real change in the established way of doing things. It was threatening to some and uncomfortable for most.

That’s just not how things had ever worked before, no matter what our ideals said.

It’s important to note that those in power, with access to the bigger picture and far more information than the average citizen, knew that their accusations and fear-mongering were nonsense. While the average racist asshole in the street may at least be painted as a product of their times, those making policy, controlling the courts, and holding most of the guns, were lying in ways that got other people hurt and killed, and doing so for their own comfort and power. Any rationalizing they did about the means serving noble ends was just that – rationalizing.

Did I say comfort and power? I’m sorry – I meant ‘national security’.

Fifty short years before King came into national consciousness, there was a labor organization called the International Workers of the World (I.W.W.) – nicknamed “Wobblies” for reasons long lost. They sought to organize unskilled workers in factories and fields, those marginalized due to limited education and no political power. Unlike other labor unions of the time, they weren’t about protecting certain skilled professions or choosing respectable members – they were the little people even among little people.

The response from both business and government was predictable – demonized in the media, the I.W.W. was constantly accused of being the tool of foreign powers, un-American and dangerous. Government infiltrators joined their ranks, and arrests were made on the most thinly manufactured charges. This was necessary, it was said, to protect national security.

Their homes and businesses were searched without warrants, and entire blocks of prisoners were promised leniency if they’d testify that various I.W.W. members had confessed nefarious doings to them – even if they’d never met that person, let alone shared a cell. When there were trials, due process was rare – although in a few cases a particularly idealistic judge would hold the line and refuse to allow extensive shenanigans, no matter what his personal loathing for the organization.

Of course, by the time the process had played itself out, the accused had been held in dark, damp cells with appalling sanitary conditions and inadequate nutrition for months – sometimes years. Because, you know… national security.

When the Wobblies came out against World War I, government and business had the excuse they needed to up their game. Laws were passed to make the free speech, press, and assembly of the Wobblies state and federal crimes in the name of… national security.

All violent acts done by labor or those of foreign descent became I.W.W. violence, no matter how condemned by the group itself, because… national security. And the I.W.W. was essentially a Socialist – maybe even Communist – organization at heart. They virulently attacked the Capitalism around them as more about entrenched power than competition and opportunity. The proverbial playing field, they argued, was in no way level.

When the courts failed to produce the desired results, representatives of the union were whipped, tarred and feathered, their lives threatened and their property destroyed, presumably by “spontaneous” mobs but often with the explicit cooperation of law enforcement. Periodic lynchings of ‘radicals’ were considered very American things to do – tacitly supported by government, vocally supported by the popular press.

That’s just not how things had ever worked before, no matter what our ideals said.

It’s important to note that those in power, with access to the bigger picture and far more information than the average citizen, knew that their accusations and fear-mongering were nonsense. While the average nationalistic goon might have been the product of his times, those making policy, controlling the courts, and holding most of the guns, were lying in ways that got other people hurt and killed, and doing so for their own comfort and power. Any rationalizing they did about the means serving noble ends was just that – rationalizing.

Did I say comfort and power? I’m sorry – I meant ‘national security’.

Thankfully in the 50 years since MLK’s assassination, we’ve learned a few lessons, and human nature has fundamentally altered from what it was from the dawn of time until 1968. It’s unthinkable that we’d allow political and business interests to unite against marginalized groups to protect entrenched power, or to give the unwashed masses a target for their frustrations and hatred so as to distract them from their ongoing neglect and overt exploitation by those whose comfort requires their ignorance, and their apathy.

We’d never tolerate gross violations of our highest ideals and explicit laws in the name of protecting those exact same ideals and laws – the irony would simply be too much.

No, thankfully today we’ve realized that if our ideals are, in fact, so very unique and wonderfully noble – if they have the power we insist they do – then the laws and social expectations based explicitly upon them are more than sufficient to deal with any discomfort, or even the occasional very real danger, which may result from holding to them. The best way to defend our national ideals… is to live by them.