Waiting To Follow The Worms

March 2, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

There’ve been some interesting political rallies so far this year…

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I came of age listening to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” I even saw that weirdo movie version with Bob Geldof – the guy who would later put together Band-Aid and Live-Aid, and who we can safely blame for every musical cause célèbre since.

Neither the album nor the film were flawless, but I find them nonetheless poignant for what they tried to say, and to do. No one can accuse Pink or Geldof of lacking ambition, or shooting too low.

That’s the thing about taking big risks when something’s on your mind – you can’t really know in advance how it’s going to go. There’s a fine line between clever and… awkward.

I’ve always admired the marchers and other protesters of the Civil Rights movement. Most of us do, I guess – it’s pretty much U.S. History canon. Calmly pressing forward, singing songs of faith; riding those buses, knowing the mobs were waiting; or sitting patiently at the counter while angry white folks taunted and abused them.

They carried such dignity and confidence, at least in retrospect.

I’m no expert on the Arab Spring, but who doesn’t love seeing oppressive regimes overthrown by the humble masses? Democracy didn’t exactly triumph everywhere, but Egypt seems… stable. Syria? Not so much.

The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring. Various Vietnam War protests in the U.S. – especially those involving flowers in rifle barrels. And of course, more recently, #BlackLivesMatter.

It was this last series of demonstrations which started me wondering seriously for the first time whether I’m personally capable of something so audacious, should circumstances require.

I’m not sure.

I’d like to say yes. I want to be that person. Not a leader, not a spokes-anything, but an ally adding my tired old demographic to the mix.

I worry I’d do something foolish – say the wrong thing, bungle a moment. I’d never want to be an embarrassment to such a powerful movement. I also don’t like looking or feeling stupid, so there’s that.

To date, however, I haven’t been in a position to consciously make that choice. I just keep going to work, writing my little blog, tweeting my little tweets, and hoping in a few years I’ll feel kinda silly for overreacting to the events of the day.

But what if I were in that sort of situation? Would I even know for sure? At what point do you lock arms, set faces, and say “enough”?

I mean, Trump won’t really be elected President, will he? That’s crazy… but then, so was the suggestion he’d be taken seriously even as a candidate for more than a few weeks.

Even if he is elected, it’s not like the President can just start issuing Executive Orders to circumvent the Legislative Branch, or appeal directly to the people to do horrible things in the name of the very ideals they’re subverting… can he?

I’m being unreasonable, surely. My usual cynical, impulsive self – just darker?

The problem, even setting aside Trump the individual, is that his tactics are working. He isn’t the first to build his power on ignorance and venom; he certainly won’t be the last – especially now. Tyrannical and childish is officially a winning strategy.

‘Merica!

Congress isn’t exactly known for being a bastion of reasoned legislative prudence, or a force for equity and calm. I take little comfort in the percentage of reactionary bastards who can barely see past the next electoral cycle or the likelihood they’ll “check and balance” anything meaningfully.

It’s even worse at the state level. Where national office-holders tend to be narcissistic and exploitative, many local folks genuinely believe themselves. Even when they don’t, they can see what’s working for those who do – and Christian charity towards all God’s children ain’t it.

Even if Trump falls short, he’s broken new modern ground in old-fashioned scapegoating, fear-mongering, and demonizing by demographic. Facts don’t matter, American ideals don’t matter, and $#@% the Bill of Rights.

And we love it and want more. If Trump doesn’t make it, the next guy just goes harder and higher, and does. Until…?

I’m being ridiculous, right?

I’m told that more often than I’d care to admit – that I may have a point about this or that, but I take it too far. The hyperbole becomes absurdity.

This is one of those times, I hope?

Otherwise, what happens when we start rounding up Muslims, or Gays, or Mexicans, or Reporters? I’m in Oklahoma – the only thing likely to stop us from leading that charge is our proximity to Texas and how happy they’ll be to take point on this one.

What do I do then?

See, when the unthinkable occurs – in 1930s Germany, in 1960s Alabama, in 1980s Beijing – everyone has to make a choice. If you’re not waving your little flag at the tank, you might as well be driving it.

Silence is not neutrality. Inaction supports the oppressor, and plays for Team Power Structure. You’re in the dugout; at least be honest enough to wear the logo on your cap.

That’s what sucks about teaching history – you can’t escape certain enduring realities.

You can’t sit by while people in your party, who go to your church, and who speak on your behalf for a living, are categorizing or isolating real live human beings under a thin guise of good intentions and claim you didn’t know or it wasn’t you.

You can’t simply remind those of us losing our $#@% that the silent majority “isn’t like that” and negate culpability. The ‘majority’ part is cancelled out by the ‘silent’ part. It’s like having on imaginary clothes – it doesn’t really matter how nice they are, because no one else can see them.

OK, wait – this is crazy talk, right? An embarrassment to myself and the blog to even be thinking this way? Maybe this is one of those “type-it-and-get-it-out-of-my-system-but-OMG-don’t-post-it” moments?

I mean, I’m supposed to be building a brand here. There could be merchandise down the road. A self-published treatise on edu-truth. It’s nearly time to unveil the new logo – and I’ve ordered clever magnets!

I should stick to vouchers or learning styles or arguing with Alfie Kohn – that stuff’s great for my analytics. A wild rant about irrational parents or some crazy legi wanting to kill AP History? Those were good times.

I almost wish Barresi were back; she made it TOO easy.

I’m afraid I won’t know when it’s time. That I’ll feel stupid showing up carrying a sign, or chanting, or… something.

Oh god, I hate chants. I really do. Especially anything involving “2, 4, 6, 8…” or forced wordplay. I don’t think I could chant for the best cause in the world.

I’m afraid because I’m pretty sure I’ll say the wrong says and choose the wrong chooses and end up looking like those maroons on the news. You can edit blog posts for hours before posting – days, if necessary – but real life isn’t so gracious.

I’m not particularly afraid of being attacked, or arrested, or mocked – although history tells me it becomes much harder to be suave and collected once the bad things are actually happening. So, yeah – I’ll probably embarrass myself.

That’s no excuse not to try, of course. Lock those arms. Set those faces. (For the record, I’m still going for ‘suave and collected’ if I can manage it. But if not…)

What I can’t bear is the idea of going down in history as a small, anonymous part of a generation that let it happen again. Who stood by, distracted and willfully dazed, as the evil things occurred around and through us.

What I can’t bear is some kid a half-century from now raising his virtual hand during Self-Directed Multi-Studies and asking his robo-teacher if people back now ever really believed our own lofty ideals – noble words enshrined on such fragile parchment.

Why didn’t they do something? Say something? Protect someone? Refuse that command? Deny power easy access?

Why didn’t they keep their eyes open, no matter how uncomfortable?

Did they not know back then what happens when you give power to our darkest, most ill-informed urges? Was their comfort so valuable and their safety so precious that they just tried to pretend it was all OK… again?

I’m overreacting, right?

I hope so. Otherwise I’ll eventually try something reckless, and badly timed – and not at all suave. I wish I could do it as well as the folks in history books. But I’ll make my sign, and ready my personal affairs, and spit truth at power as they haul my fat @$$ away.

How can I live with myself otherwise? How can you?

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Absolution (Bring Me My Crosier)

July 12, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I’m neither Catholic nor anti-Catholic, and my message here is not a particularly theological one. But you gotta admit, there’s something appealing about the idea of one faith, one authority, one source of rules – and a clear, solitary source of redemption. One place to go if you need a meal, a message, or social mores. Every ritual at every step – birth, marriage, death, and beyond – coordinated and structured for you. Enough room to be yourself, but not so very much room that one’s “self” could stray far enough to get into any real trouble.

I’m not suggesting there weren’t serious problems with the institution, or even the idea. There’s no need to begin nailing things to my metaphorical door. But the unfettered intellectual and spiritual liberty we so justly celebrate comes at some cost. Removing walls, and ceilings, and sometimes entire foundations, is certainly very freeing – but then, so is being launched into space without ship or tether.

Sometimes it’s nice to have a leash. Sometimes fences set us free.

Dostoyevsky wrote “The Grand Inquisitor” through the pen of one of his characters in The Brothers Karamazov. In it, Dostoyevsky wrestles with the inherent conflict between freedom and security in a surreal confrontation between a high Catholic official and a Jesus who comes back before anticipated. The message is that we don’t actually want as much freedom as we think we do. We want rules, customs, structures, even punishments – we crave the clarity a little oppression provides.

I would thus like to borrow something from Catholic tradition. Let’s talk absolution.

The traditional Catholic Church did something better than most when it came to confession. They formalized it and structured it so that the old was drained before the new began. The confessional allowed complete emptying of sins and the shortcomings. Just as significantly, the penitent were given acts of contrition to perform. Contrary to caricature, these were not the cleansing themselves, but symbols for the penitent to give them something tangible – some ‘buy in’ – in order to solidify their absolution. The forgiveness meant more and felt more real if the sinner could DO something to demonstrate their change of heart. The confessional, the assigned acts, the beads and even the collar – they’re scaffolds for the intangibles in play. They’re props in the most literal sense – holding up the parts we can’t see.

We need this.

It’s recently been rediscovered that smart people tend to underestimate their intelligence while the ignorant dramatically overestimate theirs. In the same vein, I see dedicated, gifted teachers wrapped in more self-imposed guilt and failure than the bozos think possible. There’s an unfortunate correlation, it seems, between passion and self-loathing.

You may remember the moment in Schindler’s List when our protagonist laments the ring he didn’t sell, the lives he didn’t save, the ‘more’ he didn’t do – when of course he did so very much. I’m not equating a pretty swell 7th Grade English teacher with a man who risked everything to save a few souls from the Holocaust – that might be a bit of a stretch. I am suggesting, though, that it’s often those who do the most who feel the least accomplished; those who reach the farthest who are most painfully aware of falling short.

If you are that educator, in or around the classroom, carrying that sense of failure or inadequacy, and can’t quite shake it off – at least not easily, or for very long – you need to listen to me. I’m old and wise and have a blog. Come on – you think just anyone can do this?

Confess your shortcomings – real or perceived – and accept absolution. This is not mockery of faith; it’s appropriation of a principle powerful enough to extend past the spiritual realm. Sit with someone you trust and say them out loud. If you can’t, email them to me. I won’t tell unless you become REALLY famous someday and have something to gain by it. I swear.

I take up my metaphorical crosier, and I absolve thee.

You are absolved of your inadequacies – real and perceived – during that first year of teaching. OK, part of the second year as well. And that bad month the third year. All of them. You are absolved of how often 1st hour isn’t getting quite the same education 3rd hour is, because by then you’ve worked out the bugs. That period after lunch some days when they’ve become unmanageable wildebeests? Absolved, absolved, absolved.

I absolve thee of those times you didn’t strike a good balance between school and home, and let your relationships drift or even suffer a bit because you were obsessed over grading, or prepping, or figuring something out. Those angry memes about teacher pay make it sound like everyone else is spending 15 hours a day laboring over Prezis and grading essays, but they’re not. Even if they were, you are absolved.

I absolve thee of those conversations in the lounge or hallway which turned a bit bitter towards co-workers, superiors, parents, or – and here we stop to cringe slightly – students. A little blowing off steam is cathartic, but you were frustrated, or worried, or defensive… and you became ‘that teacher’ for a moment. Cut that loose, it doesn’t help. You are absolved.

I absolve thee of the days you gave book work or filler you could barely justify because you just needed them to be quiet and busy for a little while so you could catch up on grading or other school-related paperwork. Let’s not make this a habit, but it happens – and you are absolved.

I absolve thee of that horrible video you didn’t really preview but that one teacher said was pretty good. It definitely has to go. You kinda suspected, but… you didn’t know. You are absolved.

I absolve thee of the kids you couldn’t reach, although you saw them slipping away and couldn’t figure out what to do. I understand your hostility towards peers who sounded cavalier towards your kids and insisted on “consequences” for their “choices” – which you knew weren’t choices at all but reactions, or defiance, or angry despair. I absolve you for not knowing what to do, or not doing it better, or not seeing it in time.

I absolve thee for the kids you didn’t reach, although now it seems so obvious what you did wrong – or what you couldn’t do quite right. The signs you should have seen, the things you should have tried, if you’d had more energy, or time, or if you were just a ‘better person.’ I absolve you of your failures – real or perceived – to do more or give more, although at times the consequences were extreme. It wasn’t mostly about you, of course – there’s such a cavernous gap between ‘being part of the problem’ and ‘not being the entire solution’ – but you feel them as one in the same. I understand. Let it go, or at least set it aside – there’s so much left to be done and we just can’t. You are therefore absolved.

I absolve thee of not being enough people, or having enough time, or being smarter, or more energetic, or more creative when you most wish it. I absolve you of not being that one teacher you wish you were more like, or – worse – not being that idealized version of yourself you keep thinking you should have become by now. I absolve you of any miscellaneous foibles or failures, real or perceived, and of eating twice a day and sleeping at night when there’s so much to do.

Your penance is the same regardless of the frequency or degree of your sins:

Take that hour before bed to have a family, or watch that show, or do those aerobics you keep meaning to do in the morning but just… can’t. See those friends, have that drink, and speak more positives than negatives about your job, your peers, and especially your kids.

Begin – where you are, who you are. If you’ve made it this far, you’re amazing and getting better. Your foibles and failures feel overwhelming, but they are now behind you. Go teach. Get better. Love your kids and your subject and your job as best you can, and stop carrying that which you cannot bear.

Learn from the past, sure – but let it go as often as necessary to get back to work. As I said, it’s not that I mind you drowning in your own angst, but we simply can’t spare the manpower. Those who’ve gone past are gone past. This season’s fields are ripe, and there are so few laborers, with so few tools. We need you here, giving whatever you have to give. Please.

You are absolved. But don’t touch the crosier.

Related Post: Happy New Mirrors!