My 300 Epiphany

March 2, 2017June 23, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

{Reposted From Days Gone By At No Extra Charge To You}

Several years ago, in what seems like a very different place and time, I had a horrible school year. Some of you know how it can go – I was trying new things, and they weren’t working. Or, if they were, they weren’t being supported, and had to be abandoned, whatever prior promises. The stuff that used to work wasn’t working either, and the student rapport to which I was accustomed just wasn’t there – at least not to the extent on which I’d grown reliant.

Then the parent calls started. I’m not a teacher who gets that many upset parents, or – if I do – has trouble resolving them.

Usually.

But that year… that year they just DID NOT LIKE ME.

It took on a life of its own as little cliques began talking to each other, and as students became aware I was anathema to mom and dad, oh god it just spiraled. In retrospect, I should have found better ways to anticipate, nip, resolve – but I didn’t, and it grew.

Introducing… Courtney. Of course her name wasn’t really Courtney, but for purposes of this blog she’s Courtney. Her real name was Alisha, but I’d never use it – it would be unprofessional.**

Courtney was popular and pretty and a straight ‘A’ student. Her father coached and her mother taught at another building. All of my superiors knew and loved her parents – and her mother hated me with the fire of a thousand suns.

Neither Courtney nor her primary progenitor cared for the way I taught, the skills in which I found value, or the policies I implemented. By Labor Day they more or less resented the oxygen I was breathing which would have been better inhaled by worthier beings.

Courtney often left school just before my class to go with dad to athletic events – which is, you know, fine in and of itself. But that’s when I really stepped in it. I followed the school policy guide regarding missed days and make-up work – a procedure which, as it turned out, was completely unacceptable. The entire Courtney family was soon convinced I had it in for their daughter, and mom began copying people way above my pay grade on every email – of which there were many.

Now, you might think the inclusion of the people who write and approve the policies would bring some sanity to the discussion. You know, if they ever replied, or acknowledged, or joined the conversation in any way – even when I begged.

Which they didn’t, although I did. So it didn’t.

I’d never felt so… angry? Wounded? Humiliated? Worse, I felt foolish for being so blindsided. I’m hardly an idealist – what made me feel immune from the realities of bureaucracy and cronyism?

I was young enough to still cling to a FEW ideals and principles – should I give in so easily when I didn’t think it was best for classroom dynamics and expectations, best for me, or even best for Courtney? Did we want to teach her that sufficient complaining could solve any problem?

It probably didn’t help that I was myself outraged on a weekly – sometimes daily – basis by some district policy or building decision or the other. I didn’t see the irony at the time, of course – and it probably wouldn’t have helped if I had.

Everything I tried to do to improve the situation just made things worse and embarrassed me further. In hindsight, I probably could have done better – but I just kept rolling down that hill of broken glass. On fire. Without shoes.

By summer I was looking for other employment. At the very least I wanted another building (different administrators), maybe even another district. I had a good shot at a curriculum coordinator position in a district closer to home, but… I mean, I still wanted to be in the classroom…

That was the summer the movie 300 came out. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a rather elastic take on the Spartans at Thermopylae. It’s not a great movie by any definition, but it’s very entertaining. I was home alone for a few weeks (my wife has a real job) and Netflixed it.

And in the two hours I spent immersed in some very bizarre choices regarding nudity and testosterone-laden CGI violence, I had an epiphany. A paradigm shift, if you will. One whose impact has lasted for a number of years.

I was trying to fix things – the student, the parents, the situation. More than that, I was trying to fix the system, the district, the underlying assumptions and realities of public education. I wanted – I NEEDED – agreement, support, understanding, validation, and action by others to make this happen. I could understand resistance, but not inertia, or apathy, or complete denial of things which were to me so glaringly clear.

I knew odds were slim and the task was great and the fields were ripe for harvest, but I still carried a faith from my evangelical days that we could win.

We could save them. We could change the system. We could make a measurable difference. If only a few key people would ‘get it’, would listen, would cooperate… we could win.

None of those things were delusions of the Spartans as they prepared to face the Persian hoards storming their shores. They positioned themselves at the narrowest pass between the oceans and their homeland, and determined to hold it as long as possible – but with little illusion what that would mean.

“Come back with your shield, or on it.” The parting words of a good Spartan mother to her son, or wife to her husband, as he left for battle. One did not flee under any circumstances. The glory of the moment was far more important, and the price of failure too high.

The Spartans didn’t do much well in terms of variety, but they were tough sons-of-bee-hatches. It was always a good day to die.

I found myself running through edu-quivalents of the more dramatic phrases uttered at Thermopylae – reshaping the content while attempting to maintain the testosterone:

(Annoying Persians) – “We will fill the air with arrows of bureaucratic nonsense!”
(Classroom Teachers) – “Then we will teach… in the SHADE!”

Yeah, it didn’t sound much better in my head, but I kept trying.

(The Hoards of Ignorance) – “Lay down your lesson plans!”
(Classroom Teachers) – “Come and GET THEM!”

So that part didn’t work. At all. Even then. But the larger paradigm shift did stick.

It wasn’t about winning. Winning would have been fine, and is often worth striving for, but that focus could often lead to frustration and poor strategy.

What mattered was the fight. Going down gloriously. Holding the pass for as long as you might, no matter the cost. Standing in the gap full of idealistic defiance for as long as you can before you are inevitably overrun.

Don’t get sidetracked by history, or home, or hope – focus on this pass, this moment, the tiny pieces of success. Claim them and don’t let go.

Well, until the part where you’re slaughtered in futility. But not until then at least.

Most of my students – even the high maintenance examples like Courtney – lack literal swords, but the battle is a draining one. The variety of pressures from within and without have been covered extensively by those far more gifted than myself.

And yeah, teaching can be a noble profession and all that. I mean, we don’t do it for the money or the glory or the clarity of expectations from above. We do it because on some naïve, idealistic, melodramatic level, we want to change the world.

I don’t think of it that way anymore. I have found great freedom and comfort, actually – and I share this without cynicism or sarcasm – in the fact that I’m pretty sure we’re going to lose.

The bureaucrats have more bullsh*t than we have shovels, and the hordes of ignorance are legion. Those who are with us are far, far fewer than those who are against us, and whether you use Common Core math or give up and figure it the old way, we are totally and completely screwed.

But it is a good day to teach.

OK, yeah, that phrase didn’t work either, but that’s the thing – I’m going to just keep at it because I don’t have a better plan. This is it. This is the better plan.

I’ve shared this with a few people in person, and with a few important exceptions they don’t find it encouraging AT ALL. Several have found it rather the opposite, actually – and I apologize if that’s its impact on you, my Eleven Faithful Followers, here and now.

But try, just for a moment, to taste the glory of wildly doing what you do best without recourse to future progress or past circumstances. Imagine knowing you’re not alone, and that if you’re going down, you’re going down doing all you know how to do – insufficiently, to be sure, but leaving it all in the fields.

Teach like a rock star, a badass, or whatever other silly name you choose – because it all comes out the same.

Of course, maybe – and I hesitate to even consider – maybe our collapse will buy enough time for someone else far behind us to gather their – no, never mind. No time for such distractions. Here they come.

And I, for one, feel great.

**In case you’re worried, of course her name’s not Alisha, either. I just said that to be funny, and perhaps a bit shocking. Her real name was Shannon.

Obedience School

February 28, 2017June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

My daughter wanted a new backpack several years ago, and after several unfulfilling stops, we ended up at Target. The selection was a bit slim – it being a few weeks after school had started – but she found something that seemed like a good combination of practical and not-entirely-embarrassing, and we took it to the nearest register.

It didn’t have a tag, which was inconvenient, so the girl at the register called a guy from the back. He found similar backpacks of the same brand, but not an exact match. A third person was called, a manager of some sort, who finally explained to me that she couldn’t sell me the backpack because it lacked a tag and thus could not be scanned by the computer.

By now we’re 20 minutes into our effort to purchase this backpack, and my daughter likes this one – not the ones we saw at Academy, or the ones we examined at Wal-Mart, and not the selection at Dick’s.

Yes, there’s a major chain of sporting goods stores which chose to call itself “Dick’s.”

I offered to pay the highest of the various prices listed along that aisle. Worst case for the store, I pay the correct price. Chances are I’m paying more than it’s worth, but I’m happy, and they’d be rid of the one without the tag.

No.

The manager couldn’t, or wouldn’t, because there was no tag. I could not have it at any price because they couldn’t scan it.

Let’s step back for a moment and ponder the nature of Target. Its sole function is to sell people things they want, and in so doing make a reasonable profit after paying their employees and other overhead. To the best of my knowledge they don’t claim to do or be anything more or less. They guess what we might buy, procure it, tell us it’s pretty, and we flock.

But not this time. Compliance with the system trumped the primary function of the institution. They followed the rules, but lost the sale. Permanently.

The summer prior I’d had a similar problem with AT&T, who wouldn’t send me a phone I’d ordered. The website said they had it, the guy in the warehouse confirmed they had it, and even the manager I finally reached after 90 minutes of minion phone-tag hell acknowledged that it was on the shelf in front of her – but the computer wouldn’t let them send it to me because it showed they were out.

I remember losing my composure and at some point yelling that “THE COMPUTERS. ARE. NOT. IN. CHARGE!!!” before the vitriol and obscenities took over. Coherent English simply lacked the necessary elements to capture what I was feeling at that point. Most of it was a blur.

But whatever I ended up saying seems to have worked – a few days later, my phone showed up. Someone had to break the rules in order to fulfill the most basic function of the institution.

The problem is NOT that a few individuals at Target or AT&T are idiots – I doubt that’s the case. It’s systemic. In our ongoing efforts to legislate, codify, and policy away bad decisions and stupid behavior, we tie the hands of the people actually DOING useful stuff until they can do little BEYOND blindly following those policies.

I doubt anyone particularly wanted to deny me the joy of giving them money for their products. It’s far more likely they’d been trained to follow the rules at all cost, or face who-knows-what consequences. They did the defensible thing – even when diametrically opposed to their fundamental purpose – rather than the risky thing. They followed the rules by missing the point.

Why do those policies exist in the first place? Presumably, most began because someone did something stupid or dangerous without them.

You’ve probably noticed the tag on your hairdryer warning you not to use it in the shower, or the instructions in eleven languages not to let your kids play with large plastic bags. A recent commercial involved a post-apocalyptic warrior picking up a rhino by the horns and throwing it into the sky to knock down a helicopter. This scene is accompanied by small print warning us not to try this at home.

There’s a legal division somewhere covering someone’s corporate behind by advising me not to throw a rhino at a helicopter. We need a rule for that? Is there a label on the rhino?

A friend visiting his wife’s family in China a few years ago was surprised to notice while parking on the top level of a garage that there were no fences or other barriers to prevent someone falling. He asked about this, and was told with some bewilderment that anyone capable of driving a vehicle and parking it on the 15th story should be capable of not walking off the edge of a building.

We don’t assume that in America in the 21st century, and because we don’t, we can’t. We devote great energy and expense in our legislation, our business practices, and – yes – our public education, to make sure we raise an entire generation completely unable to make basic decisions or take risks or otherwise step out in ANY WAY. We begin, logically enough, by doing the same thing to their teachers.

We reward those who most closely mimic one another and culture at large, individually or in groups. We schedule conferences and base assessment not on great ideas but on how to best ensure uniformity.

The system doesn’t judge teachers or their students on what they do well, but on what items they miss. Inspire your kids all you like, but if you don’t simultaneously fulfill requirements 4a, 4b, 7, and 11 and have your learning objectives on the board when your administrator drops in for five minutes, you suck. We, in turn, tell our students to write with sincerity and passion, but if the MLA heading is on the top left instead of the top right, we can’t accept it, won’t read it, and you fail.

It’s all about the policies.

We dictate the curriculum EVERYONE should know, mandate the tests EVERYONE must pass, and – perhaps out of necessity – regulate their dress, their behavior, and anything else we can standardize. We legislate away their choices in lunch, daily schedule, personal giftings, or genuine interests. We process them in the hundreds and in the thousands and quite honestly we can’t tailor very much or it all falls apart.

If only we had more laws, more rules, more guidelines… utopia!

We can’t even blame administration. The public demands that those in charge be held accountable for the worst behaviors, the worst choices, the worst outcomes. The majority of our energy is consequently devoted to limiting the damage done by the bottom 5%, whatever the cost to the other 95%.

It’s not working, by the way – somehow no matter what we do, there’s always that bottom 5%.

In the process we’re crushing the initiative, the energy, and the ability to make sensible decisions based on the realities of the moment out of our best teachers and students. And the average teachers and students. And the slightly below.

We’re making policy based on worst-case scenarios and bottom-enders, at the expense of everyone and everything else.

Of course we’re left with a ‘real world’ whose populace seems so clueless, so helpless, so lacking in initiative or even concern. Of course I can’t buy the backpack without the right tag or get the phone on the shelf without having a complete meltdown. It’s what we’ve been fervently working towards for years.

I’d like to see us try something different, but it’s against – well, you get the idea.

This is a slightly reworked repeat of an older post – like when a band covers their own song years later. Unfortunately, you probably still can’t dance to it.

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Forever Unfit To Be A Slave (A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing, Part Two)

November 16, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

{This Post is Recycled – Reworked from a Previous Version and Reposted In It’s Updated Glory}

In Part One, I waxed eloquent about secession and the South’s stated reasons for attempting to leave. Among their many complaints – most of which involved perceived threats to slavery – was the North’s tolerance of those who snuck in and taught slaves stuff.

A little knowledge, it turns out, can be a dangerous thing.

Frederick Douglass, in his first autobiography (1845), describes his epiphany regarding education:

My new mistress proved to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door,—a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings. She had never had a slave under her control previously to myself, and prior to her marriage she had been dependent upon her own industry for a living. She… had been in a good degree preserved from the blighting and dehumanizing effects of slavery…

One thing Douglass’s account shares with those of Solomon Northup, Harriet Jacobs, and others, is their insistence that not all slave-owners were naturally cruel and evil people. They avoid neatly dividing people into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and instead focus on the system, and its effect on those involved – slave or free, black or white.

Rather than letting a few slaveholders off the moral hook, it puts the rest of us on it. When the problem is bad people, we’re safe because we’re not them. When the problem is something larger, something systemic, which we either ignore or tolerate, we’re no longer absolved.

Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters…
Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said… “A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.”

Mr. Auld was no fool. He knew that control – whether of populations or individuals – begins through the information to which they have access. Whoever controls knowledge controls everything else – especially when it comes to maintaining a system based on privilege and inheritance.

You know, like the one we pretend we don’t have today.

”Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.”

Mr. Auld is at least honest. Rather than claim young Frederick CAN’T learn, the problem is very much that he CAN – and as things stand, that helps no one. Raised expectations are a curse both ways.

These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought…

Isn’t that what the best learning does? Challenge everything, and force you to separate the assured from the assumed?

I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man… From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I the least expected it…

If your room under the stairs is all you’ve ever known, you may not be happy, but you can hardly fathom more. Once you’ve gone to a museum or zoo, your horizons are forever altered – there are things out there of which you didn’t know. And Hogwarts… still full of limits, but compared to the room under the stairs…?

There’s nothing wrong with learning to be content with what you have, but that’s a choice we can only make if we have some glimpse of the alternatives. Until then, you’re just… stuck.

Douglass started tasting something bigger than he’d known, and for the first time found himself able to give form to his sense of bondage.

I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled “The Columbian Orator.” Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave.
The slave was represented as having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master—things which had the desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master…

Slavery is bad, and running away was illegal. Talking back to one’s master was dangerous and not to be advised – it was unlikely to lead to your emancipation. All this book lacked to be utterly perverse by the standards of the day were zombies and a gay shower scene. And yet, Douglass discovered benefit in reading this work of subversive fiction.

Douglass connected with a character who was in some ways like himself – not in wise words or holy determination, but in the ways his life sucked, like being a slave. This fictional character, however, was able to demonstrate at least one possible way to endure or even flourish in the ugly, imperfect situation in which he was mired. He resonated far more than an idealized hero-figure of some sort could have, belching platitudes while fighting off the darkness with patriotic pluck.

Douglass became who he was partly because of a banned book.

The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men.

Here’s the number one reason governments and religions and parents and schools ban whatever they ban. It’s nearly impossible to maintain the illusion you’re doing someone a huge favor by keeping them locked under the staircase once they’ve visited Hogwarts – even by proxy. The power to question is the power to overcome.

As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.
In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking!

Finally, something our elected representatives could support.

Douglass went on to become one of the most powerful speakers and important writers of the 19th century. He also turned out to be a pretty good American, despite his dissent regarding any number of issues.

Turns out you can do that.

Learning is dangerous, but not to the person doing the learning. It can hurt along the way, but you usually end up better off for it.

Learning is dangerous to men whose ideas lack sufficient merit or whose systems lack sufficient substance to maintain their influence over people once they have other options.

Schoolhouse Rock intoned in the 1970’s that “It’s great to learn – ‘Cause Knowledge is Power!” A few thousand years before, Jesus of Nazareth had promised his followers that “you will know the truth, and the truth will set your free.” He was speaking most directly of Himself and salvation, but the principle echoes past the specifics.

In a time of strict codes and limited freedom, He offended the churchiest of them with his associations, the liberties he took with the law designed to protect them from damnation, and by suggesting we might not need holy arbiters any longer to find our way.

At the risk of getting preachy, the curtain tore long before Martin Luther nailed his complaints to the door.

Perhaps the Scribes and Pharisees had underlying good intentions, being naturally rooted in the ways of Old Testament law. They grew up under a God who’d kill you for touching His ark, even if it was to prevent it falling to the ground. We’ll cut them some slack.

The Inquisitions and Puritans and Assigners of Scarlet Letters in New Testament times have no such excuse. If their faith is what they claim, it’s a faith based on light and truth and – above all – informed choice. Jesus and Paul may not have had much in common, but there’s no record of either lying or hiding something they didn’t want the world to see. They had enough faith in their message that it could withstand freedom of choice. They didn’t want to capture anyone who didn’t wish to be won.

You don’t make better citizens or better Christians by hiding or prohibiting things you don’t want them to know. You can’t strengthen faith by torturing those who sin. You certainly can’t narrow the gap between young people and American ideals by doing a better job bullsh*tting them.

It’s wrong to even try, of course, but it also just doesn’t work.

Let’s have a little faith in our spiritual ideals, and our foundational values as a nation. Let’s offer enough light and live enough of an example that we can risk letting those we love have a little freedom. If they come back…

Well, you know the rest.

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Just Teach The Curriculum (Leave That Other Stuff At Home)

April 16, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

There’s a cliché in education about teaching the child, not merely the subject. The more annoying version is that students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. I’m not in love with either platitude, but like most things with unfortunate sticking power, they’re not entirely wrong.

Why don’t teachers and schools just focus on teaching kids the curriculum, and leave the social and personal stuff at home, where it belongs? Why do districts spend so much money on non-classroom positions, then complain they need more teachers?

They may be phrased as questions, but they’re used as accusations. Those teachers have an agenda! They’re hemp-addled hippies, promoting New Age hokum and gender fluidity instead of teaching fractals as well as they do in Singapore.

There seems to be a deep suspicion that the only reason any of us work in the conditions we do for the pittance we earn is that we’re trying to overthrow ‘real’ America and imprison its children in an neo-Woodstock free-love tie-dye-ridden utopian wasteland.

#ThanksObama.

So I’m going to try something a bit outside my genre – a reasonable, balanced explanation of something. (I know, I know – but we have to stretch ourselves in order to grow, right? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – like hick-hop, or dating a vegan.)

I’d like to make a case for why in many situations effective teaching has to mingle with social work, progressive politics, or otherwise color outside the lines.

We’ll even set aside for a moment the question of exactly what we should be teaching and why we should be teaching it to begin with. Is it about getting into college? A meaningful career? Good citizenship? Personal enrichment? Economic gain? Compliant law-abiding members of society? Better-informed voters? Less annoying co-workers?

Should we be making sure they know how to not get pregnant? How to balance a checkbook? How to drive? How to work in groups? Take personal responsibility? Speak effectively in public? Read for pleasure? Read for knowledge? Write intellectually, creatively, or poetically?

It doesn’t really matter how long you make the list, someone will point out something you’ve left off that’s absolutely essential – and they’ll probably be right.

But let’s take the grandiose stuff off the table for a moment, and assume our primary goal is something tangible and pragmatic – content knowledge as measured by some sort of test. Surely whatever else we’re trying to accomplish, a little book learnin’ is in the mix?

So here’s Ms. Endocrine in Biology 101, teaching her little heart out. She’s a decent teacher, uses various strategies effectively, and knows her subject matter well. Her mid-town school has a wide variety of students and issues, but they rarely make the news for anything beyond the occasional sporting event or spelling bee. Some of her co-workers complain that each year’s students are less motivated and more distracted than the year before, but they’re probably just old and grumpy.

Her 1st Period class is Biology 101 and has 34 students (this is obviously pre-budget cuts). Just under half are pretty much getting it and will hopefully do fine on the Big Test. Their actual enthusiasm for truly understanding science varies widely, but whatever.

Let’s focus on the rest.

Some of them do fine most days, but are easily distracted and sometimes tune out at critical times. Whether or not they pass their E.O.I.s will largely depend on the kind of week they’ve had, or what time of day they take them, or what they had for breakfast that morning.

Maybe it’s not the school’s job to feed them, or talk them through whatever drama is currently impacting their worlds. It’s not like they’re a disruption. But if we care whether or not they learn the state-mandated material, or whether they’ll pass the test, we might want to try anyway. If their academic progress is our responsibility, then their other issues are at least partly our problem.

A couple of her girls miss part or all of her class at least twice a week for unconvincing reasons. Ms. Endocrine does her best to help them catch up each time, but they won’t come in during lunch or after school. She’s pretty sure there are real issues behind some of the absences, but other times they’re just cutting class and hiding out in the girls’ bathroom, so… that’s annoying.

Ms. Endocrine could put more time and energy into figuring out what’s behind all of this, but she has 147 other students, many of whom DO show up and need regular attention. If it’s left on her, she’ll have to either ignore the absences or issue standardized consequences – detention. Suspension. ‘F’.

None of which improve the odds of any of them passing that E.O.I. None of which help the chances they’ll learn the important stuff mandated by the state. If their academic progress is our responsibility, then their other issues are at least partly our problem.

Sometimes one her boys will demonstrate an aversion to authority, especially from women. Like many young people, they’re struggling to define themselves as part of and in opposition to what they see in the world around them. Maybe they’re getting mixed messages based on their race, or their faith, or their cultural background. Maybe they’re just teenage boys being pains in the buttocks.

There are so many factors… among students, at least. Teachers are still predominantly moderate white Protestants from boring middle class backgrounds who learn best through orthodox means.

But… Biology is Biology, right? Just… just do the work! Follow the rules!

Except the research says dozens of other factors impact how or even if kids learn. The science says it matters how we adjust to actual, real students in front of us, whether we wish it were necessary or not. Ms. Endocrine COULD just teach the material. If they refuse to learn for whatever reason, she could give logical consequences – detention. Suspension. ‘F’.

None of which improve the odds any of these kids will pass that E.O.I. None of which help the chances they’ll learn important Biology stuff as mandated by the state. If their academic progress is our responsibility, then their other issues are at least partly our problem.

One girl who did great first semester has been slipping. She confides to Ms. Endocrine that her parents want to send her to a special counselor to teach her not to be gay. Last week a young man told her he’d been dealing with harassment from other students (and at least one other teacher) over which bathroom he should use. It’s not enough to overtly qualify as ‘bullying,’ but…

Ms. Endocrine has little frame of reference for this sort of thing, and no idea if she even buys into some of these… ‘sexual identity’ issues. But it’s clear her kids are struggling with them, and that means they’re not really focused on redox reactions or photosynthesis.

She didn’t sign up to talk anyone through sexual identity or anything else related to charting the path of one’s nethers, but simply nodding and handing them a tissues won’t move them forward either. If their academic progress is her responsibility, then their other issues are at least partly her problem.

One girl’s mom is sick – really sick. Two kids have undiagnosed ADD or OCD or some sort of acronym making things difficult all ‘round. Judy needs glasses, but keeps not getting them. A few are probably under the influence of something illegal, far too many are scarred by some form of sexual abuse in their recent past, and it’s pretty obvious to everyone that Gary has SERIOUS anger issues he doesn’t know how to control.

Ms. Endocrine can’t fix their worlds for them, nor is that her job. She can barely keep track of who’s dealing with what. She can only pass along the consequences – detention. Suspension. ‘F’.

None of which improve the results of that E.O.I. None of which helps any of them learn anything mandated by the state or critical to becoming a well-rounded person. If their academic progress is our responsibility, then their other issues are at least partly our problem.

Some of us work in very socio-economically difficult situations – kids arrive hungry, exhausted, angry, broken, sick, abused, or otherwise not ready to fully immerse themselves in the wonders of the future subjunctive or the Green Corn Rebellion. Other circumstances are far less dramatic, and our biggest challenge is that many decent kids from relatively normal families simply do not care about school or prokaryotes or what their GPA might look like in three years if they don’t “get serious.”

So we hire extra counselors, partnering with outside organizations when we can and eating the cost ourselves when we can’t. We create separate classrooms or activities and find specialized staff to mitigate the outside realities we can’t directly control.

We try to find people and create programs to remove the most disruptive from the general population without sending them home to be someone else’s problem or no one’s problem, knowing there will be long-term consequences for all of us if they continue on their current path.

We create positions which probably seem like we’re trying to parent kids who are no biological relation to us, and maybe to some extent we are – however inadequately. Yes, someone else SHOULD be doing that. Far too often, they DON’T.

Forget whose problem it SHOULD be – if their academic progress is our responsibility, then their other issues are at least partly our problem.

It’s not about the feely touchy cares. Well, I mean – it IS, for many of the adults involved, but it doesn’t change much when it’s not.

It’s about trying to teach kids Biology, and English, and Math – things we can’t do without some regard for who we’re trying to teach and what they’ve brought with them that might get in the way. If it were as simple as just delivering content, we could pack them in the gym and show a video lecture each day. Even better, just send a DVD home with them – see you when it’s time to assess.

We teach the kids we have, not the fictional kids you think we have or think you went to school with back in the day. And if their academic progress is our responsibility, then their other issues are at least partly our problem.

That means staff to counsel. That means staff to advocate. That means staff and resources to try different learning environments or alternate disciplinary procedures within the existing system, somehow. That means feeding kids we shouldn’t have to feed, and approving of kids you wouldn’t approve of.

If for no other reason than hoping they’ll eventually pass Biology.

Why Republicans Should Love Public Education

March 31, 2016June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Full Disclosure: I’m no longer a registered Republican. I stuck it out for decades, but at some point between the Tea Party breaking Rand Paul and the crowning of Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz as voices of ‘moderation and reason,’ I simply couldn’t do it anymore.

And yet… the Right Wing are still my people, however far I’ve strayed, and despite their collective loss of sanity over the past decade. Evangelicals, gun-fetishists, the socially repressed – I can’t support their positions, but I treasure their possibilities.

The modern Republican Party is a backslidden mess. They are a bewildering diaspora of conservatism’s potential – particularly the minivan and Easter crowd smothered within their ranks. I hereby call on them to leave their false idols and begin the journey home… starting with an issue which should be a no-brainer: public education.

Forget that it’s the right thing to do – it’s a winning political strategy.

The Right is all about personal responsibility.

An equitable and effective public school system goes a long way towards promoting real-world opportunity and unlocking individual potential. Education doesn’t cancel out poverty, systemic racial discrimination, etc., but it gives students – soon to be actual people – the option of whistling Vivaldi along the way and dramatically improving their personal odds.

You’re welcome to point a finger at the downtrodden and underserved and ask why they haven’t done more to better themselves, but your judgment is untenable unless those at whom you point have reliable access to high-quality, fiscally prioritized, meaningful education.

If you really want to add teeth to your moral outrage, provide wraparound services addressing many of the underlying sources of disparity reflected in grades, graduation rates, and test scores. Inequity may remain, but the system enabling it would be far less overt – and your expectations regarding individual achievement thus much more persuasive.

The Right is all about the economy and being a productive member thereof.

Those with better educations tend to avoid prison. They tend to get and hold better jobs. They tend to become settled, have families (and stay with them), and galvanize into moderation.

Yes, the most educated in our nation often grow rather liberal in their ideals – but not usually in their lifestyles. They spend, invest, even donate – all of which lubricate the wheels of the commerce.

The Right is all about family values.

Despite the rhetoric coming from the fringe elements (who always seem to end up in charge these days), public schools consciously inculcate good character – hard work, honesty, empathy, personal responsibility, etc.

Constitutionally, these must remain distinct from specific theology or faith, but as I recall from my evangelical days, God’s truths are strong enough they can’t help but be reflected in the natural world all around us (the one He created, and for which he set up ‘natural laws’?) with or without appropriate credit attached. Gravity need not be labeled “God’s Gravity” to be just as true, or just as useful to understand; why would “do unto others” or “study to show thyself approved” require sectarian sanction?

Granted, public schools DO tend to welcome and value children of all cultures, colors, sexual proclivities, etc. Many of you have been told this equates to a collective sanction of ungodliness. Surely five minutes with the Jesus of the four gospels refutes such silliness?

The Right loves to talk about America’s Founding Ideals.

This one gets trickier, because so much has changed logistically since our nation’s inception. But if the ideals themselves are as timeless as we hope, they should find traction and demonstrate value in modern times. As with matters of faith, however, it’s important we not mistake the logistics of their historical application with the eternal principles those in the past were attempting to honor.

The Constitution (a set of rules) can be amended as situations evolve. The Declaration of Independence (a statement of ideals) cannot. The Ten Commandments (a list of rules) were superseded by the arrival of the Messiah (the supernatural made flesh). The goal of personal communion with an eternal Creator (an ideal) remained consistent, but we need not sacrifice birds or sit in our gardens naked to get there.

The particulars were always intended to evolve, even if the overarching principles were not.

America’s founding ideals are about equality in the eyes of the law – actual, demonstrable equality, not just theoretical equality. The principal was established in the Declaration of Independence; the expression of that principal has expanded in fits and starts ever since. We could get closer.

America’s founding ideals are about meritocracy. We’re unlikely to find the best hockey players in towns with no ice, or gifted writers in communities with no books. Merit must be sought, nurtured, and unleashed.

Finding it and growing it – as often and in as many varieties as possible – is great for the individual, but of exponentially greater value to the whole.

America’s founding ideals are about diversity. I know, I know – old rich white guys, etc. But what they started expanded true citizenship – economic, social, and political power – far beyond anything known in their worlds at the time. The expansion of those ideals to include people of other colors and both sexes was perfectly consistent with their vision, if not their temporal understanding at the time.

America’s founding ideals are about opportunity for the humblest citizen.

This is a big one.

We value our business-owners and investors, certainly, but 150 years of both state and federal land policy made it an absolute priority to redistribute resources – 160 acres of land, usually – in the name of opportunity, to any citizen, however humble, free of charge and with the obligation only that they utilize it as best they could.

John Adams, before we’d even declared independence, argued that “Power follows property.” Thus, the way to make sure we preserve a “balance of liberty” – a full, meaningful involvement of a wide spectrum of citizens – was to make the “acquisition of land easy to every member of society.”

The various statutes governing land distribution over the years generally discouraged (or outright prohibited) the hoarding of resources. Homesteaders could only claim as much as an average family could realistically use. This wasn’t to be nice – it was best for society as a whole.

The best-known and most important of these was the Homestead Act of 1862. It was promoted and signed into law by THE founding Republican, Abraham Lincoln.

Today the key to opportunity is no longer land. Today’s “Homestead Act” is Public Education – the modern gateway to economic, social, and political opportunity, so sacred as to occasionally be oversold on just what it will and won’t guarantee in individual lives, but largely essential for anything else of value to become possible.

The Republican Party Was Created to Reduce Inequality.

The Republican Party sprang out of a combination of the ‘Free Soil’ party and a few other ‘not-the-Democrats’ groups in the 1850s. ‘Free Soil’ in this case had a dual meaning – they were against slavery, and they were for those without property being given land – and thus, a realistic shot at their own little version of the American Dream.

They had serious issues with polygamy as well, although we tend to brush that aside when covering the time period, meaning…

The Republican Party was quite literally born with THREE priorities –

(1) Let’s treat black folks better, because… America!

(2) Let’s give more free stuff to people who need an opportunity, because… democracy!

(3) Let’s tell people who they can and can’t marry because… icky!

We’ve held fast to the third, but forsaken the first two. Why?

The Republican Party would like to remain relevant and win elections.

The GOP has not done a very impressive job adjusting its rhetoric or expanding its reach beyond some very clichéd demographics.

There are a LOT of educators – public and private, teachers and support staff – in this country.

Can you imagine the electoral potential of a party which embraced public school teachers (most of whom are personally rather moderate)? Are there really SO many core values which would have to be jettisoned to pay teachers a living wage and get a bit more creative enabling schools to do what schools want to do best?

Wouldn’t the payoff would be so, so worth it?

Come Home. Please.