I missed this one: Chicago education officials were ready to consider a proposal for a “gay-friendly” school, but the GLBT group that originally proposed the plan withdrew it.  Apparently, they didn’t want to bend to requests that the school be “all-inclusive, for kids that are straight, gay, obese,” and not exclusively GLBT.

Many of you know I was harassed for three years for being perceived as gay at my high school back in the ’70s, so I’m fascinated by recent research into the effects of this harassment on students nationwide. Key findings:

• widespread verbal and physical harassment, assault
• average GPA’s a half point lower than perceived straight students
• frequent truancy among 35%, compared to 5% of perceived straight students
• increased drop-out risk
• bad effects on college choices

And that sounds just like my 1970s.

So, despite opposition by GLBT groups that argue such a school would segregate GLBT students like second-class citizens, I have to disagree. As an old veteran of these wars, I’m proof, in a sense, of the counter-claim by Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network founder Kevin Jennings:

If we keep doing nothing, we are going to keep getting these horrifying levels of harassment, greater rates of skipping, not going to college and more tragic violence like the murder of Lawrence King. Those are our choices. We can continue to do nothing, and we know the results, or we can save young people’s lives and offer them an education and a future.

It’s a tough one, but I have to side with the bullied of all, not just rainbow, stripes here. Because little seems to have changed in 30 years.

Photo: Gay-Straight Alliance Schoolbus by jglsongs

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So, because the Texas vote will set science standards for the next decade, textbook publishers will likely be aiming to please the creationists until 2018. And other states, to repeat Loewen, will have to choose amongst science textbooks designed for these Creationists in charge of Texas schools.

That’s why it matters. By 2018, Obama will have left his (knock wood) second term in office for a two full years - but most students during his presidency will have studied anti-science textbooks because of the actions of the Texas Board of Education.

Call it an Obama presidency with a Palin education policy.

3. Solutions?

Is it possible to influence the Texas BOE to vote down the provision in January or the following spring? It seems unlikely. Most of the members belong to the extreme religious right, with open ties to the creationist Discovery Institute that supported similar anti-science campaigns in Kansas and Pennsylvania.

But unlikely is not impossible. So here are some ideas:

1. Call on Obama to use the bully pulpit.

Click image to see Climate Change message on YouTube.

Last month, Obama declared an end to climate change science deniers. Earlier in the campaign, he openly voiced his opposition to creationism in all its guises during the campaign. If he appealed not to the ideological BOE, but to the nation - and the textbook industry - to shout down Texas, that might limit the damage to textbook content nationwide.

2. Use Smart Mob and/or Tipping Point campaigns

Pressure the Texas BOE and, again, the textbook publishers, with opposition. Get schools nationwide to declare their support for evolution-friendly textbooks, and their refusal to buy anything else. (If I were to do that, show of hands: who would support it by spreading the word?)

3. Longer term, organize to defeat the creationists in school board elections.

It’s amazing that Board of Education officials need no scientific or educational expertise to be elected, yet they control the curriculum, standards, and funds of the public school system in Texas.

Worse, as U. of Arkansas Prof. Jay Greene argues,

Local school board elections on off-election days have very low turnout, often in the single digits. Given the obscurity of local school politics, it’s easier for the employees and their organized interests to dominate school politics. They’re just about the only ones following what is going on and voting in those elections.

What’s good for the creationist goose can be good for the scientific gander too - if only the gander played the politics smarter.

4. [Your ideas here]

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1. Here’s a good first-hand account of the hearings in Austin.

Science is downright sexy. It struck me last week as I watched the following video on CNN about scientist Carl Hodges, of the Seawater Foundation, which I promptly found online, bookmarked on Diigo, and noted:

Use rising oceans from global warming to reduce greenhouse gases and create food and green jobs? Scientists are the sexiest saviors in the world.

Watch the video, and ask yourself how, when a science career can lead to a lifestyle at once enjoyable, profitable, and socially valuable, students today are lukewarm about pursuing careers in science:

Embedding problems! Click the image to view the video on CNN.

I’d chew off my left arm to live life like Carl Hodges. Yet, when I try to get students to see the beauty and the excitement of where science careers can lead, they look at me like I’m trying to sell them an 8-track car stereo.

The explanation for this, as usual, has to lie in part on how schools all-too-often teach science: linear, memorized, non-contextual units covering what science knows, garbage in, garbage out, with little to no focus on the more exciting stuff - those challenges science has yet to meet.

Injecting case studies of scientists like Hodges into classroom discussions might tip students more toward science. Emphasizing the creativity and lateral thinking of Hodges’ connections of global warming, rising seas, food and fresh water shortages, and desertification, and the beauty of his transforming a cause of global crisis into a possible solution for it - this bit of sexiness may seduce more students to become the future scientists who might save us, down the road, in different ways.

(And if you have your own “sexy scientist” heroes - or science teachers - do us a favor and drop them in comments )

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8 Comments

• At December 1, 2008, Sean Nash wrote:

  1. wow. you're back, and with a vengeance.

  2. you would laugh so hard after writing this post if you knew how often i refer to science as "sexy" in class. good stuff.

  3. isn't Hodges great? his speaking manner inspires confidence. for every one of him we have... we can change a good chunk of earth for the better. we need more folks who are able to "think laterally", as you so nicely put it.

  4. i so terribly look forward to the next four years. i have been so angry inside for the past eight years. science has been effectively squashed. and honestly, i don't even need to specify disciplines and examples. i could win here by simply asking for responses citing examples of how real science was allowed a national voice of any kind during the past decade.

  5. in 1999, in my little corner of the world, i took a big step toward aligning science with sexy when i created a marine biology course that features eight days of on-site field study aboard sailboats along the barrier reef of andros island in the bahamas.

  at the time, i really had no idea it would quickly turn into a pipeline to grad school and even a couple of PhD enrollments in so little time. i honestly didn't think that would happen from Missouri. our "1.0" site that closed in '04: http://www.stjoeh2o.org our five-month-old 2.0 site: http://stjoeh2o.ning.com

  6. the sad thing is that it took something as "sexy" as this program proposal to push a project this out-of-the-box from concept to reality- considering all of the liability involved. essentially, we had to skip across a continent to engage in something like this. in reality, many of my kids can sight identify all of the parrotfish on a caribbean coral reef before they can name ten birds that might visit the feeder out the dining room window.

  my approach was that, if swinging for the fences would win this one game, then swing i would. however, i wish i could be given the latitude to develop such a out-of-bounds program that focuses on getting kids out of the classroom and connected to the natural world they walk past every day.

  apparently, that's just not as sexy.

  7. honestly, i watched the video prior to reading the rest of the post, and i began to wonder if the reporter had anything to do with the title. not that most folks would have argued. ;-)

  i like your approach to this. i hope more discussion is to follow. don't just read, reply.....

  sean

  Sean Nashs last blog post..Your ideal writing space?

• At December 1, 2008, Michael Doyle wrote:

  Being an old scientist is a wonderful life, especially if one's youthful years lands you a tenured position somewhere, or you have a nice place in an organization with some political pull.

  Technology is seductive. Science is seductive, too, but in a far more subtle way than you might imagine from a CNN piece.

  Still, getting there involves a tremendous amount of work in fields now dominated by industry. Not saying Carl Hodges isn't doing wonderful work. Just saying that the student who wants to get there still has a lot of hoops to hop through, and not all of them are a result of lousy science programs in public education.

  I am working my arse off the next few weeks trying to get my low level freshmen involved with chemistry beyond the jam-it-in, spit-it-out rote that passes for science.

  Quite a few are not developmentally ready for it. Most do not "get" what science even means, and videos like this continue to glorify technology, confusing it with science.

  So long as we are lumping together children who cannot or will not get science with the few children who will be inspired enough to go on to true research, we will get mediocre results in public schools.

  There are quite a few bright kids in my classes--my number one goal for a bright kid is not to kill her interest in science; if it has been dulled, I'd like to re-ignite it.

  What I don't want to do, however, is make students believe science is sexy in the way, say, an NBA basketball career might be.

  Busting one's butt during your most productive years in a lab requires a huge dose of intrinsic rewards or a psychotic belief that you will win the Nobel Prize.

  I sound like I am ranting, and after I digest this a bit, I may return to it. Still, what needs to happen in high school and earlier is not making the end goal the reward. The reward is in the process, in the understanding, in the universe we create within ourselves, which is, after all, the only universe any of us can ever know.

  Michael Doyles last blog post..Wasting time on the beach

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Sean,

  Re: 4: I hear you. I just watched Obama's video message to the Governors' Conference on Climate Change (on your H2O Ning site, btw, which is impressive), and when he so flatly and firmly stated, "Denial is no longer an option," all for that moment was right in my world.

  Re: 6: That's an amazing-looking program you designed. If you ever need a deck-hand, let me know. (Yes, I'm jealous.)

  Now let's move on to our friend Mr. D.... :)

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Michael, you know I'm president of your fan club, but I think your comment misses more than a few marks (and maybe that's as much my fault as yours, but then again maybe it ain't).

  I'll skip defending CNN (or any media that inspires me with science, applied or theoretical), and mention quickly that my admiration for this man's work doesn't imply a lack of consciousness or admiration for more "subtle" examples - though I do want to say that Hodges' work seems to have its fair share of subtlety.

  Re: the "tremendous work" of "getting there," that's a given, isn't it? My point is that, for the brightest and most motivated students, applying themselves to science can be at least as rewarding - both as process and as goal - as applying themselves to a business or finance or basketball career. Grand success in any field requires busting your tail, and my argument here is that students don't see enough examples of what such tail-busting can lead to in the field of science (scientists themselves bemoan their poor PR skills), while they see all too many Michael Jordans and Donald Trumps in the media to idolize. That's why I think spotlighting people like Hodges - not as the norm any more than Jordan or Trump are norms, but as the possible exception - isn't a bad idea, and is a good one. Again, I wasn't only being flip with that "Telling Students What I Wish My Teachers had Told Me Department" line.

  Nietzsche wrote somewhere - I looked for it this morning when writing this post, to no avail - that one of the best uses of biography is to inspire the young with models they may emulate. That's one function we old folks can perform better than the young. And a CNN clip of 8 multimedia minutes may be a superior form of biography for this ADD era, compared to a book or a (blech) sidebar in a textbook about some dead scientist. I fantasize I'd populate a Ning or wiki with a weekly "sexy scientist" video embed just to pound through the realization that many living, breathing, defecating scientists today are doing remarkable things - whether in labs or on Mexican coastlines - and that they were once freshman knuckleheads just like the students are.

  I didn't say "all" are the result of lousy science programs. I consciously said "partly" and "all-too-often," as a nod to exceptions and other factors. I'll take some Hershey's Kisses with your apology for that one ;-)

  "Confusing technology with science"? That "lateral thinking" I mention required Hodges to understand the carbon cycle, rising seas, botany (?) (in his knowledge of the crop that would work best in his plan), and much more science. That he applies that scientific knowledge with technology detracts from nothing, as far as I can see. And technology is science too.

  I already touched on process and goal, as you (not I) put it. A tinkerer's love of figuring out how to do cool stuff - to "have fun doing good," as a blog title I love puts it - is all about process. The goals are byproducts along the path. And thank goodness for them, too.

  Alrighty, Doyle, straighten me out. I love it when we tangle. (And I dearly hope one day we can hook up around a fire between a sunset and a sunrise, and talk, joke, shutthehellup, and/or sing the whole night through.)

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Michael, a bit of synchronicity for you: My Quotiki sidebar widget just threw this Japanese proverb at me:

  I will master something, then the creativity will come.

  Seems very a propos to the “process/goal” bit we’re wrangling over ;-)

  (I really must stop the winking. Reminds me of Sarah Palin. *shudder*)

• At December 1, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:

  I think that's part of the issue though, is that all fields do an incredible amount of effort to get to the top, just as science does. However, other fields are approachable. Sure, it takes a lot of effort to be the CEO of a major company. However, that's not what students see as the immediate success of business. You can just as well start a small business or be a middling in some corporation. Almost all fields have a similar trait: it takes a lot to be at the top, but students are confronted by plenty of examples where people are doing fine in the middle/bottom.

  In contrast, science is all about the "top" – especially when it comes to students. Students don't interact with or know about scientists on a day to day basis. Instead, contact with scientists is only through the "greats" on a very distant and impersonal level (through a textbook). Thus, students believe all scientists have to put in the same amount of effort as Galileo or others. Obviously, this isn't true. However, students can't grasp the idea of a career in science since almost nobody they will meet in their life will have such a career. I certainly think that interest in science would be boosted if scientists interacted with the community (and schools) more.

  I for one, will always be a technology guy rather than a science guy. From my experience, a large part of science is the meta-science – methodology, titles, academia, etc... - rather than the actual research/science. This is perfectly understandable (and in many ways necessary) because research is only as valuable as its credibility. In contrast, technology is the exact opposite. Almost everything is based upon raw talent and effort, rather than other factors. I also couldn't stand the amount of academia most science requires...

• At December 2, 2008, Sean Nash wrote:

  @Clay & Michael - Can I be fan club secretary? Please? Too many interesting items here to not really dive in fully with you two hooligans. However, considering the fact that I may have a baby born here in a matter of hours, I will have to take a rain check on this one. Play nice and give me lots of fun thoughts to shoot at.

  BTW- Michael... I really think Clay is using a more contemporary alternative definition of the word (not going to use it and risk Clay's spam filter hell). Think of it less in terms of gametes, fleshbumps and peacock feathers.. and more along the lines of... merely sleek and appealing. No?

  @Morgante - "However, students can’t grasp the idea of a career in science since almost nobody they will meet in their life will have such a career."

  I beg to differ here. If this is occurring, then this is teacher error. Seriously. If we can't provide a vehicle for our kids to interface with professionals at all levels in the field, then we are missing out in a big way.

  We must, at the very least, bring our former students back (or better yet- KEEP THEM in the fold via professional uses of social networking) to talk to our current students. Our Ning sites are so young, and yet they are already providing a vehicle for this very thing.

  If kids don't see that relatively "normal" folks can and do perform the work of science, then they will tag everything scientific with Einstein's face. Charming ol' lad, but nowhere near the norm.

  Wish us luck...

  Sean Nashs last blog post..Where are the seeds in an orange?

• At December 2, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:

  @Sean: I completely agree that it *is* a problem with teaching if teachers don't reach out to show students realistic and legitimate examples of a field. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this is all too common in elementary and secondary science classrooms. Far too many students think of a scientist and can only imagine Einstein. It definitely is the responsibility of teachers to reach out, but unfortunately far too many are shirking their duty.

To riff off an old saw, “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.” This is beyond obvious when we think of the Iraq invasion, the refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and countless other examples.

Less obvious, though, are the effects of American education policy on the world. The “standards and accountability” movement, exemplified most notoriously by No Child Left Behind, can appear to be a mostly domestic, purely American issue.

But that appearance is wrong.

For evidence, look no further than New York City Education Chancellor Joel Klein’s recent visit to Australia - at the invitation of Australia’s Education Minister. Klein’s visit is stirring the same controversies in Australia that his policies have caused in the USA: should teacher unions be crippled? Should Australia look to the likes of Rupert Murdoch to privatize public education in the same way some Americans are looking to Bill Gates?

(We could extend this discussion to the encroachment of good ol’ American creationism and “Intelligent” Design into Australian science classrooms as well, but will leave that depressing subject for another post. My own secular warfare, here in Korea, with creationism edu-evangelists requires a stronger stomach and sense of humor than I have right now.)

Obama as education epidemiologist?

All of this points to the global importance of the incoming Obama administration’s education policies. Where will he stand on NCLB, on Charter Schools, on equity and finance and teacher tenure?

Cagey as ever, Obama has so far sent mixed signals. Pro-union, anti-privatizing advocates are heartened by his selection of progressive NCLB critic Linda Darling-Hammond as his education transition team manager, and hope he’ll follow up by appointing her Secretary of Education. But anti-union advocates who favor the likes of Klein and Washington D.C. school chancellor Michelle Rhee take hope in Obama’s stated support for expanding federal charter schools.

A closer inspection of Obama/Biden’s official education plan on Change.gov, though, suggests that progressives have more reasons to hope than the Klein-Rhee types. It seems to lay out reforms aiming at a “kinder, gentler,” more holistic NCLB. From the site:

Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. They will improve the assessments used to track student progress . . . and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB’s accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.

A heretical close?

The other elements of the plan are encouraging and well worth the read, but - heresy warning - nowhere in the plan do we see any mention of the one issue that, in my view, the anti-union camp rightly raises: how to remove inept teachers from schools. Let’s be honest: we teachers have all worked with “omigod” colleagues we’d never want to inflict on a child.

Corey Bower writes a nicely pragmatic post about the tensions between protecting unions and eliminating undesirable teachers, in which he speculates,

I don’t think any union, or any union member, would argue that we should protect bad teachers. My guess is that [unions could support] some sort of provision that allowed for the dismissal of the worst teachers.

Speculation is all well and good - but does anybody have concrete examples of such a thing in their unions?

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22 Comments

• At November 30, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @Clay

  Another thought provoking post. It seems education is the usual catch-all whipping boy for anything wrong with society. It is probably easy to blame schools. Teachers are undervalued, kids can't vote, it shifts blame away from our political leaders and our families.

  I agree that finding ways to weed out ineffective teachers is truly valuable. I've fired my share over my few short years as a principal. I work in a private setting where there is no tenure and everyone is on a yearly employment agreement. This isn't a perfect system but it does alow the axe of change to fall a little more swiftly.

  Increased funding would be nice. I struggle with the expanse of charter schools. They certainly spur creativity but I worry that those who need them the most are the most likely to be left out as politically and socially savy parents stear their little einsteins into seats designed for children from poverty.

  Increasing teacher continuing education requirments might be one way (albeit draconian) of weeding out those who don't want to get better. I've always liked this video:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590PNSh6g_4

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Employee Benefits and Staff Retention

• At December 1, 2008, Sarah Rainsberger wrote:

  I think as long as a teacher is paying dues to a union, there's an agreement and expectation of representation and advocacy. I don't see how unions and "weeding out the bad seeds" can coexist.

  That being said, my choice for Secretary of Education is Gordon Ramsey. Not the profanity-wielding, shouting monster running Hell's Kitchen, but the profanity-wielding, shouting monster from "Kitchen Nightmares" that can turn *any* cockroach infested, ineptly-managed, "bought in food" hell hole into a successful restaurant.

  Seriously, he takes people that I would have fired long ago and makes them care about their performance and feel invested in the organization's success. That's probably a bigger problem in schools today than the occasional dolt who *really* is beyond rehabilitation.

  Anyone in a position concerned about "bad eggs" among the staff or intolerable coworkers need only watch a few episodes of this show to see how the most dysfunctional workers (and management!) can be turned around. Watching this show has made me realize that there are probably fewer "bad teachers" than I think there are. There are probably a heck of a lot more teachers who are floundering under stress, lack of leadership and organizational dysfunction.

  It's not a painless process, though, and you can be sure the unions would be citing "hostile work environment" before Ramsey could work his magic. :P

  Sarah Rainsbergers last blog post..Alfie Kohn speaking in Toronto tonight

• At December 1, 2008, Neil Winton wrote:

  Hi Clay,

  Although this is not specifically about Union support, there is a current case in Scotland of a teacher who is about to be (probably) the first to be struck off the register of teachers for incompetence. There is certainly no Union call for her to be retained, per se. Our (Scottish) teacher unions are very good, and do fight for the rights of their members, so their relative silence on this matter is as close to an admission that they agree with the steps being taken as one is likely to get.

  Full story here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5209494.ece and here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7741247.stm

  Neil Wintons last blog post..Blog Action Day 08: Free Rice

• At December 1, 2008, Jose wrote:

  I always wonder if people really know that there are ways to "get rid" of bad teachers if they so chose. It takes a little work, but if they really wanted to "let them go," there are ways for that (even in NYC, and I'll look it up). Now, much of this has to do with 1) favoritism 2) a lack of standards for what a good teacher is 3) putting bodies in the classroom, and 4) sensationalism. Oftentimes, I find that the definition of a bad teacher varies greatly, and teachers are often the #1 scapegoat for what ails schools. We need to have a more holistic look at schools and raise everyone's game up. For example, I'm all for making tenure more stringent (just not getting rid of it), and I'm also for more thorough pedagogy for all staff from the support staff to the principal and everyone in between.

  Unfortunately, when I look at Bloomkleinrhee, I see a public campaign that lays little accountability on everyone else but teachers. I'm interesting in seeing what solutions people come up with more than anything.

  Joses last blog post..Counting Your Blessings (Am I Not Human?)

• At December 1, 2008, Doug Noon wrote:

  Would we accuse public defenders of protecting criminals? Some people do. But unless you have enough money to fight back with your own lawyer, our understanding of fairness suggests that contract language (and the legal system in general) should apply to everyone regardless of their personal circumstances. Teachers' rights advocates defend contract guarantees of due process for whoever might need such help.

  I volunteered many years ago to work as a teachers' rights advocate, uncompensated. I particpated in the grievance process, representing teachers who had gotten into jams of various sorts. The experience was enlightening for me. I saw tenured teachers fired by principals who read the contract, and knew how to do their job. And I also saw, more frequently, abuses of authority by principals hell-bent on railroading a teacher out of their building. I learned that incompetent administrators are at least as much of a problem as "bad" teachers. How do we get rid of them?

  Doug Noons last blog post..Time for a Little Comprehension

• At December 1, 2008, Kate Tabor wrote:

  This is a tricky question. I was our union president (and yes, an independent school with a teachers' association) for four years, and rarely is this an easy call. Our contract has a remediation clause; a tenured teacher can be placed on remediation, and if, over a mutually agreed upon time frame with mutually agreed upon measurable outcomes, the teacher is unable to make positive progress in their teaching, then they may not be offered a contract for the next year.

  The teacher must have received timely and adequate written communication from their department chair and their division head that their teaching is unsatisfactory before they can be placed on remediation. This can't be used as a lightning bolt to fire a teacher, and when it does happen, the school spends much time, energy, and resources to help the teacher respond and improve.

  I agree with @Sarah R, above, that most of the teachers I know that are struggling are doing so because of "stress, lack of leadership and organizational dysfunction."

  But of course, there is that one teacher who, whenever their shadow crossed my door jamb, would make me cringe...

  Kate Tabors last blog post..Remember

• At December 1, 2008, Sarah Rainsberger wrote:

  Kate wrote:

  "But of course, there is that one teacher who, whenever their shadow crossed my door jamb, would make me cringe…"

  All too true! But there's no way to put ". . . and won't make my skin crawl" in an employment contract. Pity, since 9 times out of 10, that's the person whose absence would brighten up the whole place.

  Sarah Rainsbergers last blog post..Alfie Kohn speaking in Toronto tonight

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Charlie, I like that video too. "I'm going to teach one year - for 25 years straight." Great line!

  Jim Horn wrote a post recently on a study with really damning findings about Charter Schools that confirm your fear of cagey parents.

  It'll be interesting to see how aggressively Obama pursues education reform. Let's hope he doesn't disappoint.

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Sarah, at the risk of sounding like the TV know-nothing I am, can you drop the name of the show? Thanks :)

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Neil, thanks for the links. That teacher is exactly the kind of case that should trouble us, from what I read. Support and second chances were given, but she still failed to meet the standard. I guess union silence on her dismissal can be seen as a responsible reaction....

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Jose, good points. The definitions issue is particularly gnarly. It seems like Obama, if I read the runes rightly, comes down on the side of support and "rehab." But he's also talked about increasing pay for "good" teachers, which also raises the question of definitions, and the specter of rewarding teachers for teaching to tests. (I will say that his call to elevate science education to the current "reading and math" fetish is heartening.)

  The stuff'll give you migraines.

• At December 1, 2008, Kate Tabor wrote:

  Oh yes, Sarah! And why is it that same person will use 90% of your available time for their very personal, idiosyncratic employment issues, ask colleagues to accommodate for them, and then (because it is not required) not join the Association or pay dues. Please, can we find a way to add the "and won't make my skin crawl" clause into the employment contract?

  Kate Tabors last blog post..Remember

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Doug, that's an interesting angle. How does admin job security work? Do they have their own unions? And how do we get rid of them?

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Kate and Sarah, I just want to thank you for the laughs.

  There should be a provision that "skin-crawlers" have to wear speakers around their necks that boom sinister vampire movie music as early warnings to close our doors.

  (Oh wait. Maybe I'm one of those teachers, and don't know it.)

• At December 1, 2008, Admin’s Blog » Blog Archive » Firing Teachers wrote:

  [...] Responding to Clay Burell. [...]

• At December 1, 2008, Sarah Rainsberger wrote:

  Hey Clay,

  "Kitchen Nightmares" is the name of the show. There's an older British version of the series, and then for the past season or two he's been filming in the U.S.

  It should really be required viewing for any consultant, manager or team leader, as far as I'm concerned. Assuming that the show isn't staged, it's amazing to see the transformations in staff, leaders and the organization as a whole.

  Sarah Rainsbergers last blog post..Alfie Kohn speaking in Toronto tonight

• At December 1, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:

  But what about us anti-union anti-privatization types?

  I don't think we should privatize public education, but I also think unions have far too much power – especially when it comes to keeping bad teachers in the classroom.

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Morgante, that's what I was getting at in my close. You really should check out Stephen Downes' reply in the trackback above your comment. And the other comments in this thread, too.

• At December 1, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:

  Yes, I'm with you there. Just making the point that the media/pols would have us divided into two camps: union-backers/public school backers and union-attackers/privatizers.

  I do think unions can serve a purpose, but the current system in most districts is rather broken. The sad thing is people can be fired for entirely unfair reasons (see Downes), yet it is difficult to fire someone for real reasons.

  What it comes down to is that the definition bad teachers is subjective (as other comments pointed out), and very hard to apply. It is easy to prove pornography was on a computer, but very difficult to "prove" a teacher is bad. In that regard, I think unions (and the public) need to give more discretionary power to fire or at least punish teachers. Most of all, periodic reviews should be done which take the students into account. We are the ones who actually know how a teacher is doing.

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Morgante: --and that's a really good point about student input. While it, too, is messy - I make it a habit to have open, anonymous Moodle forums for student feedback on how I'm doing as a teacher, and there are always a few who just seem to have personality issues bordering on sociopathy - I do think it plausible that student input on teacher evaluations could work. Goodness knows, the admin evaluations are usually announced before-hand, giving teachers a chance to do for one lesson what they don't do for all the others - prepare. That makes them dog-and-pony shows, and results in pencil-whipped evals from the boss.

• At December 1, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:

  Yes, there are definitely many issues when it comes to student input. It's definitely difficult to sort out the signal from the noise. Some students are going to complain about bad grades (that they deserve), but others will genuinely bring up problems. It's a conundrum, but one that needs to be fixed.

  Sometimes I think it would actually help if the system was made less anonymous. Many students will bad-mouth a good teacher who gave them poor grades in an anonymous survey, but a genuine conversation is much more honest. In some part, I think administrators should work to be more accessible to student complaints about specific teachers.

  The administrator evaluation system certainly has its flaws. To start with, most systems give teachers the opportunity to be their best when what teachers really should be assessed on is the average or even worst.

• At December 2, 2008, Corey wrote:

  Thanks for the mention. I don't have time to do the research right now, but I know of many examples in which unions supported ways to remove certain teachers from the classroom. While I was teaching the union took a very strong stance on removing teachers who were accused of sexual abuse, etc. And I've heard of many plans in which teachers who receive low ratings are placed into a peer review/improvement plan where they are either helped or counseled out of the profession. I'm sure that a lot of people would like, and a lot of cases would merit, quicker action -- but I think it's fair to say that teachers and teachers' unions would rather the truly incompetent teachers not be in the classroom.

  Coreys last blog post..More on "Broken Windows" and Education

Anyway, before I go, I want to quickly note that:

1. I wish there was a way I could keep the last post’s live puppy cam forever atop this blog’s homepage, and keep those six pups forever young, so I could spend as many hours watching them down the years as I have since discovering them a few days ago. They’ve so won me, I now check in with them first thing upon waking, several times during the day, and at night before retiring. (My wife and I had a rear-angle view of one of the pups pooping a couple nights ago, which warmed us almost as much as watching him and his siblings decide to eat it. It did look like a Tootsie Roll.)
2. When I embedded those pups in that post, my mind drifted to Michael Doyle and his science classroom in New Jersey, where I pictured monitors lined along a specimen shelf showing the live puppycam, and imagined live clamcams, chimpcams, sharkcams, and a vast 21st century menagerie of other biological wonders delivered live and free into his students’ lives via the wonders of Ustream.
3. I’ve already plugged Michael here before, and he seems as queasy about the weirdness of mutual admiration societies as I do (though I hope he also values the foundation of them, which is less biological than chemical and secularly spiritual), so I’ll just point to more recent (and excellent) testimonials calling for a wider readership of Michael’s Science Teacher blog at Nashworld and Barry Bachenheimer’s Plethora of Technology, and say that -
4. I follow Nash’s lead by nominating Science Teacher as Best Teacher Blog this year. (I wrote about issues I had with the Eddies last year, and I have issues with their open nomination process this year, but as I said on Nash’s post, in response to Michael’s declining that nomination:

[ Michael:] While I think the Eddies are dubious in many ways (and wrote a post biting the hand that fed me last year, which I linked to under my nomination banner for a few months), putting the damn thing (and Alltop badges, and anything else that communicates to first-time visitors that you’re not some tin-foil-hat-wearing…

Michael

oh, waitaminnit…some dog pawing a keyboard in human underwear) up seems to me worth it, in the balance, since anything that helps a writer’s ideas reach more readers is, um, sort of one of the things most writers want to do.

And I’m going to exit this fine post (it really is fine, Nash) so I can nominate Michael too. Deal, Doyle

I’m nominating Michael for several reasons: I look to science as the only hope we have for getting out of many fateful messes (that, yes, scientists got us into, but largely due to the greedy urgings of commerce and government and pretty much every one of us), so science teaching is important to me; Michael is an edublogger (vile term, said Polonius) who uses technology to write about science and education, not about technology (a meaning-focus, not a tools-focus); he’s whacked-out funny and roots-deep serious by turns, thank god; he is and is not an edublogger; he is and is a writer.

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)

3 Comments

• At November 23, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @Clay

  Thanks for pointing me towards his site. I'll be sharing it with my science faculty. Hope you're enjoying your vacation. I'm also glad you bought dogs instead of cats. If you own a cat then somewhere in your house is a box of poop.......and when you think about that it's just plain weird.

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Reframing Conversations with the Miserable

• At November 24, 2008, Sean Nash wrote:

  Yeah- I too think the nomination process feels superweird. However, in my case, just having it in the back of my mind allowed me to lay one out as I was writing a post.

  "Mutual admiration societies" - nice. I have certainly felt what you are saying, thanks for characterizing it in such a slick way.

  In fact, after feeling gross for trying to roll around in that term for a while to see if it fit, it began to hit me another way. While that may be icky for a reasonably self-actualized adult, perhaps the power in that really is one of the things that can make blogging so powerful for adolescents.

  I think I sensed that early on, but in defending the practice to higher-ups, you tend to go down the path of reading/writing/content focus, etc... Finding like folks who filter the world in an interesting way -coupled with the notion that you aren't really alone in your beliefs- yeah, ok. I sort of like it now. Thanks much. ;-)

  Sean

  Sean Nashs last blog post..How do you bookmark a pumpkin?

• At November 27, 2008, Holer wrote:

  Resembles me Don Quijote De La Mancha, just a little. He was a windmillblogger, if you know what I mean...

So Happy Thanksgiving and see you on the other side. Enjoy the live puppycam while I’m gone

Free TV : Ustream

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)

4 Comments

• At November 21, 2008, Louise Maine wrote:

  Happy Thanksgiving to you and enjoy your time away!

• At November 21, 2008, Kate Tabor wrote:

  I'm not sure which is more smile producing - the puppy cam or the idea of Extensive Reading. Enjoy the time to think, the hot springs, and a book YOU want to read. We here is the 48 Contiguous shall hunt and gather this weekend in preparation for a weekend of eating with family - Maybe we will do some Extensive Reading of our own.

  Kate Tabors last blog post..Back to “The Gift” and “fair use”

• At November 21, 2008, diane wrote:

  Have a wonderful, relaxing time away with your wife. I'm amused by the idea that you're suggesting the puppy cam as your substitute: but then, substitute teachers are frequently expected to entertain rather than enlighten.

  Happy Thanksgiving!

  dianes last blog post..Through a Forest Wilderness

• At November 23, 2008, Deal, Doyle | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] wish there was a way I could keep the last post’s live puppy cam forever atop this blog’s homepage, and keep those six pups forever young, so I could spend as [...]

Obama is a year older than me, and that’s only the beginning of the list of ways I relate to him. Here are more things we have in common:

He didn’t grow up rich and privileged. When he got out of college, he drove a car with a rust-hole in the passenger side through which Michelle could see the sidewalk, but he didn’t seem to care: it got him from Point A to B. I had a ‘66 VW Bus in the late ’80s with rust-holes too, and loved it as much as the ‘68 Plymouth Valiant and ‘66 Mercedes 220S I drove in the ’90s. (I especially loved the Mercedes because I found it covered in moss under a tree, where it had sat for years, and bought it for USD $700. I washed it, pulled its engine, learned auto mechanics by rebuilding it [call it a reaction to too much book-learning and not enough manual skills], dropped it back in, and drove it cross-country from Oregon to Tennessee the summer before I entered Boot Camp and the US Army.)

He studied philosophy, religion, politics, history, literature in college. He was seeking wisdom. That’s what I did too. I took my sweet time getting my college coupon - my Bachelor’s Degree - because I wasn’t in college to get out of it, but to get as much out of it as I could. So I took 16 years between my freshman year and my graduation date, studying whatever looked interesting in each semester’s catalogue, and dropping out altogether when I needed a break, or wanted to study more deeply than college permitted. The best drop-out year came after a philosophy class in which we read only a few chapters of Nietzsche. I dropped out to read all 16 or so of his complete works, plus a few biographies and scholarly studies. That took about a year. Then I went back to college for more. Apple CEO Steve Jobs was the same way, describing himself as a “college drop-in.” Obama read the Bible, read Nietzsche, and more, as a young adult. So did I.

Obama smoked, read, and wrote. So did I. I hope his writings were better than mine, but that’s not the point. The point is all of that reading and writing (the smoking was a fix to stay seated, awake, and focused) were self-compelled manifestations of a desire to make sense of life, history, and the world. Others were frying their brain cells in frat-house keg parties and sailing through classes they hoped would make them rich. I know that sounds self-righteous, but there it is. At 46 years old, I am thankful for all of that seeking. It has paid off in a daily happiness I never would have had otherwise. And when I compare myself to the rich parents of my students, who seem to have chosen those get-rich college classes and succeeded in reaching their goals - but at the expense of having a reading, writing, and culture life at all - I become even more thankful. They have more money than me, but they also seem poorer. I wouldn’t trade places.

Finally - the wrong word, since I suspect I’ll be fascinated by this man for the rest of my life, and will never delete the Google News “Obama” feed in my RSS Reader until Life deletes me - Obama says, in the interview below, that his life-long quest for values he felt right to live by (call it his “quest for God,” if you will) did not reach solid ground until he reached his fortieth year. Same here, roughly, though my years teaching Asian history in Shanghai threw some Buddha and Tao headily into my own mix, and very influentially, when I was 42 or so.

But the point is this: We talk, in our edu-lingo, about the importance of constructing meaning from our studies, not just swallowing and regurgitating received information.  What I love about the interview below is the same thing I (humbly) love about my own path: It shows an understanding of questions about God, the Sacred, and the Good and Right that are eminently constructed. This interview is an example of critical thinking about traditional religion at its best. And while I don’t share Obama’s views about many things below, I do admire that he seems to have gone through the hard work of reflecting his way to those views, instead of just believing the things he was taught by parents, preachers, and all teachers of old dogmas in his life.

Put another way, the interview below is an example of that other (rightfully) sacred cow of modern education, project-based learning - with a vengeance. Because the project was a life-long one, and so authentic it had nothing to do with assignments and grades - nothing to do with school at all. It had everything to do with authentic learning for its own sake, learning for the highest purpose of all: a life of wisdom. And if that sounds high-flown to you, it does to me too, but that doesn’t make it untrue. The guy just made history, after all, by becoming the first mixed-race president of the still very racist United States. If that doesn’t suggest a wisdom, I don’t know what does.

Before I tell you to “enjoy,” note the format of the below: the hollow bullets are snippets from the interview; the square indented bullets are my occasional annotations.

Now: “Enjoy.” We’ve got a life-long learner as our next president. Happy days are here again.

• Obama’s Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani - Steven Waldman - Annotated

  Full transcript of a 2004 interview Obama gave to a religion columnist about his religious beliefs.

• tags: obama, religion, christianity, politics, elections08

  • part of my project in life was probably to spend the first 40 years of my life figuring out what I did believe - I’m 42 now - and it’s not that I had it all completely worked out, but I’m spending a lot of time now trying to apply what I believe and trying to live up to those values.
  • My grandparents who were from small towns in Kansas. My grandmother was Methodist. My grandfather was Baptist. This was at a time when I think the Methodists felt slightly superior to the Baptists. And by the time I was born, they were, I think, my grandparents had joined a Universalist church.
  • • Universal/Unitarian is my favorite denomination. - post by cburell

    [Read the rest below the fold....]

  • So I don’t think as a child we were, or I had a structured religious education. But my mother was deeply spiritual person, and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world’s religions, and talk to me about them. And I think always, her view always was that underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself but also for the greater good.

  • I probably didn’t get started getting active in church activities until I moved to Chicago.

    The way I came to Chicago in 1985 was that I was interested in community organizing and I was inspired by the Civil Rights movement. And the idea that ordinary people could do extraordinary things. And there was a group of churches out on the South Side of Chicago that had come together to form an organization to try to deal with the devastation of steel plants that had closed. And didn’t have much money, but felt that if they formed an organization and hired somebody to organize them to work on issues that affected their community, that it would strengthen the church and also strengthen the community.

    So they hired me, for $13,000 a year. The princely sum. And I drove out here and I didn’t know anybody and started working with both the ministers and the lay people in these churches on issues like creating job training programs, or afterschool programs for youth, or making sure that city services were fairly allocated to underserved communites.

    This would be in Roseland, West Pullman, Altgeld Gardens, far South Side working class and lower income communities.

  • And it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened because I’d be spending an enormous amount of time with church ladies, sort of surrogate mothers and fathers and everybody I was working with was 50 or 55 or 60, and here I was a 23-year-old kid running around.

    I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and it’s importance in the community.

    And the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply.

    So that, one of the churches I met, or one of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ. And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.

    • Church as an activist organization. I can see that. More selfless than selfish, get-me-to-heaven church-going. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    So you got yourself born again?

    OBAMA:
    Yeah, although I don’t, I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I’m not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I’ve got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others.

    • He seems to find the “born again” label distasteful. - post by cburell

  • I’m a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at it’s best comes with a big dose of doubt. I’m suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

    I think that, particularly as somebody who’s now in the public realm and is a student of what brings people together and what drives them apart, there’s an enormous amount of damage done around the world in the name of religion and certainty.

    • Right on. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Do you pray often?

    OBAMA:
    Uh, yeah, I guess I do.

    Its’ not formal, me getting on my knees. I think I have an ongoing conversation with God. I think throughout the day, I’m constantly asking myself questions about what I’m doing, why am I doing it.

    One of the interesting things about being in public life is there are constantly these pressures being placed on you from different sides. To be effective, you have to be able to listen to a variety of points of view, synthesize viewpoints. You also have to know when to be just a strong advocate, and push back against certain people or views that you think aren’t right or don’t serve your constituents.

    And so, the biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass. Those are the conversations I’m having internally. I’m measuring my actions against that inner voice that for me at least is audible, is active, it tells me where I think I’m on track and where I think I’m off track.

    It’s interesting particularly now after this election, comes with it a lot of celebrity. And I always think of politics as having two sides. There’s a vanity aspect to politics, and then there’s a substantive part of politics. Now you need some sizzle with the steak to be effective, but I think it’s easy to get swept up in the vanity side of it, the desire to be liked and recognized and important. It’s important for me throughout the day to measure and to take stock and to say, now, am I doing this because I think it’s advantageous to me politically, or because I think it’s the right thing to do? Am I doing this to get my name in the papers or am I doing this because it’s necessary to accomplish my motives.

    • Commendable candor and perceptiveness. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Checking for altruism?

    OBAMA:
    Yeah. I mean, something like it.

    Looking for, … It’s interesting, the most powerful political moments for me come when I feel like my actions are aligned with a certain truth. I can feel it. When I’m talking to a group and I’m saying something truthful, I can feel a power that comes out of those statements that is different than when I’m just being glib or clever.

    FALSANI:
    What’s that power? Is it the holy spirit? God?

    OBAMA:
    Well, I think it’s the power of the recognition of God, or the recognition of a larger truth that is being shared between me and an audience.

    That’s something you learn watching ministers, quite a bit. What they call the Holy Spirit. They want the Holy Spirit to come down before they’re preaching, right? Not to try to intellectualize it but what I see is there are moments that happen within a sermon where the minister gets out of his ego and is speaking from a deeper source. And it’s powerful.

    There are also times when you can see the ego getting in the way. Where the minister is performing and clearly straining for applause or an Amen. And those are distinct moments. I think those former moments are sacred.

    • He uses the word “God” to describe a state of honesty and compassion, it seems to me, not a super-hero in the sky. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Who’s Jesus to you?

    (He laughs nervously)

    OBAMA:
    Right.

    Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he’s also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher.

    And he’s also a wonderful teacher. I think it’s important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.

    FALSANI:
    Is Jesus someone who you feel you have a regular connection with now, a personal connection with in your life?

    OBAMA:
    Yeah. Yes. I think some of the things I talked about earlier are addressed through, are channeled through my Christian faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

    FALSANI:
    Have you read the bible?

    OBAMA:
    Absolutely.

    I read it not as regularly as I would like. These days I don’t have much time for reading or reflection, period.

    FALSANI:
    Do you try to take some time for whatever, meditation prayer reading?

    OBAMA:
    I’ll be honest with you, I used to all the time, in a fairly disciplined way. But during the course of this campaign, I don’t. And I probably need to and would like to, but that’s where that internal monologue, or dialogue I think supplants my opportunity to read and reflect in a structured way these days.

    It’s much more sort of as I’m going through the day trying to take stock and take a moment here and a moment there to take stock, why am I here, how does this connect with a larger sense of purpose.

    • He doesn’t say he believes Jesus is God, when he easily could have. So he doesn’t seem to be a Johanist. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Jack Ryan [Obama's Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race at the time] said talking about your faith is frought with peril for a public figure.

    OBAMA:
    Which is why you generally will not see me spending a lot of time talking about it on the stump.

    Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I’m a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root ion this country.

    As I said before, in my own public policy, I’m very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.

    • Good. - post by cburell

  • Now, that’s different form a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it’s perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values tha tinform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.

    A standard line in my stump speech during this campaign is that my politics are informed by a belief that we’re all connected. That if there’s a child on the South Side of Chicago that can’t read, that makes a difference in my life even if it’s not my own child. If there’s a senior citizen in downstate Illinois that’s struggling to pay for their medicine and having to chose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer even if it’s not my grandparent. And if there’s an Arab American family that’s being rounded up by John Ashcroft without the benefit of due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

    I can give religious expression to that. I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, we are all children of God. Or I can express it in secular terms. But the basic premise remains the same. I think sometimes Democrats have made the mistake of shying away from a conversation about values for fear that they sacrifice the important value of tolerance. And I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive.

    • Again, good. Sounds more like his Universalist grandparents in Kansas or his mother the hippie. - post by cburell
  • I am disturbed by, let me put it this way: I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God’s mandate.
  • • Amen. If Obama were like Bush, he could claim God sent the economic meltdown to make him, not McCain/Palin, the next president. Thank goodness he knows better. - post by cburell

  • I think there is this tendency that I don’t think is healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.

    FALSANI:
    The conversation stopper, when you say you’re a Christian and leave it at that.

    OBAMA:
    Where do you move forward with that?

    This is something that I’m sure I’d have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize.

    • So he’s uncomfortable with proselytizing, evangelism, missionaries. Good. - post by cburell

  • There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they’re going to hell.

    FALSANI:
    You don’t believe that?

    OBAMA:
    I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.

    I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.

    That’s just not part of my religious makeup.

    • Bravo. Obama won’t accept an evil God, even if that’s the one most worshiped, perhaps, by his religion. I’ve always said if Jesus is really up there, he knows I’m a decent guy, and won’t burn me for having too many reasons not to believe the preachers. - post by cburell

  • If all it took was someone proclaiming I believe Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins, and that was all there was to it, people wouldn’t have to keep coming to church, would they.

    FALSANI:
    Do you believe in heaven?

    OBAMA:
    Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?

    FALSANI:
    A place spiritually you go to after you die?

    OBAMA:
    What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.

    When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.

    • Exactly. He’s a modern more than a traditional Christian. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Do you believe in sin?

    OBAMA:
    Yes.

    FALSANI:
    What is sin?

    OBAMA:
    Being out of alignment with my values.

    FALSANI:
    What happens if you have sin in your life?

    OBAMA:
    I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I’m true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I’m not true to it, it’s its own punishment.

    • Bingo. It’s the opposite corollary to what Jesus tries to communicate when he teaches “the Kingdom of Heaven is (already, right now) within you.” If your values are loving - not just of other people, but also of nature and the worlds of art and the mind and the body - and you live them, then life right now feels heavenly. If you’re not living that, you’re sinning, and it feels a bit like hell. - post by cburell

  • Where do you find spiritual inspiration? Music, nature, literature, people, a conduit you plug into?

    OBAMA:
    There are so many.

  • Nothing is more powerful than the black church experience. A good choir and a good sermon in the black church, it’s pretty hard not to be move and be transported.

    • I can relate. Gospel choirs and singers make my own hairs stand on end. - post by cburell
  • I can be transported by watching a good performance of Hamlet, or reading Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, or listening to Miles Davis.
  • • And for the record, Miles Davis? Yes. And for me, above all, Gustav Mahler. God’s in those sounds. And Mahler was a Nietzschean, not a Christian or Jew, in his beliefs. - post by cburell
    • I tried to explain something similar to my wife yesterday. We’d watched a four-hour biography of FDR, and the experience was spiritual for me - far more than the Bible and other religious texts often are. The spirit sees the sacred in everything, not just stuff produced by religions. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Is there something that you go back to as a touchstone, a book, a particular piece of music, a place …

    OBAMA:
    As I said before, in my own sort of mental library, the Civil Rights movement has a powerful hold on me. It’s a point in time where I think heaven and earth meet. Because it’s a moment in which a collective faith transforms everything. So when I read Gandhi or I read King or I read certain passages of Abraham Lincoln and I think about those times where people’s values are tested, I think those inspire me.

    • “Mental library.” I love it. I call it my “pantheon” - the writers and books who live in my worldview, color my world. My goodness, this intellectual lover of the sublime is going to be President of the United States. Wonderful. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    What are you doing when you feel the most centered, the most aligned spiritually?

    OBAMA:
    I think I already described it. It’s when I’m being true to myself. And that can happen in me making a speech or it can happen in me playing with my kids, or it can happen in a small interaction with a security guard in a building when I’m recognizing them and exchanging a good word.

    • Love it. He describes “spiritual alignment” with a phrase, conscious or not, not from a religious book, but from ART: Shakespeare’s HAMLET. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Is there someone you would look to as an example of how not to do it?

    OBAMA:
    Bin Laden.

    (grins broadly)

    • We could just as easily cite abortion clinic bombers and assassins, crusaders, KKK Cross-burners (that cross and fire are very conscious symbols for their view of good Christianity), gay-bashers, and other haters in the name of God. Probably a smart move to point to Bin Laden instead, in this context. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    … An example of a role model, who combined everything you said you want to do in your life, and your faith?

    OBAMA:
    I think Gandhi is a great example of a profoundly spiritual man who acted and risked everything on behalf of those values but never slipped into intolerance or dogma. He seemed to always maintain an air of doubt about him.

    • Yes. One of my heroes too. And for similar reasons. - post by cburell

  • FALSANI:
    Can we go back to that morning service in 1987 or 88 — when you have a moment that you can go back to that as an epiphany…

    OBAMA:
    It wasn’t an epiphany.

    It was much more of a gradual process for me. I know there are some people who fall out. Which is wonderful. God bless them. For me it was probably because there is a certain self-consciousness that I possess as somebody with probably too much book learning, and also a very polyglot background.

    • I suspect a bit of dishonesty here. Instead of diminishing his conscious decision to commit himself after a life of seeking, he should be proud of that. It’s better to find your faith over years, than to “fall” into it because of an emotional orgy in a church service. The latter shows an unsteadiness of mind and heart; the former shows the opposite.  - post by cburell

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4 Comments

• At November 21, 2008, Curtis Ludlow wrote:

  Great post.

  It is such a relief to have someone who can THINK as head and chief.

  Curtis Ludlows last blog post..Rapid Reinvention Weight Loss (and Behavior Change)

• At November 22, 2008, Penelope M wrote:

  The internet is a funny place--I popped over to the interview link just now from Slacktivist, and saw your Diigoing, so came here to check what you'd said about it. :)

  It's really interesting reading for me because of my own fairly complex relationship with faith and background. My mother still jokes about her "eternal search for the right congregation" and I grew up in a household with a definite "try it out and figure it out for yourself" attitude towards religion. (Mom's dad was a Unitarian Universalist, so I wonder how much of that influence was there.) Through my own experience and study I've come to a lot of the same places as Obama, albeit not as a Christian.

• At December 1, 2008, Jennifer wrote:

  My absolute favorite moment of Obama's intellectual leanings in matters of religion was that televised Saddleback Church interview, where he was asked "when life begins", and answered, quite truthfully, "That's above my pay grade."

  He was admitting that it's something human beings simply can't know, and anyone who claims to know it with any certainty is making a leap of faith. Not knowledge. Those in favor of women's reproductive rights have one answer, those against them another. Neither can be absolutely certain, but both act as if they are.

  That answer was an act of bravery on his part, because of the potential minefield the question represented. He could have been cagey or clever. Instead, he answered, as he says in this interview, in concert with his values -- values that say all human beings, including him, are flawed and incapable of knowing ultimate things.

  I'm still stunned with happiness that we elected this guy. Thanks for linking to the interview. It's one I hadn't come across before.

  Jennifers last blog post..Google’s Editable Search Results

• At December 1, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  "Stunned with happiness." I like that, and relate. Watching a CNN graphic of him and Michelle getting out of a car to meet Bush at the White House tonight just made me ridiculously happy.

  And while I was disappointed in Obama for even deigning to subject himself to an interview with Warren, whom I find a disturbing figure (see Talk2Action website for more, search "Rick Warren" there), I thought he handled the reproductive rights "gotcha" quite well too. He was so deft in standing on the middle ground, upon which we can all agree, that the goal is to reduce the need for abortion.

  It struck me today that the guy's a former professor - a teacher. That's interesting too. He presumably knows the inside of a classroom. I'm curious to watch him on education reform.

  Thanks for stopping in, Jennifer.

And Dr. Jim Horn, who writes at Schools Matter, a blog I’ve consistently enjoyed since subscribing a couple of months ago, writes a good analysis of the usual suspects who will be lining up outside Obama’s door to push more of the same educational policies from the Bush years here.  Jim describes the focus of Schools Matter in his tagline:

This space explores issues in public education policy, and it advocates for a commitment to and a re-examination of the democratic purposes of schools. If there is some urgency in the message, it is due to the current reform efforts that are based on a radical re-invention of education, now spearheaded by a psychometric blitzkrieg of “metastasizing testing” aimed at dismantling a public education system that took almost 200 years to build.

I hope to interview Jim about his take on charter v. public schools soon, so stay tuned. In the meantime, if anybody is, or knows of, a strong proponent of charter schools to give a counter-argument, feel free to leave a name in comments or on my contact page.

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