Beyond School

The comment thread on Gary Stager’s HuffPo article on the Duncan appointment wouldn’t allow this long response, so I’m posting it here.

Gary,

I’m still informing myself (and as others have noted, your links are now more of my homework), so I’m going to withhold judgment somewhat.

I will say that all the reading I’ve done so far – and I’ve been reading a lot – confirms that Duncan’s record in Chicago is far from miraculous.

But I’ve read some ‘benefit of the doubt’ types who note that Duncan’s hands may have been tied by the Daley machine. Since Duncan’s appointment is now a fait accompli, we can only hope he’ll surprise us under Obama.

I’ll also note that, a propos the tempest around gay-basher Rick Warren’s selection for the inauguration, Duncan gave strong support to a “gay-friendly” school in Chicago. (Yes, I’m aware such an idea smacks of “separate but equal,” but wrote here about why I still think it’s a good idea.) While not an educational feather, it’s still a refreshing one to see in a cabinet member’s cap.

We may as well add that Duncan is on record as condemning the lack of funding for NCLB, its stick-instead-of-carrot posture (which could be changed), and its low-cognition assessments. If he “reforms” NCLB along these lines – and yes, many more – I can think of worse outcomes.

In the end, the decisions on education under the Obama administration are Obama’s responsibility; what he said regarding HRC at State pertains to education as well: “I’ll make the decisions.”  And while I’m as nervous as the next guy over so many of his moves lately, I guess I’m holding out hope that all the recent theater is outside-the-box tactics in a longer-term strategy that will make progressives proud. His campaign – a masterpiece of proving the nay-sayers wrong – makes me think more than twice that I can unriddle his long-term plan. So maybe he is selling out or simply making stupid choices; but maybe he’s not. He’s so damn poker-faced and close to the chest, it’s beyond me to know at this point.

I also take heart in the fact that he tapped Darling-Hammond to lead his transition team, and by choosing Duncan instead of a Rhee or Klein, arguably signaled his opposition to those more extreme edubiz proponents. I also take heart in the possibility that BO is so enamored of the “cabinet of rivals” idea in the Lincoln book he’s been touting lately that his appointment of Duncan might not equal an endorsement of Duncan’s record. Again: fait accompli – I’ll cling to any shred of hope until actions in office shred it beyond clinging.

This is all a long-winded way of saying you may be right, but until we see more, you’re not yet. Let’s hope you never are

Parting shot: To me, the money quote of your article was this:  “Perhaps we need federal legislation requiring a fully qualified superintendent in every school district!”

I’ve been thinking the same thing since I began watching the Texas Board of Edu-Creationism try to jimmy Genesis into science classes and, worse yet, textbooks nationwide (Texas standards wag the national textbook industry dog: if Texas votes to deny Darwin, all the science textbooks will aim to please. I still pray somebody stateside takes on the Smart Mobs idea to protest this putsch).

So I’d revise your money quote to add Board of Education members to the list of politicians requiring expertise in education. Failing that, we’re prey to anti-primate jackasses evermore.

Annotations of Obama’s 2004 Interview on His Religious Beliefs

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....] Read the rest of this entry »

He wins in a Democrat landslide. Hopes are high for a progressive agenda unseen since the New Deal, and he delivers, in the first days of his presidency, an avalanche of legislation meant to fulfill those hopes.

But he also inherits a military conflict that his advisers are counseling him to escalate – with a “surge,” we might say – and the president follows that advice. Things go downhill from there.

“He,” of course, is President Lyndon Baines Johnson – LBJ. But the parallels with President Obama are obvious. Just substitute “Afghanistan and Iraq” for “Viet Nam.”

LBJ on PBS (click image for larger view)

What an amazing time to be a US History teacher – especially with resources like the “American Experience: The Presidents” documentary series from America’s Public Broadcasting System (PBS) available, free and online (and many available for free download, with close captions ideal for ESL students – get ‘em while they’re hot!).

I just watched the LBJ episode and can’t wait to watch more. Coupling Obama’s presidency with LBJ’s in a compare/contrast discussion would surely enliven any US History classroom this year.

Whether you’re a teacher, student, or life-long learner, you can’t go wrong with this adventure in education. It beats the pants off of textbooks.

(And teachers, be sure to notice the teaching resources and podcasts also available for free on the site.)

‘Nuff said.  I hope it puts the emotion in history for you as it did for me. It’s tragic how emotionless schools can make such an intense subject.

Body Language: Blue-Eyes in Front, Brown-Eyes in Back

Preface: What I Learned from the Comments on My “Portrait of the Teacher as a Young Racist” Post

I was surprised that my story of anti-black racism in the American South drew strong reactions in the comment thread from readers in New Zealand, Australia, England, and regions of the American Mid-west (where there were no African-Americans, but there were Native Americans).

I start with this point to urge Americans and non-Americans to at the very least watch the film linked below. It’s one of the most remarkable moments in education I’ve ever seen. And it should resonate on a global, and not merely American, scale.

A Day for History

It’s November 4, 2008, an Election Day in the US that, barring a miracle or a crime, will live as long as human history does.

It makes me regret that I’m not teaching US History this year, and able to share this hopeful teachable moment the way I shared the hopeless US invasion of Iraq when teaching World History in 2003.¹  So consider this little post a fantasy of what I would somehow squeeze into my syllabus this week – which I also fantasize someone reading this post might do in the real world.

It has to do with an online documentary goodie that I’ll deliver at the end of this post, but first, a little background from a great book:

“Emotional Objectivity”: A Paradox

Toward the end of his must-read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James Loewen writes:

When two-thirds of American seventeen-year-olds cannot place the Civil War in the right half-century, or 22 percent of my students reply that the Vietnam War was fought between North and South Korea, we must salute young people for more than mere ignorance. This is resistance [to " 'learning' isolated, incoherent, and meaningless data"] raised to a high level. Students are simply not learning even those details of American history that educated citizens should know. Still less do they learn what caused the major develpments in our past. Therefore, they cannot apply lessons from the past to current issues.

Unfortunately, students are left with no resources to understand, accept, or rebut historical referents used in arguments by candidates for office,² sociology professors, or newspaper journalists. If knowedge is power, ignorance cannot be bliss.

Emotion is the glue that causes history to stick. We remember where we were when we heard of the attack on the World Trade Center because it affected us emotionally. . . . As textbook critic Mrs. W. K. Haralson writes, “There is no way the glowing, throbbing events of history can be presented fairly, accurately, and factually without involving emotion” (Loewen, 342-3). [Emphases added.]

Linger on the paradox in that last line. In essence, it argues that without emotion, historical objectivity is a fallacy, and this goes against the popular conception of objectivity as a dispassionate stance – “Present all sides and let students come to their own conclusions.” While some history teachers I have known and worked with understood that “all sides” (yes, a problematic concept) can be presented with the emotions attaching to those respective sides, but without crossing the line into indoctrination, more have mistaken this tightrope-walk for a breach of the objective ideal of the profession.

Loewen and Haralson, though, claim that without experiencing the emotions of history, students find it irrelevant and boring, and really don’t learn it more deeply than is necessary to pass the class. Garbage in and out.

The Connotative Maelstrom of a “President Barack Hussein Obama”

Without getting too deep about all of this – I swore I’d keep this post short – just look at all of the strands of major themes in U.S. history woven into that title: President Barack Hussein Obama. Race and racism. The legacy of slavery. The challenge of Islam and post-9/11 terrorist fears. Intermarriage and single parenting. Black liberation theology. FDR and the Great Depression.  JFK in an African-American Camelot. Bobby Kennedy. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jim Crow. Now factor in the race against McCain, a Vietnam Cold Warrior.  On and on go the tropes attached to this man, and back and back into US history go all the attendant hopes and fears. It reminds me of a long-ago post in which David Warlick plays with the idea of teaching history backwards, from the present to the past. All of these issues could begin with explorations of the Obama presidency, and trace the causes of its controversy that make it so historical.

This is more than a “teachable moment;” it’s a full-blown teachable year.

But I’ll stop there, confess again my envy of all US history teachers worldwide, and move on to deliver a plug to a documentary that PBS Frontline makes available to us all, online, for free. It’s called:

A Class Divided

If you take no other recommendation from me ever in your life, take this one. I had read about this famous lesson before, and about the documentary film, but had never watched it myself. So I just took a break during this post to watch it with my wife, and it jolted me in ways text couldn’t.

This third-grade teacher put the emotion in history, and judging by the film, taught her third-graders a lesson that changed them not “until garbage out,” but for life.

From the PBS FRONTLINE site:

This is one of the most requested programs in FRONTLINE’s history. It is about [Jane Elliott,] an Iowa schoolteacher who, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, gave her third-grade students a first-hand experience in the meaning of discrimination. This is the story of what she taught the children, and the impact that lesson had on their lives. . . .

[O]n the night of the day that Martin Luther King was murdered, [Jane's] memories and experiences had coalesced into an idea of how she might give her third-graders a sense of what prejudice and discrimination really meant.

Jane took a deep breath and plunged in. “I don’t think we really know what it would be like to be a black child, do you?” she asked her class. “I mean it would be hard to know, really, unless we actually experienced discrimination ourselves, wouldn’t it?” Without real interest, the class agreed. “Well, would you like to find out?”

The children’s puzzlement was plain on their faces until she spelled out what she meant. “Suppose we divided the class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed people,” she said. “Suppose that for the rest of today the blue-eyed people became the inferior group. Then, on Monday, we could reverse it so that the brown-eyed children were inferior. Wouldn’t that give us a better understanding of what discrimination means?”

So I’ve said enough. If you do watch it, I’d love to read any thoughts in comments. The social engineering aspect of the lesson is particularly gnarly. After seeing its results, though, and hearing the views of the townspeople about it, is this something you think should be used in classrooms around the world? Have you any stories of such a thing, or lessons similar to it?

Whatever the case, here’s to Jane Elliott, a new hero in my teaching pantheon.

1. And any Surge Enthusiasts out there, please note Petraeus and other generals are far from sharing the blithe forecasts of Bush, McCain, and others in Washington. Several bombings this week in Iraq show how fragile that peace is. [↩]
2. For more on this angle, see yesterday’s post on the correlation of successful fear-mongering campaigns to voters’ educational levels [↩]

Interesting post on “secular parenting” writer Dale McGowan’s The Meming of Life:

….If it’s true that education leads to the left, fear-based campaigning should increase in effectiveness as education levels decrease, and you’d expect states with the lowest per-capita educational attainment to favor the fear-mongering candidate.

The list below ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia in order by proportion of college degrees in the population (highest to lowest). Those in blue are favoring Obama (as of Nov. 1). Those in red favor McCain. Black indicates a current toss-up:

TOP THIRD BY EDUCATION LEVEL (15 blue, 2 red)
District of Columbia
Massachusetts
Maryland
Colorado
Virginia
New Hampshire
Connecticut
New Jersey
Minnesota
Vermont
Kansas
California
New York
Washington
Utah
Delaware
Illinois

[click here for the rest of the list]

The colors change remarkably as the list continues down the educational ladder, and McGowan concludes with interesting info on the conviction levels (“I’m sure my choice is best”) of voters across the states. Seems the “intellectual arrogance” accusation so often tossed at the “educated elites” from those who seem to prefer a Joe the Plumber in the Oval Office is actually a quality that is common among the “elite-bashers” themselves.

See the full article here, and draw your own conclusions.

[Last paragraph revised for clarity.]

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Decrepit Old Fool shares this video setting the record straight about ACORN, and the Republican Party’s history of attacking voter registration drives among the working classes with the admitted purpose of discouraging large voter turnouts:

DOF concludes with this paragraph containing links worth checking out:

The GOP tries to discredit ACORN every election cycle. The last thing they want is poor people voting. If you wanna talk about election fraud, look at voter roll purges and polling complications. And read Blogula Raisa’s Now THIS is voter registration fraud.

–but his entire post summarizes the under-reported details of the ACORN ploy in a bullet list worth reading.

A democracy is a terrible thing to waste with this stunt, which offers no solutions to our country’s problems and, worse still, breeds a divisiveness that adds one more problem to the future.

It’s exciting to see so many people turning onto democracy now anyway, despite the efforts of the losing McTeam.

On Blogging in the Late Weimar Republic

Crisis? What Crisis?

Reading the headlines of Alltop.com’s “top education” sites‘¹ brings to mind the cover of the old Supertramp album, showing a man sunning himself in a bathing suit on a lounge chair, surrounded by grimy industrial waste. The album’s title? “Crisis? What Crisis?”

Economically, American banking deregulation has dragged the US, and the rest of the world, into a crisis creating comparisons to Depression Year 1937.

Politically, the McCain/Palin campaign is whipping up hatred that makes such sober and respected political commentators as conservative David Gergen openly express fear that civic violence could be the result – and others worry that the unthinkable return to political assassination is now possible.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration continues its assault on the constitution by violating the 200-year-old law of Posse Comitatus, which protects US citizens from being oppressed by their own military, by deploying an Army Brigade to police American streets, and be answerable only to him. Soldiers disobeying, say, an order to arrest members of Congress, or citizens protesting Wall Street, would be court-martialed and serve prison time for serving their democracy instead of their dictator.

And Sarah Palin, the naughty librarian (who can’t name anything she reads, and who may as well gyrate while she winkingly chants “Drill, Baby, Drill”) doesn’t care about the causes of global warming – a position I’m sure would not be shared, could we ask them, by the 25% of mammals now endangered worldwide.

Everything is Political – Except Edubloggers?

So how many education bloggers show the slightest indication, on their blogs, that they find addressing these crises worth “suspending their edublogging campaigns”?

Answer: a whopping 17 – out of the 130 blogs with over 600 posts on Alltop’s education page.

So without further ado,

The “I Didn’t Wordle as Rome Burned” Award

1. The Chancellor’s New Clothes (Our Political Role Models: recommended)
2. Iterating Towards Openness (Scary Sarah: recommended)
3. ODonnell Web (McCain’s hate speech: recommended)
4. History is Elementary (close reading of rescue bailout bill: recommended)
   
5. Borderland (always recommended)
6. Stephen Downes’ OLDaily (economy: recommended)
7. Joanne Jacobs (on Ayers as still-revolutionary)
8. NYC Educator (McCain’s anger issue)
9. Piloted (teaching campaigning)
   
10. My Wonderful World Blog (foreign policy debate)
    
11. Assorted Stuff (on This American Life’s Wall Street podcasts)
    
12. Facing History and Ourselves (educating about campaigning)
    
13. Factchecked (gasoline as political issue)
14. Education Week (Ayers smear)
15. ASCD: In Service (education debate)
16. The Fischbowl (debates 2.0)
17. MindOH Blog (vote)

A Maverick’s Plea for Reform

I’m aware of the many reasons that educators might not openly advocate their political views. I can only hope it’s ye olde self-censoring fear for your jobs that causes this silence, instead of indifference or worse.

All I know is, for this month at least, there are more important things to spend time on than writing about classroom blogging policies, PLNs, global collaborations, Moodles and Nings and Wordles.²

A bit of reading on the Weimar Republic’s failure, and replacement by a famous military dictatorship in the midst of an economic and military crisis – accompanied by extreme racism – might be a good place to start.

I’ve also enabled Diigo to post my daily bookmarks and annotations here. I’m on sabbatical this year, so decided to share what I have time to read. Feel free to check out my Stumbleupon bookmarks too.

I hate feeling like some silly Cassandra.

But I’d hate even more to be one of the Trojans who laughed at her.

~     ~     ~

1. and we all know what a debatable claim that “top” is [↩]
2. Anyway, haven’t they all been written into the ground by now? [↩]