Sadness present and sadness past

The Lake Forest community needs no lengthy intrusion from anyone as they seek to keep their children healthy in the wake of the recent suicides of as many as three of their students. Our hearts go out to the parents and to the administrators and to the surviving and puzzled and heart sore children. We should also extend prayers to the teachers of these students.

The savage backlash and recrimination of a student who dies by her own hand reverberates through the community. Teachers are caught in this vortex as well, and suffer as well, as I so remember.

In my third year of teaching, Skip was our student council president. I first met Skip while walking down the crowded high school hallway, seeing a pair of feet bobbing along the hundreds of heads going from one classroom to the next. Walking on his hands was but one of Skip’s athletic derring-do qualities. Everybody loved Skip—football player, ladies man, goof-off. His election as president was as much an affirmation of love for his antics than any other leadership potential he possessed. I brought the Student Council to a family cabin in Lake County one winter to engage in leadership building activity, and there was Skip, atop the roof of the cabin accessible through a room I told everyone not to enter, doing a handstand flip to a dive into a multi-foot snow bank to the awed applause of his classmates. Skip was a handful, but slowly it appeared we were progressing in his realizing how he could take his skillful charisma and use it to improve the school in the ways Student Councils think they can.

So when Skip shot himself on Valentine’s Day, 1979, it threw the entire school off kilter. No one knew how to respond, lease of all me, who was with him every single day of his junior and senior year until that February. The students in my class looked at the empty chair where he sat, looked at me, looked back at the chair and back at me as if to say, Help us in processing this.

I walked up to Skip’s casket and stared at him. His mother thanked me for all I did for him. Thank me? If I knew the right words, saw the signs right, did instead of did nothing, none of us would be there in that room that smelled too much of flowers, perfume, bad breath and the sobbing of children and adults.

There is not a day in my life that Skip does not come to my mind, in the what could I have said, how could I have been so blind kind of recrimination that has its own special bite. Skip was eighteen when he died in 1979. He would be 51 now, and I am 58 now, and in that context we could have been two old farts laughing about the vicissitudes of age and sharing photos instead of this daily remembrance.

So have empathy in your heart  for those who suffer from someone’s suicide, the families, of course, and also those teachers who were in the midst, who could have been the catcher in the rye, and for whatever reason miss, and rue.

 

So do we stop teaching Shakespeare, or what?

Never in my teaching life had I ever been thanked for helping students succeed with a test. Oh there was that one year teaching Advanced Placement English when, as part of the preparation I presented, I worked with my students on Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” and dang if that wasn’t the poem presented in the AP English exam that year! My students thought I had psychic powers, magically, we all laughed about the coincidence, certainly, and that year they all fared well on the AP exam, gratefully. Yet in the years that followed and the letters that came in, not one word about success on the test.

I took the AP English exam in 1972. Took the ACT score as well. Served as student council president. Do you think in the past forty years anyone asked me what I received on those tests or what my margin of victory was? Or my high school GPA? Sure, the University of Illinois must have taken a look because they let me in, yet since then, nada. They are buried like the line scores of student-faculty basketball games we organized for charity.

There was a commercial once where people carried around with them the amount of money they needed for retirement. I do not imagine we carry around the test scores, grade point average or other success margins like so many epaulets (you remember, oldsters out there—the ones Garfield Goose every once in a while ripped off Frazier Thomas’ shoulder? A favorite childhood moment—my first look at a “blow against the empire”).

Testmania has ripped out the heart and spirit of teaching. It created the lowest common denominator element of the classroom experience. It is the cause of dispirited teachers who are panned for being a mediocre legion who must be led , fed, bred and dreaded by the politically savvy and powerful. The superior amongst the teaching ranks are shoved in amongst the n’er-do-well in the minds of the we-know-more.

Imagine the superior teacher you had in your life plopped into the classroom of today. How would she fare? Would the students be as attentive? Would her eye-roll be just as pronounced when the administrator asked to see her lesson plan or describe the test preparation method she employs? Once upon a time, so reasoned the hoary amongst us (my surprise each time I look at my reflection in a downtown window) there were  many superior teachers in our midst. Sure there were crap ones as well, but the really good ones stood out. At the heart of their goodness was a “I know damn well what I’m doing up here and why” demeanor, diffused with a “and you are?” posture toward the administrator who was, in a great phrase one great teacher confided to me once as “the Peter Principle personified. Note the alliteration as well, Dom.”

I fear now with schools replete with newbies with BA one to three year experience to hold down costs and the master plus with twenty plus nudged towards mastodon status, fear of job loss is o’ertaking confidence in job done.

Like I wrote at the start, when I am thanked (and grateful am I to have such evidences) I am thanked for many things unrelated to instilling test taking mastery.

Letting go of the canon

My son was explaining to me the putative magical value of the Mobil gasoline “wand” I carry. I loan it to him every once in awhile as a fatherly gesture of concern for the rising cost of gas and his budget struggles on a entry-level salary. He was telling me how he had not used the wand to fill up all week, leaving it in the cup holder, and mysteriously his weekly commute wasn’t lowering his gas gauge as the normal Schaumburg to Naperville commute  to work consumes.

“Who knew that the wand would have a loaves and fishes impact on your car,” I offered.

“What in the world are you talking about,”  he asked? “What loaves? What fishes?”

I chided that he should have spent more time paying attention to all those CCD classes to which I carted his friends and him every Saturday morning for what seemed like fifty years. “A waste of time, Dad. We learned and did nothing.” Oh.

So big deal, my son misses my lame attempt at humor by making a Christian analogy.

But It got me to thinking about how much must be lost on the young in terms of connection to the analogies and allusions to what western fuddy-duds like me refer to as “the canon.”

My old-school world taught me the vast connectedness of art, literature and culture. One thing was influenced by another thing, and seeing the connections made you understand the deeper meaning of things.

Deep old school thinkers like Harold Bloom thundered about the depleting cultural literacy by publishing tomes on what every school child should know associated with the western canon.

But then came the inevitable backlash—elitist, dead white male dominant, too western-hemisphere dominant. And Chinua Achebe works began nudging aside Jack London. House on Mango Street supplanted Huckleberry Finn, to the relief of English teachers afraid of presenting Twain’s brave and subtle assault on the racism of his time because of his liberal use of the “n” word in his character’s dialogue.

Perhaps this is all fine. “The young push out the old. This is good” Don Corleone opines in Godfather 3 (yes, an allusion!) . Perhaps the world will continue spinning with the lessons and the imagery and the connections of the canon lost.

Madonna. Lady Gaga.

James Brown. Prince.

Connections.

In the “oh yeah, think you can do it?” department

So I was having dinner recently with two friends, both of them teachers, one in middle school and the other second grade. I told them how I was looking forward to a day of teaching at the Illinois Math & Science Academy, where my dear friend Peg Cain, past GA president, lets me loose with her sophomores for one day annually. My topic: how poetry works—at least to a tenth grader, and how inspiration for one piece of art frequently comes from another piece of art.

Well then the questions started flying from them: How is what you’re doing congruent to Illinois core standards? What is your means of assessing if the students understand the concepts you are going to present to them? How will you differentiate your instruction for the different language and learning abilities of the students?  Will you pre- as well as post test them?

Perhaps they were kidding, and meant to tease me by their “you’ve been out of the bush so long Dom so beware upon entering”. But it got me to thinking how successful I would be in today’s classroom pressure cooker with my old school approach. For those of you similarly situated—include you detractors who may have never spent quality time in the classroom—what do you think? Testing be damned—I’m going do what I think my students need?  Or will you find yourself feeling like a Nehru jacket in a Hollister world?

Maybe we should all go back to school, sit in the front, try to drone out the cacophony of nay-saying outside the classroom door and try to be anything but inconsequential, boring or hurtful to children.

Observing excellent teaching—like rare bird watching

In the classroom, the truly excellent teaching moment is rare to observe. You can find plenty of assured, competent, challenging and effective moments, and more than a passel of limited, problematic, outrageous and just plain wrong teaching moments.

I have observed teachers in classrooms quite a number of times—as a colleague helping another, as a department chair evaluating, as a Golden Apple Fellow observing finalists candidates, no doubt thousands of classrooms hours. In all that time I believe I saw the truly memorable, transformative moment in a minute fraction of those moments. Not because there are not talented teachers out there—quite the contrary, you vociferous detractors out there—but because the moments of that caliber are rare.

Think back over your life and pick out the moments of your life where you truly said/did it right—when the moment was met with inspiration and the result transformative. Now think of all the bonehead moments—botched phrasing, missed opportunity, blind spots a-plenty. Few more of those, wouldn’t you agree? Sure is the case in my reflection bag.

Superior teaching moments are rare not because they aren’t happening, but usually because they happen in unobserved moments. Watch the documentary The American Teacher and you will see OK moments, pretty good moments, “huh?” moments. It’s not that these teachers are incapable of having them, it’s just probably when they happen, it’s tough for the observer to be there to observe the quiet phrase to a student, the moment of hilarity when you know you have them, the written comment that will direct a student away from the dark and towards the brighter tomorrow.

How many tie have you notice something and wished your camera was nearby but it wasn’t. Whales breach the surface with elegance, amaryllises open, and the excellent teacher moment occurs. You just have to have faith that it does, detractors.

The Assumption of Arrogance: notes from the edge of an abyss that either is or is not there

Now that last week’s CPS board meeting is done, the shouting and the charging and the heartfelt hours of commentary, charge and emotion exerted, and the decision made—one can see the next steps taking shape. The gauntlet has been dropped, faces slapped with gloves, and plans afoot.

You knew a next chapter was emerging when Rev. Jackson, quiet all these past ten years of AUSL engagement in the turnaround effort, showed. You knew a next chapter was emerging when the mayor, who has certainly faced obstacle before, hardly budged in his public comments. You knew a next chapter was forming when the legislators and the judiciary were activated. Legislation and briefs are now being written, other shoes poised to drop.

To quote the old American poet Edward Taylor, “This fray seems thus to us:”

• The case on one side—we will no longer stand idly by and let children experience failure in their educational experience.

• The case on the other side—we will no longer stand idly by while the voices of teachers and parents are not heard.

• The one side claims—we have proof that what we do to the schools through turnaround improves them.

• The other side claims—we have proof that your proof is faulty lie.

Has come to this, all you who care about Chicago schools, the teachers who help children and the people of influence who wish that influence exerted?

Rarely has an issue created so little grey, so little hope for rapprochement.  One side claims we are saving our schools; the other claims you are ruining our schools. You can switch sides and the arguments remain.

Wherever this is going, it seems it will go long and it will go ugly.

At the end of last month, Alexander Russo published a passionate post from Seth Levin (Chicago School Wonks) (http://scholastic administrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2012/01/reform-lost-in Chicago.com) which attempted and succeeded in getting at the heart of the matter:

“…the entire Emanuel’s posturing on school reform is making people so angry. Ever-present is a desire to turn reform into a fight with winners and losers and an arrogant, self-righteous tone….”

I would add that one could argue that those opposing these reforms have exhibited that self-same arrogance of tone, coloring the charges with hues of social justice, exhibiting the same we are fine and you are suspect theme and tonality.

As long as both sides of this issue don the mantle and assume the position of arrogance and righteousness, as long as this argument descends into the muck of power, right versus, wrong/good against evil,  only roiled water is foreseen. In this milieu, where one sides hopes solely to o’erpower the other, neither will prevail.

The sheer weight of the years of limited success on the part of some schools, and the generations of students who have emerged from those schools with a lesser grasp on bounty, citizenship and civility in part because of that limitation outrages the reformers.

And the sheer weight of the seeming avariciousness on the part of school reform groups, applying a scorched earth, we-are-the-Borg-resistance-is futile mindset to their enterprise, ignoring the experience and denying the expertise of teachers and parents, outrages the citizenry.

There is too much loin-girding and too little problem-solving being practiced here.

The recently reported admission amongst one in CPS hierarchy that schools slated long-term for turnaround are deliberately denied resources for years prior was so outrageous I still await a denial. That cannot be so, can it? If so, it is a terrible, terrible admission, a morally vacuous decision. Why deny students present for students future? Is that not being just as derelict in duty as claimed failed teachers are purported to be?

And painting those in the reform movement with the same colors as Birmingham law enforcement in the 50’s and 60’s or Afrikaans militancy is just out and out wrong.

I write as I wrote again, none in this fray are out and out evil.

Lavin beseeches in his blog post in a way I wish all sides would consider:

“Please, please show some humility. Get over yourselves….Drop the arrogance. Drop the self-righteousness.”

Flogging will continue until morale improves

One of the embarrassing aspects about public teacher life (and that list is legion) is the fact that as a public servant, your salary is a matter of public record. In the town where I taught before coming to Golden Apple, the local paper would annually publish the salary of every teacher in the public school district—a practice that would be followed by the published usual array of oh-my-god-and-they-get-summers-off-too-who-do-they-think-they-are brickbats.

I came from a family (maybe yours too) where someone’s income was a sacred secret and nobody’s business. I never knew what salary my father earned his whole professional life. My brother-in-law sent my nephew to time-out for asking me my salary at the dinner table. You always knew what one did (or did not do), but salary? None of your business. So imagine my embarrassment with people eying me at the Jewel near the school where I taught—not only for eyeing what it was I was purchasing, but for knowing the extent of the wherewithal I had to purchase at all.

Flash to today, where recently the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the public had a right to know an individual teacher’s performance metric.

Now who’s sense of a good idea was this? How many times must it be said that teaching is a process, a learning curve that requires years to improve, that improves with patient and understanding guidance from knowledgeable educators? But no, in this our TripAdvisor-manic world, no one gets to improve, or to work on and move to proficiency?

Even Bill Gates, with whom I’m astonished to agree with, agrees that this concept is bad. He decries the current mainstream fascination with the value-added metric. He agrees that teaching is complex, as is its evaluation. He even understands that there is not a plethora of evaluators properly prepared to examine the teaching dynamic of another and accurately diagnose what works and what needs tinkering.

But I guess the people need their flogged, and in the public square of human opinion the unsatisfactory or the in-progress must be identified (with what color, pray?) for public consumption, vilification, ostracizing and other aspects of we-must-root-out-the-bad.

Let’s see this enacted in other professions too. I want to know the name of every plumber who messed up, every garage-door repair-person who erred, every butcher who butches up an order, every banker who files the paper wrong, every investor who loses money, every judge whose ruling is overturned.

Let’s fill our newspapers with the published accounts of every person whose performance is appraised. I just had my performance reviewed—don’t cha wanna see it? That person over there on the train with you—wouldn’t you want to see how her evaluations fared?

Talk about incentive! But in our land, where I am perfect and you are suspect, we need to know who messes up. And quick, the pile of stones lay right there. Be sure to pick one up.