Put Students, not Achievement, First

There are multiple reasons for the Elementary and Secondary Board to reject the request of Achievement First, a private corporation controlled by a private board, to increase the number of charter schools in Providence:  fiscal, educational and cultural.  The fiscal logic is overwhelming.  RIDE estimates that the Providence Public Schools will lose about $35 million dollars a year if Achievement First expands to 3,000 students.  When this taxpayer money is removed from public education into the private sector, it will also be removed from public oversight.  Privatization of public services replaces the public interest with private interest and control. 

From an educational perspective, there are two main problems.  First, according to InfoWorks, 28% of AF teachers at the Providence Mayoral Academy are not considered highly qualified, versus 3% of the state.  RIDE has developed a rigorous teacher certification system that AF has been allowed to ignore.  Second, while AF touts higher scores on standardized tests, these results are based on a narrow curriculum mostly confined to preparing for tests.  As a former AF teacher from Connecticut wrote in a recent blog, “It is much easier to teach behavioral management tactics than to foster deep passion and knowledge about an academic field.” 

Related to that is Achievement First’s focus on discipline.  The 2014-2015 rate of suspension for AF was 7.8 elementary students per 100, which is twice as high as the statewide average of 3.8 per 100.  According to the Civil Rights Project (2016), “there is a wealth of research indicating that the frequent use of suspensions…contributes to chronic absenteeism, is correlated with lower achievement, and predicts lower graduation rates, heightened risk for grade retention, delinquent behavior, and costly involvement in the juvenile justice system.” 

Even more disturbing is the lack of cultural responsiveness in a school where most students are youth of color.  In Linda Borg’s feature article two weeks ago, a senior leader at AF was quoted as saying, “We live in a white culture, so it’s important to learn these skills—making eye contact, shaking hands, speaking loudly and clearly.” Appropriate expectations for behavior are essential to student learning, but these behaviors should not be coded as white, nor should they be narrowly defined.  Students from diverse cultures have diverse cultural norms.

Finally, any expansion of schools should be based on multiple measures, which are currently unavailable on InfoWorks.  As a purely business proposition, it makes no sense to expand when there is not enough data to determine whether these schools are successful. Test scores are not indicators of child well-being, and the limited data available on the two AF schools in Rhode Island do not indicate that AF is significantly better than the rest of the state in most measures.

In order for significant positive change to happen in public schools, state and district leaders need to acknowledge that results will not change unless conditions change.  Blaming students for not meeting standards and teachers for student failures is misguided.  Research shows that poverty negatively impacts child well-being and ability to learn.  Furthermore, using test score data to measure student outcomes widens—not narrows—the opportunity gap.  This state is full of educators, researchers, parents and youth who are eager to find creative and culturally responsive ways to support learning for all children, and there are plenty of local and national public school success stories that can serve as models.  

My Post-Election Recovery Playlist

It’s been a month since this country, or to be precise, the Electoral College, broke my heart and elected Donald Trump president.   Solace has come in the company of like-minded others, which led me to the mantra of the Civil Rights Movement:  courage, compassion and creativity.  The arts, especially music and poetry, have always been a way to speak truth to power, and a generative place for addressing systemic injustice. 

The relationships among social change, intellectual curiosity and love for humanity generated this playlist.  Accordingly, this group of songs spans decades, crosses genres and weaves beauty, anger and sensuality with the call to provoke conversation and action.    

1.      One Voice/The Wailing Jennys

2.      Ohio/CSNY

3.      March of the Billionaires/Cracker

4.      Enough/The Band of Heathens

5.      I Will Not Go Quietly/Don Henley

6.      Joy/Lucinda Williams

7.      They Want More/Ages and Ages

8.      None of Us Are Free/Solomon Burke

9.      If It Takes a Lifetime/Jason Isbell

10.  Hole in the World/Eagles

11.  Blooming through the Black/Parsonsfield

12.  Find the Cost of Freedom/CSNY

13.  Finlandia/Indigo Girls w/Girlyman

14.  I Wrote a Song for Everyone/Mavis Staples

15.  Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee/Indigo Girls

16.  Blanco Y Negro/DeSoL

17.  My Shot/Hamilton Original Broadway Cast

18.  The Revolution Starts…/Steve Earle

19.  This Land Is Your Land/Neil Young & Crazy Horse

20.  Divisionary (Do the Right Thing)/Ages and Ages

The Wailin’ Jennys tap into the beauty and spirit of human potential, an important place to begin.  “This is a song for all of us/singing with love and the will to trust” reminds us that we all have what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the “Divine spark.”  

Songs 2-5 identify how institutionalized power causes human suffering and political imbalance.  “Ohio” reminds us that what is happening now is nothing new—that song was written in 1970 after the shootings on the Kent State campus.  “March of the Billionaires” by Cracker is particularly appropriate with Trump’s chosen cabinet.  This sentiment is echoed in “Enough” by Band of Heathens:

You got enough seeds for all your farmers
You got enough mouths for them to feed
You got electricity and coal mines
You got enough poverty and greed        

While Cracker and the Heathens name the injustices, Don Henley offers a clear response in “I Will Not Go Quietly”:

Yeah, I'm gonna tear it up
Gonna trash it up
I'm gonna round it up
Gonna shake it up
Oh, no, baby, I will not lie down

This song riffs off Dylan Thomas’ classic poem “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,”  demonstrating the power of language as protest.

Songs 6-10 speak to the darkness--and the hope--that comes on the heels of disaster.  Lucinda could have spoken for me on Nov. 9:  “You took my joy/I want it back.”   Following that, Ages and Ages sing about how overwhelming it can be to work toward justice.  You could see this vision as bleak, but you could also see it as realistic. Solomon Burke captures this feeling of hopelessness in “None of Us Are Free.”  He sings:

And there are people still in darkness

and they just can’t see the light                                                                                                       

If you don’t say that it’s wrong                                                                                                   

That says it’s right

His roots in 60’s soul have a deliberately gospel feel connecting to the spirituality of the Civil Rights Movement.  By shining a bright light on how “none of us are free as long as one of us is in chains,” he shows the universality of our humanity.

Jason Isbell expands on the theme of being chained in “If It Takes a Lifetime”—whose major chords and contrasting stoic lyrics show the time (a lifetime?!) and patience it takes to overcome one’s demons, whatever they may be.  But ultimately, there’s hope. That’s echoed on a larger scale with the Eagles’ “Hole in the World,” written in the aftermath of 9/11:

They say that anger is just love disappointed.
They say that love is just a state of mind.
But all this fighting over who is anointed
Oh, how can people be so blind?

Ironically, that cataclysmic event united the country in many ways, but unfortunately our designated common enemies—Islam and Iraq—turned out to be false foes.  Perhaps that’s where this current divide resides: not just in economics, but in determining who is standing in the way of the American Dream, real or imaginary.

Songs 11-14 are sometimes sober, sometimes uplifting, sometimes both.  From Parsonsfield’s “Blooming through the Black”:

She's blooming through the black
born of destruction
burned but she's coming back

The next two songs are about patriotism, albeit from different perspectives.  There is the inevitable point where the ultimate loss has to be acknowledged, which CSNY does so beautifully in “Find the Cost of Freedom,” the B side to “Ohio.”  This focus on loss moves to a song of hope for unity, not only in the words but in the harmonies, where the Indigo Girls and Girlyman sing “Finlandia” together.   

Mavis Staples closes this set with a John Fogerty song, “Wrote a Song for Everyone.”

Saw the people a standin' thousand years in chains.
Somebody said it's diff'rent now, look, it's just the same.
Pharaoh spins the message, round and round the truth.
They could have saved a million people, how can I tell you?

 Her version turns this swamp rock masterpiece into a gospel stomp: seeing the truth clearly requires some energy and verve, which Mavis delivers.

Songs 15-16 get at the individual and collective history of the United States: the indigenous and the immigrant.  In “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” the Indigo Girls rock this Buffy St. Marie song, particularly appropriate with what is happening at Standing Rock.  DeSoL take a another approach in bringing a Nuyorican feel to “Blanco Y Negro.”  This song is about how difference shouldn’t make a difference in how we see one another.

Songs 17-19 are patriotic, but not in a jingoistic way.  “My Shot,” from the Hamilton musical, is nothing less than a summons to speak out and speak up for the ideals of democracy.  This call for revolution against the British leads into a modern revolution with Steve Earle singing “The Revolution Starts…Now.”

The revolution starts here
Where you work and where you play
Where you lay your money down
What you do and what you say
The revolution starts now

 Both songs are calls to act—immediately, wherever you are, whatever you do.  Because, as Neil Young channels Pete Seeger, “This Land Is Your Land.”   This 60’s anthem reminds us that those of us who object to the current president-elect are not moving to Canada.  This place and its ideas and ideals, as flawed as they are, belong to us. 

And then there is the last song:  “Do the Right Thing.”  This is more than a call for revolution.  This is a call for love and justice. 

Music has always been a way of responding to our fears—from hymns to gospel to folk to blues to jazz to rock to hip hop.  This playlist covers my many emotional, aesthetic and political responses to the election.  Despair and hope.  Diversity and unity.  Fighting back and building community.  I would love to hear what your playlists look and sound like.  Feel free to respond to this blog and share what has offered you emotional sustenance over the last few weeks.

"What is it for?"

I had dropped off Nels at the start line for the Newport marathon, parking a few blocks away with the goal of getting back in time to see the race begin.  The rain and wind picked up as I trotted by a line of cars diverted from the course.   A man rolled down his window and beckoned to me.

“What’s it for?” he asked in a British accent.  He had on a suit and so did the other man in the car.  It was a Sunday morning so I assumed they were going to a church service.

“It’s a marathon and half-marathon,” I said. 

“Yes, but what is it for?”

That brief exchange reminded me—again--that there are many people who don’t get the “what is it for” question when it comes to running and racing.  There are as many reasons to run as there are runners, but it doesn’t have to be “for” anything. 

Just a few days before, I was in tears because there was no time to fit in a long run that week.  I am planning on running a half-marathon on Nov. 6, and the half I ran a couple of weeks ago was a reminder that I was not where I wanted to be.  How could I improve my time if I couldn’t get in some more long runs?  I sought advice from Nels, my partner in life and running.

“You’re not in PR shape,” he said.  “So it doesn’t really matter.”  Ohhhhh.  Ouch.

PR means “personal record.”  It’s one of the gold standards for mid-packers like myself who will never win a race, much less my age group.  My PR for a half marathon was back in 2012, when I ran 1:59:58 at the Shamrock race in Virginia Beach.  That was a 9:09 pace, fully a minute faster than where I am right now. 

Nels provided me with some perspective.  Nobody but me cares what my time is.  But I care.  A  lot.  It is not just about ego.  I can’t run a race without at least some training, hoping for some feeling of accomplishment.  Running distance races is just too damn hard to do as a lark.  I take running seriously, but most of my runs are usually about being outside, observing nature and talking politics, sports, music and gossip with Nels, as opposed to preparing for a race.

On the other hand, I find it upsetting when some folks treat running a marathon as simply an item to check off on a bucket list.  To me, they are not respecting the distance.  Running a marathon is a huge deal, especially for those of us who are not athletically gifted. 

Runners do things that non-runners probably don’t get.  For example, Nels was sick last Sunday, but he had trained for running 26.2 miles, and damn it, he was going to at least try it.  He looked good at mile 13 when I gave him a gel, not as good at mile 17 when I gave him some Gummy Bears, and by mile 20 he was shivering and feverish.  I picked him up in the car, cranked up the heat, and we headed for home.  He had to see what he could do, though.  He had put in the miles, did his strength training, tapered properly and was not about to let some sniffles get in his way.  Until they did.    

What is running for? 

Running is for something and it is for nothing. 

It is for expressing joy and dealing with grief. 

It is for accepting your limits and testing your mettle.

It is for companionship and self-knowledge.

It is for discovery of the new and remembering what you already knew.

It is for wondering if that raptor overhead is an eagle or an osprey. 

It is for bunnies in spring and egrets in the summer and geese honking overhead in the fall.

It is for talking to Chris, our 95 year old friend, who walks in Colt State Park every morning.

It is for acknowledging and enjoying good health. 

In the words of Ray Wylie Hubbard, it is for keeping your gratitude higher than your expectations.

Hamilton vs. Yogis: It Depends on whose Ox Is Being Gored

Which presidential candidate excites the most high-pitched, venomous rhetoric?  I find the nastiness, especially by Trump supporters whose hatred for Clinton sounds anti-woman, not just anti-Hillary, particularly troubling.  There are plenty of things to challenge about Clinton’s actions without name-calling or making her gender an issue.

My favorite brand of politics, right now, is listening to the musical Hamilton.  This re-imagining of Alexander Hamilton’s life tells the story of the founding of our nation through the genre of hip hop.  Author Ron Chernow, whose 700+ page biography inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the musical, says that Washington was the father of the country, Madison the father of the Constitution, and Hamilton the father of the American government.   Listening to the musical and reading the biography demonstrates that American politics was fraught with passion, demagoguery, and duplicitousness since the beginning.  Whether taking the side of Hamilton and the Federalists or Jefferson and the Republicans, the exchanges in person and on paper were certainly as vitriolic as they are now, although much more witty and sophisticated.  They argued over federal versus states’ rights, banking versus agriculture, executive branch versus legislative branch power, how to interpret the Constitution, whether to side with the French or the British, and much more. 

Those intense arguments are still going on almost 250 years later.  This election is historic because of who is in it: Hillary Clinton as the first-ever woman, Donald Trump as the first person who never held any elective office.  But it takes place within the American tradition of free speech, for better or worse.   When my Dad and I talk politics and cannot come to a resolution, he sometimes says, “It depends on whose ox is being gored.”  This means that any event, person or situation will be seen differently depending on the viewer’s self-interest.  And it has ever been thus.

But even as political squabbling has not changed for centuries, perhaps there is another way to think about our disagreements—something beyond self-interest.  Hamilton would say no, according to Ron Chernow, because he had a cynical view of humankind.  But I wonder if our conversations with those who believe differently could come from a place of love, not conflict. We all want to prove we are the right ones, the reasonable ones, and that the other side is stupid and emotional.  It would be a great start to come from a place of compassion, understanding that the other person has a right to her perspective, no matter how perplexing.  But how to keep from going “gotcha” all the time?  For example, if we are debating immigration and I say, “But did you look at the statistics on immigrants?”  that feels like a gotcha statement.  And is this really about facts for me as well?  It’s a conscience thing, to quote Ted Cruz (which I find painful).

 I just came back from a week-long yoga workshop by the founders of the Holistic Life Foundation (http://hlfinc.org/) at the Omega Institute (https://www.eomega.org/) and re-discovered that there are multiple ways to embody what I believe.  Steeped in the scholarly world of critical theory which views imperfect systems as the root of injustice, it was good to reconnect with a different set of theories about social change:  that transforming consciousness can lead to transforming systems.  Eric Schneiderman, a welcome and surprise guest at this workshop and the New York attorney general said, “We are playing the same sport, just different positions.” 

That is, those of us who seek equity and liberation for humankind may speak different languages:  the scholars may use critical race theory, radical feminism, critical discourse analysis, intersectionality, Marxist-based thought, and/or post-structuralist theories to name and describe oppressive systems.  Yogis and others on liberatory spiritual paths embed their work in love:  love for the self, love for others, and love for humanity as a whole.  It is not the fake-y love where acceptance means submission, but the kind of love that asks hard questions and recognizes the flaws and limitations of society.  Scholars and yogis have a responsibility to talk, write, vote and agitate for social justice.  The goal is liberation and transformation of the self and the well-being of others, even as we are mindful of where others are on their respective journeys.

It does not matter if you play multiple positions on the same team.  I see myself as a utility infielder who sometimes plays the position of love (and acceptance), and sometimes of justice (and righteousness).  I still have not figured out how to merge the two.   Maybe by November. 

   

   

Complications of Patriotism and Stereotypes

I am a citizen of Bristol, Rhode Island, home of the longest running July 4^th Parade http://www.july4thbristolri.com/.   As someone whom native Bristolians refer to as a carpetbagger (since we have only lived here 11 years instead of multiple generations), it was difficult to appreciate the extreme patriotism without some sense of irony.  I have never been a flag waver, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, when national pride seemed to take a jingoistic turn.  That being said, I can see now that there are multiple kinds of patriotism and pride, in the words of the Avett Brothers, who sing: I wanna have pride/like my mother has/and not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad: https://youtu.be/wRFe-4kfJpQ.  As a critical researcher, it is important that I not essentialize or stereotype the people with whom I work.  And yet, I, like a lot of folks, am often guilty of thinking in generalizations, especially for groups that make me suspicious.  Music, more specifically, music that tells stories, provides an important counter-narrative to my pre-conceived notions.

Ever since seeing Jason Isbell at the Chrysler Arena in Norfolk a couple of weeks ago (http://www.sevenvenues.com/events/detail/jason-isbell) I have been trying to figure out why this show was the best I have seen in recent memory.  We were sixth row, center, which meant we could see the emotions on his face and the relationships among the musicians on the stage, creating a sense of intimacy.  Nels and I talked about how Jason “held the space,” something I have mostly appreciated from the perspective of a teacher and student in the yoga studio and classroom.  With Jason, it was beyond performance, something I would call presence.   The songwriting, the playing, the singing, the humility and the confidence all combined for this.  Pure skill with words and musicianship.  Humility because it was clear he was grateful to be there, knowing how fragile this was, given his history as an alcoholic.  And yet he was confident in his music, in his storytelling. 

In many of his songs, Jason offers the perspective of southern white working-class men trying to be the people they were taught to be and sometimes fighting against those projections.  As a card-carrying lefty feminist, it is easy for me to dismiss these guys.  I picture Confederate flags flying off pickup trucks, traditional gender roles, corporal punishment for kids and Trump bumper stickers.  But then, in “Something More than Free” the protagonist sings: Cause a hammer needs a nail/And the poor man's up for sale/Guess I'm doin' what I'm on this earth to do/And I don't think on why I'm here where it hurts/I'm just lucky to have the work (https://youtu.be/kwRNo3A5VRc).

This song, along with many others he has written, offers an alternative to my limited perception of redneck histrionics in Saturday night bars slicked by spilled Budweiser and violent parking lot spats over slights real and imagined.   Perhaps these guys have been silenced in ways that are unacknowledged by academics like me.   It is easy to look down on this group until I hear authentic-sounding stories about an individual’s experience.  The fear of loss, the pain of separation, the use of drugs and alcohol to make it all go away.  And also the humor:  https://youtu.be/3Fr2Gv3HyqA.  

That’s what good stories do.  That’s what good songs, poems, movies and shows do.  They transcend stereotypes and shine a spotlight on the concrete individual.  I may not like or approve of what I see, but if the writing is authentic and strong, then the other side becomes real, not just a caricature.  This is not just important to appreciate on an artistic level, or even an emotional level.  It is important on a political level.  I may not want to hang out with the characters in Jason’s songs, but getting a glimpse into their worldview gets me off my high horse; shocking me out of my academic snobbery and flinging me from the ivory tower. 

I love being an academic.  I love theory, I love ideas, I love writing, reading, talking and listening about the world through critical and feminist lenses.  But I came to this world through literature.  Stories come first, even as they can be scary and sad and shocking.  This is what good writers do:  ask me to bear witness to the experiences of groups that I have forgotten, and in forgetting, rejected. 

From A to Z (Avett Brothers to ZZ Top)

We have an amazing summer of shows coming up.  Here’s the list:

April: Rhett Miller, Avett Brothers, Subdudes

May: Stephen Stills

June: Houndmouth, Jason Isbell with Frank Turner, Violent Femmes, Melissa Etheridge

July: Mavericks, Folk Festival

August: ZZ Top

September: Chicago

When Nels said he wanted to go to ZZ Top, I was like “meh.”  After hearing songs from Eliminator throughout my high school years, I was pretty sure I never wanted to hear “Gimme All Your Lovin’” or “Legs” again—similar to wanting to cover my ears and scream at the first chords of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” or Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville.”  As a nightclub deejay for a very brief period of time, I played my share of songs simply to fill the dance floor with drunk women dragging along their drunker partners. I once had a bouncer at Our Place (Fort Wayne friends, remember that club?) swear at me after I played “Sledgehammer” because he had heard it so many times.  Sorry, dude. 

Thus, I was less than excited to go see ZZ Top, notwithstanding that it’s in one of our all-time favorite venues—the Melody Tent in Hyannis on the Cape http://www.melodytent.org/.  It also occurs during the last week of August, which is probably the first week of school (and no, I’m not checking). 

Besides, I wanted to prep for the Avett Brothers this Sunday.  I began by listening to I and Love and You and was progressing to Live, Volume 3 with the stop and start of “The Ballad of Love and Hate” (don’t get me started on the gender issues in that song—that’s for another blog https://youtu.be/1cTJV3HK-Xs).   Then Nels un-subtly placed DeGuello, his favorite ZZ album, where I could see it and started singing “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” (https://youtu.be/C9r1P5Boek4) in the shower.  I was intrigued enough to throw DeGuello onto iTunes Friday morning.  I had every intention of doing my duty as a citizen and listening to NPR on the way to work.  All it took was the opening bars of “I Thank You” https://youtu.be/Vr_Q2UKN6eU to max out the volume and open up the sunroof in 45 degree weather.  Politics could not overcome rock and roll.

The unapologetic, unsentimental blues raunch of ZZ Top was in crisp contrast to the earnest songs of the Avetts.  ZZ Top celebrate sex.  Avetts celebrate love.   Both are completely open about what they are doing.  Unlike some other genres or artists that focus on love but really mean sex (adult contemporary, country, pop and R&B are the worst offenders), ZZ Top are not just fools for my stockings, they want to thank me for my general foxiness and love that I want to ride with the top down (I just got that double entendre and am blushing).

As a woman who is inconsistently feminist, there is room in my world for bawdiness and sweetness.  I hope I don’t have to check my professor credentials at the Will Call, but if that happens, so be it. 

Not a Zen Master's View

Ancient poets wrote

Only good about nature.

Not me. Spring snow sucks.

Dangerous walks, snow-

choked roads, clear absence of care

for those on campus.

Two hour commute

unplowed, untreated roads like

driving on gravel.

T.S. Eliot:

 “April is the cruellest

 month.”  No shit, Sherlock.

Sorry, sweet flowers.

Osprey, you came back too soon.

Buds, please stay hidden.

Next week, I will plant

pansies.  I will ambush the

rose bush.  Tulips bloom.

Ray Wylie Hubbard

Says to value thanks over

hopes.  Will work on that.

Goodbye, Old Paint

My beloved and reliable running watch, face cracked years ago after being accidentally dropped on the brick patio of a Courtyard Inn on the Cape, has finally stopped. The digital numbers, still big enough to read without glasses, vanished into blankness without me noticing this weekend. Perhaps when I chose the Garmin over it for my long run (this watch does not have satellite capabilities) Saturday, and then chose the freedom of watchless running on Sunday, it decided it was a good time to retire. After all, it has been in almost constant use since the summer of 2007, when I decided that I needed a “real” running watch (i.e., one with a digital readout, ability to time workouts, and rubber wristband) instead of the Mickey Mouse one (literally, not metaphorically) I was using. While I still periodically use the Garmin, which calculates my pace, calories burned and miles completed, I always come back to this cheap Nike black and yellow watch. When my fancy Anne Klein fell off my wrist and broke one afternoon in the hallway of Central Falls High School, I started wearing the Nike on a daily basis, no matter how nice my outfit. Not only could I read the time, but I saw it as a voiceless sign to other runners: “Me too.”

 Buddhists say that attachment leads to clinging, to expectations that can’t be met, to a life of disappointment in things not being as they are. Yogi ethical precepts include aparigraha, or non-possessiveness, and liken attachment to carrying extra baggage, both material and emotional. Both suggest that disappointment will arise from being attached to outcomes over which we have no control.

 I am not feeling bereft because the watch was valuable—it was probably $40 at the most at Dick’s Sporting Goods. My sense of loss is partly about its representation of my progress from walker to walk-runner to marathoner to recreational runner. It also helped me figure out much time I had before leaving the house for school, whether I had time left in class for one last activity, and how much longer I had to stay in meetings before I could say, “I really have to go.” Its value is in its non-obtrusiveness and reliability.

I find that I am attached to many objects, not for their value but for sentiment. I love the white wicker basket on the toilet tank that holds my brush, comb and hairbands. My Aunt Chartie gave me a bunch of little gifts in that basket from the department store where she worked right before I got married. I love the cat food bowls my sister-in-law Joyce made when she was first making pottery. We have many finer pieces she has made since, much more skilled and sophisticated, but I still love these bowls best of all.  I love the Pizza Express cups that remind me of Bloomington.  And I love the Rose of Sharon trees our neighbor John gave us from the garden he and his wife Mary Lou tended before he died a couple of years ago.

So now, as one neighboring family divorces and another one moves away; as I mourn the passing of beloved friends and newborns; it is as about as much as I can handle to mourn the passing of a watch. Goodbye, old friend.

What's your Sign? Four Ways to Think about Education

Valentine’s Day is all about compatibility in love…and maybe politics too.

If you are like me and have occasional—or frequent--arguments with friends, family members and acquaintances on social media or live (at the dinner table or in bars—in my case, usually in Florida for some reason) regarding education, the following might be useful in going beyond emotion, personal experience and deeply held values.  Below, I share four different research-based perspectives on schooling.  In reading political speeches, Facebook posts and educational blogs, it becomes easy to see how and why I agree or disagree with the author as I recognize these ideologies in their language.     

The current conflicts over educational policy have as many sources as stakeholders.  Teachers, parents, students, administrators, educational researchers and policymakers—not to mention the general public and business leaders—bring a variety of viewpoints as to what constitutes a meaningful education.  H. Kliebard and Michael Stephen Schiro built upon existing frameworks to name four distinct ideologies, or standpoints https://goo.gl/8IbTkn that can perhaps explain how deep and painful these arguments over education can be, even if we who disagree ostensibly want something similar: for youth to be prepared for the world beyond K-12 schooling, whatever that may bring.

The four ideologies are Scholar Academic, Social Efficiency, Learner Centered and Social Reconstruction.  The Scholar Academic ideology is based on the premise that all worthwhile knowledge is based in academic disciplines and certain cultural texts.  Student knowledge and experience are not considered, and students are assessed on their place in a hierarchy, with experts at the top and apprentices below.  GPA rankings, IQ tests and E.D. Hirsch’s premise that there is “Core Knowledge” http://goo.gl/RtKlUy that all students should know are examples of this. 

Unfortunately in the United States, these disciplines and texts are often centered in Western European white male values.  Few women and even fewer people of color are mentioned, so the experiences of millions are not acknowledged.  Many elite schools, including Brown University, supposedly a bastion of liberal thinking, still adhere to a Scholar Academic framework in some ways:  http://goo.gl/F9ORDc.  This may be one reason why white male privilege continues unabated. 

Many would argue that K-12 schooling currently adheres to the Social Efficiency ideology, whose goal is to prepare students to be competent, efficient and docile workers socialized into the hierarchies of the workplace http://goo.gl/0Pc8aV.  Indeed, the SE perspective is supported by business leaders and policymakers who privilege economic progress over democratic citizenship.  Behavioral objectives, standardized assessments that sort students into predictable categories, and accountability are hallmarks of Social Efficiency.  The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) http://goo.gl/o7MoaI and high-stakes exams like PARCC  http://goo.gl/W7T5gt are contemporary examples pushed by corporate leadership, underscoring the link between private sector goals of profit and SE as an approach to schooling.  While it would be easy to agree that we want competent workers, the emphasis on creating the same experience for academically and culturally diverse learners, despite their particular experiences, is troubling, as is the lack of attention to youth using inquiry and creativity to problem solve and develop individual talents. 

In contrast to the Scholar Academic and Social Efficiency standpoints, the Learner Centered ideologists believe that the individual, not the curriculum or a particular set of beliefs, should be the center of learning.  The job of the educator is to foster personal and academic growth, which are valued over meeting certain standards.  Learners may be assessed by portfolios and encouraged to explore and make mistakes in the name of inquiry and creativity. This model, unlike the previous two, can support diverse learners.  The Montessori method  http://goo.gl/7qWGYR and the writing workshop model http://goo.gl/U6ExcV are good examples of the Learner Centered ideology.  However, it is also difficult to measure, quantify and compare student growth, something that our outcome-based culture deeply questions. 

The Social Reconstructionists believe that the purpose of education is to create a more just society.  They contend that inequities are a manifestation of—and perpetuate--economic and social privilege.  These educators recognize social problems and work with their students to identify the sources of these problems and ways to fix them.  Rethinking Schools http://goo.gl/Sh9sbC is a great example of how pedagogy and curriculum can expose students to how American economic and social policies adversely affect individuals who identify as anything other than white, male, middle class, heterosexual, Christian, and/or other forms of difference than the mainstream.  For Social Reconstructionists, it is important for youth to understand the historical and cultural roots of these policies and to work for social justice.  This ideology is different from the others because the measure of success is not the individual, but the learning of the group as the students take steps toward community and social change.   

So what’s your ideology?  Are you compatible with your partner, friends, family, colleagues or chosen presidential candidate?  Take the inventory and find out:

https://www2.bc.edu/~schiro/sagefiles/inventory.pdf

Rest in peace, Glenn Frey

Glenn Frey was probably my third favorite Eagle after Don Henley and Joe Walsh, but his death still brought an unwelcome and uncomfortable recognition that an important part of my youth has vanished.  His death isn’t necessarily a personal loss, but more of a reminder that I, too, am getting older.  Music was a refuge for me back then.  It served as an escape and a point of connection with others.  Most importantly, it served as a dependable familiarity, even as everything and everybody else, including myself, was changing. 

I appreciated the songs from the first Greatest Hits album, separately, from the clock radio on my bedside table, on stations as pop as WMEE and as hard as WXKE in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana.  These songs were 10-15 years old before they had any real impact on me, though.   When I graduated from high school in 1986, my boyfriend had that album along with a much better-worn collection of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Pink Floyd.  The boyfriend would make me mix tapes of those bands, but when I made my own, I chose “Take It Easy,” “Already Gone” and “Peaceful, Easy Feeling.”

Don Henley once called that last song vapid, which stung.  Sure, it lacks the ambition (or pretentiousness) of his early solo work, but I didn’t listen to the Eagles to be preached at or to analyze the lyrics.  The Eagles’ music represented escape.  It was a world of sun, lust, freedom and possibility, even in the midst of personal (“Desperado”) and existential (“Lying Eyes”) darkness.  That world appealed to me—basking in the joy of light while acknowledging and appreciating the shadows.   

30 years after I first connected to the band, I cue up the Greatest Hits as I drive down 195 toward a heavy meeting or long day https://youtu.be/IKpay8gumw0:

I was standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona

Such a fine sight to see

A girl my Lord in a flatbed Ford

Slowin’ down to take a look at me

Also on my iPhone, a different message.  “Hole in the World” https://vimeo.com/33989886 was written as a response to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.  The song calls for listeners to be our best selves in the face of enormous tragedy, made all the sweeter by the four-part harmonies. 

There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a Cloud of fear and sorrow.
There's a hole in the world tonight.
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.

Oh they tell me there's a place over yonder,
Cool water running through the burning sand,
Until we learn to love one another
We will never reach the promise land.

In this case, the Eagles found the magic of how words and voices can offer emotional succor and simple wisdom. 

Rest in peace, Glenn Frey.