What's Good for Kids

I love my profession.  I love working with students and with people who are passionate about kids’ well-being, whether they are my fellow teacher educators, teachers, administrators, 4-H sponsors, social workers, or parents.  While I fell into teaching by accident, it is no accident that I am still passionate about education 20 years later. 

That’s why the steadily deepening divide between teachers and policymakers is so dispiriting.   I believe that as wide as this gap is, we all want “what’s good for kids,” as my former principal, Chuck Holloway, used to say.  We just have different interpretations of what that means.  It seems to me that the central argument is linked to two competing theories:  positivism and critical theory.  The current testing and evaluative culture comes from the positivists, who believe that knowledge accumulation comes from the development of “building blocks” adding to an “edifice of knowledge” (Lincoln & Guba, 2003).  Quality criteria are judged by “conventional benchmarks of ‘rigor’: internal and external validity, reliability, and objectivity.”  This is an example of what Paulo Freire famously named the “banking system” of learning, where the teacher deposits the knowledge in the student’s head, and s/he then dutifully reproduces it.

In contrast, criticalists believe that knowledge is situated and historical—that as culture shifts and changes, knowledge also changes; that who we are and where we come from influences what we come to know and how we know it.  Criticalists attend to the diversity of human experience by valuing individual knowledge AS MUCH AS they value communication, literacy, and numeracy skills.  The trouble is, it takes time and thoughtfulness to evaluate projects that require multiple drafts, collaboration, creativity, independent thinking, and critical analysis. The evaluative process is necessarily messy and complex to match the messiness and complexity of the learning. 

I have heard from multiple teachers in a variety of districts who have had to give up projects that required just these skills in order to meet impossibly long lists of objectives.  Some have to follow curriculum guides requiring classic texts be taught in lock-step (be on p. X on Wednesday).  Lesson and unit planning are foundational to teaching, and should include space for dialogue and “wrestling with the text,” as one of my professors put it.  It takes time—and often repetition—for students to understand academic discourses in any depth, no matter what the subject.  As an English teacher, it pains me that texts are positioned as items to “get through” before going on to the next.  Literature shapes our consciousness and our identities; and as such, deserves rich discussion guided by thoughtful and knowledgeable teachers.      

Clearly, I belong in the critical camp.  However, I am not going to demonize the educational positivists (well, I’ll try not to, anyway).  The same thing is happening in business culture.  Friends of mine have left (or been fired from) their professions because emphasis on the bottom line precluded the innovation, relationship-building, and risk-taking that made their work worthwhile. This relentless by-the-numbers game—whether it is test scores, sales figures, or any other narrow measures of success--diminishes us all.

In this time of great technological and cultural change, there is more and more attention paid to children’s physical safety (bike helmets, sitting in the back seat, locked schools, etc.) and after-school enrichment activities (every kid I know is in gymnastics, T-ball, soccer, and/or music).  Attention is being paid to developing the whole child.  Why then, is intellectual development being narrowed in the schools?  It is an interesting question.

When positivists and criticalists use negative rhetoric to target the other, the argument becomes personal, when the larger picture is about philosophical differences.  If leaders would take the time to hear, understand, and appreciate the other’s perspective, perhaps we would find that there is room for multiple kinds of teaching, learning, and evaluation.  Actually, I would just settle for hearing one another’s ideas on what is good for kids.  Surely, there is some common ground there.

          

Before your Mom was your Mom

Who was your mom before she was your mom?  Before you identified her as the person who had the power to give or withhold what you wanted, whether it was a bottle, a toy, her attention, or freedom? 

Most of us grow up with stories of our mothers’ growing up, sometimes filtered by their parents, siblings, and friends.  My grandparents died when I was young, so I never got a chance to see their perspectives.  My family spent several vacations roaming the countryside of south Georgia, the Decatur neighborhoods, and the grounds of the boarding school and college she attended with her older sister, Charlotte, whom everyone calls Chartie.  I heard stories on those trips about my mother’s identity as a pianist, first taught by her mother, who trained her to read and memorize music by learning the treble clef first, then the bass clef, and then bringing the two together.  Grandmother’s teacher, Aunt Grace, eventually took over, and Mother was on her way to being a classically trained pianist, practicing at least two hours a day, and then later much more when she attended graduate school at the Indiana University School of Music in the 1950’s.   

I had heard these stories before, but what I didn’t know was the fruits of those long hours of practice.  That is, until she gave us all of her record albums.  Included were some long-forgotten vinyl recordings of her undergraduate and graduate recitals.  Nels cleaned them using one machine especially for that purpose, and then transferred them to compact disc as a Mother’s Day present for her.  I came down to the basement as he was doing this, and was caught up in wonder.  My mom, who used to wear polyester shorts as she folded load after load of laundry at the kitchen table, and overcooked chicken because she was afraid if she didn’t it would kill us, could do this?  Of my three siblings, I am the only one who did not become a musician.  If I had to choose a favorite pianist, I would probably pick Stevie Wonder.  But listening to my mother play pieces by Hindemith (a 20^th century composer), Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin is not only a path into her virtuosity, but into who she was as a young woman in her early 20’s, before marriage and definitely before children.    

After we gave Mom the CD’s, she told me that the  Beethoven Opus 110 Fugue was the most difficult piece.  She also said that it might be familiar to me, as she practiced and played it for a concert when we lived in Little Rock while she was pregnant with me in the late 1960's.  As I listen to it now, a little distorted by time and scratches on the vinyl, I can feel her passion and concentration.  This, too, is my mother.  She is more than the person who didn’t want me to drive alone at night; who put a vase of snapdragons on the bathroom counter when I despaired at ever learning to put in contacts; and who let more go than I will ever know.  My mother’s piano playing is one of her gifts to the world that had been buried.  Like an archaeologist digging up artifacts from a lost civilization, I feel humbled and delighted to be part of something from the past that is so beautiful and mysterious. 

To all the mothers out there:  don’t be afraid to excavate your pre-mom identity.  You are a whole person, full of history and legend, and your children will appreciate this about you.

To all the children out there:  one of the biggest gifts you can give your mother is to see her as that whole person who existed before you; and now, exists beyond you and your scope of understanding.  Please appreciate and cherish that.  This is not just for your mother, but for you.  Your life will be richer.  I promise.

 

        

Cemetery Wisdom

While I am not particularly comfortable with the dying, I get along okay with the dead.  I grew up across the street from Covington Memorial Gardens (“Gardens” being a nice euphemism, kind of like “passed away” for died), and spent my childhood climbing on monuments, kissing statues, visiting geese at the pond, and running the mile loop of cracked pavement.  Once, I was sure I saw a guy wearing monk’s robes in the adjacent woods where the cement vaults were stored.

It seems I can’t stay away from burial grounds, as we now live within a mile of two cemeteries.  Within one block, right across from the high school, is St. Mary’s, where the graves are laid out in orderly fashion with mostly gray headstones, some considerably weathered, others shiny, grief newly etched in painstaking lettering.  Flags sprout up in the veterans’ section for Memorial Day and July 4^th.  There is a sense of order and dignity in the luscious green lawn and uniformly shaped markers. 

The second cemetery, Juniper Hill, is about half a mile down our street the other way.  There is a short drive to a wrought iron gate surrounded by a 19^th century stone wall.  The grounds feel, and are, historical.  Stately. But then you see that many of the gravestones are haphazardly strewn about, like boulders in a field.  Large tree roots from junipers and weeping birches compete with markers for space, wood shifting stone. 

When we first moved to Bristol, I was appalled at the condition of the gravestones, many of which were listing sideways, sinking into marshy ground, or crumbling.  Some stone caskets are above ground, and curiosity warred with fear as I investigated inch-wide cracks across the top.  No rotting wood or powdery remains revealed themselves.  I am not sure whether I was more disappointed or relieved.    

This weekend, though, as I walked through the burial ground, alone except for the teenage couple in skinny jeans and punk hair (his was red, hers was green), I appreciated the symmetry of the place.  Instead of graves laid out in solemn rows on flat land as if a farmer or accountant had arranged them, the place felt organic, and—irony aside--alive.  The dogwoods glowed with bright white flowers even on this cloudy April afternoon.  Bouquets of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinth cheered up some gravestones, and shoots of lilies and hostas promised new life for others. 

I came here to visit the magnolias and mourn the weeping birch who lost its best feature in the February blizzard—a long, well-muscled arm of a branch reaching horizontally across the ground.  The branch had been sliced into stacks of fireplace logs next to the caretaker’s home.  I once heard him say this was his favorite tree. 

I wandered among the graves, pausing at some of the inscriptions.  My favorite was for Susanne Robbins DeWolf, 1930-1983.  A sturdy stone bench had been erected in her honor, with the following words:

AN INQUIRING HEART

COURAGE TO WILL AND

SPIRIT TO LOVE

This seemed like the perfect place to pause.  The birds got louder as I got quieter, and the beauty of the place sank in as I contemplated the many souls around me.  The small graves with initials only, the impressive bench on which I sat, the large monuments dedicated to the important people of Bristol, including various Colts (related to Samuel Colt, who invented the Colt .45), DeWolfs (a seafaring family, some of whose wealth came from the triangle trade) and Bradfords (a Rhode Island governor  is in that lineage).  The beauty of this place, though, is not in the shape of the monuments or names and dates faded into stone, but in the allowing of nature and the dead to co-exist with a minimum of interference. 

Does this make Juniper Hill spooky?  Lonely?  Quiet?  Yes, yes, and yes.  But maybe death is a little spooky, lonely, and quiet, for the person being mourned and for the mourners.  I have become reconciled to what I originally saw as carelessness and disrespect for the dead here, the allowing of stone markers to melt into the earth.  Now I see the process of nature unfolding and cracking the human sense of permanence.  If we have what Susanne brought to the world, “an inquiring heart, courage to will, and spirit to love,” then we do not need even a fine stone bench to memorialize our lives and our passing.  It is enough to have lived. 

Heartbreak Hill

We had just arrived home after a glorious day watching the Boston Marathon when I received two texts from a friend who lives in Virginia.  At 3:17 p.m., she wrote, “CNN is saying stay away from garbage cans…” and then “Text or call when you can!”  At first I was going to reply with something cheeky like, “I rarely paw around in garbage” but then thought somebody may have stolen her phone number, similar to what has happened to other friends’ email accounts.  I went upstairs to send a message via Facebook, when Nels told me what he had just found out:  somebody had bombed the finish line, and they thought there might be more bombs stashed in garbage cans.

The initial shock that always comes with this kind of news—Columbine, Oklahoma City, 9/11, Newtown—was exacerbated by the pure exhilaration that came with having been there just a few hours before.  We stood in the cool spring late morning sun, surrounded by thousands of others bearing witness to the monumental effort it takes to complete 26.2 miles.  We all cheered the wheelchairs, the elites, and then the first waves of runners from the vantage point of Heartbreak Hill, a few miles from the finish.  We also cheered the military personnel walking in long lines in their desert fatigues with large backpacks, symbolizing the context of this race as part of Patriots’ Day, a celebration of “the shot heard ‘round the world” at the battles of Lexington and Concord, the scene of our country’s birth. 

There was a huge security presence: spotters on bicycles, riding along with the runners, looking into the crowd.  Police on motorcycles, moving along the edges of the course, keeping spectators out of the street so runners would have a clear path.  Riding immediately before the elite groups of women and men, there were black vans full of men holding large guns.  At the time, in the sunshine, with the bright colors of runners’ singlets and spectators’ spring jackets, it felt like overkill.  “Who would want to hurt runners?  Runners are harmless,” I said to my friends.

Now I get it.

The Boston Marathon, as my brother Joe put it, is a sacred event.  It is not only revered by runners, but is symbolic of the hard work and sacrifice that led to this country’s founding, commemorated by the race taking place on Patriots’ Day.  The beauty and strength of the individual human body, running, opens into the collective beauty and strength of the running community.  Nels pointed out that the finish line is a place where runners are at their most vulnerable—physically and emotionally spent, tired, hungry, thirsty, sweaty, looking for their loved ones, often with no key, no phone, and dependent on the kindness and organization of the race directors and volunteers.  Bombing the finish line of a marathon is a kick to someone who is down.  Bombing the finish line of the Boston Marathon is a gauntlet thrown down.

How can we, as individuals and collectively, work for a sense of peace and healing at this moment and beyond?  I was heartbroken yesterday, and still am, at the loss of life and the multitude of physical injuries.  I was angry, and still am, that now this race, and every large race, will have to redouble their already incredible efforts to secure the participants and the public. 

At the same time, though, let’s not allow our sadness and anger to overwhelm our awe at what was accomplished yesterday.  Let us applaud the efforts of the winners, Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia, and Rita Jeptoo of Kenya, and their fine competitors, including our very own Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, and Jason Hartmann, all of whom finished in the top ten. In addition, the 20+ thousand runners who trained for this event, putting in hours of running, deserve accolades.  The race organizers should also be recognized for putting together an enormous event attended by thousands.

Of course we want justice, but not at the expense of healing.  Healing comes from positive action.  Runners, wherever they are on the spectrum of recreational to hard-core, can keep the spirit of the Boston Marathon, and the sacrifices of the victims, through renewed dedication to the sport.  Non-runners can act with fierce determination in their chosen activities, physical or not.  Healing comes from the knowledge that we are constantly working to be our best selves, and understanding that others are doing the same.   Poet William Stafford offers these lines to carry us forward:

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

Than the breathing respect that you carry

Wherever you go right now?

Wisdom and Violence: Strong Women on Television

When I was a kid, I would play Charlie’s Angels with my friends Kim and Tammi.  Kim was Sabrina (played by Kate Jackson on the show), Tammi was Jill (Farrah Fawcett Majors), and I was Kelly (Jaclyn Smith).   I’m not quite sure what we did to play these characters, besides shoot imaginary bad guys who invaded my backyard.  As a little girl who was first obsessed with strong female characters in literature like Jo March in Little Women and Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, perhaps I wanted mostly to be grown up, and thus have some power to change things for the good.  These women, to a greater or lesser degree, had adventures and took risks unimaginable to me in our quiet suburban neighborhood. 

While I discovered plenty of strong female characters who could kick some ass in literature and popular culture since then, they have always been either over-the-top or too perfect.  In the former category, we had Saving Grace (TNT), a short-lived series featuring a scarily skinny Holly Hunter, who played Grace Hanadarko, a police detective in Oklahoma City.  She drank, smoked, and had sex like the men, but was also in need of saving by Earl, an angel (yes, I know.  The kind sent by God).  So the woman needed redemption but not the men?  Hm.  Holly Hunter’s devil-may-care (pun intended) characterization was undermined by the lousy writing and erratic pacing. 

In the too-perfect category, there is The Good Wife (CBS).  Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies, is a top lawyer at a top law firm married to the state’s attorney.  Yes, she engages in some high jinks of her own, but even her colleagues at the firm call her “St. Alicia.”  No thanks.  Both Saving Grace and The Good Wife suffer from inconsistent writing and cheesy dialogue.  Grace was too obnoxious and Alicia too mannequin-like for me to want to identify with.  *Sigh.* Where are the fierce, compelling, and realistic (within the suspension of disbelief realm) women who, just by watching them, can make me feel as if I can channel their powerful, positive energy and no BS attitude?

Luckily, there are two recent characters who fulfill that longing.  First we have Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes) in Homeland (Showtime). She’s independent, perceptive, courageous, and while she works for the CIA, she also sees the flaws in the system.   What’s not to like?  Oh wait…there’s that bipolar thing that provides some trouble with impulsivity and obsessiveness.  However, Carrie’s flaws are also assets. That’s how she got the information that a POW had been turned.  Of course, it’s also why she subsequently slept with him.  It’s also what enabled her to go into an old mill by herself to confront a terrorist.  Of course, she almost got killed.  But Carrie’s physical and emotional fearlessness, along with her commitment to a cause, make her the most appealing female character I’ve seen on television or in movies in recent memory.

Another new show, also about spies, has a similar character.  The Americans (on FX) is set in 1981 at the height of the Cold War.  Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) appear to be your typical suburban couple with two adorable but real kids. You’d never know that they are (drum roll, please) Soviet spies under deep cover.  As their backstory unfolds, we find out they were trained to take on these American identities, erasing all trace of their Russian backgrounds, not even sharing their original names with one another.  Their marriage is somewhat fictional, in that, at first, they are more like teammates than romantic partners.  Elizabeth and Philip don different disguises in order to elicit information from a diverse group of characters working for the U.S. government, either through sexual or violent means. 

Like Carrie in Homeland, Elizabeth is intelligent and resourceful, and can kick some serious ass.  However, she is distinctly different from Carrie in that she is deeply loyal to the Soviet Union, whereas Carrie questions her country’s methods and morality.  Carrie has her own perspective and is happy to violate CIA protocol if she sees fit; whereas Elizabeth shoots a guy in the head simply because she was ordered to, without questioning if this is an ethical thing to do.

Carrie and Elizabeth also demonstrate vulnerability, which makes them feel human, and thus easy to identify with.   Carrie falls for the wrong guy, and has to make the choice between him and her loyalty to her country.  Elizabeth eventually decides that she is ready to make her marriage to Philip more than just a cover.  It is both tension-building and gratifying to watch these two powerful women grapple with ethical choices in their roles as spies and as women. 

I hadn’t thought about what it meant to play games like Charlie’s Angels growing up; that is, to try on different identities.  Why would I want to try on Carrie or Elizabeth?  What’s their appeal to me now, and is it similar to the Jaclyn Smith character when I was nine?  Carrie and Elizabeth are thin and attractive, but that’s where the similarities end.  They are intense, make mistakes, and take risks for what they believe in.  Maybe that’s what appeals to me now: these characters may have doubt and fear, but they don’t let those feelings slow them down.    

Clothing Loathing: The (not so) Great Purge

You only need one pair of pants and one shirt for the week.

                                                            The Waynus (my dad)

When I was in my early teens, my mom and I would go school shopping every August.  We would spend the day at Glenbrook Mall starting at 10 a.m., stop for lunch at the food court overlooking the indoor ice rink, and then wind down, exhausted, by splitting one of those giant chocolate chip cookies at the Great American Cookie Company.   I dutifully modeled each outfit for my dad as he had a martini before supper.  As I ran up and down the stairs to change, Mom would say, “That was a great bargain!” Sometimes she would tell me not to bring out a particular item, saying, “Daddy doesn’t need to know about this one yet.”  We had our secrets, as Mom would carefully parse the line between what I wanted and how much she knew Dad wanted to spend on things as unimportant as school clothes.  When both your parents spend their formative years during the Depression, it’s pretty hard to convince them of the need for Calvin Klein jeans or Izod shirts, both of which were essential at Homestead High School.   

Unfortunately, neither my mom or I were sensitive to fashion trends, so it wasn’t until the first week of school that I would find out either a) every other girl had bought the same exact shirt I had, or b) bell bottoms had gone out of style without my noticing, both of which happened in seventh grade.  This was in contrast to a friend, Melissa, who had a seemingly endless supply of different-colored corduroys with matching sweaters.  She hardly ever wore the same clothes within two weeks, much less within one week.  

That year, a store that specialized in low prices for flawed designer items (a precursor to TJ Maxx and Marshalls) opened at Times Corner, the local shopping plaza.  Mom was in Germany with her church choir, but when I saw that the store had Calvin Kleins on sale, I knew I had to get there.  Somehow, I convinced my dad to take me and buy those jeans on a Sunday morning instead of going to church (I just knew they would be out of my size should we wait until afterward).  At last!  No more bell bottoms.  Unfortunately, some of my peers were quick to discern that I was wearing the same pair of jeans every single day and called my (and everyone else’s) attention to it.  When parents attempt to comfort you by saying nobody notices fashion faux pas but you, rest assured they know nothing about the scrutiny of teenage girls.       

The shame and humiliation of not having the right clothing, along with not having the right parents who understood this, has followed me.  I remember the first time I was able to wear a different pair of pants every day of the week.  I was like, “Take that, bitches.”  By then, though, it didn’t matter. 

My clothing and fashion woes continue.  I am truly my father’s daughter, in that I can’t find it in my heart to spend full-price on any clothing item, unless there’s a special occasion and I’m desperate.  The thing that gets me now, though, is the pace of the trends.  I can’t keep track of which color is in, and which season you can wear it.  I was also a little late with the longer hems on pants, and still haven’t figured out where my dresses and skirts are on the continuum between hussy and prude.  The rules changed once I hit my 40’s, but since I didn’t know what the rules were in the first place, I’m not sure how. 

All of this indecision—along with a loathing for trying on clothes--led to a glut of stuff that doesn’t fit right, look right, or is possibly out of fashion (not that I would know).  Thus, there are now five giant garbage bags full of said clothing destined for a spring garage sale.  This Great Purge, though, is apparently not great enough.  I still have two small closets and two dressers filled with clothes, most of which fit into three categories:  running, yoga, or school.  It would be easy to just stick with the basics—white t-shirts and khaki shorts for summer, black for school—but I haven’t given up on the fantasy that someday I will wake up and know what’s in fashion, what looks good on my particular frame, and what’s cool but appropriate for women in their 40’s.  I welcome any help, but if you’re like me, you might want to check out our garage sale in May.         

Identity Crisis or Ability Crisis?

There’s going to be a day when I wake up and I’ll pack up my shoes and I’ll be done…I don’t want to go and run a 21 minute 5K.

                                    Sheri Piers, 41 year old American elite runner

If you have run a 5K and you’re over the age of 30, or even if you’re not, you know that running 3.1 miles in 21 minutes, in which you would run each mile in less than seven minutes, is pretty great.  Depending on how big your local race is and who competes, it’s certainly possible, even likely, that you would win your age group, especially if you are a woman. 

I myself have barely scraped under 27 minutes, and that was just once, on a course that was probably short.  Now, I realize it’s completely unfair to compare myself to Sheri Piers, who was recently on the cover of Running Times (www.runningtimes.com), and the top American finisher at the Boston Marathon last year.   It’s like comparing most high school swimmers to Elizabeth Beisel or local softball players to the Boston Red Sox.  We are engaging in the same sport, but it’s at completely different levels.  That’s not my real objection to Piers’ comment.

Instead, I wonder at someone who would give up a thing that is a huge part of her identity and life—she runs between 90-130 miles a week and only takes a couple of days off a year—because she couldn’t run a certain time. 

In contrast, the next article in that issue of Running Times had exactly the opposite message.  David Alm writes about what he learned from training for a week before a half-marathon (13.1 miles) with some of the fastest runners in the world, mostly from Kenya and Ethiopia.  David knew he couldn’t keep up with them, but these runners didn’t treat him any differently.  The race was hot, hilly, and grueling, and everybody ran slower times than they were used to.  You’d expect elite athletes to be very disappointed—after all, these times are of public record and can have an impact on sponsorships. Instead, David writes, “But to them, none of that mattered.  Our times were numbers, nothing more.  And no one seemed disappointed—with themselves or with me.”  In contrast, when Piers had a bad race, she said, “I was so sad, and so mad.  I just felt like it was my last chance to do it.  Being in the shape of your life doesn’t happen all the time.” 

I wonder if Sheri’s all-or-nothing attitude, reflective of American ideals, is one reason why many students don’t feel valued in schools.  They know they are measured by their scores on tests.  As Ernest Morrell told 200+ English teachers today at Rhode Island College, kids know that education is valuable.  What they don’t know is how valuable they are.  Morrell argues that we don’t have an ability crisis; instead we have an identity crisis.  Motivation is the result of value (kids valuing what they are learning) plus expectancy (they believe they can succeed). 

It seems that Sheri Piers, who is not just a runner, but a parent, partner, and nurse practitioner, connects a certain 5K time to her self-worth.  While I admire her work ethic, stamina, and commitment, I hope that she won’t give up running just because she might lose a race to the likes of me. 

Unfortunately, this same kind of narrow measuring stick is at work in our schools.  I hope that students are given the message that standardized tests, and even course grades, unfold within a larger context; some of which they have control over, and some of which they do not.  Performance on those arbiters is not just about effort and ability—there is always a complexity of factors at work. 

And I hope teachers understand these same complexities.  Of course, we must always do our best to ensure our kids’ learning through motivation, engagement, and the teaching of necessary skills.  But we can’t lose sight of how, as the African runners suggest, we must value every runner’s [student’s] efforts, success, and potential.