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. 

"Not a Fair Test": RI Teachers Perspectives on PARCC

Teacher voices have been notably absent in the recent controversy over the PARCC test in Rhode Island.  Articles in the Providence Journal have focused on the perspectives of RIDE officials and superintendents, many of whom insist the test is fair, valid, and has few problems (“Few hitches in first week of PARCC testing in RI” 3/22/15).   Despite this, parents in a variety of districts chose to have their children opt-out.

As educators prepare for the EOY (End of Year) PARCC, it is important to understand what happened with the recent PBA (Performance Based Assessment) PARCC. 298 teachers responded to an online survey asking about their experiences preparing for and administering the test.  

Larry Filipelli, assistant superintendent in Scituate, acknowledged that the PARCC caused a “massive loss of instructional time.”  Teachers agreed.  One teacher described how the average middle school student will spend 22 out of 180 days of school taking standardized tests.  69% of teachers altered the curriculum to prepare students for the test.   One English teacher wrote, “I teach less literature and writing every year because of time lost to testing.  How is that conducive to student learning?”

Mary Ann Snider of RIDE stated, “Superintendents said the test questions were of a really high quality.”  Teachers disagreed, citing three problems.  First, the tests were developmentally inappropriate.  Third grade students lacked the stamina to sit at the computer for long periods.  Teachers of English Language Learners (ELLs) said the test measured proficiency in English rather than content.  One teacher wrote, “If students have an IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) for reading, it doesn’t matter how much I prepare them, they still cannot read the test.”  A math teacher noted that the math content was “unrealistic” for her ninth grade students.   An English teacher said the readings by James Joyce and Charles Dickens were inappropriate for her middle school students.

Second, teachers objected to how questions were phrased.  One wrote, “The questions could be interpreted in different ways.”  Another teacher wrote, "This is not an authentic measure of knowledge.  It’s a measure of ability to play the game.”  Others noted that the questions were poorly constructed.

Third, survey data show students had difficulty with the computer interface.  One teacher wrote, “If [students] don’t understand the tools, can’t type quickly enough, or find the layout confusing,” then the results do not reflect the students’ knowledge.  As these teachers point out, developmentally inappropriate material, poorly worded questions, and computer navigation problems suggest the test results will lack validity.

Testing also took an emotional toll on students.  78% of teachers reported that students exhibited stress, sadness, and anger.  According to research, one key component of student aspirations is belief in their academic efficacy.  Many teachers wrote that ELLs and students with learning disabilities lost confidence in the progress they had made over the year.  

Unsurprisingly, 90% of teachers felt that time spent on the PARCC was pointless.  They will not see the results until fall, when they no longer teach the same students.  Furthermore, they argued they do not need standardized tests to show student progress because they use various assessments throughout the year. One wrote, “Any teacher can tell you what the student could or could not do without PARCC.”  

In addition to critique, teachers offered suggestions for improvement.  One teacher wrote, “Let’s be creative and work harder to create assessments that are fair and valid for students of all economic backgrounds.”  Another said, “It is time to focus on what we know improves learning:  smaller class sizes, interesting curriculum, inspiring teachers, and support staff to assist students at risk.”  These teachers echo what educational research has demonstrated for decades, and what current national policies have ignored.

As a small state with a new Board of Education and searching for a Commissioner of Education, Rhode Island should place teacher voices and findings from educational research at the center as we move forward in supporting students as learners and citizens.  We could be leaders in national public education by developing policies that include the input of the many dedicated and knowledgeable professionals in K-16 education throughout the state.   

Janet Johnson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Secondary Education and Co-Director of the URI/RIC Ph.D. Program in Education at Rhode Island College.