A Cautionary Tale

This story landed in my inbox shortly after it broke last week, and I've been sitting on it since then.  I suppose it's time to end my silence.

In a way, there's not much to say about it.  A teacher starts a personal blog, in which she lambasts her students in vindictive and vulgar terms.  A student discovers it.  Word spreads.  She is suspended for her actions, which she defends.  Public outcry is divided between supporters who believe kids really are as awful as she says, and a seething mob of parents demanding her head on a platter.  Much like any other celebrity scandal, minus the celebrity.

In another way, there's a lot to say -- perhaps more than can ever be said.  From the beginning, I've felt nothing but sadness about the whole situation, starting with the fact that, as a teacher, she is probably preaching the digital responsibility she's failed to model by including her name and location on the vitriolic posts that will most likely get her fired.  This is ironic, yes, but also (more so) sad.  Sad for her, and for her students.

It's sad that, although she obviously enjoys some aspects of her job (in one post, she congratulates herself for "kicking ass" by successfully instructing both gifted and remedial students in the same day) she has failed in many ways: to motivate them, to inspire them, to take charge of them.  Doing so is, undoubtedly, extraordinarily difficult.  Many days I fail at all three, myself.  It's sad that this failure made her angry at their indifference instead of determined to break through it.

Most sad of all were the comments left on her blog in the few hours between the students' discovery of it and her removal of the posts from the Web.  They displayed even more anger and vulgarity, denouncing her in crude terms, saying all kinds of nasty things about her and generally behaving like children. Which they are, still. Their words are reminiscent of preschool huffiness: "That's not FAIR!" and "You're not my FRIEND anymore!" with slightly different words.  Yet she is an adult, and she started this battle -- not directly, but deliberately, and it's sad that she felt she had no other option than to shout her anger at the world.

One comment stuck out to me above all the others: a student who said he had not hated the teacher "like all the rest" until he read what she had written.  His tone was so obviously injured that it struck a nerve.  Just like the first time we see a teacher outside of school and realize with shock that she is an actual person with a life and a family and feelings, he realized that teachers could be cruel, and that they didn't always act in the student's best interest.  They are, at the core, embarrassingly human.  And while I know it's best that he learn this now, the loss of innocence is still a loss, and it breaks my heart.

It may seem naive to hope for some good yet out of this awful situation, but that's where I am.  It doesn't look promising: probably a protracted legal battle will ensue, followed by an out-of-court settlement and / or a book deal.  The teacher has continued to post on a new website, saying things that are actually quite lucid and laudable (this post, demanding that teachers receive more public credibility, is a good example) but they still don't erase the insults she spewed at the world when she thought no one was listening.  Then again, I suppose it's possible that she hoped they were.

Now might be a good time to remind you of my privacy policy, and to share something I read on Dooce back when I first started blogging: when you write about someone on the Internet, you must be certain that your subject will one day read what you have written, and that that day will be sooner than you think.  It's true that I haven't directly told anyone at school about my blog, and for various reasons I'd be fine if it stayed that way (I'd hate to think that people would filter what they said to me for fear I might blog about it, for example.)  But if I were "outed" tomorrow, I'd be okay with that.  What I've said here is my own experience, for better or for worse; I've tried to be fair and positive about my thoughts and actions, and I think I've done that.  God forgive me if the truth is otherwise.

An Uncluttered Mind

In class last week, we discussed Howard Gardner and his theory of Multiple Intelligences.  (If you don't know anything about this, I encourage you to read up -- it's fascinating and relevant to just about everyone.)  Later, I watched this interview between him and the dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, in which this quote appears:

"We are all inundated by information. If you look up anything of any degree of currency on the Web, you could spend months going to the links and reading everything.  So, when I talk about the synthesizing mind, I'm pretty simplistic about it: I'm saying, what do you pay attention to you, and what do you ignore; what criteria are you using to decide what to pay attention to and what to ignore; and then, how do you put it together for yourself so it makes sense to you and so you can hold onto it; and then, how do you communicate it to other people?"

I have been accused of having a synthetic mind; people often ask for my notes after meetings or classes because they know I have a gift for articulation coupled with a respect for the kernels of the ideas.  Even if I'm just making a list on the board, I enjoy the look of relief on my students' faces after they've stammered around their thought, given up, and then seen it expressed in my words: "Yes!  That's exactly what I meant!"

Gardner then quotes John Gardner (no relation) with regard to the importance of an "uncluttered mind" -- one that can sift away the chaff and keep the wheat, so to speak.  It was this phrase that stuck out to me: though I do have a gift for synthesis, many days my mind is so cluttered I can hardly put a sentence together for myself, let alone for another.  I think this is the great danger of the modern age, both intellectually and spiritually.  With so much clutter, it's hard to think, let alone to pray.

I am thinking of the upcoming fast, and how I can use it to gain spiritual strength and insight, and it occurs to me that the best way might just be to accept a simple challenge: mental tidiness. One thing at a time.  A phone call OR grading papers OR a blog post OR a ride in the car.  We save time multitasking, sort of, but we waste so much more.

You Heard it Here First!

No sooner did I call Michelle Rhee an anomaly amid an archaic, ailing school system, than she resigned her position as chancellor of DC schools.  (Mayor Adrian Fenty, who hired her, was voted out of office several weeks ago after aggressive campaigning by aggreived teachers' union, so it hadn't looked good for her even then.) 

I wish I were less cynical, but when I read about her racial "divisiveness" amid a city that is mostly black, I can only hope that this is a step forward and not what it looks like: a petty foray into the murky, racially-troubled past.  People, why can't we move past this?!

The Times staff, nevertheless, appears upbeat:

A Colorado state senator, Mike Johnston, who like Ms. Rhee is also a Teach for America alumnus, said her work had inspired hundreds of young people to work for education change.

“Maybe Michelle’s greatest contribution is that she is no longer an anomaly,” Mr. Johnston said.

Here's one instance in which I'd love to be wrong.

Waiting For Superman: Part II

Well, I didn't make it to see the movie last Thursday.  The rain that shut down school early also flooded enough of downtown Baltimore that I worried about getting stuck there, and starting the next day I had another nonstop week full of students and classes and one glorious but exhausting field trip.

And all of a sudden, yesterday morning, I realized I had nothing to do!  Rob was at an all-day bikeathon, so I called my friend Laura to see if she'd come with me.  It was a perfect day to walk around by the harbor and pretend we actually lived in a high-rise condos and ate at Oceanaire and Charleston every night.  As much as I love my little patch of earth in the suburbs, there's something very attractive about the city lifestyle.  Everything feels more exciting there, more immediate, more colorful and accessible and real.

Does it seem like I'm putting off talking about the movie?  Maybe I am.  It was very difficult to watch.  There were only a handful of people in the theater with us, and each of us, more than once, gasped or groaned or sniffled audibly.  It's not a good date movie, and it's not a good movie for a teacher to watch on a Sunday night. Or, maybe, ever.  I had trouble even telling friends about it without getting choked up.

The sad truth is that America's schools are in trouble, and no one wants to talk about it.  We know this.  We've seen the statistics that place us near the bottom of the literacy pool in developed nations.  The goals we set for No Child Left Behind are far out of reach; around 30% proficiency in math and reading for most states, and the goal is 100% in the next two years.  Despite the fact that we continue to pour money, time and resources into the system, we consistently fail to educate our children even passably.

The film makes it clear that there are two obstacles standing in the way of better education: first, teachers' unions, which refuse to make any distinction between effective and ineffective members, which insist on tenure for all after an average of two years in the classroom, and which will not agree to merit-based pay or removal from the system if the teacher is spectacularly good or awful; second, the bureaucracy that runs the school system, which consists of federal funding, state funding, local funding and independent school boards, each with its own agenda and set of rules.  Between these two behemoths, it's a miracle if any improvement is allowed to occur anywhere; someone like Michelle Rhee is an anomaly, the result of a loophole that can't last long (and, in fact, despite the extent of the positive change she has wrought, her job is now very much in jeopardy.)  Here's Rhee's sound logic:

For too long, we have let teacher hiring and retention be determined by archaic rules involving seniority and academic credentials. The widespread policy of "last in, first out" (the teacher with the least seniority is the first to go when cuts have to be made) makes it harder to hold on to new, enthusiastic educators and ignores the one thing that should matter most: performance.

A 7-year-old girl won't make it to college someday because her teacher has two decades of experience or a master's degree -- she will make it to college if her teacher is effective and engaging and compels her to reach for success. By contrast, a poorly performing teacher can hold back hundreds, maybe thousands, of students over the course of a career. Each day that we ignore this reality is precious time lost for children preparing for the challenges of adulthood.

The glacial process for removing an incompetent teacher -- and our discomfort as a society with criticizing anyone who chooses this noble and difficult profession -- has left our school districts impotent and, worse, has robbed millions of children of a real future.

There isn't a business in America that would survive if it couldn't make personnel decisions based on performance. That is why everything we use in assessing teachers must be linked to their effectiveness in the classroom and focused on increasing student achievement.

The whole article isn't long and is worth reading.  And after a day of being stuck in a major funk, it started to make me feel less depressed and more optimistic.  If people are making movies like this, creating websites like this, and losing their jobs over this, maybe we're on the way to a better system.  For now, I'm going the way of Harriet Ball, who is profiled in the film and on its website as a super-teacher, one of the heroes of the education world:

Q: What can teachers do, right now, to help improve the system?

A: Watch other teachers who are doing well. Give up your planning time and lunchtime and meet up with somebody who's willing to let you observe them. Keep asking until you find answers. Don't give up if that's your dream. If you want to be a teacher -- baby, teaching is a job. Close your door and teach those kids.

Axios!  Amen!

Waiting for Superman

The reason I will dash downtown today to see this movie, wedging it between my morning classes and my afternoon tutoring sessions with very little breathing room on either side, may not be immediately apparent.  But you should know that this is not just any movie.  I've been hearing about it for weeks from friends who have attended, declined to attend or been spurned by charter schools.  I've been reading about it all over the place, including in this NYT article, which makes the point that huge public schools can also help students transcend their difficult lives and reach academic success:

What makes Brockton High’s story surprising is that, with 4,100 students, it is an exception to what has become received wisdom in many educational circles — that small is almost always better. ( . . . )

The small-is-better orthodoxy remains powerful. A new movie, “Waiting for Superman,” for example, portrays five charter schools in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere — most with only a few hundred students — as the way forward for American schooling.Brockton, by contrast, is the largest public school in Massachusetts, and one of the largest in the nation.

At education conferences, Dr. Szachowicz — who became Brockton’s principal in 2004 — still gets approached by small-school advocates who tell her they are skeptical that a 4,100-student school could offer a decent education.

“I tell them we’re a big school that works,“ said Dr. Szachowicz, whose booming voice makes her seem taller than 5-foot-6 as she walks the hallways, greeting students, walkie-talkie in hand.

I'm on the fence about charter schools, myself.  From what I've read, it seems like they might be a placebo: parents and teachers want them to work so badly that they do have a positive effect on students' ambition and self-image, though their test scores remain stubbornly average.  On the other hand, it's a good sign that people are willing to experiment with education in order to find the best possible methods and systems, so I support their efforts as long as it doesn't increase my tax  burden to a stifling degree.

Also, this is the same director who transformed Al Gore from a wooden politician into a compelling character with "An Inconvenient Truth" several years ago.  So I'm excited to see what he'll do here.  Stick around for an update -- or if you've seen it, let me know what you think!

Older, Wiser

Off the grid yesterday and today, but I couldn't a bit more reflection around this milestone.  Having spent most of my first thirty years trying to prove my glorious autonomy to the world, it's awfully refreshing to read Sharon's insight about the false promises that kind of an ideal makes, and the comfort that comes from asserting your dependence on, and vulnerability to, those you love:

I hear all the time the idea that one doesn’t want to be dependent on other people – the idea is expressed in our society by the idea that we should all save a lot of money, invested in the stock market, to make us “independent” if we get old, or less than perfectly able bodied.  But of course, the stock market makes us dependent too – dependent on markets and governments and other people to invest where we have.  People talk about independence as emerging from their ability to pay people to help meet physical needs if they become old or disabled – imagining that an employer-employee/resident-caregiver relationship is inherently more equitable than a family dependency.

But there is no escaping dependency in the greater scheme of things – we depend on systems that break down sometimes whether in our bodies or out in the world.  At times in every person’s life, unless you are one of those rare folks who drops dead in full health (but that has its downside too) we will depend on another – sometimes for short periods when we are temporarily ill or disabled, sometimes for whole lives or for long parts of one.  Coming to terms with the idea of mutual dependency may be as essential as learning to be independent of institutions we deplore.

I say this often.  Every one of us will be dependent at one or more times in our lives.  Every one of us will probably need to give and offer care, and also to learn to accept it.  Learning to come to terms with this is simply a part of our lives, a part of our human condition.  Embedding ourselves in systems of reciprocity, kindness and respect is the only possible answer – there is no escaping the reality of needing others.

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1.03.01

Bromance is in, Officially

So are staycation, chillax and about 2,000 others, according to NPR.  What a good day for the English language!

I would be a lot more distressed by this news if I had not just read this wonderfully satirical piece, complete with rudimentary illustrations, which constitutes a brilliant and positively-charged smack in the face to people who can't be bothered to spell and punctuate correctly.  I am tempted to reproduce one of the hysterical drawings here (I'm a teacher, so I'm allowed) but it's really much funnier if you read the whole series.

Could I get away with using this in the classroom?  Probably not -- besides the alcohol references and insensitivity to the disabled, I don't think the kids would get the subtle mix of highbrow and lowbrow humor.  But it did make my week, and for the first week of school, that's no small feat.

An Inside Look

When my cousin Katie got married a couple of weeks ago, I brought my camera.  This is unusual for me; with the number of expensive, semi-professional devices floating around these days, I'm generally too intimidated to try to capture a few humble photos on my point-and-shoot.  But I enjoyed taking pictures, and I thought you might get a kick out of these mostly-zany ones, in case you had any delusions of sobriety and decorum about my family:



Elliot's all-time favorite trick, and Abby's all-time favorite Pointy Face.



Blue Steel vs. Head-Squisher.



I asked Billy to define "corkscrew curls."



Elliot wanted me to get ALL angles of his face.



"Now, take Mary and Colleen.  THEY have lots of flare . . . don't you want to express yourself?"



She's doing this.  You probably won't find it funny unless you've seen the episode multiple times.  Maybe not even then.



One normal one.  Look, we got some sun at the hotel pool yesterday!



Back to weirdness . . . here is Tristan singing along to a Motown favorite (anyone?  help!)



Relax, they're not fighting.  Just singing, um, passionately.  I think Journey was the instigator.



Yes, there was actually a wedding amid all this craziness.  And here's the beautiful bride, groovin' to some sweet tunes on the dance floor.



Grandma's making trouble again.  I don't know how many times we must have told her to stop lighting things on fire.  Sigh . . .

Obviously, we had a wonderful trip, especially since Katie and Matt were gracious enough to spend lots of time with us, breaking the time-honored tradition in which the bridal party barely gets to see their guests.  We're blessed with such a great extended family.  I wish we could get married again just to get them all to come back in Baltimore!

The Best of the Times, the Worst of the Times

You have NO idea how long I've been wanting to use that post title!

Two recent Times articles that have to do with parenting, education and food, but come from vastly different worldviews:

On the Best side is this excellent treatise involving a restauranteur who believes that "Children's menus are the death of civilization."  Hear, hear!   Based on my experience and observation, kids will eat what they're expected to eat.  When there are no expectations, you can hardly blame them for eating only macaroni and cheese.  It's somewhat endearing at four, but downright embarrassing at fourteen; I've heard more than one high school girl unabashedly admit that she doesn't eat vegetables.  At all.  I'm so grateful to my parents for forcing, bribing and tricking me into eating all sorts of weird things -- from pork rinds to artichokes and snails and tandoori -- those experiences gave me the courage to discover new passions on my own.

In the Worst corner is this article that appears to be making a serious case for labeling foods as choking hazards.  They're actually printing quotes like this:

"You have a SuperBall that by government regulation has to carry warnings telling people it’s a risk to young children and you can’t market it to them, yet you can have the same identical shape and size gumball and there are no restrictions or requirements."

Well, maybe that's because gumballs were INTENDED to be put in your mouth.  And because it's generally expected that parents will use common sense in feeding and supervising their children.  Truly, can we say that it's necessary to affix a warning label to a carrot?  People, it's called common sense and supervision.  And while I can't imagine the horror that parents who have lost a child to choking have experienced, the reality is that accidents happen, even shocking and fatal ones.  Heaping up onerous legislation can't stop them from occurring.  We need to make peace with the unpredictability and fragility of life.

Pink Girls and Beyond

One of the most frustrating things about being a writer is the lack of honest, blunt opinions.  People who love you tell you it's wonderful.  People who don't love you sometimes give you a limited compliment; sometimes they invent a platitude (I've actually heard that line at the end of Sideways, the one about "a great book" with "no place for it right now.")  But mostly, they just ignore you.  This is the worst thing they could possibly do, but I've come to expect and even accept it.  So when you get a real compliment, you hang onto it.

After my first year of classroom teaching, I wrote a piece for my school's alumni magazine.  It was a half-rant, half-rhapsody about teenage girls and how wonderful and frustrating they were to teach.  At the time, I wasn't at all sure I would ever teach again, so it was a sort of swan song, just in case.  A little like my friend Chris' (sadly, his piece has now been archived and costs money to view, but you can take my word for it that it was compelling and true-to-life.)

That summer, I asked my dear friend Terry for some advice.  I wanted to write more, but I was lost about how to do it.  Getting into the business is a lot like getting into acting or fine art: you have to know someone, or preferably, know a lot of people.  What should I do?  I wondered.

Terry is nothing if not direct.  "I think you should write more about the Pink Girls."

At first I didn't know what he meant.  Then he started suggesting reading material: Reviving Ophelia, A Return to Modesty, I am Charlotte Simmons, unhooked.  I read them all, but I had more questions than answers.  Mainly: What on earth was going on in the minds and hearts of these women, who were barely younger than me but appeared unable to take part in a healthy, normal relationship of any sort?

Of the four, I think unhooked resonated most clearly with me.  I could sense the author's concern, shock and bewilderment in every page, all emotions with which I could sympathize.  I wrote the author, Laura Sessions Stepp, and wound up in an extended e-mail and phone conversation that continued sporadically over a few years' time.

It's been simmering for several years now, boiling over every now and again when I hear another story of serial hookup followed by serious heartbreak.  So when I had the opportunity to write about an issue of social justice for my current class, Child & Adolescent Development, I jumped.  The paper is much too long to post here, but I'll give you a teaser in preparation for the next few posts, which will contain controversy-laden excerpts (having done my research, I'm prepared to be attacked, as has everyone who's written about this from a point of view I admire:)

It’s no secret that teenagers tend to be emotional, volatile and insecure, or that they take evident pleasure in flouting the rules set for them by parents, teachers and other authority figures.  The last decade, however, has revealed a disturbing trend among adolescents that persists well into young adulthood: the replacement of healthy short- and long-term relationships with episodes of unplanned, emotionally-detached physical contact called “hookups.”

Sex is easier than ever for teenagers; we live in one of the most permissive societies in history, in which sexual innuendo permeates even the children’s entertainment market.  As a result, teenage pregnancies are on the rise for the first time in over a decade. I believe this is because our sex-education programs (some of which begin in elementary school) are falling short in a crucial area: emotions and relationships.  We are failing our young women by denying them models of healthy relationships, experiences they can learn from and build on, and forums where they can define for themselves what they want out of a partnership.  In denying them the tools they need to negotiate in relationships, we as a society have essentially set them up for continual failure, and only through a focused effort to reverse these conditions can we hope to change the pattern for future generations.

How bad is it, really?  You have no idea.  Stay tuned.