The Encounter

Beneath the surface lies a past I recognize. It is a pulsating beat, the rhythm of a force field, the web of a thousand spiders glimmering under moonlight. It is more familiar than my husband. Where did it begin and how will it end? Stemming from the cavity I call subconscious wisdom, I am fully aware that I am in The Struggle.

The presence haunts me because it is a call to action. One moment I think its humility and the next I think humiliation. Is it the same thing?

I’m riding a roller coaster. Below my feet, the rumble is the steady. I belong to one destiny. It’s as if hands have already molded me and I’ve awakened to discover I am a sculpture being chiseled out from the mountain that is my surrender. Surrender to who or to what exactly?

I confuse God with the Devil these days. I thought they were two separate entities but now I know that each is the side of the other, both intertwined and engaged in the primordial struggle that is both inside and outside me. Either way, I am thirsty for it now that I know I don’t have to push passion aside to be good.

I recall the moment I realized I was no longer in possession of my soul. I could see the shadow behind him in my dream. He had many arms writhing this way and that, like the Indian Goddess Kali. They say Kali is the Goddess of Destruction, but the Destruction of the Ego is what she means. His legs were crossed at the ankles, which made him innocent and vulnerable but not in a child-like way, but rather the kind of softness a man develops after being devoured by demons but lives to survive.  Like Kali, he is soft, but in an instant can be taut like a black whip.

There was nothing transparent about that first moment, and yet—I was being exposed to more truth than I had in a decade.

Shortly after that moment, my life became more fiction than fact. I know now this is a stage of the soul.

 

 

Still Thinking About Running Away

There’s a plant in my upstairs hallway dying. The plant’s been with my family for almost fourteen years. Almost as old as my eldest child. Older than some marriages. My plant’s dying and I wonder if I’ve done everything in my power to save it. Save her. My husband says there’s a life span for everything. I bought her a bigger pot and watered her a little less, then a little more.  I whispered to her as I passed, caressed her long green fan-like leaves— I did all I could do and she’s dying anyway because there’s a life span for everything.

Some things are beyond me. There is, after all, some great decision maker. Don’t mock this talk of fate, just accept it as part of life. I mourn her and watch her wither away, curious how she's reduced me to a child again. My tears well up and my lip curls into that tiny pout of a mouth that should only be seen on little girls of two and three-- not forty something, not me.  I don’t want to let her go because now she’s part of my home.

Funny, I think my sadness must come from the world. This monster like grip, scrape in my throat.  We are not under a spell, oh no, we see it and wave it away with disregard, smug-like and disrespectful like, yes. Or we sit in it and wallow with shame.

Me? I’m learning to flow with this melancholy. I blow like a reed or fall into the rhythm of dance. It's a ballet. On and off the stage, I float, from tragedy to joy. I am alone in effortless beauty gliding, then struggling to break free, a villain's grasp. This dance keeps me in. It allows me to weep, off stage. It reveals beauty in life and a sardonic justice because at least it’s not static. It’s like watching the air ruffle under fabric— gentle and subtle but captures your attention.This air is the only thing that matters. It's change.

I’m getting old, perhaps, when I see things this way.

What do I have to hope for? My children? Who will they become in this world so slight, too slight for their beauty? Will they get swallowed up or will they dance?

Yes, it is true. I’m getting old when I see my plant dying and I compare her death to my life and a ballet and in the end I fear for my children and simultaneously glow in the thought of their beauty ever on my mind.

Then, I wonder when I walk down the halls of my school— do the people there see the energy of my soul leap outside me? Do they feel my electricity? Or do they see a woman, emptied and cold like the numbers on the computer, data lines? 

A Fly On the Wall

If I were a fly on the wall, I’d see you sitting there straining to see why his neck tie is tightened too tight or why his knuckles are fist white wrapped like five bullies around a sharp number two pencil.

If I were a fly on the wall, I’d see rows of books lined up in a dark wood book case; books that tell the story of how we do teaching and leadership and all those things that schools say they do but sometimes, you know, those things just remain bound up between a hard cover and a bibliography.

If I were a fly on the wall, I’d see five side glances that speak one unspoken truth. It is the riddle of one relationship multiplied by every school identified and categorized for transformation.

Who can blame you?

If I were a fly on the wall, I’d see the empty box of tissues propped up against a brand new binder that’s half full and half empty with promises and hope and distrust and simply, a binder is just that. Black and white words and numbers on a page that tell half lies and some truth too.

If I were a fly on the wall, I’d see compassion waft over us like the sweet aroma of roast pork on a Sunday and then in a quick second a foreboding sense of despair.

If I were a fly on the wall, I’d see you and me and him and them and all of us, caught up in one critical moment of suggestion. The art of deep listening and trying to make sense out of  non-sense and the perennial battle of freedom vs control.

Things stay the same when they should fall apart.

The endless shuffling of roles.

But I’m not a fly on the wall. Not this time. This time I’ve been chosen to sit beside you; to hold your hand and bear witness to your suffering. Perhaps it was my higher-self that chose for me but all the same it’s me. I’m close enough to breath in the same air you breathe, to share your human-ness-- as if-- in fact, I am just a reflection of you in the mirror…or so it seems.

Have I gained perspective or is it loss?

Madiba & the Bonus from God

Listening to BBC this morning, a gentlemen from Soweto was asked why the African people weren’t crying. He replied that they understood Mandela’s death as being a celebration or a “bonus” from God for a life well spent. Those words had a profound impact on me. I remembered the conversation I had with my husband earlier. We spoke about Nelson Mandela’s 27 year life imprisonment and the suffering that goes with such a brutal sentence. We discussed whether such suffering is needed in order to change the world and we explored the significance of sacrifice.  At the end, I told him that Mandela had little choice in the matter, that his life evolved that way—it was his destiny, I said. I reiterated that regardless of his imprisonment, in the end he freed a country. My husband nodded but then added a harsh reality. Close to 50% of black African youth are unemployed and hungry in South Africa. Are his people really free?

Mandela will be remembered for many things but mostly for emerging from a life of struggle and suffering with no bitterness or hatred. This transcendence of his own experience, people think, was critical in the healing of his country, both black and white. Starting out as a “militant” freedom fighter and caged for a great portion of his adult life, Nelson Mandela died a beloved leader who is credited for leading South Africa out of apartheid into democracy.

There is much to think about here, on the first day of our mourning. What does his life teach us about the nature of freedom and the fight for justice?

I’ve been grappling with this question for years and very recently with great intensity. It goes hand in hand with my ever evolving interpretation of my role as an educator and a change agent. In response to an enticing job offer, I’ve been asking myself what I’m willing to do (or not do), what I’m willing to give up to be an educator, and not only that— to be an educator with a seat at the decision making table. It has become clear to me throughout this process that there are always two conflicting forces at work—one living in accordance with one’s principals and modeling freedom tirelessly and the other agreeing to sacrifice freedoms in the short term in order to gain access & advantage in the long run. The latter, it seems to me, is what happened to Mandela and I want to know if he would have had it any other way.

Following the gentleman from Soweto, another man spoke about Mandela’s infinite emotional intelligence and strategic thinking in the years following his imprisonment. I can’t imagine what 27 years behind bars might do to a person’s mind, body and spirit and even the site of President Obama visiting his cell and looking out through the small window onto a dry landscape is as powerful & deafening as a holocaust survivor standing in the center of a concentration camp three decades later.  How can we integrate the feeling of overwhelming shame and suffering that human beings inflict on one another? It’s like trying to explain how we allow a child to die of hunger in one country while in another, we throw half eaten steaks out after a dinner meeting.  How can we make sense of a human spirit that survives torture? I think what I’m curious about is do we really believe Mandela gained the gift of emotional intelligence from the suffering his oppressors imposed upon him or do we tell ourselves this to appease our conscience?  Do we say Mandela is like Jesus Christ who suffered and died to free us all from our sins? 

Perhaps I’m in denial about the purpose of life or the road to freedom, but I’m beginning to question how we understand freedom.  Must we sacrifice ourselves, someone else or a group of people in order to heal, experience justice or have goodness in our lives?  Is this notion of sacrifice just as archaic as slaughtering a lamb or throwing a child into a volcano, an offering to the Gods?

If each of us stopped for a moment in full and complete presence and said, it is not required that we sacrifice anything or anybody in exchange for love & belonging, safety & shelter, health & well-being, fulfillment & self-realization—then what would change about our behavior and the choices we’d make?

I’m in mourning today for the life of Nelson Mandela, our Madiba. But I agree that his death is a celebration and a liberation from a life of profound suffering, sadness and sacrifice.  I want each of you who are talking about Nelson Mandela in schools to discuss what his life means and what we can  learn from it as we grapple with freedom, justice and our fight for an egalitarian society.  Furthermore, I want you to think about what you think you have to sacrifice in order to gain what you have told yourself is for some “greater good.”  Ask yourself who and what you are sacrificing and what damage that might do at the present moment. Imagine that it might not be necessary that you suffer, that you can live freely and offer freedom to others at this very moment. How would that belief change your life? How would that change how you teach?

For Gandhi, Anais Nin and Maria Montessori

Key Terms: Catharsis & Shamanism

You know you are at a special place when life feels like a precipice and you cry at the drop of a dime. Everything is real and sensitive to the touch, memories of those who have crossed my path are inside my skin as if they live there, both in good and bad, but mostly goodness in their spirits, each one is filling me, hugging me, holding me and rocking me a lullaby to safety.

I am not alone and I know who I am! 

In celebration, I offer my readers a public prayer.

 “I am a Shaman and I am not.

Just human.

I need you to stand with me as I face the decisions that will no doubt impact my life

I call to you, my Spirit Guides to console me while I let go of pain and disappointment

My house, that is no longer, I’ve wept you too long.

I’m letting go of loss and the fight.

I stand before you, but my knees are still healing—

I’ve recognized and accept my shadow side and have interrogated my refusal to believe

My imperfection is perfect.

Thank you for giving me the greatest gift of my children.

Thank you for forgiveness and compassion.

Thank you for protecting me.

My prayer to you this morning is filled with gratitude and dare I say hope?

I am filling with the nectar of resilience!

I know now that I am Shaman.

           

So guide me and trust me, for it is time.

Teach me but let me lead.”

The Spirit of Agency Part 2

At the molecular level...

Unpacking a lot of negative energy, opening doors and discovering the power of channeling energy in and out of my life. I watch to see if my moves impact others and I’m amazed that it is truth. The more we liberate energy within ourselves, people around respond to this energy. It’s like making holes in the wall of your being. Imagine taking a hole puncher and poking holes all around your energy field so that light goes in and out like tiny sun rays.  Yes, it’s a bit sci-fi but do it with me in your mind and see what happens. You will want more of it, watch. I want more of it so I’m poking away and on the outside, I get rid of all the clutter around me, purging, boxing, letting go. I think if I keep poking holes in me, I will eventually have nothing separating me from the air and the light and everything else around me. I would just disappear wouldn’t I?

I have a confession to make. My whole life I’ve said, I love school. I love the smell of pencils and books and learning something new makes me very happy, excited even. I made my life school. After I graduated, I became a teacher and went back to school and kept going back and ever since in one form or another, my entire life has been about this thing, this framework we call school. I go to it, I work in it, I talk about it, I want to change it, mold it, I read about it, I dream about it.  School is has always been an essential part of my identity. That makes me a lifer, like being a teacher and school are the archetypes for my life. 

That said, I have a confession to make.

I’m so tired of the oldness of it.

I want us to fly away and out and over --instead.

I want to act up and be silly, and so…

I want to throw text books in the garbage.

I want to talk to my partner and talk back at you for telling me the ‘rules.’

I want to roam the halls--instead 

     eavesdrop on conversations that seem more real to me than anything.  

I want to peer in between the cracks.

I want to be F  R  E  E  E EEEEEEEEE!

Do you want to be free with me?

Is it possible for me to be FREE and be a teacher at the same time?  I mean, can I really do it?

Here’s a story.

Me and a collegue gather information about a teacher, huddled together in the back of a room, him in a suit and me, well likewise but for a woman. (you know what I mean). His papers are so neat and tidy and there are check marks going up and down the column as he reviews the protocol and the rubric and all I want to do is giggle and laugh and grab his lapel and ask him where he lives and if he’s making enough money and if he has kids and how did he get into the business of schools? Instead I compliment his professionalism and admire how well he keeps every conversation perfectly in order and he smiles at me and says, if I don’t structure myself, I become way too weird…no one would understand me.  I throw my head back and laugh because I know exactly what he means. Me too, I tell him and all I could think about was--who is this man really and why is there no place for his 'real' self in schools?

Does freedom imply that you don’t do rules, don’t believe in structure, don’t care about consequence?  

Does freedom mean you don’t want to keep your bottom stuck to a seat? Does freedom mean movement, creativity, out of the box thinking?

Is it possible for teachers to teach freedom in school or is school by nature the very opposite of everything it means to be free?

Can we expect, demand our students to stay, to sit, to listen, to do this or that-- when deep down inside we’re suffering, hating every minute of it, or hating them, ‘those’ kids who make our life difficult, make our jobs feel more like a prison rather than a school?

Then, I think this. Shhhh. Don’t tell anybody. 

What would that classroom of recalcitrant boys and girls look like without order, control, rules?  My rules.  Why, they’d probably

Kill themselves to death (those savages)

Or break something

Talk shit

They might hurt somebody

Or plan to hurt somebody after school

Join a gang or start a new one

Sell drugs or take some

Sleep

What else?

They definitely would not CHOOSE to learn something.

Wait, maybe if one or two or a handful of them did, what would they choose to learn? Not the curriculum of course, that would be boring

And if they did, choose that, then, wait—

What would that mean?

Most, might vegetate on the computers in the back of the room.

Others on cell phones, iPads and the like, if they have it.

Headphones would be on, you think?  They’d choose to listen to music.

Some might put their head down.

Do you think they’d get tired of sleeping?  I’m asking you, really.  Do you think the kids in your class would choose to sleep all day?

Here’s a quote:

"Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of genius of each." Plato

Who does this quote refer to?  All kids, or just some kids?  Your kids? Poor kids? Smart kids, stupid kids?

The Spirit of Agency is believing at the molecular, spiritual level that you can make a difference in the world not by changing others, people and things—but by opening your spirit enough so that the light of others can shine through you.

It is not about them.

It is about you.

If you are not free to be you, to live in your truth—then you cannot teach someone else to be free.

I cannot teach anybody to be free because I’m scared of what absolute freedom means. That is why I’m engaged in the process of poking holes.  My goal is to engage in the process of freedom, one step at a time, one hole at a time, one day at a time.

I'm asking you to consider the same.   What are you an agent of in your classroom and is your spirit aligned with this mission at the molecular level or do you need to poke a few holes in your armor?

Spirit of Agency: Part I

Maslow, Partido X and Us

I’ve been thinking a lot about Maslow’s needs pyramid. I want to know if we’re missing something, like maybe our common beliefs around human needs & development and the path to self-actualization are limiting us. With all the advancements in technology and the wealth of knowledge and intellectual material at our disposal, I wonder how we keep repeating the same dynamic in education? There must be a ‘disconnect’ between how we teach, how we design schools with what children & society actually need to evolve. Otherwise, we have to consider the alternative—that we do the opposite on purpose and mainly for some.

Let us say there is a direct correlation between belief and reality, like the great books say. Then it’s important to take the time now to re-examine some of our fundamental beliefs.  Think about human development, specifically, since this is the critical component of agency which I argue is regulated by our perceptions of access. 

Presume we are missing a vital truth about the nature of human experience and the road to transcendence (self-actualization). Consider, also, that we might be suppressing the teachings of truth in public schools. I would like to suggest here that human beings have evolved at the energetic spiritual level. Self-actualization and/or transcendence can no longer be perceived to be at the top of a hierarchical pyramid but rather at the base, from which all other needs are met and flow. 

It is this very error in positionality that we as a global society experience widespread crisis and conflict.

I’d like us to consider the possibility that the masses (yes, that’s the majority) aided in great part by the influx of energy coming from Generation X—are already residing within the field of self-actualization & transcendence, that this is the natural beginning of all things following.   

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs teaches the perception of two things. One: human beings can’t access self-actualization without having the preceding needs met, those being physical needs (food, water, shelter, etc.), safety (freedom from fear), social needs (love & belonging) and self-esteem (achievement & respect). The second is that the higher you go on the pyramid, the smaller the space is— that is fewer people attain it. Whether or not the use of a pyramid to explain Maslow’s theory was intended, it cannot be argued that it certainly teaches the illusion of hierarchy and quantity. The bottom of a pyramid indicates low level needs and a large number of people and the top of the pyramid indicates high level of needs and a small number of people.

Yet, with this perception, several questions come to mind:

·         Can poor people struggling for their basic needs achieve transcendence?

·         Can those individuals who are being bombed or live in perpetual states of war experience love & belonging?

·         Can a person who is struggling to pay rent be respected & recognized by society?

·         Is it possible for a person to be playful & experience joy if they have never experienced achievement in society?

·         Do we adjust our understanding of morality for those individuals who have never experienced security?

·         Can a person who is unemployed be self-sufficient?

In Spain, there is a great development being born out of the Indignados. Greater than Occupy Wall Street because it’s evolving into something we can hold on to, something we can develop. The principles of OWS were seeds but we realize that we must find a way to come out of the margins and merge with strategic elements of the system in order to produce voice, galvanize action and materialize the vision. In Spain, we can watch this happening. It is called Partido X. I am grateful for Richard Wolff, this weekend on WBAI for bringing my attention to it. He is, by the way, a straightforward, clear and precise speaker, slow and patient with his words and audience. I like him.  He points out that this new political party (Partido X) does not have a leader, even though many of the periodicals cite a spokesperson by the name of… well, let me stop here. I will support the idea that the name of one leader is unnecessary. Ahem, difficult to do-- which is the point. We must break out of the box. Alejandro Navas from the University of Navarra who has studied the Indignados says, "change will only come from the ground up, from small parties and organizations." I suppose he's referring to the wide base of Spanish population, the majority, many of whom are unemployed, fighting poverty or struggling for their basic needs to survive.  Can this group be self-sufficient? Can we do something like this here? My guess is that our climate is very different...

While I hammer nails into a hypothetical wooden frame I call my new practice for wellness, healing and authentic learning for educators in NYC, my mind is racing and searching for the elements that make sense of my life and save me from overall apathy and resignation. I am, for one, very interested in this notion of the spirit of agency. It has been my call for forty years and something tells me it's so I can use my own experience to bring light and respite to others. We are warriors and we deserve a rest.

More on the Spirit of Agency next week.

No One Puts Baby in the Corner

I miss the wander of my words, skipping about with no particular direction other than the flow of my curiosity. I miss forgetting you are there, that my blog is nothing more than secrets written down on the page and accidentally, the covers of my diary are fallen open, under my bed. I miss my innocence and now when I watch my children, lovely and delicious they, I wonder if it’s too late for me. Is it too late? Is it too late to go back to that carefree world when I didn’t know, when I wasn’t tired of looking, when life was still a romantic quest?

I’ve been spending a lot of time alone.  As a result, I’ve begun to re-evaluate my sense of purpose and well-being. What I want, don’t want— that sort of thing. I’ve always considered myself a self-directed person, engaged enough to keep my engine going, even while running on empty. My tendency is to read to fill up time. I research for pleasure, as you know, education is a never ending riddle. I look for opportunities and I exercise. Yet, these last few weeks have been different. I’ve taken pause. I’ve been sitting for longer periods of time doing nothing.  Instead of burying my head in a book, I look around.  I walk slower and drive slower.  I do a little small talk, but not much, but more than usual. With a parent in the school yard, a stranger on line, that sort of thing. I’m outside, again. Outside of normal life.  

As a result, I’ve begun to unravel.

And I’ve started dreaming more.

Things have begun moving around and so I’ve decided to take some stuff and put them in boxes.  I’ve got a lot of clutter but I’m lazy and don’t want to spend all of my time cleaning and organizing. I feel like there’s something greater I need to put my energy to, like— I don’t know. Something bigger, that’s all.

I’ve been feeling like I don’t want to be a rat in this city. If you pick your head up long enough, you’ll begin to see how much human beings are robotized in New York City. Of course, this could be what I observe in the subway and we all know that the subway is in itself a wayward soul, but the truth remains—you have to be thick to live here.  And a little crazy.  I just feel that it’s easy to get lost and lose a sense of purpose when you’re a rat in the city.

What is my purpose and why is it so important?  Are some people lucky enough to have a strong sense of purpose while others spend a lifetime looking for one?  Is it something to have and hold, static like a possession or is it changing and organic and open to a total remodeling?

I’ve always been curious about the nature of purpose because purpose is the drive behind agency and agency is what makes human beings do amazing things in a lifetime. I’ve been working on a book that has a lot to say about purpose and agency: having it, losing it, nurturing it, teaching it.  It is in actuality one of the most fundamental themes of our existence.

Purpose is what gives us the courage and the patience to go from day to day. Purpose is what pushes us to make long term investments in a project or in other people. It also embodies every important topic that is meaningful for us as human beings but especially for educators.

 

I am reminded of the time when I sat with three students after school. Each of them had a learning disability that I knew very little about.  I was just getting to know them. In fact, I was amazed at how every time we had a conversation, I realized just how much I didn’t know about them, how they perceived the world and how they processed information. Every interaction was peeling away a layer.  It was a tutoring session and we were discussing the weekly vocabulary words.  I was also trying to explain what nouns were, specifically abstract nouns like the noun: love. One of the girls asked me to explain the word ‘abstract’ and I found myself fumbling over my words like a clown.  Generally speaking, I’m pretty articulate so the experience of trying to explain the concept of abstract to eleven year olds was disarming and revealing. We laughed a lot, as you can imagine.

On my way home that evening I thought about the complexity of language and how difficult it is to teach with the right amount of care and attention to nuance. I also realized how much power I had over the minds of those children.  I had been given the important task of framing the world with words.  Whose vision of the world would I share?  Our conversation about nouns was riddled with choice and I could teach them mechanically or I could teach them with the magic of a heightened awareness.

What I want to point out is how difficult it is to talk about purpose because it is an abstraction.  It is a social and personal construct and we as unique individuals, can fill the word with meaning using a variety of different life tones and depending on how we experience it at an intimate level.  Nonetheless, I wonder if we can come to some sort of agreement about the nature of purpose?

What is purpose?  And why is it important to consider if you are an educator? Can you share your thoughts?

Finding the Spirited Educator

I’ve been very fortunate to have observed many educators over the last two decades so I know there are all types of teachers.  Some act like kings or queens and can transform any classroom into their royal thrown. Others talk like politicians, mesmerized by the sound and cadence of their voice, captivating their audience (however small).  I've seen quite a few authoritarian types who cut the crap out of a room with a steel yard stick and a lethal stare. I've seen how soft, round grandparent types can scoop up pencils and paper as if they were jelly beans.  I've watched how the meek ones (who may or may not part their hair to the side) nod their heads like mattress springs and I've seen others who sport tattoos, old jeans, three tiered earrings, platform shoes or spandex.

Regardless of this array of entertaining personalities, I can honestly say that after all these years observing educators, there’s only one thing that distinguishes one teacher from another and that is spirit.  What is this thing called spirit and is it something that we can nurture in developing teachers?

This is what comes to mind when I think about spirited educators:

• A spirited educator strategically and purposefully crafts moments in which they reveal truth about themselves to their students.
• A spirited educator understands teaching as an act of humility and power at the same time.
• A spirited educator finds ways to transcend the material plane in order to create a safe space here on earth.
• A spirited educator knows that we belong to the WWW (world wide web) of souls and that each individual is both a conduit and a receptor for energy, love and knowledge.

I believe we don’t pay enough attention to this very important topic in the teaching profession— that is the spiritual nature of teaching and learning and its role in the evolution of human development.  I started exploring this topic several years ago with Dr. Talwar but so much has changed that I think it’s worth revisiting.

I had the opportunity to observe a training the other day and the content was very simple and straightforward, so much so that I was a little bored. Yet, there was one point in the session that struck a chord. The trainer told the participants that it was important to recognize and celebrate each other and towards that aim, she asked that each participant tell someone in the room something they appreciated about someone else. I had seen this type of activity before and as an observer taking notes, I wanted to see if people would move around and if someone would be left out.  Shortly after the instructions were laid out and a low buzz filled the room, the trainer came over to me and held out her hand.  I was surprised that she included me. Holding my hand, she told me how thankful she was that I had shared a personal story with her when we first met because it made her feel less alone in the world.  She said, “You reminded me that we all experience bad days and it was so important for me to hear that at that moment. I really identified with you.”  While she spoke, I felt energy move through us and I have to tell you, I am one of those people that generally shy away from this sort of thing because I believe something as personal as gratitude should be organic and not contrived—but the experience happened onto me and I melted— literally the tension in my muscles disappeared. I was graced with that woman’s presence.  It was only a moment, it must have lasted less than a minute.

As it turned out, it was one of only two moments in a whole day that I had experienced something worthwhile.

Earlier, I had gotten pulled over by a police officer for talking on my cell phone while driving.  I had been lost for over an hour and was extremely late to my meeting. I called the office and the support staff was feeding me directions.  By the time the policeman got to my window, I burst out in tears.  I had been on the road for over two hours fighting traffic, a three car accident and a shitty GPS system!  Now, I was facing a whopping ticket and well, I broke.  The police officer peered into the window and I started telling him between sobs that I was lost and late and exhausted and I needed to be at a school and so on and so forth and he waited while I let the tide rip. Honestly, I couldn't do anything but babble.  When there was a pause he asked why I hadn't used my speaker and I said I didn't have a speaker and I pointed to my directions and the GPS and repeated over and over again how I was desperate.  The man looked perturbed.  He stood back and took a long pause and it was in that moment I noticed his heavy eyes. Then something strange happened. A part of me stepped out of myself and I watched us there, in the middle of a four lane intersection, on a nameless street, at the center of distressed urban city, me wiping spit and snot onto my sleeve and he in a navy blue uniform with a decision to make about how to use his power.  In that floaty moment, I just knew everything was going be fine and he was going to send me on my way.  And I was right.  He gave me directions and said, “Ma’am, you’re only four blocks away. You’re going to be alright now.”

Two acts of humanity altered my reality and each happened in under a minute.  Two total teachable minutes out of a whole day!  They taught me compassion and the power of the spirit to break out of the mundane roles that entrap us into believing we are separate.

We can and must transcend the material world and connect with each other, to see past the obvious so that we can make our earthly space a little less hostile.  And we, yes, we can and must practice and build this into our agenda— that being a spirited educator does not have to be organic; it can be practiced and nurtured and encouraged.  If done with purpose and honesty, the impact will be real.

Teachers and teacher educators are vulnerable every day.  We are like sacrificial lambs who offer ourselves up to children and adults for the purpose of growth and development. Many of us suffer from the social, emotional and spiritual impact of concurrent reforms that make our jobs less and less humane, less and less creative, less and less joyful.  Many of us are scared  of speaking up or out against programs and policies that don’t seem to have the best interest of children at heart but in our silence, our spirit suffers.  How are we implicated in this crisis?  We ask ourselves.  What can we do about it when we are in need of a job?  How can we hold on to the meaning and purpose behind our everyday tasks when we are getting so much pressure and feeling confused? There are so many contradictions and incongruences that we have to stop and take notice of how this impacts our overall well-being.

I want us to think about what it takes to be a ‘spirited educator’ today and how we can find the strength and courage in ourselves to walk along this path.

The Perennial Bowel Movement

“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.”

~ Karl Marx

The “back to the basics” movement is here, again. Doesn’t this remind you of the 1980s? In response to the overall dissatisfaction with the programs popularized in the 60s, declining test scores and disruptive classrooms[1], Ronald Reagan called us to action.  A Nation at Risk warned, “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”[2]

Not surprisingly, immigration policies and the civil rights movement of the 60’s had dramatically changed the face of America’s schools so the conversation of mediocrity pivoted around how we should respond to racial and ethnic diversity.[3] Kenneth Clark’s study on youth in Harlem pointed to the fact that blacks were systematically deprived of a good education and he cautioned that “unless firm steps were taken immediately, the public school system in the urban North would become predominantly a segregated system…a school system of low academic standards, providing a second-class education for under classed children.”[4]

Although Reagan’s education platform promised that “all children, regardless of race or class or economic status [would get] a fair chance,”[5] corporate America and the military would benefit the most from the Reagan administration. Reagan’s budget cuts resulted in mass unemployment and millions of children entered the ranks of the officially declared “poor.” Within a short period of time, a quarter of the nation’s children—twelve million—were living in poverty.[6]

Following A Nation at Risk, there was a rush to design reform programs that could “fix” low performing public schools. The report asserted that lax academic standards were correlated with lax behavioral standards and that neither should be ignored. The general consensus was to get ‘back to the basics,’ which meant to focus on math and reading instruction, teach children to follow directions[7] and establish a common core curriculum that would ‘level’ the playing field. It was in the 1980’s, when E.D. Hirsch, Jr. first coined the term “core knowledge.” After the release of his bestselling book, Cultural Literacy, he established The Core Knowledge Foundation that teaches how disadvantaged children can succeed if they have access to the same knowledge as children from privileged settings. Throughout the following decade, academics debated the question: How much power does a school really have when educating children living in poverty?

None of this sounds very different than today, does it?

Yet, this time we’ve upped the ante. Fueled by a push-back political landscape and a highly publicized 1% ‘takes all’ economy, politicians on both sides of the aisle are anxious to mitigate the swell of the angry poor concentrated in big cities. They know it will take some time to move from reforming schools to reforming the entire system. How else can they completely appropriate public school funding?

Keep the proletariat dizzy.  

Have you ever run on a treadmill?  It’s exhausting but you don’t get very far do you?  You stay because your mind is focused on the calories you’re burning.  Parents are running hard on lots of individual treadmills called, ‘Choice.’ Much of their experience can be exemplified by ‘the lottery’ and other deceptive admissions devices that lead most parents nowhere fast.  Teachers meanwhile are running too, working that front line dodging the bullets, jumping through Danielson hoops. In the background, an epic recording plays over and over assuring folks that capitalism is what makes this country great. The broadcast is muffled and staticy but tireless. “Choice grows competition, competition improves quality, quality makes consumers happy and business is the backbone of the American dream.” In between each pause, we auto-insert a plea for patience.

Teachers who remember our history are considered difficult because they see patterns. Like little connect the dots puzzles, they share in the cafeteria or in the halls. Consequently, veterans and their union meetings are neatly disposed of.  Some teachers are blatantly ignored like the elderly. Others are picked on incessantly or kicked out onto the streets like unwanted guests at a party.  They’re replaced by the new teacher, churned out and distributed, heroic jugglers of the new regime. They can handle disgruntled parents with one hand and pander to those with the money with the other— blindfolded! Add the new Common Core to the mix, vast complex units of study doled out like blocks of welfare cheese and we’ve successfully spun half the country’s schools & school districts into a tizzy.  This is the dizziness around us.  This is what distracts people. And it fuels fear. 

Is our greatness not so great after all?  Like getting caught in the flush of some great big white toilet bowl, we’re flailing our arms and kicking but it’s swirling too fast. The current is strong and all I can think about is what are we going to do with all this shit?

*This post was reprinted at Truthout. 

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[1] Thomas, JW (1980). Agency and achievement: self-management & self-regard. Review of Educational Research

[2] Ravitch,D (2000) Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform. Touchstone

[3] Ibid

[4] Clark, K.B (1965) Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power. Harper & Row

[5] Ravitch, D (2000) Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform. Touchstone

[6] Zinn, H (2005) A People’s History of the United States, Harper Perennial Modern Classics

[7] Thomas, JW (1980). Agency and achievement: self-management & self-regard. Review of Educational Research

Imagination in a Time of Chaos

As an educator and professional development specialist that spends hours looking for ways to make the teaching and learning experience real, I periodically come across a quote that lingers in my mind until it explodes. These spirited moments are the backbone of my job as any educator will tell you. We are the alchemists of society, paid to reveal the gold buried under the ordinary. Our task has certainly become difficult. In a sandstorm climate riddled with doubt and low morale, educators all over (Chicago, Philadelphia, Mexico, New York to name a few) are experiencing great chaos, upheaval, and struggle. Nevertheless, two days ago, I found a glimmering nugget. It happened while I was watching the award winning documentary One Survivor Remembers, the story of Gerda Weissmann’s experience of World War II (which by the way is expertly packaged and offered to teachers for free by Teaching Tolerance).  In this video, Gerda Weissmann describes how she survived the long and treacherous Death March in 1945 by hanging her mind on ‘trivial’ things like the color of a dress. At the end she says,

            “I do believe that if you were blessed with imagination that you could work that. If unfortunately you were a person who faced reality, I think you didn’t have much of a chance.”

What is imagination in a time of chaos?  Is it powerful enough to help us survive these turbulent times?  Is imagination for those who can’t face reality or is it one’s capacity to manipulate our experience of time by focusing on something joyful, or trivial even, but in essence holds us fast to the whole journey?

Several years ago I traveled to Seattle on a monthly basis to work with two schools on a 1990’s version of whole school reform.  At that time, reform was about developing and implementing comprehensive plans at the school level to improve teaching and learning.[1] I was in an alternative high school modeling a lesson for a teacher charged with a very challenging group of teenagers.  I put them in groups and gave them the task of imagining a school of the future, to design it with great detail and to their liking.  I gave each group an explicit task sheet and a large piece of paper with markers.  As I walked from group to group, I realized the students were stumped. And it wasn’t because they didn’t like it because they didn’t complain like they normally would or act out. They just sat silently waiting.  I pulled up a chair and sat with one particularly sullen group and started asking questions. I asked them how they would describe the ideal work space. What would the school building look like? I asked about light and the style of furniture and how the classrooms should be organized.  I spoke in bursts, my eye brows arching, hands waving around as if we were embarking on a scavenger hunt. My gut told me to get them engaged. Focus on the concrete and visual.  Later, perhaps they’d venture further on their own into the abstract, themes, projects, relationships to the community, discipline policies that make sense, that sort of thing. 

Remember, these students were in an alternative high school.  This means they had fallen into the widening crack of mainstream schooling. Most had been kicked out but some were there because their parents were trying to find a place to reel them in, prevent them from becoming one of the drop outs. While I threw out question after question, I carefully watched the body language. One lowered his head dropping long bangs over his paisley shaped eyes. To his left, a tall lanky boy with pointy elbows picked up the marker, shrugged and then started to draw a rectangular building and then mocked the effort by adding two stick figures. Come on, I told him, keep going, but I was getting tired. I was feeling smaller and smaller by their reluctance. I visited the other groups and found similar behaviors. Stepping back to observe them along with the teacher, we saw the tall, hard teenagers transform into small innocent children.  They were shy and inexperienced, fumbling.  This assignment, I thought, was going to be fun and freeing and in reality it created anxiety and struggle. I didn’t understand it. Didn’t everyone have an imagination? What stopped them? I realized later on that this exercise in imagination requires courage. One must allow oneself to be vulnerable because it is such an open space that whatever you say is completely your own.  

A few years later, I started a publication for students and teachers called Real Worlds on diversity and community. I dedicated an issue to the theme imagination. By that time I had witnessed schools tossing imagination aside as if it were a fruitless, idealistic activity or an intrusion on more important things like testing, math or ‘close reading.’  I sent out letters inviting students and teachers to imagine their own personal futures and to focus on the year 2025.  Submissions came in and the final result was small but encouraging.  I was not alone in thinking that we need to communicate a value for imagination and engage in the practice of exercising it.  I wanted to plant the seed in the minds of educators that imagination in not only a tool for survival but it is the prelude to an alternate reality. 

If it’s true what Gerda Weissmann says that without imagination many didn’t even have a chance at surviving, then shouldn’t imagination be one of the most valued skills we can teach our children? In the movie, Life is Beautiful starring Roberto Benigni, another World War II internment story; the father uses his lively imagination to keep his son from the brutal reality. During the years of slavery, blacks sang songs and told rich, heartwarming stories to each other.  Would it have been possible for the black community to have survived otherwise? John Little, a former slave wrote,

            “They say slaves are happy, because they laugh and are merry. I myself and three or four others, have received two hundred lashes in the day, and had our feet feeters; yet, at night, we would sing and dance and make others laugh… We did it to keep down trouble and to keep our hearts from being completely broken—”[2]

Why is imagination so important now? When a parent in Philadelphia (one of the nation's largest school districts) says, “I feel like we’re staring into the abyss,” in response to the fight between the city and state over funding[3], I think we are in need of imagination. While politicians “push deep, budget-balancing cuts in state aid while seeking to advance the fortunes of private, parochial and privately operated, publicly funded charter schools,”[4] we are in need of imagination.  I’m not talking about imagination as a way to avoid reality but as a way to transcend it, to survive it, keep our eyes on the prize. How else can conscientious educators manage year after year fighting for good public schools that have the best interest of children at heart?  It’s scary and depressing to read the news, the endless barrage of attacks on teachers, school closings, failed protests and the proliferation of poor leadership. How can this radical stomping out of our public school system be as good as they say when thousands and thousands of engaged citizens and educators are so upset?

If we do not encourage creativity in our teachers, how can they be expected to fill the halls of our schools with the spirit and courage of imagination?  Children must experience and learn this essential skill as a means to our collective survival. When whole communities can’t see past the abyss, then we are looking at a national crisis. 

Let us hang our minds on the rainbow colors that fill our children’s crayon boxes.  Let us find the time to fill the air with joyful stories that have the power and glory to remind each other of the whole journey.  For Gerda, perhaps this was the last gift from her mother, like the cup of hot chocolate or from her father who told her wear to snow boots in the middle of summer.  

For teachers and students all over, see past the abyss and imagine an alternative.

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[1] Excerpt from Rios, R. The Last Teacher (2013)

[2] Zinn, H. (1980) A People’s History of the United States

[3] Levy, M (2013) After Crisis, Philly Students Head Back to School http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/philadelphia-schools-crisis_n_3860588.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Education

[4] Ibid