Common Core Dissonance 101 & the Age of Cyborgs

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Tightly squeezed into a round table during a week-long Common Core institute, I float in and out of semi-conscious paralysis reminiscent of the last time I was called to jury duty. After what feels like hours (which could very well have been mere minutes), my body shifts out from under the blanket of limbo-ness and lands into a wild wave like spasm of irritability, which quickly escalates into anxiety then disgust. The descent is fast and my internal organs shake as if I’m going down on an old rickety roller coaster. I look around to find cool eyes and eager faces and wonder if I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  

It’s a drone of a lesson that transports me into a first-world-third-world classroom where students (probably high school) are desperately trying to cope with the onslaught of eight-hours a day in front of a supercilious, factory style TA (teacher professional in training) in an oppressive school designed to fix (sorry, I mean save) poor students.

Common Core Dissonance 101. According to the online Oxford dictionary, dissonance arises in the event of a tension or clash resulting from the combination of two disharmonious or unsuitable elements.

Education ≠ education.

After all, CCSS is supposed to be about critical thinking, embracing multiple pathways for problem solving, collaboration and other neatly defined career ready/21^st century skills. Yet somehow these elements are strangely missing from the institute.

I escape the room with my smart phone in hand desperately texting with my now clumsy fingers due to the aftermath of toxic brain shocks. I see a big round clock in the corner that tells me how much time I have. I’m on the job, I think. While my mind races over a number of plausible excuses that could get me out of the next module I think about all the young people who cut class and hide themselves in bathroom stalls. I consider slipping out the back door but aware of my current identity, I choose the bathroom. I wash my already clean hands hard and take stock of my feelings. As I do, feelings slip outside of me all over the floor like rogue Slinkys and I get down on my hands and knees desperately trying to shove them back into the neat color coded box I kept them in labeled F.N.P (Future Novel Project) I think I do a good job but I get the feeling later I must have left hope and joy on the floor. I leave the bathroom thinking hard. I lean inconspicuously against a wall and breathe deeply.  In my breath, I watch my life’s work float out of my head like a balloon. It hits up against the glass ceiling and bounces as if there is a wind somewhere keeping it high. That’s when I ask myself, What am I becoming?

No one will argue reading multiple sources will help a child draw out deeper meaning on a topic or that rigorous, collaborative tasks are better than closed answers and multiple choice. It’s not the common core, I fear, it’s the how we are doing education in this country. It’s the internal mechanism, the co-option of terms like social justice and equity, the taking over of buildings and rechanneling funding. It’s the business of selling a product that will sell well because it is a monopoly, it’s complexity separating teachers from the real world of students, it’s demonizing unions, the normalization of segregated thinking always thinking black and white, reducing children to data bytes and ruminating over and over again, what we should do with kids in poverty as if kids in poverty are drowning and we have some magical special sauce that can save them. It’s the business of orchestrating and commoditizing human beings.

But none of that matters.

I slip back into the class, my footsteps pillow soft. The drone flies under my radar like a radioactive field and attacks every cell in my frontal cortex. Our robopresenter creates complexity and mystery around topics that should be simple, practical and open for shared inquiry. She is a robomagician. I’m struggling now to live in the narrowing parenthesis of my mind, that safe space between yes and no that I told myself could protect me from being at-risk, or worse yet, implicated. A tiny echo reminds me that poor people are exempt because we are concerned with survival and that’s different. Maslow is so far away and I can hardly remember the research behind it, or maybe there was no research and it was all a figment of my imagination, that thing called self-realization.

I fight for my imagination by focusing on the robopresenter who literally transforms into a doll made of metal. Her blank stare, the repetition of her words, the inability to respond emotionally to her audience all makes sense now. There is some fun in this for a while. Then I whisper to a colleague and we share a second of freedom, but it doesn’t last long. Robopresenter is driven entirely by inputs and streams of data and she zooms in on us. I pity her and admire her at the same time, her ability to memorize. How boring it must be to be her. I disconnect by dehumanizing her further and this separation allows me to extrapolate meaning from what otherwise might have been a void. I want to live and she is death so I hate her.

Robopresenter says, we need to dig a little deeper. Her hand curls up in a half ball as if she is digging into soil that is magically floating in the middle of the conference room.  We’ve been digging deeper all day but I find nothing. The emptiness of digging when you know there is nothing to find is so much worse than hopeful digging or not digging at all. Every word, activity, tool, is an illusion. New education talk snuffs out truth, like Styrofoam snuffs out sound so that you can’t even recognize it anymore.

Why are we building more and more layers that separate teacher from the child? I see this monstrous wall that prevents any true meeting of human beings. Why do we create so many barriers and obstacles for teachers to love students? What might happen if teachers saw their students as children, like their own, with nothing between them but deep love and commitment to their well being?

It’s been a few hours, days now. I look down at my hand and instead of veins, I find tiny wires curling up through my forearm that reach my shoulders that begin to push back like a soldier. The new wired nerves in my neck stretch my mouth into a smile and I watch my arm raise. Oh, dear. Am I? Am I a cyborg? Robopresenter calls on me. She is pleased with my active participation and we make eye contact for the first time and there is a twinkle, a knowing. I thought she was dead but in this dimension she responds differently. I’ve entered her world. When did I step out of that safe space called, yes and no?

I admit, the rumble in my guts has subsided. I feel better now. My teacher compliments me. Other students in the room nod and I am feeling the warmth of belonging. My sore ass and fragmented brain begin to re-wire themselves so quickly that now my buttocks is equipped for several more hours of sitting.  My brain is elastic and stiff, greater toxic retention and stored with passivity complex.

I am an educator of the new age, getting paid to unlearn everything I’ve ever learned about learning. I am learning to think differently everyday. My life’s mission is to save children, teach them that struggle and hard work is productive.  We have to work doubly hard if we want a ticket into the American dream. I am a teacherhero who with the Common Core under my belt, can undo hunger and shoot PTSD in the face until it’s annihilated.

I am a warrior.

I feel better now.

Everyday Practice

“The world may be flat as Friedman (2006) wrote, for the corporate elite, but for the rest of us— the -workers, the teachers, the wage-earners, those of us without stock options, lobbyists—the world is as round and inhibiting as ever.” Paul Gorski

In 2009, I hosted a Round Table dialogue in Harlem which brought together a group of educators to discuss the question: How can we bring together people across race and class to work together for change in education policy and practice?  The dialogue included a reading and text-based discussion about an article written by Van Jones, Civil Rights Advocate and winner of the 2008 Puffin/Nation prize for Creative Citizenship.  I was very interested in how this diverse group of people from various social networks would interact with each other in this unique space with an open-ended, exploratory task in front of them. Several insights surfaced as a result of this dialogue that I’d like to revisit today. Perhaps you might find these points salient in your own work as you try to build authentic professional relationships when conflicts rooted in race, class, religion & equity are hot topics found daily on the front page.

One of the first insights is grounding conversations about diversity and equity in a text is a powerful tool. Responding to a piece of research or literature keeps participants focused on the key issues and it provides an outside voice. This outside voice becomes a resource from the field that can offer a different perspective that the group might otherwise miss but is critical to the topic at hand. Even with the best intentions, dialogues about diversity and equity can easily go astray without the right grounding.

Second, taking the time out to have a face-to-face dialogue has purpose and value especially now when it’s so easy to meet on-line. The digital age can make the world feel small and accessible but it can also create socio-emotional distance and a false sense of neutrality. There is no such thing as neutrality in authentic dialogues about diversity and equity because this topic involves our sense of self, our understanding of the world and others and equity is about the unequal distributions of resources. That means, authentic conversations of this nature will inevitable result in a visceral response. Trust is required in order to get at the real issues that drive diversity and equity policy and practice and participants need to feel that they can disrupt the silence and declare the elephant in the room.  This messiness is necessary which is why we call them courageous conversations. It was Nietzsche who said, one must have chaos in order to give birth to a dancing star. Face-to-face dialogue communicates a deep commitment to the work because it requires more time and investment from the participants and the sponsor of the dialogue itself. It also creates the the conditions for non-verbal energies to be shared. Although not impossible, this important element of authentic relationship building can be tricky to manufacture over the computer.

Thirdly, the coming together of a really diverse group of people spanning different networks, fields, titles, races, classes, ages, genders and so on, is a rare and valuable experience. More often than not we interact with those who have a similar world view, work status, field of study or social group. How often do we have the opportunity to talk intimately around a table with a group of folks who only have that one purpose (the dialogue!) in common? If you can create this mixed group, you will see a powerful dynamic emerge. But beware. People bring their identities into the room and often we err on trying to ignore or downplay these unspoken political alliances, privileges or affinities. In order for mixed groups to engage authentically for a common purpose, each individual needs to explicitly acknowledge his or her role in society and how that might impact how they see the world and their relationship to others in the room. Doing this alone can help the group transcend real world roles and engage authentically.  

It has been seven years since that round table dialogue and unfortunately, I’ve not seen much change with regards to equity in the field of education.  Some might even argue that things have gotten worse. Segregated schools & communities are the norm in most states which translates into egregious conditions for some and extreme wealth and access for others. Thankfully I have noticed a growing body of scholarship that speaks out on the need to focus on the process rather than on content. In other words, it’s not what you know, it’s how you communicate with others and develop innovative ways to solve problems. If we are ever going stop this cycle of disparities in education, we need to engage with each other differently in the work place. It’s the everyday practices that define us and give us insight into what it means to be conscientious in today’s society. 

Educators are hungry for authenticity. Paul Gorski describes our current state of being as something of a continuum between compliance and complicity.[1] If he is correct, then there is an urgent call to be daringly different.

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[1] Gorski, P (2008) Good intentions are not enough: a decolonizing intercultural education. Intercultural Education, 19:6, 515-525

Entitlement: Knowing Your Place

In The Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol wrote about the apartheid conditions of America’s public schools and begged educators and policy makers to do something about it. That was in 2006 and not much has changed. Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared education ‘the civil rights issue of our generation’ however sub-standard education conditions continue to be the norm for low-income children of color, particularly for blacks and Latinos. Half of all black and Latino children grow up in or near poverty. Half of all black and Latino boys fail to graduate from high school. Fully two thirds of black men without a high school degree will serve time in prison as some point in their lives.[1] According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 50.3 percent of students identify as black, Hispanic, Asian or another nonwhite ethnicity. White students no longer make up the majority of students in California and Texas.  In New York City, nonwhites make up somewhere between 58 and 65 percent (depending on whether Latinos identify themselves as white) and if we step back and consider the population of the globe, you will find that whites make up only 16 percent of the total population with Asians being the majority. With numbers like these, it becomes clear we need to consider our use of language in this country especially when it comes to the term minority. Putting a false label like minority on the majority acts as a pernicious mental barrier that blocks us from really unpacking the systemic and structural elements of white privilege and apartheid-like conditions of our schools.

The truth is if you are a Latino in New York City, for example (or a member of any of the ‘non-white’ ethnic groups) you can and should stop identifying yourself as a minority and should refuse to be labeled as such.  Furthermore, you should consider it an act of protest just a powerful if not more than laying down in Grand Central station with a placard on your chest. Changing the language we use in conversations around race, equity and human rights can and will get us closer to seeing the true nature of who we are as a society. Misleading labels perpetuate false notions of entitlement for some and second-class citizenry for others and tearing them down can heighten our perception of how we identify ourself and others as we struggle for sustainable change.

In response to the Eric Garner case in New York City, many whites across the nation communicated that it was the first time they felt an overwhelming sense of injustice. According to them, unlike other incidents of police brutality this was different because there was clearly no evidence to dispute the criminal nature of the killing. In the midst of outrage and protests that took hold of our city (in great part due to the connection with Ferguson events), I was confronted with mixed feelings about how to engage in constructive conversations around social justice and race particularly with educators. I thought a lot about Rebecca Klein and her article in the Huffington Post entitled A Majority of Students Entering School are Minorities While Most Teachers are Still White.  I realized that although I was in New York City and represented the majority in numbers, I was still perceived as a minority. How does this perception inhibit or strengthen my voice when I talk about injustice and equity?

The incongruence of being labeled a minority is magnified when my work with educators often takes place in all brown communities. I’ve noticed an overwhelming reticence to allow people of color to take ownership of an event and how it is shaped publicly even when the event has direct implications for communities of color and especially if the conversation can leverage a movement for equity. Freire calls this phenomena false generosity. False generosity is when a group of people who are historically seen as pedagogical authorities and hold leadership positions in the field who for all intents and purposes want to transform the unjust order but because of their background they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation.[2]  Unless we see the relationship between power and language in society and examine who are positioned constantly in positions of leadership aka the ‘executors of transformation’— we are never going to make a change.  It is time we ask ourselves: What does equity “look” like rather than sound like?

There is a plethora of research behind the notion of power in language.  Using a term like minority to identify a person is a tool of power. There is also power in the notion of pedagogical authority— that is who we by default turn to for decision making. Who do we associate with critical thinking and strategic planning in our society? Who is the expert?

Refusing to use the label minority is about understanding  your  place. It is about entitlement and staking a claim in a situation with full confidence, determination and leadership. Entitlement is the precursor to agency. Without a feeling of entitlement, one cannot take action. Language and labels such as our antiquated use of the term minority can make those who are central to a situation feel marginalized and less equipped to act.

At a time when we are struggling to make sense of recent current events that remove blinders from our eyes and for educators in particular who work in schools that are microcosms of society— we need to consider different, long lasting forms of protest that will change how we see the world.  Reject false labels and challenge the language of status in society. Refuse to label yourself or others a minority or try seeing yourself as a minority if you are white and live in a city like New York.  Dare to change the conversation by engaging in the real practice of equity.

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[1] Warren, M (2014) Transforming Public Education: The Need for an Educational Justice Movement. New England Journal of Public Policy: Vol.26: Iss1, Article 11.

[2] Freire, P (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (p.94-95)

Discovery of Self in Poor Theory

“Poor theory is less a theory than a way of proceeding.” (Excerpts taken from Poor Theory: Notes Toward a Manifesto, Critical Theory Institute)

An intellectual sits on the train searching. Pulled down by the pure exhaustion of the daily commute any hope for creativity unravels. Look around. See loaded devices and ear plugs with hanging wires that shoot music into young people’s bouncing skulls. It’s the young urbanite’s attempt to wipe out the harsh reality of scraping metal, a crying baby, the monotone voice of a conductor announcing stops that cut across the city like a connect the dots puzzle. Each stop moves us further away from wealth and elements of whiteness decrease. The space is transformed each time a person exits the train and another boards.

A dark skinned man in a grey hat wearing an inconspicuous trench coat leans over a book that talks about poor theory. Everything freezes like a movie screen shot.  Zoom in slowly and a critical moment emerges from the chaos and anonymity. Zoom in further and hover over the book. Peer into the text and see the writing take on a life before you. It is right there – the answer. The writing is about the poor. It says the poor have another way of seeing the world and this perspective has intellectual value.

What power is there in seeing that the cup is half empty? What does one find in nothingness? Is there a transcendental purpose within the experience of poverty? What do we learn from the poor that completes us, makes us understand the holistic nature of our human experience, the necessity for relational thinking?

Discovery of power in oneself, validating one’s life’s experience, finding abundance in one’s poor identity transforms. Discovery of power in the other, validating the other’s life experience, finding abundance in the other’s poor identity transforms.

“Poor theory invites us to jettison the economic rationalities that reduce our theories to use values and wise investments and other naturalized vestiges of a system of surplus accumulation that profits from waste and catastrophe.”

An intellectual sits on the train searching. Each stop takes us further, from one place to the next we travel, together we learn different ways of seeing and telling. Capture this discovery. Feel free to identify yourself in new ways, to recognize the merit in one’s personal heritage, to let go of borrowed perspectives on what or who we should value in life, to transcend, to embrace.

Discoveries of Self within Poor Theory:

·       Poor me finds ways of making the most of limited resources

·       Poor me works around intransigent problems even when the means at my disposal are limited

·       Poor me recognizes that situations are riddled with error

·       Poor me elevates fascination and urgency over mastery

·       Poor me is armed with an awareness of limits but tinkers and works against and around them

·       Poor me sees abundance in what is commonly labeled as poor

·       Poor me recognizes merit in what is generally considered meretricious

·       Poor me is concerned with the everyday and the social

·       Poor me is concerned with the “not quite” and with disappointment

·       Poor me is interdisciplinary

·       Poor me thinks historically

·       Poor me is alert to novel ways in which different forms of life come to matter

 

 

Renaissance of Courage: On Public School Responsibility

          Who is Dr. Cornel West referring to when he says, “We need a renaissance of courage and a willingness to sacrifice?” This is what he told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! during a discussion on his new book Black Prophetic Fire about the legacy of leading African American voices including Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. DuBois, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Malcolm X and Ida B. Wells. He was referring to blacks themselves like when he confessed his fear that we may be witnessing the death of black prophetic fire in our time. Black prophetic fire, according to Cornell West can be summed up as a deep love for justice, love of the poor and working people and a love for black people. He tells us this can best be understood if we consider the four essential questions W.E.B. DuBois wrestled with in his lifetime: How does integrity face oppression? What does honesty do in the face of deception? What does decency do in the face of insult? And how does virtue meet brute force? This fire Cornell West refers to is the very notion of agency and social responsibility and it begs the question- What is the ethical culture driving our conversation about public schools today and what is your personal responsibility in making a difference?

          This past weekend The New School and The Nation magazine hosted a talk entitled Saving Public Schools. It was moderated by Chris Hayes and included a handful of well-known education pundits—Dana Goldstein, Pedro Noguera and Randi Weingarten along with one community-based equity activist, Zakiya Ansari. Opening the dialogue was The Nation’s Besty Reed followed by New York City School chancellor Carmen Fariña, who I knew about but still had not heard speak. When I looked at the panel and around the New School auditorium it first appeared to be a pretty diverse group although in retrospect, I’d have to admit I remembered very few Latino and Asian faces in the room and I’d venture to say there were fewer attendees who would identify themselves as poor. Later when Chris Hayes asked how many of us were familiar with the Common Core Standards over ninety percent of us raised our hands. Chris had to laugh calling us outliers, who else would come out on a Sunday evening to hear a panel talk on public education? My mind flashed to a scene in a dystopian novel I’m reading called The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks that talks about people who are informed:

                “Well, of course I’m a citizen,” he said. “I was born and raised in Britain.”

                “It’s just a label that my father uses. Ninety-nine percent of the population are either citizens or drones.”

                Dr. Bennett took off his gold rimmed spectacles and polished his lenses with a green flannel cloth. “Would you mind explaining this?”

                “Citizens are people who think they understand what’s going on in the world.”

                “I don’t understand everything, Judith. I never said that. But, I’m well informed about current events. I watch the news every morning while I’m on my treadmill.”

                Maya hesitated, and then decided to tell him the truth. “The facts you know are mostly an illusion. The real struggle of history is going on beneath the surface.”

                Dr. Bennett gave her a condescending smile. “Tell me about the drones.”

                “Drones are people who are so overwhelmed by the challenge of surviving that they’re unaware of anything outside their day-to-day lives.”

                “You mean poor people?”

                “They can be poor or trapped in the Third World, but they’re still capable of transforming themselves. Father used to say, ‘Citizens ignore the truth. Drones are just too tired.”

          The talk lasted for about two hours at which point I left the New School auditorium in a semi-apathetic haze. I’m not sure if it was the after effects of the cold medicine I had taken or if it was the actual talk but I couldn’t help think we haven’t even begun the difficult work that lies ahead of us as we face the failure of perennial reform compounded with a decade’s worth of policies that have strangulated the public education system. The numbness I felt reminded me of a NYPR program I had accidentally tuned into just a few weeks earlier called ‘Staring Into The Abyss’ in which Brook Gladstone spent an hour discussing the poignant question: Why is nihilism so trendy and is this really a new phenomenon? I know apathy is not nihilism, but they are definitely close relatives especially when one considers the impact the war on public education has had on teachers and teacher educators.

            

          Digging into the abyss, I was able to pull up one surviving frustration of mine, however mangled and in somewhat critical condition. It had to do with responsibility and agency and Dana Goldstein’s comment about the promise of the Millennials (which contradicted to some extent LaMotte’s argument in her article, Forget the Millennials. Gen Xers are the Future of Work published in TIME magazine online on October 2nd). It had to do with the notion of race and class and does change happen from the inside or from the outside, from those struggling to survive or those who are privileged? Goldstein proposed that with the advent of Millennials investing in urban centers, public schools can be revived. Millennials are educated, have money (equaling choice) and purportedly believe in the promise of diversity and democracy. Chris Hayes and Pedro Noguera conspired around this prospect by sharing a story about a school in Brooklyn in which parents have been actively trying to encourage an equal mix of middle and upper class white kids with poor and blue collar black and brown kids. Zakiya Ansari looked annoyed and asked, “Why do we need white kids to make a school work properly?” At that moment, the white woman sitting next to me mumbled something to the effect of, “Once Millennials arrive on the scene, poor folks can’t afford to stay so how is that going to help?”

                

          Funny, how race and class were interchangeable in this conversation. White is equated with middle/upper class and black and brown folks with poverty. I wonder if New Yorkers can see these two identities as being separate these days.  If not, what does that mean for the children being educated in segregated schools and what does that mean for their educators? Who is driving the conversation? And who is responsible for making a change?  

                

          In response to Ansari’s question, I’d say, it’s not that we need white kids for schools to be good. However, if the professional “successful” world outside school is integrated (as depicted in the media, the movies and TV) children need to see the same demographics in the classroom if we want them to identify themselves as a part of this reality. Otherwise, it’s natural for children to question their place and value in the world, which is what it means to be ‘marginalized’ in society. The question of segregated schools is much less about the quality of education in contemporary society (although this certainly is important and dates back to the pivotal case separate but equal)—but more about how schools need to reflect the type of society we want to live in. Do we want our children to grow up in a divided, racialized and segregated world? How are children going to learn about citizenship, democracy and agency in a segregated setting?

                

          When I was growing up, I had the fortune of attending public schools that were rich in diversity. Today, many of us recognize we were lucky to have a quality public school education with this experience. Just by exposure alone, it was evident to us that American society is a fabric threaded of different colors, ethnicities, languages and religions. That is not to say we had a utopian system back then. My mother, like many others, had to fight to get me into a good junior high school that was just outside my ‘zone’ but was easily accessible to our neighbors with non-Latino last names. The point is, fellowship with children and families from different backgrounds provided us with a broadened perspective of the world, taught us how people coexist and helped us learn important skills about how to negotiate in society—skills that continue to shape how I see and interact with the world today. Regardless of the quality of education, children who have segregated educational experiences are missing out on critical social, emotional and cognitive skills required in a global community. Teachers in segregated schools are very aware of this. It comes out in the academic performance of their students. In my doctoral research entitled, The Impact of Teaching Literacy for Social Justice on Student Achievement (2007), I documented how a teacher was concerned that although the African American students (in a segregated, African American school) were easily engaged and could critically examine and respond to literary experiences that spoke to the African American experience about slavery, oppression and persecution; they couldn’t transfer this knowledge when learning about the Jewish American experience and the holocaust. The challenges of learning multiple perspectives in a segregated school setting as presented by Kozol (2005) are real.

                

          After the event, walking down Sixth Avenue looking for a place to eat, I began to think about how powerful it would be if everyone who attended the talk sent their own kids to the public schools. What would that look like, a school comprised of these folks, the ‘intellectual class,’ or at least purporting to be?  That's when it occurred to me that that’s exactly what a private or selective school looks like. The fact that most education pundits, policy makers, well paid administrators, university professors and white collar professionals opt to send their own children to private or highly selective public/charter schools is a topic rarely brought up in these settings. It’s not that these educators don’t care for ‘other people’s children,' it’s just that like Pedro Noguera said, “educated folks with means regardless of their color will never send their kids to bad (or questionable) schools.” Bad schools where perennial reforms exist can only happen to poor folks struggling to survive. Is it because poor people (now joined by a growing number of ‘falling’ middle classers) don’t have a voice or is it because they really don’t have a choice?  Or is it because they are too tired to even light the fire?

                

          Is there a possibility that we may have created a choice-less “choice” system that in actuality perpetuates quality education for the privileged? How can we expect the down trodden to be responsible for their own uplifting? What are the different levels of courage required to stand up and fight for what you believe in depending on your position in society? What kind of sacrifice can we ask of people who are struggling for their survival? Who is driving the conversation around public education and what is the ethical responsibility of the intellectual community? What is the social and moral responsibility of the private school sector with regards to the public school sector knowing that these are the decision makers and drive public policy? Can we require private schools to collaborate and share resources and social networks with public schools?  How do private schools churn out a citizenry that recycles the same inequitable conditions in society?

                

          Education reform has historically and consistently been about experimenting, examining and dissecting public school kids and mostly poor public schools. Perhaps we need to pay closer attention to how we educate children of privilege and unpack notions of entitlement, elitism, competition and Darwinism. Dana Goldstein stated early in the talk that one of the original purposes behind public education was moral. How can we consider the moral purpose of public schools without considering the ethical culture of our private schools simultaneously? I wonder if it’s possible to reposition education reform. Consider school reform not as a business of fixing the poor but as a holistic endeavor in which we are all implicated in the need to change how we do things for all kids, and that includes all kids, the rich kids too, and the sons and daughters of all the reformers and the intellectuals, too, who sit and talk about wonderful, really big ideas like equitable funding in our country. My guess is that we’d have a very different kind of conversation, one that gets at the true nature of our people, willing or unwilling to sacrifice the benefits of privilege.

             

           

            

Raising Children to Believe or Not to Believe

I was at Ikea yesterday buying my daughter a desk. Upon our arrival, my husband and I looked at each other and frowned but quickly got into the Ikea “I’m-cute-even-though-I’m-cheap” mode we loved when we were just starting out. I suppose the initial frown was the reality that twenty years later we might have hoped to be shopping somewhere else, where the furniture is made of solid wood, for example or where we wouldn’t have to come home and put it together. I like Ikea, don’t get me wrong. I liked going there and enjoyed putting my daughter’s desk together with her and my husband even more. It was nice to close the windows on a hot and humid day, put on the AC and do something physical. In the evening, I hugged my daughter as we both stared at the desk and hutch and said, “How exciting is this, huh?” She smiled with happy sleepy eyes and I left her room satisfied. But there was a huge lump in my throat.

Let’s go back for a minute to Ikea so you can understand the lump in my throat.

We were in the ‘Work Stations’ section of the store where you can see all the furniture nicely put together and decorated in neat showcase rooms. The four of us had already spent at least thirty minutes going over the handful of desks and table tops. (We had in all fairness already looked at the one we wanted on line but wanted to be sure and save the delivery fee.) At the last minute, my daughter was considering an alternative style so I told her she could choose either one but should sit at the original desk one more time to be certain.

On the way to the desk, I saw a father and son eyeing the same unit. The son must have been sixteen or seventeen years old and at least six foot three. He was about a foot taller than his father. Both had on flip flops with white tube socks underneath. The son looked like an athlete, or in the very least, an athlete wanna-be. The boy’s hair was straight and slightly oily, his father had the same hair only thinner; the father’s stomach protruding over a similar pair of shorts. I could overhear the father telling his son the unit was perfect and what was wrong with it? The son examined what must have seemed to him a doll sized piece of furniture (that really, I wondered if it was even big enough for my five foot two seventy five pound daughter) while his father described it’s greatness. The son’s face remained straight as his father repeated himself over and over again.

To buy time and give them space, I let my daughter hop around from one unit to another excited about buying her desk for her first year in Junior High. We had given her a budget and had shopped for two weeks on line but after going over all the pros and cons of her small room and the ‘temporal’ nature of the purchase—we had settled on Ikea (she demonstrated just enough enthusiasm to placate any remorse in my mind about wanting to buy something better).

Meanwhile, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the towering young man with his aging father who five minutes later was still trying to convince his son that this small unit was just the right one. I have to tell you, I felt unexplainably tied to that moment as if we were strapped together by some imaginary umbilical cord.  My heart lunged. I was frozen with deep compassion for the moment, I couldn’t stop watching and feeling a broad spectrum of emotions.  As usual, I was probably staring. I wanted to go over there and take them by the hand and show them a bigger desk, one that was also affordable but was just a little further ahead in the showroom. But I couldn’t so I waited and watched to see what the son and father would do.

A few minutes later without saying a word and not changing the expressionless expression on his face, the son walked ahead and found a slightly bigger desk. The father followed behind and when the son pointed it out, he looked at the small tag that dangled on the side. Seeing that the price was about the same as the first, he nodded and starting talking again, the son listening, not saying a word. I knew the father was relieved that there was another option. I swallowed and stared, feeling a heave in my chest as they stood side by side and considered it together, the whole time, the son not changing the expressionless look on his face but standing right there with his Dad, considering. He knew his father wanted to buy him a desk he could afford and he’d make the best sales pitch around it. He knew he was being given a choice in the small window of ‘little to no choice’ but he would act as if he had all the choice in the world.

I have not been able to stop thinking about this father and son moment. In fact, I’m still reeling from the after effects of emotion and I don’t know why really. Perhaps it’s because it makes me examine my own feelings of grief and gratitude and humility. Examine my beliefs around parenting and poverty consciousness, about how to raise children to believe in the midst of scarcity. About what we do for our children (all parents, all children), about the masks we have to put on, about the games we play in order to pretend we’re moving ahead in spite of not having moved ahead very much at all.

I also can’t stop thinking about how that father couldn’t see the size of his son. I know that feeling-- wanting your child to stay small forever so you can shelter them from the world. We have the instinct to protect them and we want them to believe the world is wonderful and exciting and abundant and, and, and, and…. I know what it’s like to want time to slow down long enough for me to catch up because as the adult you want your children to see the greater half of yourself, you want to show them how to move ahead, not stay the same and definitely not fall behind.

But there it is. The first day of school arrived like a clock whether you were ready for it or not. Supplies and desks must be purchased. How do we raise children to believe in abundance when we’re faced with scarcity? How do we act based on trust and in total faith in the silent partner of the universe?

I know that moment in the store where I connected with that family will resonate in my soul for a long time. I was reminded I am not alone. I am in the company of millions and millions of parents in the world. We are raising children at a very precarious time. We are one. We are the same. That father’s pain is my pain, his hopes and dreams for his son are my hopes and dreams. His son is my son. I want him to have a desk he can sit at so he can learn and grow into a thinking man.