For the MAGA GOP: What is Public Service?

It's late in the afternoon or early evening, depending how you define that. Since I'm in Maine and this is February, it's dark. The traffic is dwindling, though still abrasive, and the tide must be going out. The Union River makes a rock-rushing echo when the tide lowers and the freshet takes over. Automobiles are definitely more corrosive sounding. Thoughts jumble, and I'm exhausted. Public service has been on my mind for days, and the events of the last few bring it into sharper and sharper focus.

Recently, there's been a loop in my head playing over and over. At first glance, the new, post-Trump G.O.P. doesn't seem like anything more than an extension of early-80s supply side economics reaching its natural terminus: completely self-centered politics. It doesn't even seem like "unenlightened self-interest" anymore. Instead, it simply feels like white bitterness and greed. While there is enough ugliness to go around, some immediate suspects that come to mind are people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, and Chip Roy. We know what they stand against, what they rail against, and what they hate. What we don't really know, aside from the desire to hoover up dollars, is what they stand for.

 
Trying to reach the gamer world through violence.

OK, Boebert stands for packing a sidearm into the U.S. Capitol. Gosar stands for his right to walk right up to the line of "18 U.S. Code § 871" with an animated sword that "fictionally" killed Representative Ocasio-Cortez stopping just short of President Biden's throat. Aside from the fact that Matt Gaetz stands for Tucker Carlson and defends his espousal of "great replacement theory" on one of the most widely watched infotainment networks in the world, there's very little that Gaetz actually stands for besides eliminating the EPA. Chip Roy was content to run on making Trump-era tax cuts permanent while brandishing the debt ceiling as a threat against liberals' fiscal irresponsibility. And it's clear that Marjorie Taylor Greene stands for a pro-life agenda despite a consistent record of voting against supporting the American workforce and what it requires to actually raise a child in this economy.

So, even in the positive, this is a negative crew. What it still makes me think of, though, is this notion of public service. What does that even mean in the 21st century? What did Reagan say again? "In this present crisis, government isn't the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Looping back around to this supply-side mentality in the Post-Truth era, it's easy to argue and rationalize away the real impact of Reagan's sentiment. But look around in 2023. There is a massive teacher shortage nationwide. Time is having a deleterious effect on our infrastructure, and there is no plan to slow the decay on the docket. Eisenhower may have pushed the building and interconnection of the interstates, but few of these new GOP members seem interested in repairing it and improving transportation.

In point of fact, as Kevin McCarthy and others have indicated, the Pentagon budget is off the table, so the only thing left to cut are "entitlements." We can thank Newt Gingrich and the "Contract with America" for making social security and medicare dirty words and the problem. However, most people receiving these benefits spent their entire working lives paying into them. Dismantling such a system is basically stealing from the people who have paid for it. Rick Scott's "sunset" ideas send alarm bells, but who in the new GOP is worried about nursing shortages? Who of them is concerned about the fact that when Maine has a freeze-thaw swing added to a Polar Vortex arctic plunge, schools' pipes freeze? We have lost school days to power outages and freezing pipes in the United States of America. Is that what these folks are clamoring to rebuild? That's obviously (to me) a rhetorical question.

(If you have the time, Chalmers Johnson is a bit retro but worth it.)

The impression that I am left with in this new generation of "leaders" is that they are not patriotic. If your mission is to tear down education, to demonize teachers and their professional autonomy, to provide tax relief to the wealthiest 1% while gutting environmental regulations that protect the most vulnerable of our workforce, to support desecrating what should be sacred land to all Americans for the sake of limited resource extraction (looking at you Bear's Ears), to continue to prop up a for-profit health care system that denies basic prescriptions to people in need, you are not a patriot. In fact, you are not in office to fulfill the unstated obligation of public service at all.

(Yes, I encourage students to read this book.)

This sentiment, this anti-public mindset of the greed culture, reminds me of various confirmation hearings over the years. So often blundering right-wingers salivate on their lapels slavishly fawning to those taking cabinet positions that it is a commonplace spectacle. How many times did we hear about DeVos making a "sacrifice" to "serve" as Education Secretary? Give me a break. Her family's net worth is an estimated $5.4 billion, and she wants to Trojan Horse the voucher program into eroding support for public schools? Thank you for your service? Which service is that? Dismantling what little infrastructure the dwindling middle and expanding lower classes can rely on like public schools? It's disgusting. She didn't even serve in the military like her brother.

(I, too, support vets, Larry, but they're not the only people who provide public service. What about nurses?)

Who thanks the firefighters and nurses and teachers and cops who barely make enough to keep their mortgages afloat? Who among this new generation of "leaders" even cares about what it will take to insure growth and infrastructure stability into the future? The Ayn Rand culture of selfishness is at its apex, and the real notion of public service is reaching nadir. To not even support the democratic process itself. . . . How is it that this even needs to be explained? Perhaps, in 20 years time, if public education really is dismantled, if there really is no return to the dignity of real public service, there won't be anyone to notice that a disruption of the democratic process has become commonplace. 

It's difficult to believe that these fools are bright and coordinated enough to have a master plan, but if they do, I'd say it's working beautifully. As with any situation of psychological projection, look at what they accuse the "other side" (sorry, we're all Americans) of doing. For example, in his speech at Mount Rushmore on July 4, 2020, Donald Trump said, “our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.” Right. In many places, teachers can no longer discuss complex racial history (and celebrate those leaders), must gingerly broach institutionalized inequalities, and simply decontextualize the struggle for all people to come together to form a more perfect union.

So, regarding 45s comments at the foot of Rushmore? Well, I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

 

Lockdown 2022

November 16th. I can’t write. Anything. No student comments. No meaningful notes to friends or family. No condolences. Just the occasional blurt of a banal social media post. It’s a new malaise after the nearly two solid years of remote, hybrid, and masked learning. Of lockdowns and freak outs, dropped effort and reading scores and interest and caring, a news cycle that sears ever more catastrophizing language and images into inner screens, ad nauseam.

And that lockdown. “This is not a drill.” Voices reveal a lot. This one quavered through the P.A. We immediately scrambled to lock doors. Colleagues running by. “You wanna come in?” hand paused for an instant. “No, I have kids in the room!” Copies flying, footfall rattling Doppler effect diminishing with a click and a slam. Curtain down. Windows: crank, lock, pull the shade, repeat. Lights off. Wait.

And wait in silence. It was my prep block, and I was alone in the room. Laptop open to score work, cursor blinking, I quietly sat back down in my chair. Safe enough, I thought. Just stay quiet. Silence the iPhone. Scan for emails. Dim screens. The heat hadn’t fully come on yet, but the ventilators were humming.

A thump on the wall made me leap in my seat like an hours later p.a. announcement, but still there was no news. Refresh the screen and . . . no news. Email a colleague. “What’s up? Any news?” Soon, the reply, "No. WTF? What. Is. Going. On?" No one knew until a message reached us to stay put. No one is to leave the rooms. This is not a drill. State police would be clearing the building room by room until we could be relocated to Mount Desert Elementary where students would be reunited with their families, alphabetically. Crows chatted from spruce limbs to the northeast.

Not knowing what to do, I attempted to score work. Meaningful feedback. Would they see the timestamp? Analyze when? What I was thinking? Callus? I wondered how far the sound of typing would spread. Shadows outside the door. Feet? Police? Imagination? Voices seem to murmur when listening intently on news of nothing. Hours passing. Occasional scuffle and scrape of footfall upstairs. Read. Breathe.

After three and a half hours, the knocking came, more a banging, on the door. "State police. Are you OK?" "Yes, clear!" What do you say? I said, "Clear." The sound of a key unlocking, the handle turns, and there, backlit, are two men in tactical. Fallujah. Kandahar. Jalalabad. Blank. I stare. "Are you alone, sir?" AR-15, I think, or some variation. Stubbed barrel but laser-like sites. Kevlar. "Sir?" "Um, yes, I'm alone." "Come with us, please." I reach for my bag, and one of the men steps forward, barrel raising. Stammering, "I'm, I'm just reaching for my bag." A familiar looking police officer in blue, Ellsworth PD, says, "You can take your laptop, but let's go."

Hands shaking, stepping toward the hallway, feeling more than slightly perp-like, I walked to the door where I saw four more, five more, maybe, guys in green camo tactical, Blades for glasses, gloves, guns. "To your left." Many of the local officers were familiar. Bagley. Higgins. Willey. "Please keep moving toward the bus, sir." There was a long line. Too many to count, and there were more outside flanking the bus. Our driver said, "I retired up here to get away from this. I never, never ever. . . . " His voice fades, and the flashing lights catch my eye. Vehicle after vehicle after vehicle. This is serious.

Ten minutes later, students stream out in a line, pushed along and told to keep moving like me. Hands where we can see them. No bags. Someone has to pee. Somewhere, behind me on the bus, a student is crying. Ten minutes. Fifteen. The band room empties out and a teacher needs to use the bathroom. He cannot. The student voices rise, stories swapping, consternation of "What the fuck. . . ." "My mom is freaking. . . . Did you see Danny's text, and. . . . " I don't know what's going on, but I say, "The officers need to clear the building room by room. They need our cooperation. Please understand that this will take time. We're going to the MDES gym to get a head count." I wasn't certain, but this made sense.

A teacher I didn't know sits down next to me. She is disoriented. This is her first day here in years. There was to be a choral event, an ensemble sing-along with all the middle schools. She is animated and trying to tell me about the band room, but I'm looking past at the officers, trying to read signals or signs, and they waive us on: "Head out, we'll get another bus soon." We drive on. Away from our familiar, into the gathering dusk, down to Northeast Harbor where we will learn a little something.

What we did learn there is that when a group of nearly 400 students gather for hours in a gymnasium after an active shooter threat, it's ugly. A phalanx of family cars lined the road, even blocking our passage at one point, parents clutching phones trying to look in, students looking out. After a few three-point turns and some narrow scrapes, we are escorted into this other school, administrators and counselors and cops. Shouted instructions. Bathrooms, finally. Snacks. Water. It has been hours. I have my laptop and a few adults ask, "How did you get that out?" Apparently, I was lucky.

By 6pm or so, all students accounted for, parents can begin collecting their children. My somber state clashes with the boisterous play and chatter. Clustered shoulders eyeing phones. The thumbs of video games. Everyone looking for who is not there. . . . I withdraw wanting nothing of it. Give me my silence, reflection, distance, solitude. This is real, but it's not being treated that way. Laughter. This is not a drill. And for days to come, weeks to come, we will not process it, will not discuss it. Mention it to eye rolls and notions of exaggeration. To one of my students, it was all dumb because, "No one died. Who cares?"

After teachers gather before going home, someone asks if they can still have practice the next day. "We've got to rehearse," someone else says. With one day off, we're back. Normal as they say. End of quarter grading and incompletes. Quizzes, presentations, essays, and citations. Proofs and lab reports. Morning announcements sharing birthdays and semifinal sports. The daily menu. Chicken nuggets and tots. Pizza and carrot sticks. Milk.

Apathy sets back in; procrastination; boredom; withdrawal. And then, two weeks later to the day, the first snow. They, the students, are at the window, saying breathlessly, “Can I go make an angel? Please?”

 What Conservatives Get Wrong About Education: No Left Turn and Deviation

I could laugh off and dismiss No Left Turn in Education if it wasn't 2021. June brought the promise of a mask-free summer full of travel and music and family visits. Then came the delta variant. It was a deflator for so many of us, while for others it was simply a maskless, "vaxless," business-as-usual moment. Like alpha and all the variants to come before, the delta variant became a political football. The generalized left was advocating vaccinations, social distancing, continued mask mandates, and other mitigation practices. The generalized right was advocating personal choice: vaccinate, distance, and mask if you want to, but leave us alone.

As a teacher, this has been a confounding problem: first, how to communicate the actual purpose of masking to students and parents? It even took me a while to realize that the point of wearing a mask indoors was so that I wouldn't infect others. While there may be some protection from inhaling a viral load, my mask is protecting the others around me from being exposed to whatever viral load I could be shedding. Once I "got it," I tried to share this as often as possible with my students. Some never bought it, though, and teachers spend half the day saying, "Please put your mask over your mouth and nose." For some students, especially those eavesdropping on their parents' Tucker Carlson regimen, not wearing it is a sign of defiance. 

Maskless adults who knowingly traipse around in areas with high community spread are basically sending one message out to their community: "I really don't care what happens to you or anyone else. My comfort comes first." Fair enough. The pursuit of happiness is, in some measure, an inalienable right. Plus, originalists or strict constructionists can argue that there is nothing in the Constitution about the Federal Government dictating health mandates, and they would be right, literally. However, as states tried to exercise their authority in this manner, there have been reactions ranging from rude but peaceful protest to threats of violent insurrection, including a promise to kidnap a governor. Nice.

It is in this climate, then, that I find No Left Turn's desire to ban particular books seriously unnerving. Somehow, this seems possible, no matter how misguided. The Hate U Give? Really? It's difficult to imagine that the "banners" even read Thomas's narrative. It is a solid coming of age story that uses police violence as a catalyst for Starr Carter's dawning social- and self-awareness. Her biggest offense is standing atop a van with a bull horn exhorting a crowd to never give up until justice is served for her dead friend Khalil, a young man unjustly killed by a jumpy patrol officer. As an American book, it could sit comfortably beside Richard Wright's Native Son or Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance." In that essay, Emerson writes, "I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. . . . I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways." When speaking out about needless police violence, Starr Carter was heeding Emerson's call.

In their desire to ban books, No Left Turn proves to be lacking in an irony meter. Robin Diangelo's White Fragility–featured in their "Critical Race Theory" category–identifies the extreme defensiveness found in much of white America when confronting issues of racism. This defensiveness and anger can cloud out the very message that Diangelo tries to send. She argues that when we holler and decry "attacks" on the integrity of Western or Enlightenment thinking, we are not listening. Diangelo goes to great lengths to point out that she is not accusing any individual of racist acts or positions. Rather, she discusses racism in the way that institutions have themselves been built for exclusion. One needn't look further than White Man's Leagues, Plessy v. Ferguson, Red Lining, Poll Taxes and Literacy Tests for evidence of institutional discrimination. This is basic AP US History material. Nothing shocking.

Recently, by revisiting and amplifying the events of Tulsa's Black Wall Street massacre 100 years after the fact, students were given a window into the past. It was a great educational moment, one that allowed a framework for discussing abhorrent acts of racial violence. None of this study, by the way, is intended to shame white students. Rather, in my predominantly white school of Downeast Maine, this is an opportunity to empathize with people who had all opportunities for generational wealth erased with a torch and a gun. These are not disputed historical facts. If discussing them makes us uncomfortable or mad, good. Go there. That's what Diangelo advises: our discomfort is telling us something.

As Americans, though, we should lean into that discomfort. Ours is a project, more than a nation. Ours is a state built on the promises of equity and equality. It is a state founded on the principles of evolutionary change. It is a state founded on the desire to seek redress for grievances. The founding fathers sought to disband the ties that bound them to an unjust king. "No taxation without representation." Agreed. The project of America is one of ever expanding inclusivity. And at each stage, it has come with a price. For the founding fathers, that price was an outright bloody revolution. The king had stepped on the colonists' rights, and the colonists sought to change the power dynamic.

Now, when I see No Left Turn listing Howard Zinn's seminal A People's History of the United States, I continue to wonder, Have they actually read it? Left, right, or center, it is an historical fact that the Pinkerton Detectives, and sometimes the National Guard, were sent in to gun down striking laborers. Were some of them left-wing or even communist? Sure. But remember, no tension between (labor) agitators and abusive owners (capital), no 40-hour work week. No Upton Sinclair and other muckrakers, no USDA. Would you prefer rats and spoiled pork in your hotdogs? If students never read about Samuel Clemens' opposition to the Philippine-American War, how are they to have any historical context other than that of the "yellow press"?

Zinn's mission is not to make white people feel guilty. Rather, his is a mission to document Americans exercising their right to redress grievances. Following cycles of exploitation or struggle come waves of protest, sometimes violent, only to be followed by waves of reform. This is in keeping with the trends of the Second Great Awakening, a movement driven by the charitable side of Christianity. This early-19th century Protestant revivalism launched the temperance, feminist, and abolitionist movements, among others. These preachers were in line with the founding fathers' habit of complaining about their poor treatment at the hands of a greedy king. This is in keeping with the spirit of the Bill of Rights and the spirit of American reform. 

It is understandable how many conservatives are afraid of their children reading books that empower them to veer off the course their families have set. In a pluralistic, multicultural society, difference can be as difficult to accept as change. Yet in the words of that radical leftist Willa Cather, "When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting." If the No Left Turn folks were to do deep, analytical readings of Cather's novels, what would they find? Probably enough to make Cather, herself, blush.

The novel I just quoted, the classic My Ántonia, only features two rapists. One is a Boston farmer who torments his Swedish housemaids before one "was forced to retire from the world for a short time." The horrid Wick Cutter, exploitative money lender and town Brahmin, was also a letch. Regarding his housemaids, "One of them he had taken to Omaha and established in a business for which he had fitted her. He still visited her." But maybe it's just as well that this is couched in a language and context too subtle for the seeker of the salacious and the banner of books.

Cather's project, though, was reformist as much as it was reportage. She sought to show Americans just how much the maligned Eastern Europeans of the late-19th century actually contributed to the shaping of the prairie. She reveals just how provincial and narrow-minded most people become. Even Jim Burden, the novel's youthful narrator, succumbs to conservative claptrap and marries a disinterested WASP. Oh well, at least he shares his own mistakes with readers and embraces his shortcomings in the end.

By expanding the franchise, Andrew Jackson pushed against the then conservative American grain who would only grant white, property-owning men the right to vote. While expedient for his own ends, Jackson's move won him a spot on the twenty dollar bill in spite of his other, extensive short-comings. His democratic push was a wave of change and reform. And we are proud of him for it.

Then came the 13th and 14th Amendments. Then came the 19th. Despite the 1924 Snyder Act, Native American voting rights weren't secured until the passage of the 1965 Voter Rights Act. As an American, I for one am glad that these struggles pressed forward. There were always people objecting at each step of the way. Thankfully, they are mostly the forgotten voices of American history.

While No Left Turn will continue to gain traction in this reactionary moment, I will stand against them and their endeavors to limit American discourse. The reductive histrionics of Charlie Kirk's argument against Critical Race Theory, for one example, are simply designed to inflame and divide. No student benefits from an education that seeks to pretend that the world outside does not exist.

5:15 . . . This alarm is never easy. These days, I slog out a bit late, still stuck to headlines and tangents, a news diet that has crowded out calm at an increasing rate for the past five years.

6:40 . . . Breakfast done, lunch is coming together, the pace picks up; don't forget the go coffee.

7:30ish . . . (It used to be earlier.) . . . It's time to fire up the machine:

• Key into the lock to enter classroom.

• Lug the shoulder bag, lunch box, coffee cup, sundry items, over to the desk area.

• Hit the powerstrip for lamps and laptop charger.

• Walk over to the east window, unlock, and crank open at least 5".

• Turn on small exit fan, it's an insert held in place, partly, by a summer screen duct taped to the window frame.

• By the free-read bookshelf, hit the HEPA air filter, make sure it's on the germ setting.

• The iPad is next, clasped to a stand horizontally, mini-dongle awaiting the laptop's arrival at this mobile standing desk. I turn it on.

• The Promethean Board projector system follows; turning that on allows me access to the Apple TV settings where I can find the daily bulletin window, the one that announces class changes, student of the month, and various rotating calendar items on screen.

• Once class is about to begin, that's when the Hybrid fun really starts.

8:00ish . . . This is time to check emails, meet with families and other teachers for IEPs, 504s, and any other student support team meetings. As the end of the quarter approaches, these morning slots are filled with students wanting to workshop essays and discuss revisions and my feedback. There are even a few regularly scheduled meetings, weekly, as students are a bit untethered in the role of being virtual students and are struggling finding ways to focus on tasks independently.

Some mornings, I even have time to begin looking at last night's homework or responding to student writing before class. It's never uninterrupted time, though, as Hybrid and in-person students start popping into the classroom by 8:30. It all happens so fast!

9:00 . . . On the iPad, I open Google Calendar and find Block A's time slot. I open the link to our Google Meet, make sure the iPad is muted, and join the meeting. This will act as the camera into the classroom for the students who are at home. 

I plug the dongle into my laptop, now on the standing desk. Then, I plug the MOVO area microphone into a different USB port on the laptop. This provides superior ambient sound, as in the teacher-student dialog in the classroom.

The chimes for students joining the class online keep pinging, and I then join the Meet via Calendar on my laptop. This is "command central," the place where I can share documents and control what is seen on screen. When I log in, here, I wave to the early arrivals at home, eating breakfast or waking up, peering into the camera. "Morning, Peter! Just setting up, here. Give us a minute."

The power supply needs to be connected to the laptop, so I haul that over. All of this takes a lot of juice. Then, the last plug in for the morning is the sound bar. This will broadcast the student voices from online into the classroom at a volume level everyone can hear. Hopefully, we can have a coherent conversation.

9:05 . . . After first bell, it's time to take attendance. I can easily check the classroom, where several students will have slipped in as I'm acting as tech roadie and set up guy. "Morning, folks." Chit chat and attendance follows, allowing for a few stragglers to join us online.

This is a tricky part, as I ask students to turn their cameras on daily. While some cannot do so successfully without sacrificing bandwidth, some can. I need to see as many faces on my laptop screen as possible before I start sharing documents, or I will fall into the despair of fearing that no one is "out there" at all. 14- and 15-year-olds are experts at tuning me out in person. Turning off a camera and mic make that all the easier. 

Sometimes, when I ask a student to turn on mic or camera, I regret having done so. I have seen basements with insulation drooping from between the rafters, clutter like a hoarder show, black light dungeons of rock, or just simple kitchens. One never knows. Sound also yields sudden surprises like screaming younger siblings, anger television or music soundtracks, orders barked from rooms afar. The demand for mics and cameras has softened.

OK, class up and running. Many days, in my new World History classes, we start with a CNN-10 video. I must remember to mute my own mic, share a tab (not whole screen), and check with remote students if we're all systems go. It's chunky, skipping, and sometimes pixelated on a good day. The audio is the key, though.

One odd feature about sharing a screen, be it for a broadcast or a document share, that's when I lose track of the faces (or avatars) at home. My screen is what I am projecting only, and I rely on verbal check-ins. "So, Locke was making claims about the sanctity of life, liberty, and property. Does that sound familiar? Is that language we know from a separate document or a different place? Timmy?" I pause, waiting. "Timmy? Are you there? Tim? Is your mic working, buddy?"

These asks are to share the wealth of conversation. If, like me, a student can learn better by verbalizing, by conversing, I want them to have that experience. It's also important to note when students are, or are not, engaged. We need to check for understanding, regularly. "Timmy?" I'll pause again, and on many days, my students have heard me say, "Well, I guess he went to make a sandwich." I try to keep it light.

Every once in a while, I will have moved on. "Let's take a look at the responses about Rousseau's socia . . ." Then, a sudden garbled break in, "Yeah, Locke was. . . . [diginoise garble]. . . " and it's apparent that Timmy's response from 120 seconds ago is just now trying to break through the airwaves. I pause, let it pass, and keep moving on.

Adaptability

So, wash, rinse, and repeat for each class in the day. It's screwy. Prior to the holidays, families were worried about sending their students to school, and I might have only one or two students in the classroom while all the rest are online. We try to act as though there is a classroom culture. We try to act as though it's a normal day.

One thing is for certain, these students have adapted. The teachers have adapted. We're doing it, daily, weekly, monthly getting better at doing things we never dreamed of doing one year ago. Here we are, though, losing touch with the energy that brings a classroom discussion alive, that ineffable spark that surges through a great conversation, the immeasurable pleasure of seeing recognition in the eyes of those understanding something for the first time.

Like music without an audience or a sporting event with cardboard cutouts, we're playing all four quarters this year, open for Hybrid learning, whether or not we have a quorum. The skills we've developed will serve us well in the future, too, provided we can direct them to the right purposes. However, there's no denying what we've lost, and the jury's out on what it means for us moving forward.

2:15 . . . In-person learners are hitting the busses, and the afternoon meetings have begun. Once I leave the building at 4:00, 5:00, or 6:00 or so, depending on that day's grading and workload, it's off to the home office where the planning happens, devising lessons and making instructional videos into the evening, on weekends, and over breaks.

I'm shouting, but this year, it's like shouting into the wind.

Pandemic: Missed Opportunities or Change on the Horizon?

2020. It has come to this. Face masks for some "in-person" students and teachers, remote learning for others, a blend of the two for the brave Hybrids. COVID teaching and learning is not for the feint of heart, I guess, but there's something sticking in my craw about all of this: Everyone's in a hurry to "return to normal." Just today, Ari Shapiro is advertising an All Things Considered program about how we can "jumpstart" learning after the pandemic, and reboot the "race" to end the achievement gap.

It's difficult to write this, as much as it's difficult to even think it, but I have to say, our system feels broken. It's either that, or I've just never fit our national system. What I mean by that is, I've never understood the drive, in business or education, for more faster more faster more faster more. It's a "race," or it's an initiative in the midst of a culture "war." It's the ceaseless Deleuze and Guattari "desiring machine" hell bent for the end times drive, and I've never liked it. There, I said it.

Educating a nation of 350,000,000 is not easy in the best of times. High schools' schedules are driven by the three-season sports schedule, and the push for excellence just means "more faster" and improved test scores. Imagine an AP teacher suggesting to students that they were going to jettison 50% of the breadth they cover in favor of doing some in-depth work and analysis? 100 miles wide and 1" deep is the American motto. We've never met a gaggle of statistics or test strategies that we can't cram down students' throats five days a week in a rush to a "perform" at the end. And what, then, are we measuring?

Alfie Kohn once asked a great question when he titled a 2004 collection of essays What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? Clearly, in Kohn's eyes, standardized testing does nothing to help us unravel that knot. Who cares if a skilled Maine wooden boat builder bombed the SATs? I don't. I bombed the SATs. A lot of people I know hated taking those tests, regardless of intelligence. We know this. We also know that the factory model of education reflects a philosophy and approach to education calcified in the late-19th century. And here we are in a pandemic, with all the world's tech-gizmos available to us, pushing, pushing, pushing for schools to "reopen" as usual. 

Students are suffering! There's backsliding academically! Students and parents can't cope! "They" waste time on video games and TikTok! There are myriad social problems lurking beneath these headline proclamations, and few of them can be solved by 19th century models for education. OK, we are providing students with meals. Last spring, during phase 1 of COVID education, local schools here in Hancock and Penobscot Counties were delivering food with the bus system. But is that why schools need to remain open? Providing food? The fact that nuclear families can't cope during this stressful time has more to do with our unhealthy obsession with burdening the nuclear family with our national measures of success. David Brooks has had a profound turn around on the idea of the nuclear family, and he sees it, now, as a social failing. In the COVID case, I see his point clearly: we have nothing else to fall back on to support students and families. NOTHING ELSE . . . except schools?

The weirdest pill to swallow right now is that in the United States–remember, the entrepreneurial hub of the capitalist universe–we typically eschew real innovation in education. That is not to say that we are not adapting. Rather, it is to say that we are adapting to new technologies and possibilities while being stuck in a 19th century schedule and mindset. One of Amy Scott's latest features on MarketPlace has a headline that says it all: "More Employers Are Expected to Shift to Hybrid Workplaces." The alphabet soup of tech companies Americans know and love are going to embrace a new flex model for employees now and after the pandemic. And yet there's a drum beat for schools to return to "normal." This seems like a wasted opportunity. Why not follow the lead of innovative entrepreneurs and invest in a "high flex," hybrid model of schooling all of the time, not just during pandemic times?

Take our local geography in Coastal Downeast Maine for one example. Students sit on busses for ever increasing amounts of time in order to ride in to (overheated) school buildings from tiny, far flung towns on busses that are far under capacity much of the time. I often try to cheer kids up after their lonely bus rides by saying stupid stuff like, "Nice limo, dude." I can't even comprehend the cost benefit analysis of fuel alone while having 5 students ride in on a full-length school bus for a half hour plus each way to and from school. And for what? To play sports? To do theater? For science labs? On some days that's true.

However, during the pandemic, our experiments with online learning have shown that we can grow, rapidly, when we throw teachers and students into new learning environments. In Maine, the MLTI program is now paying off for the schools who fully bought in by providing high schoolers with devices. To be sure, many rural areas lack basic broadband or quality internet accessibility, and that is a concern. However, we still have all sorts of other resistance to "going remote" or doing full-time, online learning. As COVID cases surge, many families are struggling with exposure or risk, and yet we continue to hear a push for in-person learning as the only solution.

With elementary students, there is little doubt that in-person contact is essential. I am not an elementary teacher. However, high school students are transitioning into a world where the most successful businesses and entrepreneurs have already transitioned to online work, on the daily. Wouldn't it make sense for us to begin practicing a more flexible workplace regardless of pandemic times? In our rush to be at work on time, the Maine State DOT spends roughly $15 million per year. This is not including local municipalities. That one cost and commuter push, alone, is staggeringly wasteful.

If we slowed down just a bit, adjusted our work to fit an online plan due to weather, we would be saving towns money. Not only that, roads might not be plowed down into smithereens year after year. Buildings could adjust their heating needs to fit daily use. Skills such as web development, creating digital content, game design, and all sectors of media production could be incorporated into students' skillsets. The list of benefits goes on, and yet, and yet . . .

Something tells me that the U.S. is on a one-way road that knows no other course and that 2021 will be a "Return to Normalcy." If that means careening down a beaten country road at 6:15am in the dark to drop your groggy teenager off for a 45-60 minute bus ride unquestioningly, please don't sign me up. We need to evolve.

Constancy

The longer I teach, the less I feel I know about the profession.  The more stuff that is dumped on my plate, the less I understand and the less time I have to process what has even happened to me.  Time is this vortex that just sucks us along, and the more responsibilities, the more juggling, the less reflection, pondering and knowing.  NWEA, Common Core, PSAT/SAT, Smarter Balance, new evaluation systems, Power School, Mastery Connect, Google Classroom, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), all of which, of course, align with 21st Century Learning Standards.

Some days, I stare wistfully at the Edward P. J. Corbett book Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student that sits lonely on the corner shelf.  I think, if only I could simply focus on the structure of an argument, help students practice writing the strong sentence, the smooth and linked paragraph, the syllogistic logic driving the majority of our public discourse, that would keep things simple.  After all, isn’t that the most practical outcome of an English class?

When the dust of my despair settles, a funny thing happens.  I notice students.  There they are, day in and day out.  OK, it’s March in Maine.  Therefore, some students are out for family vacations in Orlando because travel packages are more affordable when not coinciding with February or April breaks.  Still other students are out because they feel like it, and parents endorse staying home or going wherever it is they go but to school.  For the most part, though, there they are, day after day, in sickness and in health.  There I am, too.

Many days, if I take a mental inventory, it is staggering how many students are coming from a single parent household.  Several of those students are late or tired due to having to care for siblings.  Some are working nights to help defray the expenses of running a household.  Many haven’t had a good night’s sleep, eaten much beyond high fructose corn syrup and milk protein, found the time for anything but extracurriculars or done anything but worry about the adults in their lives, adults with serious challenges, adults on whom they are supposed to depend.  What appears to be a dull consistency in my classroom, day after day of Hamlet or the exploration of literary devices in modern American poetry, may actually be a blessing.

The most remote, uncomfortable or wiley teenager seems to appreciate something as simple as the daily greeting.  “Morning.”  “Huy.”  “G’day.”  “Nice to see ya.”  Basic nods and acknowledgements which require no response seem to be the stock and trade of my business, even more than feedback on essays, barrages of standardized tests, quarterly grade reports.  I don’t even remember my own high school grade reports, at all.  What I do remember was my photography teacher greeting me day after day, no matter how I had behaved the day before, always ready with a kind word.  I remember that 30 years later.

When much of the flimflam of assessment strategies, reporting and accountability blows away like so many autumn leaves, we will still be there.  Teachers will greet students ready to go, a fresh start every day.  Students who make their best effort to show up will be treated with that daily respect that they deserve.  Nope, it’s not assessable.  No, it’s not on the standardized test.  Yes, it is about accountability.  Day in and day out, we are accountable to each other, directly.  The relationships we build, ultimately, I am now convinced, are what matters most.  Everything else is a passing acronym.

Knuckleheads by Jeff Kass

Knuckleheads
by Jeff Kass

Dzanc Books, 2011

soft cover, 250 pages, $9.99

At risk of offending New Critics from the 1930s, it is easy to venture that Jeff Kass intended Knuckleheads for the average guy. There may be an outside chance that this collection of short fiction may reach the women who love these average guys, but the percentages might be low. To glean as much as possible from Kass's pages, one must enjoy the detailed depiction of sinew surrounding a scapula or clavicle tearing and popping, repeatedly. The reader should identify with excess sweat, teeth grinding frustration, desire with nowhere to go, half-nelson and noogie stupidity, not to mention a genuine desire to find acceptance. Above all else, it is this latter emotion that most pervades Kass's collection.

Whether it is the middle and high school subterranean boys of "Basements," or the middle aged yearners of "Mylar Man," "Drowning Superman" and "The Naked Guy Is Dead," Kass depicts males who hover on the periphery, yearning for acceptance. The awkward teen boys of "Basements," collectively scouring their neighborhood for adventure through pool hopping, poker, turntables, make out sessions, always have an eye on whether or not they fit. In a genuine way, Kass's characters and narrators, especially, are both inside and outside simultaneously. It is an angst often ascribed to teen boys, as if some miracle of community belonging happens after the age of 20. It doesn't, and to Kass's credit, he depicts middle aged characters still pedaling through a cul-de-sac of insecurity and desire, youthful anxieties more accepted than resolved.

In "Mylar Man," Kass's late-30s protagonist yearns for his brother's wife. The brother in question is an unemployed, marginally schizoid man who collects balloon rubbish. His internet blogging, environmental crusading world is a sad depiction of youthful idealism gone horribly wrong. The narrator has loved Mylar Man's–the "Old Goat," as he calls him–wife since high school. Kass manages to link that youthful yearning with the incomplete dissatisfactions many middle aged men face, simultaneously making a mockery of and paean to such desires. The consummation leads nowhere but back to those sweaty weight lifting benches of middle school basements.

"Drowning Superman" and "The Naked Guy Is Dead" each depict the alienation and anxieties of marriage in such a way as to capture a kid trapped in a middle aged man's disappointment. The stories, however, do not disappoint. In "Drowning Superman," Kass's protagonist drags around beach blankets, books and a rubber coated Superman statuette on a Martha's Vineyard vacation. The statuette provides the only pleasant shared time between Jay and Calista. They would throw it into the pool and watch their son Jesse dive for it. There is more than a little bit of the baseball card and comic book collecting boy in Jay bubbling up to the surface. When he has to dive deep to find this toy, lost in a Vineyard pond, the parallels between father and son surface. So, too, in "The Naked Guy Is Dead"; only, in that story, it is the protagonist's own innocence and hope sinking to the bottom of an impenetrable pond. Husband and wife have only one tragedy and one innocent memory left to provide them they buoyancy they need.

No matter what the age of boy or man Kass depicts, stylistically this fiction is still tethered to his natural home: slam poetry. There is a breathless quality in all these depictions of buried desires and ranch houses and wrestling matches where even winning is not enough. There is a restlessness and angst which few men openly depict. The familiar scenes of locker rooms, golf courses, blacktop four squares games at recess and sneaking out at night will continue to resonate into this new century. Whether it is a gearhead in the back of English class or a befuddled, middle aged man trying to figure out how he arrived at this stage in life, Kass's Knuckleheads is a book which will prove to be as difficult to put down as the remote. Why? Much like the elusive Fred Exley, Kass captures something inherently grungy, bumbling and altogether honest about what it means to be an American male.