extracurricular opportunities

Nostalgia and Other Ailments

I’ve been thinking about the word nostalgia lately. We tend to consider nostalgia as a warm and cozy feeling– of the sensation of comfort food, or at least comfort in that which was. I’ve been saying the word aloud to myself. It doesn’t sound like comfort, though. It sounds like an ailment. In fact, the suffix -algia means pain: Arthralgia (joint pain),Myalgia (muscle pain), Neuralgia (nerve pain), Fibromyalgia (widespread musculoskeletal pain and fatigue) are the most common -algias, except for the all consuming cultural ailment, Nostalgia. The closest association with pain might be homesickness, although we use the term nostalgia differently, and with decidedly positive associations. Perhaps nostalgia connotes a sense of childhood home, but it is often used more broadly as an evocation of affection for the past, which is remembered as being better than the present. If anything, nostalgia, rather than evoking pain, has an almost analgesic quality.

 

Technology has enabled increasing nostalgia, as film preservation and digital imaging has become more pervasive over the last few decades. Being able to revisit the cultural sign posts (especially through movies and tv,as well as restored audio/music), and the availability to watch and listen at any moment, has given us an unprecedented human experience of engaging with the past. We can not only remember and recall experientially, but we can watch and see and hear in the present while emotionally connecting to an experience not of the present, but of the past. Moreover, it feels anything but painful. It is comforting and often joyful. It is an escape from the pains of the present. In fact, our current high-tech culture allows us to dwell in the past and create an idealized version of the non-present. Nostalgia is selective memory that mutes pain. Perhaps the -algia suffix that refers to pain, is the pain of life that we seek to escape through selective memory or false memory.

 

The ever availability of accessing the sights and sounds of another time has been entertaining and relaxing, but it has also had an insidious effect of distorting not only time, but reality. Nostalgia has begun to infect our progress, by simplifying complex (cultural) organisms and processes that unfold over time, and deluding us into glorifying a time and/or place that didn’t have our current burdens.

 

Some have a distorted sense of nostalgia, which includes a perverted concept of culture and history. Lately we have seen and heard outrageous bigots caught revealing their hateful views. Whether it’s Cliven Bundy or Don Sterling, or F. Glenn Miller (who went on a shooting spree at Jewish Centers and killed people who were not even Jewish), or Paula Deen or George Zimmerman, these now infamous bigots, along with the many not so famous bigots, are the outliers (albeit too many in number) who have yet to evolve from or even understand the virulence of selfishness and hate. Even odder, many who claim that racism is a thing of the past because we have civil rights laws, indulge their own outrageous hate fantasies with the cognitive dissonance that allows them to see themselves as not-racists, but just as individuals with individual preferences. Of course, they often couch their personal beliefs in the good old days that never really existed. This is distorted nostalgia that infects.

 

Like the resurgence of Whooping Cough and Measles, once terrible diseases that were relatively easily eradicated in childhood through vaccination, bigotry and hate are making a comeback, and lately seem to be rather virulent. Scientists have expressed concern that those who have not vaccinated their children against terrible childhood diseases have contributed to recent outbreaks of these diseases, thought to have been nearly eliminated. The idea that one’s own preference or experience is all that matters, and the notion that there is more at risk today than ever, are the kinds of distortions that allow even a minority of people to inflict immense pain and difficulty upon others.

 

This wave of Libertarianism/hyper-individualism in the age of the Internet, combined with a fondness for nostalgia which emphasizes only what one finds delightful or of his/her experience, and disregards the rest, ignores the complexities of science and history, as well as cultural health. Re-examining protocols of the past, and ensuring that laws and practices protect the most vulnerable and the public at large, is an ongoing worthwhile pursuit. However, we can not retreat to nostalgia, which, although pain relieving, is distorting, and for some, ignores serious complexities that demand our attention to keep us healthy.

Making Change

What do cashiers have to do with The March on Washington? It’s probably not what you think.

As a child, I was regularly asked to walk to the neighborhood market a few blocks away to get some groceries for my mother. The grocers knew my family, along with many others in the neighborhood. Still, my mother taught me to always check the receipt (and give it to her), and she taught me how to make change. If the items totaled $17.45 and I gave the grocer (or cashier) $20.00, I had to know how much change I should get back.

As a young child, mental math (as we used to call it) was not my forte. In early elementary school we were taught math facts. We were drilled with flash cards. It was basic memorization of addition and subtraction, and then, multiplication tables, soon to be followed by short division flash cards. As one who never had a flair for remembering numbers or dates, or memorization at all, this mental math approach was arduous and mostly problematic for me. Yes, I did force myself to learn elemental math facts, but I was utterly turned off and avoided whatever I could. At least I did learn the basics. I learned that I had to subtract: $20.00-$17.45= $2.55.

But subtracting in my head (especially when I was quite young) was likely to lead to careless errors. So, my mother taught me how to make change. Essentially, she was teaching me that I could add instead of subtract. I remember struggling with the concept because I didn’t get that I was merely doing addition instead of subtraction. It just seemed like a magic trick that it all added up. Then, when I got the concept of counting back change from the total to the amount I gave, it was no longer like a magic trick–just magic in the way that something perfect seems magical.

Flash forward several years, and cash registers become calculators. Cashiers no longer  need to do anything but make sure that if the cash register says $2.55 change,  they can count the correct bills and coins. They do not have to figure out the change. For a generation now, cashiers have not had to do any math beyond counting what they are told to provide. On the occasions when I do make cash purchases, I am always dumbfounded that cashiers don’t (and often can’t) make change. They can’t figure the difference. There’s no human agency in making change; no critical thinking. I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much if cash registers are more efficient calculators than the people who use them, but I wonder about this ability (or lack thereof) to make change.

For me, the process of making change resonated more than merely knowing the numbers. That has always been true for me. It struck me this week as we have been commemorating the 50th anniversary of The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,  that while August 28, 1963 marks the historic date, the processes of change inform how we make change. Noting the differences from where we started to where we are now is not sufficient if we are to be the ones who make change. We must understand the processes of change–of additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions, and miscalculations.

The March on Washington 50 years ago was historic for many reasons. Of course, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream ” speech was pivotal, and remarkable, and truly one of the greatest pieces of oration in our history; but the peaceful participation by so many was equally historic and inspiring. Everyone who rallied at the mall in Washington was participating in making change, and inspired so many others to become agents of change. It is easy to just take the change that others make. It is easy to allow changes to be dictated by technology. It is more important, though, to be able to make change.

Leisure Suits

I was born in 1963, just before Camelot was obliterated. By the time I started grade school, sartorial splendor was becoming a thing of the past.  In the 70s, countering the culture largely meant wearing informal, poorly made, unflattering, and often, just ugly clothes.  Changing one’s appearances was meant to denote changing  one’s attitudes. Relaxed fit clothing (before we called a particular style of jeans “relaxed fit”) was supposed to reflect greater freedom, fewer constraints, undoing structures of culture, and a more casual attitude. Adults were uptight; youths were tuning in, turning on and dropping out, which meant building a new harmonious society. Imagine. Then came those horrific Leisure Suits. Even then, I thought they were hideous and silly. The worst part was that Leisure Suits were for dressing up. They didn’t look comfortable or flattering, and came to represent a cheap, synthetic, and middling culture; a culture that was apathetic and confused, low brow and lazy.

A generation later, our children have grown up with a more robust culture. While access to information and communication has been revolutionized in the last generation, there has also been a renaissance of leisure activities and accoutrements. The leisure business is enormous, and people invest great time and money into leisure activities. This has been a terrific boon over the last generation, not only economically, but culturally. Pursuing a leisure activity such as a sport or art is productive. For years I have cautioned parents about over scheduling their children. Children (and adults) need unscheduled free time, but pursuing a hobby or activity (beyond looking at a screen) on a regular basis can provide skills that may go beyond the activity.

When we find a leisure activity that suits us, we strengthen ourselves and can expand. There are all kinds of attributes to all sorts of sports and arts, but the activities themselves often become metaphors for us. I was a great swimmer as a young child, and enjoyed the competence and strength I felt in the water. Many  years later in college, I swam every morning, as it felt like the only way my thoughts could flow in order to write papers. I hardly go to the pool for a swim these days, but I’m very much a swimmer in other ways, and yes, still a lifeguard of sorts. I tend to dive into whatever I pursue. Somehow, I’ve been able to stay afloat, treading from time to time, but mostly propelling myself forward using all my muscles, along the surface of the tide. I was well suited to swimming, and swimming suits me.

Those who are well suited to their work are often quite successful. It’s not always easy to find work that suits us. We often think of work as effort, and leisure as effortless, but there can be joyful effort in both work and play.  Leisure activities are not only ways to  have fun, unwind and relax, but are often ways in which we can more fully realize ourselves and develop our strengths to use in various capacities.  Leisure suits!

If Memory Serves….

Originally called Decoration Day, Memorial Day, celebrated today, the last Monday in May, is observed in remembrance of those who died in service to our country. More accurately, Memorial Day is a national holiday recognizing military personnel who died during war. For many, the memorial aspect is secondary to the barbeques  and pool openings and retail bargains and the unofficial commencement of summer. For others, Memorial Day is about patriotism. For them it is literally about their loved ones being wrapped in the flag.

Decoration Day was initially a day set aside to place flowers or other decorations on the graves of Civil War soldiers. It was not a national holiday at the outset, and Northern states observed Decoration Day on a different day from Southern states. After WW1, the nation as a whole began to commemorate soldiers who died in war, and Memorial Day has become a tragic tradition that unites us in loss, as so many have died in so many wars,with the expectation that there will always be more.

Unlike the Civil War, or even the World Wars , Korea and Vietnam, today the country acknowledges those lost in wars, but many citizens have not experienced the loss personally. Military families are no longer all families. But service should be in all families. Whether or not it is military service, perhaps we can use this Memorial Day to consider service in its myriad possibilities for bettering our communities and our country.

Many people give their lives to service. They may not lose their lives to service, but find that in serving others, they are creating better communities. We need to consider these acts of national pride as well. In addition to military personnel, police and firefighters have chosen careers that put themselves in harm’s way in service to our communities. We should remember them. We should acknowledge them. We should be more connected to those members in our communities who service us. Teachers service us. No, they do not risk life or limb except in unusual circumstances, but the choice to teach kids is in service to our communities and to our nation. We have begun to encourage young people to serve–not just militarily, but in numerous ways in their communities. This Memorial Day, as some decorate graves of fallen soldiers, and others fire up the grill, let us consider the prospect that the term servicemen or servicewomen need not be limited to the military. If memory serves, then let us all be servicemen and servicewomen. Let us give more of our lives without losing them to violence in the name of freedom.

culture of education/education of Culture

Throughout my years as an educator, I have infused my lessons with works of art–from literature to paintings, to plays and movies, as well as dance and music. I don’t really know how to teach english or history or even government (remember civics???) without drawing upon Cultural  examples.  Our kids are often taught in schools that have relinquished the arts and Culture to nonschool life. How can we say that we are educating without Culture?  How can we outsource the arts; extricate it from formal schooling? To be educated is to be Cultured. To be Cultured is to be educated. When the arts are available as an extra-curricular option, or only to the wealthiest, we deprive our culture of excellence and opportunity.  I’m thrilled that there are so many out-of -school and extracurricular opportunities for students to engage in an art form, but we seem to have lost the connectivity that the arts inherently provide. We have also separated the artist from the teacher–except in the cases of the art or music, or the even rarer dance teacher. We employ school teachers who are often stifled and who must be managers first and foremost. They are often not even creators of their own curricula and must adhere to prescribed lessons and assessments. Creativity must return to education, and cultural centers must also play a greater role in educating our communities.

This is the beginning of a broader conversation. I invite readers to share ideas and practices that bring together the arts and education beyond the basics and beyond the early years, after which,  subjects become more segmented, and students’ lives are more rigid.  Educators, parents, students, artists, musicians, dancers, civic leaders and laypeople…..please share creative ideas.