teaching

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.

Live and Let Die

When you were young and your heart was an open book 

You used to say live and let live 

(You know you did, you know you did you know you did) 

But if this ever changing world in which we live in 

Makes you give in and cry 

Say live and let die 

What was originally the theme song to the  James Bond movie “Live and Let Die” in 1973  has more recently become not only a subculture in American society, but law in several states.

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/states-that-have-stand-your-ground-laws.html

Under the Stand Your Ground law, a person who feels threatened has no obligation to retreat.

(Live and let die) 

Live and let die 

(Live and let die) 

Until recent years, the duty to retreat helped  define what “reasonable” threat meant. Stand Your Ground was seen as an extension of The Castle Doctrine, which allowed people who are threatened in their own homes to stand their ground in their own homes and defend themselves without having to flee their homes. Thus, with Stand Your Ground laws, the concept applied to one’s home has been extended, as long as one is engaged in legal activity.

What does it matter to ya 

When you got a job to do 

You gotta do it well 

You gotta give the other fellow hell 

But standing one’s ground, which of course has it’s place in certain contexts, has become a distorted cultural attitude across the country, as much as an atrocious law leading to the tragic death of an unarmed teen, Trayvon Martin, in the Zimmerman case.  We have stopped considering unintended consequences of behavior, speech, politics and laws.

You used to say live and let live 

(You know you did, you know you did you know you did) 

But if this ever changing world in which we live in 

Makes you give in and cry.

When did we become a culture of “Live and Let Die” ?

Sir Paul McCartney:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK2hKzZss5Y

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.

Let’s Dance!

If our kids don’t replicate our suggestions, have they learned? Have we taught? As parents and educators, we attempt to nourish, protect, guide, acculturate, civilize, enrich and encourage. As Andrew Solomon writes in his masterful work Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search For Identity, “ There is no such thing as reproduction.” Parents produce offspring. The idea is that the product of the parents is a new organism. Even when the children resemble the adults, they always grow away from us. Andrew Solomon’s book is devoted to children who don’t resemble their parents, but the lessons are true for all. Teaching and parenting is not a matter of replication.

In many ways education (whether parent or teacher) is dance. We choreograph, composing a sequence of steps and moves. We design a form and motions. Educators/choreographers direct movement. Our kids are dancers. As learners, they (and we) employ codified movements in various contexts. Dance is a form of social interaction, emotional expression, and performance. Most importantly it is movement. If we consider  educating as guiding our kids’ (and our) movement  in the domains of social interaction, emotional expression and performance, rather than as a sculpture (or worse, a reproduction of a sculpture), then we can experience individual human rhythms and energies, and appreciate their distinctions and likenesses through their gestures.  We can move along with them.

Education is movement!  Let’s Dance!

Super Duper

Yesterday was a Super Duper Wednesday.  It was not a good day; certainly not in the news world. It was a day full of news and un-news and more bad news, and then punctuated news. By now we are all too familiar with the news media too eager to report, despite serious mistakes (and possibly serious ramifications from those mistakes). It does seem, however, that there is forensic evidence of a pressure cooker used for the bomb(s) that killed and maimed brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, at the Boston Marathon on Monday. A pressure cooker. It’s almost too obvious. The literal and figurative remains of a pressure cooker were what we were left with yesterday. By the time I went to bed, though, I felt duped.

On a day when media outlets rushed to report that a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing was arrested, and then that report was retracted, the “pressure cooker” that is the news media revealed its limits. Then there was the discovery of a  potentially poisonous letter sent to President Obama, just after one was discovered sent to a senator (maybe more than one senator). At least those letters were initialed by the sender, so as to avoid any confusion. By the end of the day, when most of the news revolved around the aftermath of the horror in Boston, and attempts to get attention for poisoning senators and the President, a bi-partisan bill that would expand background checks to purchase a gun was defeated. President Obama responded,” The American people are trying to figure out, how can something have 90 percent support and yet not happen?”  I think many of us felt Super Duped.

We live in Super times. Supermodels and Supermajorities; Super Bowls and Super Bugs; Super Moms and Superheroes; (Superman); Superhighways and Superconductors; Super Glue and Super Funds; Supersonic and Supernova; Superstars and Superpowers; Superego and Superficial and Supernatural…….

So much seems to be heightened–super heightened– and we often find ourselves in our own pressure cookers. Then we have Super Duper days.

Future Tense

It used to be that the future was exciting.  Of course, that was in the past. Now, in the present, yesterday’s future, we fear the future. Whether it’s: terrorism, nuclear obliteration, the next super-bug, or super-storm; climate change, crushing debt, or no more jobs; politicians who don’t stand for us, corporations who speak over us, horse meat and hormones, or unriching education, we are growing increasingly more tense about the future.

We have ample evidence today that we have many issues to tackle.  Even more disconcerting, is the rationale against tackling issues. We see how seemingly intractable so many problems have become. People across the political spectrum have dug in their heels, and have been most concerned with ideological purity and political power. Instead of climbing mountains, or even seeing that shining city on a hill, we’re staring down fiscal cliffs. Cynics have divided us into makers and takers (although I’m not sure everyone would agree who’s who). Hope and change became nope and same. Everyone is disgusted and fearful.

Despite the reality upon which our fears are based, we are becoming blinded by the fear. When teaching History to high school students, I remind them of other periods when the world seemed like it was about to end, or at least had turned very dark. When they can imagine their grandparents’ world, and that life continued, and the future included their lives, they can begin to shift their perspectives.

History is a great teacher. So too are the arts. The combination is most effective in conveying ways in which humans have confronted issues and experienced difficulties and forged new ways to shape lives and communities. I encourage teachers to include paintings and music, as well as dance and theatre in their History classes. I also encourage a fusion of History with Math and Science, and of course integrating the arts in those classes as well. Perspective is important in each subject (and in life), and is easily exemplified in the arts. Students in Language Arts classes learn perspective (person) in grammar and literature (through character and voice). Education is not merely the accumulation of facts. It is in fact to enrich (not unrich) our lives; to broaden our perspectives.

As a nation, we have been struggling with accountability in education. Students are assessed; teachers are assessed; and schools are assessed. I’m not sure that our assessments are  actually geared toward improving education, despite the good intentions. Moreover, the focus on those assessments as the determiners of future status for students, teachers, and schools, has created greater tension and a more limited education.

Given the many challenges that we must meet in our schools, our communities, our politics, and in all aspects of our lives, it is easy to be cynical and fearful. When we are fearful, we shut down possibilities. When we nurture our creative instincts, we begin to think in the future tense, creating possibilities and improving  what was started.

That Tone of Voice

Those eyes…..That voice……

If I asked you who told us to fasten our seat belts; It’s going to be a bumpy night, would you hear that line in a gravelly woman’s voice? Would you see those great big piercing Bette Davis eyes? You can practically hear a biting comment from looking at her eyes.

Gregory Peck’s rich, soothing baritone voice, one of the most easily identifiable, is also inextricably linked to his performance as Atticus Finch in the movie “To Kill a Mockingbird”.  His voice became associated with warmth and justice, as he portrayed several characters  who represented our best angels and defended democracy. As an actor, he performed in an array of roles. Some, including Josef Mengele in “ The Boys From Brazil”, were the antithesis of his heroes, but Gregory Peck and his voice were primarily associated with benevolence, moral conscience, strength and intelligence on screen and off.

Riddle me this: What post-war actor-comedian appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show doing his impersonations and political sketch comedy the same episode The Beatles first appeared on the show? Frank Gorshin, aka The Riddler on the campy Batman television show, developed a  comedy career as an impersonator of fellow actors and of politicians. His voice was other voices. Impersonation was a popular staple of stand-up comedy in the 1960s and 1970s, and while it is still part of many a comedian’s repertoire, the emphases of comedy have changed. Still, Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin remains one of the great impersonations. It was a brilliant replica of the sound of Sarah Palin’s voice, as well as her vocal tics and mannerisms. Like Gorhsin’s and other comedic political impersonations, political voices as well as vocal qualities are showcased and accentuated.

So many people have paid tribute to the great movie critic Roger Ebert, who succumbed to a lengthy and incredibly difficult battle against cancer the other day. I am among those who listened to him from the 1970s on, and was enriched by his voice as an intellectual, as a movie lover, and as a human being of incomparable fortitude. Ebert lost the ability to use his anatomical vocal chords, but his voice was never silenced.

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton spoke at the  Newsweek/The Daily Beast’s Women in the World conference. Her speech was a call to action: “Let’s keep fighting for opportunity and dignity.”  Let’s keep fighting for freedom and equality. Let’s keep fighting for full participation and let’s keep telling the world over and over again that, yes, women rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights once and for all.”

Hillary Clinton, who “found her voice” in New Hampshire in 2008, has always been a voice for human rights, and specifically women’s rights. Whatever your political opinions, she has made audible the voices of those we can not hear.

Artists do the same. Consider Picasso’s Guernica. One of his most famous paintings, Picasso’s Guernica shows the horrors of war and the untold suffering inflicted upon civilians as well as soldiers. The painting helped to bring the Spanish Civil War to the world’s attention, and has since become an anti-war fixture, as a reminder of the tragedies of war anywhere, any time. Picasso’s voice was clear.

 Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso

http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

One of the most powerful voices to encapsulate African-American Southern Baptist culture (and history) is told through the entire body. Alvin Ailey’s iconic Revelations is not only still enjoyed as magnificent dance, but as an expression of profound grief and absolute joy. The work was autobiographically inspired (as finding and using our voices always is), but it speaks to universals from a historically and culturally specific time and place using African-American spirituals, gospel songs and  blues. Because Revelations is a dance piece, it’s physicality makes the piece immediate and eternal, as bodies in motion give voice to powerful emotions.

AAADT-in-Alvin-Ailey’s-Revelations.–Photo-by-Nan-Melville.jpg

In honor of those old actors whose birthdate was yesterday, Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, and Frank Gorshin, we salute them and their voices. We grieve the loss of Roger Ebert who lost his ability to use his vocal chords, but never lost his voice.

We’ve become frustrated with the noise of politics, but there are still voices of reason and justice–even in politics. But the arts are often the most articulate and inspiring of voices. Listen (and watch) for those inspiring voices, and use your voice not for shouting or vilifying, but for educating and creating peaceful possibilities.

Driver’s Ed

What don’t you want to be when you grow up? I knew from the time I was 16 that I didn’t want to be a Driver’s Ed instructor. In those days, they smoked an awful lot of cigarettes while in the passenger (co-pilot) seat. No wonder! What a horrible job! It’s as death-defying and thankless as any, and most of the time is spent with 16 year olds. The service that they provide though, is an hour a week relief to parents. Most teens will not be terribly insolent to an official driving instructor.

The Driver’s Ed part of parenting was one of the most difficult times. Well…..not the Driver’s Ed per se…..that was the relief. It was the rest of the time in the car with teenage kids the year prior to the license, and post license (waiting for their safe return, preferably without scratches or dents to them or to the car). I was particularly tense during those times (years).

Recently, I was thinking about that question that James Lipton asks at the end of “Inside the Actors’ Studio” from the Bernard Pivot questionnaire: What profession would you not like to do? And I still reacted with: Driver’s Ed Instructor. Then I thought about how perfect that is.

Some new drivers seem oblivious. They have enjoyed being passengers, and want the freedom of being drivers, but never considered all that must be taken into account. Others are afraid of the power. They are so fearful of causing an accident or of making a mistake, that they not only make more mistakes, but create a fearful environment for those next to them as well . Still others are exhilarated by the power and the energy and the sense of freedom that comes with driving. They may need more reminders about caution, and to slow down. It’s always an adjustment, though. Sometimes, even for those who are quickly comfortable behind the wheel, and have an innate calm and good depth perception and quick instincts, there is still a bit of adjustment. They not only need to fit comfortably and see accurately, but like learning to dance with a partner, coordinate the footwork and accelerate and brake with proper timing and emphasis. Everyone must make the proper adjustments and practice, practice, practice.

As educators and parents, we are all Driving Instructors! We provide the rules and the basic techniques. We brief our kids on speed limits and safety features. We remind them to check rear view mirrors and blind spots, and tell them to always keep their eyes on the road!

I guess we are also accountants and consultants and waste managers and……

Same Opportunities Means Differences, Creativity, and Change

Our society talks a lot about diversity, but we talk about diversity as multi-colored or multi-gendered sameness. On the one hand, we want the same opportunities for everyone regardless of race, gender, creed, sexual orientation, economic status…..etc….On the other hand, we get stuck on what we mean by the same opportunities. Too often we focus on the sameness rather than on the opportunities.

The last couple of generations has seen a revolution in civil rights, and access to education and jobs. Millennials have been more color blind than their predecessors, partially because they grew up exposed to more racial and cultural diversity than their parents and grandparents did. They also grew up in a culture of gender equality (or as some would attest, post -Feminism).  This is not to suggest that racism and sexism and other bigotry does not exist; it does, but the culture at large has wandered through the desert for 40 years, and has transitioned to a new normal that is much more fully integrated by race and gender than at any previous time in history. There are still some firsts yet to come, and more diversity is necessary, but the idea that schools and workplaces, much less any place, should look the way they did a couple of generations ago, is anachronistic and stunting our progress. Millennials  have also shown their distinction as civil birth-rights with their ease and support of marriage equality. They schooled their elders on both sides of the political divide, that marriage equality is a civil right. We’ll see when the elders on the Supreme Court ultimately get it. Millennials seem to be most entrenched in same opportunities.

One of the (fairly recent, historically speaking) civil rights laws that many Millennials may not have been aware of was the Americans with Disabilities Act ( ADA 1990). Like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which made discrimination based on race, religion or sex illegal, the ADA of 1990 protects against discrimination, in this case, based on disability. The power of these civil rights laws is the inclusion of so many who were previously excluded (and worse). The cultural impact is even greater: We have access to so many more gifts and gifted individuals who are different from us! It is equal opportunity for variety–not sameness. The more difference the better!

One of the cultural remnants of the ADA however, has been the seeming pathologization of so many previously “normal”, if unpleasant, phases of life and dispositions. It became beneficial for many parents to have their struggling kids tested and identified as having some sort of disability in order to get an IEP (Individualized Education Plan).   The IEPs are a reasonable first step, but are often not adhered to, and are difficult for teachers (and parents) to manage. The upsurge in disabilities is partially due to a new recognition of disability. At the same time, school systems have been decreasing arts and recess, and adding testing and uniforms, and earlier school times–all counter to enhancing individual academic, intellectual,social and emotional growth. Being more aware of disabilities and ways to manage them has been a great leap forward; but we must be careful not to create a culture of disability/pathology where everything is a problem that needs medicating in an environment that doesn’t allow for different rates of development, and uses inappropriate measures of assessment and  notions of success.   I spent years parenting and teaching in a culture that on the one hand suggested pathology was everywhere, but where there was also little interest in creativity or in diverse kinds of education. Perhaps there would be less pathology if more diversity of human nature were encouraged and nurtured. Diversity is more than skin deep. It is more than racial and gender orientation. To assume that everyone can be educated the same is small minded, at best. Sometimes, the real opportunities lie in diverse learning institutions and workplaces.

For Millennials who have grown up to expect opportunities for all, they are discovering a cruel economic situation that demands creativity. Creative thinking (and work) is not merely for artists.    Any strides that we have made in Civil Rights and educating, and having people become more included and productive, has come from a break from the status quo; from sameness to opportunity. Learning institutions and workplaces must continue to evolve to include more diversity of individuals (inside and out). Perhaps that will mean a shift in scheduling and organization from one that no longer supports what is truly a more diverse population and a creative culture.