Teacher in a Strange Land

Best of Times, Worst of Times, and so on...

I get a real kick out the best-of  lists that pop up at the end of the year. This year, of course there's an extra bit of puffery: the First Decade of the New Millennium has passed into ignominy, so what is the great cosmic takeaway for educators?

Really? While there are transformative events and legislation, most real change in education feels sluggish, rather random and exceedingly difficult to analyze. Education policy thinkers tend to be Covey-esque in the upbeat, step-wise way they approach change: anticipate, arrange, administer and assess. That's the way we got No Child Left Behind, which was supposed to be the Grand Plan to identify inequities, raise and equalize standards (a word meaning different things to different stakeholders), harass teachers into somehow teaching better, and then test diligently to ensure accountability.

But-- no plan on such a scale succeeds unquestionably. NCLB may have changed the tenor of the conversation, but the Decade of No Child has now ended and--aside from Margaret Spellings--who wants to keep arguing about whether the results are marginally data-positive or proof that you can spend billions and not improve the worst troubles in any meaningful way?

I have been a teacher in four distinct decades, each with its own  policy slogans, public perceptions and real problems. We've been "at a turning point" more times than I can count. We have surfed the rising tide of mediocrity and been embarrassed by the soft bigotry of our low expectations.  But what has really changed in classrooms? What's the net impact on actual practice?

My--admittedly ultra-personal and non-scientific--impressions of Four Decades of American Education:

The Seventies: Got my first full-time, regular-paycheck teaching job in 1975--something of a miracle, as there was a teacher glut in Michigan. Was hired because the principal needed someone right away and we were on the same humor wavelength in the interview. Soon learned that there was no district curriculum for music or any other subjects. Chose my own teaching materials from catalogs--wasn't that a curriculum? Taught whatever and however I wanted--no content or instructional oversight and nothing resembling "professional development."

Heard "don't smile until Christmas" about 50 times from other teachers, sum total of any "mentoring" I got.  Saw teachers smack kids (still permitted by law)--and heard lots of lounge talk about chaos that would happen if the right to paddle was taken away. Was pink-slipped in Years Two, Three, Four and Six, and always called back--once because of a lawsuit, after registering for unemployment--all tied to precarious, locally voted school funding.

Gave statewide tests--the MEAPs, then a basic-skills check--but nobody considered them a big deal. Was happy that Jimmy Carter instituted a cabinet position for education--about time! Had a few friends who taught in Detroit--envied their superior facilities, resources and paychecks. Teaching seemed like a fulfilling, creative, autonomous profession. Most days, it was lots of fun.

The Eighties:  Economic downturn in the early 80s meant further pink-slipping and annual changes of building/teaching assignment necessitated by constant personnel shifts. Had daily loads of up to 400 students in two buildings and--since any certified MI teacher could teach any subject in grades 7 and 8-- a year of teaching math. All of this change was oddly invigorating, if exhausting. 

Finished a masters degree--in Gifted Education, one of a couple dozen au courant cafeteria-style ed specialties (Career Ed, Distance Learning, Women's Issues). Got serious about teaching. Read many books, took fake sick days to observe admired teachers. Sought leadership roles in Music Ed organizations. Downright hungry for professional conversations. None of this was required, encouraged or even noticed by the district, which did write its own curriculum benchmarks in the 80s; teachers called these "the black notebooks." Problem: not enough staff or resources to teach all the good things in the curriculum.

Reagan's release of "A Nation at Risk" interpreted by colleagues as rhetorical excess and unionized-teacher bashing, an imperialistic extension of right-wing momentum gained in the air traffic controllers' strike. Hoped it would blow over, but having to listen to Bill Bennett's nostalgic morality lessons most discouraging. Still giving the MEAPs, which got harder in the 80s. Took leadership roles in the union--since they were the only teacher leadership roles available.

The Nineties: Decade opens with some optimism. Goals 2000 goals are kind of inane--first in the world in math and science?--but there's the sense that policymakers are paying attention, and belief things can and should improve. Visit Detroit, shocked to see decayed and racially polarized schools--what happened in the last 15 years? Outstate Michigan residents--tired of seeing wealthy suburban schools funded at four times the rate of rural and urban-rust schools--pass a funding bill to get rid of property taxes as source, using sales tax instead. Outstate schools ecstatic as times are flush--auto industry will last forever! Got into an argument in the staff lunchroom defending teacher proficiency tests in Arkansas.

Real and substantive school improvement begins to impact daily practice. Standards everywhere. Benchmarks--and teacher committees to update, align, discuss. Required mentoring for new colleagues. Performance assessments, and portfolios of student work. Required professional learning (not blow-off in-service days). Further upgrades in the MEAPs, including hands-on tasks for kids, new constructivist tests for science, social studies and writing. Better assessments begin to drive instruction. New teacher hiring done by colleagues. Plus--fab new instructional toy arrives in classrooms: the computer, full of infinite possibilities for teaching and learning. Some teachers begin experimenting immediately; others are intimidated. 

Best Secretary of Education ever--Dick Riley--provides eight years of continuity of purpose and coherent policy. Education is still a local-control thing; Feds just there to ensure equity, promote innovation. National certification identifying accomplished teaching becomes reality. Next stop: real leadership roles for exemplary teachers, whose expertise will help policymakers solve problems. Nagging worry: all of this still takes money--and a growing number of poor kids are still completely underserved.

The Naughts: A slow U-turn in policy and conventional wisdom. We're not gradually improving, after all--in fact, we're an international educational joke--and all public schools (not just poor/urban schools) are bad. Decidedly awful--and the people who work and believe in them are intellectual dimbulbs who care only about their inflated salaries. How would they handle this in Singapore? China? India? We must compete!

Buzzword of the decade: data. Every person with a computer sees data analysis as the solution. In the lunchroom, colleagues express skepticism about the Texas Miracle even before it's exposed as just another Data Hustle. Some of the best teachers in the building discover they are not Highly Qualified. Meanwhile, the worst teachers in the building--genuine stinkers--look good under NCLB regs. We begin administering tests to third graders--and relinquish development of performance assessments that tell us real things about kids' writing, number sense, comprehension, familiarity with the scientific method. No time for that now--the data-driven race to the top has begun even before it's formally named.

Saw well-regarded suburban districts become defensive. Urban and rural districts, shamed. Teacher preparation institutions--even the good ones-- scorned. Paradox of the decade: We must have the smartest teachers! But should they bother studying the science of teaching? Or stay in the classroom for more than a couple of years? No. With data, we can replace teachers as often and as efficiently as we replace technologies.

Lately, it occurs to me: what a long strange trip it's been.

Happy New Year, teacher readers. Look for  the Teacher in a Strange Land to be truckin', come 2010.

Image: Hagerstern@Flickr Creative Commons

Do You Hear What I Hear?

For several years running, my middle school hosted the Solo and Ensemble Festival for our southeastern Michigan region, always held on the first Saturday in December. That meant that thousands of middle school musicians, plus their parents, piano accompanists and indulgent grandmothers descended on my middle school for a day of nervous renditions of "Little Fugue."

There are more than 40 middle schools in the region, so that also meant hanging with a volunteer workforce of a few dozen orchestra and band teachers, pulling 12-hour shifts on a Saturday. Every year, at least one of them would express surprise at the wreath hanging on the counselor's door, the (ugly, scrawny) Christmas tree in the office--and the marching lineups and drum assignments for the annual Fantasy of Lights parade posted in the band room. 

"How do you get away with that?" I was often asked. At many schools in nearby Oakland County, the student population is much more ethnically and spiritually diverse. Many of my counterparts were doing winter concerts where the musical literature was tightly scrutinized for religious imbalance and stealth piety. Ironically, many of them were selecting literature based on mildly schizophrenic policies that allowed them to play masterworks--such as For Unto Us a Child is Born--on the theory that they were "educational," but forbade secular tunes like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas because--duh!--the word "Christmas" was in the title.

Most school policy on Christmas music--and performance of other traditional and ethnic holiday compositions--falls somewhere between muddled and nonexistent; a fair number of directives get added when someone complains at a school board meeting. And a large segment of school personnel and the general population profoundly misunderstand the elasticity, purpose and intent of the First Amendment. It's not about boldly defying the separation of church and state (although some people want to fight that specious battle endlessly). Charles Haynes, First Amendment scholar, expresses this beautifully in a must-read article:

The First Amendment solution is stunningly simple: Schools should plan holiday programs that are educational in purpose and balanced in content. Nothing in the First Amendment prohibits public schools from educating students about music, religious and secular, as part of a comprehensive music program that exposes students to a variety of traditions and cultures.

Haynes also notes that one Merry Hyatt of California is now collecting signatures to put a referendum on the November 2010 ballot requiring all public schools in California to include Christmas music in classroom activities, every December. Haynes thinks that even if the referendum passed (and I get a little queasy thinking about the mileage Bill O' Reilly could get out of that one), it would be overturned on constitutional grounds.

Really--does this need to be a fight? We're a diverse country. Teaching children to appreciate the range and beauty of cultural traditions is something we ought to be endorsing in every public school, no matter which holidays a majority of students celebrate. Most people who hail each other in this season, whether they say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas"--or any other greeting--are not proclaiming religious fervor. They're trying to be friendly and social. Good cheer in dark times.

There is not and never has never been a "War on Christmas." Everyone in America gets Christmas, for weeks, whether they want it or not. The First Amendment lets us sort this out, school by school, keeping educational integrity uppermost. School leaders can serve as models of inclusive and respectful citizenship--a more admirable goal than majority domination.

For those who insist that all middle school bands play Christmas music, I propose a mandatory winter holiday parade. A few years marching in sleet ought to make any "War on Christmas" zealot think twice.

Happy, Happy. Joy, Joy.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a parent told me their fondest wish was that their child be happy. As in: "I'm not worried about Jason's grades--I just want him to have friends and be happy." Or: "I'm not going to insist that Mandy practice her flute. If it doesn't make her happy, she can just quit." 

I sometimes wonder about the pursuit of happiness as iconic American goal. I'm quite sure that Jefferson had something more noble and laudable in mind than deciding whether he should jot down a bit of transformative political philosophy--or perhaps take a nap, whichever seemed more fulfilling at the moment.

It's a good week for thinking about what makes us happy--and how we, the village, can raise our collective children to pursue the kind of happiness that matters, while simultaneously being aware of and grateful for their many blessings.

In TIME magazine this week, Nancy Gibbs muses on the confounding information that Americans scored higher on the ongoing Gallup "well-being index" this summer than they did last summer. Although happiness plummeted in the months after the economic meltdown, our national sense of well-being began to increase in the spring, and has remained relatively high since, even though the news--pretty much all the news--has been downright awful. 

Gibbs suggests that Americans have adjusted their expectations, and that's a healthy thing:

While optimism is the all-American anesthetic, at some point Expectation Inflation was bound to take its toll. I'm struck by how many people tell pollsters that the voluntary downshifting and downsizing of the past year have come as a kind of relief. Maybe we've lowered our standards. But we already knew that money can buy only comfort, not contentment; happiness correlates much more closely with our causes and connections than with our net worth.

How does this square with current education oratory and thinking, wherein "low expectations" are now equated with soft bigotry? It's clear that our generational train of progress-through-education--the laborer's son becomes a merchant, the merchant's son a professional, with each subsequent generation achieving more--is creaking to an end. We are outstripping our natural resources and have tilted our economy into crippling debt. The gap between rich and poor is growing; I'm guessing the people who expressed relief about downshifting were moving from the top tier into the middle. 

We can expect all we want, but the reality is that we seem to be heading into a period where the Real Housewives of Atlanta might become appalling symbols of tacky excess, rather than an amusing glimpse into the style and habits of people lucky enough to pursue their personal pleasures. Are we re-defining happiness as much more than recognition, entertainment and stuff?

Speaking of expectations, how can we blithely critique teachers for not using "high expectations" as a handy tool to leverage student learning, when we're ambivalent about providing those same kids with adequate health care? Don't we want all children to reach for more than credentials and possessions--should we expect them to become productive in ways other than generating wealth?

Maybe we need to re-examine our current goal focus on college degrees, and how many more dollars they're likely to yield over a  lifetime of work, and start looking at non-material aspirations and rewards, for our own children and for the nation. Here are the three core outcomes I want for my own children, as a result of their formal and informal education:

• Important work. Work that leads to making something better, whether it's particularly lucrative or not. Work that is variable, challenging and absorbing.

•  Civic engagement. Involvement in groups, relationships with people who have similar goals, volunteering, participating in relevant ways in the life of their community.

• Intellectual curiosity. A life-long interest in a broad range of issues and disciplines, and willingness to read, travel, discuss, ponder, and consider alternative points of view. 

Of course, I want my children to be free from hunger and fear (and the fact that I take such basic needs for granted probably speaks to the privileges I enjoy as an American citizen). Continuous happiness, however, seems like a pretty lightweight and empty goal.  Gratitude is a better place to begin.

Thanks for reading Teacher in a Strange Land.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Image: TheABU@ Flicker Creative Commons

Contented Cows

My favorite professor at Michigan State (known locally as "Moo U") was fond of telling his grad students that researchers should just explain what they found in their studies, and resist the urge to add specific policy implications. Good research should stand on its own, he said--and determining What It All Means was the reader's job. 

Cynic that I am, I would add that readers should draw their own conclusions without input from research funders, as well--whose strategic fingerprints often turn up in the policy implications section of glossy, graphics-laden reports.

Public Agenda's fascinating new report, Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today, divides teachers into three loose groups--the disheartened (40%), the contented (37%) and the idealists (23%). Discussing the report with a group of teachers in New York this week, one teacher noted that she is frequently idealistic, disheartened and contented in the space of a single day--but we generally agreed that the data and characterizations squared with our prima facie impressions about our teacher colleagues. Some are passionate believers in using education to change the world, some have settled into situations where they have support and resources, and feel confident that they're efficacious. And some, unfortunately, see little to be optimistic about--poor working conditions, poor leadership, and poor results.

What struck me in the Education Week article about Teaching for a Living was the summary of policy implications:

Are the Idealists the best prospects for high-needs schools and for reinvigorating the profession, and what do school leaders need to do to retain them in the field? Given the Idealists’ passion for improving their students’ lives, how can administrators ensure that they have the skills and support to fulfill that goal? More than a third of Idealists voiced a desire to move eventually into other jobs in education. How does the field respond to those aspirations? The Disheartened pose a different challenge. Some may be ill-fitted to the job and ready to move on, but how should the field encourage and support their transition? Others may be good teachers trapped in dysfunctional schools and, in the right environment, might change their views and become Idealists.

Which group is missing in this analysis?

Why would we want to convert disheartened teachers into firebrands, especially since idealistic teachers in the survey were overwhelmingly young and frequently admitted that they weren't interested in teaching as a long-term career? The thing about idealists is that they burn out--or they become pragmatic, understanding that changing the world happens slowly, but is worth the effort.

Maybe giving the satisfied and confident teachers a bovine label--contented--was intentional. 

Public Agenda has a reputation for solid, non-ideological research and thoughtful analysis. Here's the teaser for the report, on their own web page:

Two out of five of America’s 4 million K-12 teachers appear disheartened and disappointed about their jobs, while others express a variety of reasons for contentment with teaching and their current school environments, new research by Public Agenda and Learning Point Associates shows.

Compare that to Education Week's opener for a similar report published in February--the "MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Past, Present and Future:"

Teachers’ views on their profession have become markedly more positive over the past quarter century, at least partially validating the widespread school-improvement efforts of the period, concludes a retrospective survey report released this week by MetLife Inc.

Sixty-two percent of American teachers said they were "very satisfied" with their job in the MetLife survey, taken in 2008. When you add up Public Agenda's idealistic teachers and contented teachers, you come up with 60%--about the same number, actually. The difference? Policy suggestions for what to do about teachers who are dissatisfied. Maybe we should be providing them with the resources and support that they say they need, turning their discouragement into realism.

Contented cows give better milk, after all.

Image: dali, Flickr Creative Commons

Brave New (Charter) World

Let’s get biases and politics out of the way first. I am a big fan of the charter school concept—defined as the rich idea that when it comes to schooling, one size does not fit all, and big monolithic districts do not and cannot serve diverse children as well as site-directed, purpose-driven, innovative schools. If I lived in Detroit, I would choose a magnet school or charter school for my children—and even though I live in a district with fine public schools, one of my children attended a public school and the other attended a private school. Ideologically, I’m with Dewey on this one: I want the best possible education for all children, the kind of carefully chosen options my own children had.

One more thing: I think that positioning charter schools as the opposite of public schools, rather than a necessary supplement to public education, has poisoned the discourse. And—it goes both ways. It’s not just public schools and public school teachers being skeptical (or downright nasty) in their remarks about charter schools. Public school academies—charters—seem to be bent on repeating the worst sound bites about public schools, whether they’re strictly true or not, thereby displaying the aphorism that your mother repeated when you were seven years old: you don’t make yourself look better by tearing someone else down. 

I have a number of friends now working in the charter school movement in Detroit, a city where a handful of good charter schools have begun to flourish and bear fruit. Last week, they invited me to attend a showing of “The Providence Effect,” a full-length film depicting a school success story: Providence St. Mel, a K-12 Catholic school on Chicago’s tough west side.

Providence St. Mel has accrued considerable recognition after parents adamantly refused to close it on diocese recommendation, 30 years ago: President Reagan visited, around the time the “Nation at Risk” report was being crafted, and Oprah Winfrey has taken a personal interest (and contributed more than a million dollars). Providence’s outcomes—an average ACT score of 23, and 100% college admission for graduates—resemble those of well-heeled suburban public schools. Now, there is an attempt to replicate the “Providence effect:” a charter school in Englewood, led by Providence graduates and veteran teachers, and based on programs and principles at the original PSM.

The screening was part of a two-day professional conference for charter school proponents and teachers, and featured a panel discussion with Big Names in the Michigan charter school movement, a State Board of Education member, various business-leadership types, and the principal of the new Providence charter school. The room was set up for hundreds of people, but I’m sure the attendance numbers (perhaps 60 people) were disappointing to the organizers. As I was parking on the rooftop of Cobo Hall, charter school teachers wearing conference badges were flooding out of the building, recognizable as teachers by their youth, their post-collegiate dress and tote bags—plus their “let’s go get a beer” demeanor.

Impressions from the film and the panel discussion:

• The movie has a campaign-film aura—gauzy graduation footage with students inexplicably wearing white gloves, bits of talking-head rhetoric, quick-cut black and white shots from Chicago’s troubled past, backed by a vocal track of adolescents singing. It’s impressive, all right, especially their catch phrase: It’s not rocket science. The lingering message: anybody with high expectations and tight rules can turn around kids destined for the dumpster.

• There is curiously little about instruction in the film; we do see a few examples of very traditional classroom teaching. There is a clip of first-graders in a race-to-the-board competitive spelling game (the teacher assigning points to teams, a la Professor Dumbledore), and a HS math lesson where the teacher puts an equation on the board and announces “No calculators!” (which drew a spatter of applause from the audience). An elementary teacher models a familiar and effective questioning strategy but then suggests that nobody in his circle believes that second graders can do work at this level.

• Among the panelists, the principal of the new Providence charter school was most grounded in reality. She admitted that while they were on a strong upward curve, test scores were still mediocre. Asked how they deal with discipline, she said that students were put on a “three strikes and out” contract—if they couldn’t abide by the rules, they held a conference with parents to decide if the child was a “good fit” for Providence. According to the principal, every child, even kindergartners, has a grade point average (another murmur of approval from the audience). Nobody asked about parents who never bothered to come to school, the advisability of a five-year old having a GPA before he understands cumulative averaging, or where the kid who is not a good fit ends up.

• There was a kind of professional pep rally atmosphere. The panel moderator took questions from people who seemed pre-selected, often acknowledging the “great work” Joe was doing or the “outstanding leadership” of Mary. There was an angry question on why charter schools get less money than public schools, on average, from the public coffers. Reginald Turner, the State Board member, clarified: charter schools get the same per-pupil allowance as other public schools in the surrounding area. And guess what? There aren’t many charter schools in Grosse Pointe, where the funding level is high; charter schools are generally found where there is dissatisfaction with public education and not much money. And they get the same public monies as the other schools nearby—you might even call that equitable.

• When asked what Detroit could do as a first step to fix its failing public school, the business folks agreed: get new teachers, preferably from Teach for America (which one panelist described as “the Peace Corps of teaching,” an unfortunate metaphor in a city trying to pull itself out of devastating depression). A woman asked what special training Teach for America corps members got that would make them particularly effective in Detroit. The panelist replied that it wasn’t a matter of training—it was a chance to get “graduates of the top colleges” into the classroom.

If you believe U.S. News and World Report, two of the top twenty Schools of Education are right here in Michigan, including the long-running #1 in Elementary and Secondary teacher preparation, Michigan State University, and the #4 public university in the country, the University of Michigan. There is also a strong network of regional teacher preparation programs. There is no shortage of smart, highly qualified and skilled teachers here in Michigan.

Michigan is a teacher-exporting state. About three-quarters of our best and brightest would-be teachers go to work in other states (when they can get jobs). Of those who remain in Michigan, a significant segment gets jobs in newly formed charter schools—because there are no jobs in public schools. The best new teachers in Michigan? They’re the folks who went streaming out the door to grab a beer with their teaching colleagues as I was parking my car.

When it comes to evaluating charter schools, the key question is always: Compared to what? Charter schools in Detroit have many potential resources that public schools do not, beginning with positive public assumptions and PR.

Charter World is an interesting place, with different beliefs, incentives and catch phrases than Public School World. It would be a shame to lose the opportunity to do something truly different with charter schools, relying instead on rhetorical flourishes and empty myths.

Fast Track, Slow Ride, Grow Up

At the last high school graduation I attended as faculty member, I sat on the stage, robed and hooded, with the rest of the teachers who served as honor guard for the class. Normally, commencement was held in the football stadium, but a downpour forced us into the auditorium where all graduates and attendees were up close and personal, not to mention damp and uncomfortable.

From my vantage point, I could reach out and touch graduates as they crossed the stage--and see right up the gowns of the young men sitting, splay-legged, in the front row. In spite of the class advisors' admonitions--and, probably, their mothers'--many of the boys were wearing shorts and flip-flops and didn't appear to be duly impressed with the ceremonial aspects of the occasion. I was surprised at how many of them were bearded, or sporting cool-dude facial hair; physically, these were full-grown men.

I started thinking about my district's four-option school entry program: students could enter school via "developmental" kindergarten and/or regular kindergarten, and those who "needed a little more time" could do a year in junior first grade, before moving on to regular first grade. Parents tailored two- or three-year combination plans to get their kids to second grade, and the large majority of those taking three years were boys. Because of the desire to give their sons a leg up, back then, many of the young men sitting in front of me were a hormonal nineteen years old. They'd been driving for four years, and could easily have been carrying an M-16 in Iraq. In an earlier century, they would have struck out on their own long before, as farmers, wayfarers or fathers.

Today, of course, the conventional wisdom is that their economic goose is cooked unless they seek further education. This week's cover story in Newsweek--"Why College Should Take Only Three Years" (by Lamar Alexander), and a follow-up roundtable with higher ed luminaries discussing "What is College For, Anyway?" don't manage to make an airtight case for the three-year plan. But both pieces shed light on the big questions that we ought be asking about a college education:

• Are high school seniors poorly educated and thus unready for college--or are they merely bored with the low challenge of high school?

• What does anyone need to know and be able to do to make a success in a modern economy? Seriously. Is there a formula for job readiness in non-technical fields?

• Which comes first: a broad, internalized knowledge base, or the skills to analyze and evaluate the surfeit of information and data available to everyone?

• Does technology make it easier and faster to learn--or more challenging to develop focus?

• Is there a one-size-fits-all plan, a general agreement about how much coursework represents a bachelor's degree? And does the new standard for being well-educated now automatically include a second degree, beyond the B.A.--upping the educational ante once again?

No consensus reached. In fact, the various experts did not agree on the primary purpose of pursuing a college degree--is it building workplace skills, developing an educated citizenry in a democracy, or simply the credential needed to the lock the bearer into a higher socioeconomic stratum?

Here's an image from Robert Zemsky, education reformer and professor at the University of Pennsylvania: College is like a supermarket where we let students freely choose courses. When they get to the cash register, we tell them they don't have the right things in their shopping carts, so they must continue shopping, for five or more less-than-fruitful years. Might it be an intellectually productive thing, this academic mucking about? Or is it a nationally embarrassing inefficiency, a waste of time and money?

I'm not sure. At some point, young people need to grow up, spend time working, traveling, living independently, making their own choices. Going to college or trade school should be motivated by a desire to learn something, however, be it plumbing or Shakespearean sonnets. And--you can't put off adulthood and real life forever.

Image: Uhuru1701, Flickr Creative Commons

Artsy Smartsy

First, read this--Claus von Zastrow's brilliant, poignantly hilarious treatise on why public schools and teachers just can't win, posted last week on the Public School Insights blog. It encompasses the entire range of criticisms--building yurts with tongue depressors!--and skillfully illustrates the "painted into a corner" nature of being a public school advocate these days. No matter what you believe, no matter how thoughtful your research-based educational practice, someone disagrees. Probably viciously.

Conflict over the role of the arts in intellectual development and public schooling is one of the oldest of these squabbles. As a music teacher, I was pink-slipped six times in 30 years and shifted to a new position 17 times; I've spent a professional lifetime defending the necessity of the arts in school curriculum, from every angle. As human beings, we were created and designed to make representations--in sound, drama, movement and image--of the things that matter most to civilization. 

People who believe that children do not need well-designed experiences with the arts to be fully educated are wrong. The evidence comes from the fact that children naturally create art, music, dance and dramatic play all by themselves, with no education whatsoever--and that all aspects of human communication, from political to religious to commercial, revolve around artistic expression. Developing aesthetic discretion is a useful skill for children, not to mention a lifelong pleasure.

Yesterday, in the Washington Post, David C. Levy, former director of the Corcoran Gallery and founder of the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, takes on the challenge of flaws and gaps in K-12 arts education in America. The piece starts strong--but then Levy jumps on the knee-jerk Teacher Blame Bandwagon, claiming that  art education is suffering because school art teachers are lousy artists--"many of them can barely draw." He attempts to soften this indictment by mentioning that art schools are guilty, too: they require a "smorgasbord of classes in unrelated media," making rigorous training and serious specialization impossible. Then, he asserts that the situation is vastly better for prospective musicians (who have a range of "elite musical ensembles" with a "demanding meritocracy" to sharpen their skills).

Really?

Levy's irritating and erroneous assumptions about arts education pile up; he claims that schools don't stress artistic skill development, preferring to let kids just "express themselves"--and that most children begin playing musical instruments early enough to have ten years of instruction with a competent professional before pursuing a music degree. Perhaps in some major cities--but not in my neck of the woods. Levy may well know a great deal about the professional art and music world, but he's clueless about the vagaries of K-12 scheduling, hiring and programming and regional support for the arts--not to mention the nature of teaching large groups of children, where a jack-of-all-trades artistic sensibility comes in handy, as does a bagful of tricks for keeping "media" on the table, rather than in the hair or on the clothes.

The vast majority of kids learn to understand the making of art, and to sing, dance and play an instrument, in a classroom. While there is certainly variance in the quality of teaching, most arts teachers want nothing more than to develop skills and excellence in their students, to ignite a musical or artistic passion that burns well past graduation.  Only three or four in 100 students will pursue a career in the arts, but all of them need to learn some basic skills, as an entry point to enriched taste and enjoyment. College-bound high school students in traditional public schools have no room in their schedules to take a variety of arts courses--even if their school offered them.  Elementary schoolkids who get a 45 -minute art class once a week are lucky, indeed. The picture, as Levy notes, may be gloomy--but let's not point fingers at teachers.

It's not only wrong-headed--it's counterproductive.

In one of my district's financial crises, a high school art teacher who taught jewelry, pottery and graphic design was shifted to an elementary art job (13 weeks apiece in three K-4 schools). As Fine Arts Department chair, I was sent to make sure he was "doing a good job," since he was vocally disappointed when jewelry-making and graphic design courses were dropped from the school curriculum. I watched him teach perspective to first graders, their first art lesson with the new teacher. He used words like "foreground" and "horizon," explaining as he went along. They drew houses. Amazing, realistic houses. They were incredibly excited, and couldn't wait to show their drawings to their parents.

I was beyond impressed, but he was nonchalant.

"Just basic art," he said. ”Anybody can teach perspective."

Image: Flickr Creative Commons, Jansen Mann

Best Concert Ever

In his marvelous 1977 book, On Teaching, Herb Kohl suggests that teachers should read the books their students love, and listen seriously to the music that engages the young people they teach.

Teachers, Kohl says, cannot expect students to eagerly embrace the literature and arts their teachers deem classic, beautiful or essential for an educated person, unless teachers return the favor and seriously honor their students' tastes and preferences.

You might argue that Kohl wrote those words before Lady Gaga was even born--and was younger himself in the post-Woodstock era when On Teaching was written. But he has a point. Our aesthetic values and ideals begin forming when we are children, shaped by the arts that surround us. The goal is broad experience, learning to draw knowledge and pleasure from a wide range of artistic sources. If nothing else, listening to the music our students love can be seen as a useful exercise in anthropology.

My late mother-in-law--may she rest in peace--was convinced that my husband was at Woodstock in 1969, and concealed this fact from his parents for decades. It's not true--he was actually in Ann Arbor, safely grinding away at another boring summer job. But in her mind, he was just the kind of rebellious hippie youth who would hitchhike across the country to listen to all that racket. 

Craig Wilson, in USA Today, makes the case that the music at Woodstock was glorified racket, pretty much--the half-a-million-strong experience, the mud and the enthusiasm being the classic and essential parts. Only a handful of the musical performances at Woodstock were truly memorable and lots of musicians turned in marginal work, possibly because rain-induced electrocution was a distinct possibility at any moment.

Wilson goes on to say that few would call Woodstock the best concert ever--and that what makes a live performance unforgettable is probably a combination of arbitrary circumstances, judgment and brilliance, an alignment of the listener's personal stars. In the past 40 years, I have been to literally thousands of concerts. One of my life regrets is not keeping a list of all the concerts I've seen (although a list of all the concerts I've played would certainly be longer and--perhaps surprisingly--less interesting to me). And maybe a meticulously kept list would spoil the spontaneity of a response to this question:

Best concert ever?

For me, as a formally trained musician, the answer would necessarily be divided into two distinct captions--art music and popular music. I've seen most of the major symphony orchestras in the U.S., and a number of Famous Classical Musicians live. For dazzling talent, I would choose Cecilia Bartoli, at Hill Auditorium. For pure listening pleasure, nothing came close to seeing the Empire Brass at the Wharton Center. For artistic excellence and heart-in-the-throat richness of sound, my favorite "classical" ensemble is the Cleveland Symphony (although hearing them in Severance Hall may have something to do with it).

On the popular music side, I offer a top five: Richard Thompson at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor, an evening chock-full of irony and artistry. For pure fun, the Subdudes at the Ark in Ann Arbor. Randy Newman, solo at the piano, at the Royal Oak Theatre (we were in the front row, I was nine months pregnant, and I remember hoping fervently that all the research about what babies could hear in the womb was true). First runner-up: a tribute concert for Lowell George, at the L.A. Forum, back in 1979. Nearly all my favorite musicians were on the program, which went on for hours. When I got in line for popcorn, Laraine Newman was ahead of me. I have kept the T-shirt for 30 years, even though it's size x-small.

My all-time favorite concert has to be seeing Stevie Wonder at Cobo Hall in Detroit, back in the 70s. Stevie Wonder is always exciting and fresh, but he was home that night, musically and emotionally. Our seats weren't that great, but I was caught up in the feeling of being part of Stevie's family and his generous passion. Signed, sealed, delivered: best concert ever.

Image: NYC_Comet, Flickr Creative Commons

Scoring Political Points: Hillary and Me

In the Internet dark ages—1993—I was invited (coerced, actually) to do a “flyaround” media tour with then-Governor of Michigan, John Engler, to promote a school funding initiative.  It was kind of fun, in a surreal way. We started at dawn in Detroit with a few grumpy reporters, and then flew to a half-dozen cities doing pre-arranged media events with various conscripted audiences serving as backdrop. Two of our stops were at middle schools, where TV cameras captured the governor’s remarks to school assemblies.

Being thoroughly familiar with gymnasiums full of bored 13-year olds, these performances were no big deal to me, but the governor was more than a little anxious about his prepared remarks and how they would go over with preadolescents. I reassured him that any school would prepare students for a gubernatorial visit by threatening kids with serious consequences for any untoward outbursts. He could expect respectful, quiet behavior, but couldn’t count on anything like comprehension, let alone enthusiasm, from the kids.

You may be wondering how I was selected as the governor’s sidekick for this experience. It was done scientifically, in fact: the media consultant for the campaign (Republican stalwart Mike Murphy) held a focus group session, to determine whom Michiganders trusted most on issues of education. Their #1 pick was the State Teacher of the Year. Since the governor’s trust numbers were significantly lower, and I was currently serving as MI Teacher of the Year, I was drafted. The third member of the media team was the president of the Michigan Education Association, a distinguished-looking African American gentleman who was not on speaking terms with the governor. The three of us were an appealing public relations mix, evidently, a diversity dream team—but the atmosphere on that four-seater plane was pretty frosty.

I also shot a few TV commercials endorsing the proposal, in a borrowed classroom, which had been tarted up with fake blackboard writing, Palmer-method penmanship borders and—naturally—an apple or two.  I didn’t mind doing any of this—I strongly supported the funding proposal, which represented a shift away from property taxes that left enormous funding gaps between the wealthy suburban districts and the generational poverty of tiny community schools in the northern woods.  But I was repeatedly struck by the calculated manipulation of symbols and people to make political points.

I was supposed to be on tour as decorative moral support, but when the gov’s dry, wonky remarks fell embarrassingly flat with middle schoolers in Saginaw, he turned and asked me--surprise!--to say a few words to the students. When I made them laugh with a comment about how their teachers were strategically placed next to known outlaws, I was suddenly part of the official program. Somewhere between Grand Rapids and Traverse City, the governor decided I looked like Hillary Clinton (a definite stretch, but oh well), and started joking about how even Hillary thought the proposal was a great idea. That inanity and accompanying photo made several local newspapers.

Did the governor have the right to shamelessly use seventh graders as scenery--or make a pitch in a public school, even if that school would benefit greatly from a funding shift? I would say yes. Just as much as Barack Obama had the right to urge kids to take responsibility for their learning, Ronald Reagan had the right to disguise his tax policies as a history lesson, and George W. Bush had the right to read "My Pet Goat" in a photo op arranged by his own personal governor, after a night of Republican fund-raising in Florida. The purpose of schools is not to shield students from politics and media; it's to educate them about those things.

Here's how it works: media is about attention, and politics is about influence.  Neither is about considered and noble principles or genuine communal good. Want to distract attention from an important national speech where someone is constructing a thoughtful policy argument before your eyes? You aren’t going to get it with debate or dialogue. So just go ahead and call the guy a liar—better yet, bawl it out on national TV, knowing that the incident will go viral on YouTube, the notoriety lasting much longer than any pro forma apology you may offer later. Attention guaranteed.  Influence? Remains to be seen.

Too bad that South Carolina Congressman Joe "You lie!" Wilson didn’t hear the principal’s admonitions about appropriate behavior in an assembly. Too bad there wasn’t a teacher sitting next to him, reminding him that the president was an honored guest. When we demand respectful behavior from students but public officials demonstrate appalling rudeness, how can we expect students to take the policy process seriously?

Springtime for Hitler

 A  few weeks ago, in a fit of pique, I posted a message at the  Celestial Teacher's Lounge (a.k.a. the Teacher Leaders Network Forum) describing a particularly vociferous and opinionated group of education bloggers and commenters as "____ Nazis." As in--the Soup Nazi, so entertainingly depicted on Seinfeld.

My peace-loving friend and uber-blogger Ken Bernstein gently chided me for careless use of a pretty hard-core epithet, pointing out that such name-calling is not an invitation to thoughtful dialogue. It took me about five chastised-but-bristling minutes to admit that he was right: He who uses the most vile and inflammatory language is not the most influential. Loudest, perhaps--but not the most truthful or accurate.

And since that exchange, the nation has had the opportunity to hear a whole lot of illogical, incoherent blah-blah about Hitler and health care--hunh?--and witness Shepard Fairey's iconic poster of Obama adorned with a toothbrush mustache.

Ha ha. Not.

But is this...wrong? Does it mean that Jon Stewart should never do pointed satire on Hitler-mustache stickers (available for images of all the people you currently dislike)? Was Barney Frank out of bounds, when he compared a discussing the health care bill with the town-hall "Nazi policy" protester to talking with his dining room table? As a person who includes The Producers (the 1968 original, of course) among her favorite movies, should I be embarrassed by my  reaction every time I see Springtime for Hitler: uncontrollable giggles? Is it possible to let satire and post-modern irony dull us to the fact that some things are always immoral?

Is it ever OK to pull out what Jon Meacham calls the Hitler card? And is it also worth considering that one person's evil incarnate is another person's private hero?

A few years ago, my 8th graders went on a kick where everything and everyone they didn't care for at the moment became "gay." He's so gay, her shirt is gay, everyone who plays in the band is gay, the principal is really, really gay. And so on. One day, I called out some hapless kid who used the word in class, leading to one of those moments when the room goes breathlessly silent and everyone's focused on the exchange:

Me: Please don't use the word gay as a pejorative--a nasty label. Not in this classroom.

Kid: Unh. Everyone else says it (defensively).

Me: (silence, meeting his eyes--letting the inanity of that remark hang there)

Kid: Well, they do.

Me: And how do you feel when kids say that being in the band is gay--using that word to mean that you and the other 65 people here in this room are uncool nerds?

Kid: I don't care (even more defensive).

Me: I can only speak for myself, but I care very much about that. And I see this room as a safe space for everyone who wants to take band. If we start calling each other names, we won't care as much about each other. The class won't be as much fun, and the music will suffer.

Kid: But what if someone really is gay?

Me: Then that person needs to know that they're definitely welcome in the band room.

At lunch, one of my colleagues said "I hear you had the gay talk in second hour today. I'm sick of hearing the word, too--good for you. I hope you don't get any phone calls." I didn't--but I wasn't worried about it. I doubted if any parent could muster much of an argument.

Ken is right. We attach monstrous labels to people with whom we disagree at our own peril, running the risk of weakening our resolve to see and resist evil--and muddying distinctions between right and wrong. Those of us who work with children, whose filters for irony, sarcasm and paradox are not fully developed, should be especially careful.

I visited Dachau concentration camp in 1977, the day before I flew home from a summer spent backpacking in Europe. It was a drizzly, gray day and I had the place nearly to myself--so perhaps that's why it was possible to stand in the empty yard and hear, plain as day, faint but chilling echoes of the shouting and the screams. The word that came to mind, in that terrible place, was sacrifice. A word whose roots mean: to make sacred.

Image: David Farrington, Flickr Creative Commons

Late addition: Just read Leonard Pitts' very powerful piece in the Detroit Free Press, on this very subject. Well worth a read.