Who Vouches for the Inbetween?

So, here's the age old conundrum in American education, and here's why school vouchers won't work. Look at the graphic below. Graphic #1 shows a school with 56% of the population being Black and 33% White, but the White students test at 75% in mathematics, while Black students at the SAME SCHOOL, in the SAME SUBJECT, test at 17% pass rate.*

The factors are many, I'm sure, but I have to lean toward the explanation that the Black students at this school do not have the same academic resources OUTSIDE of the school as the White students. However, the second graphic shows that only 16% of the students are considered "economically disadvantaged," so what does this mean? I believe that the definition of "economically disadvantaged" must have something to do with this. Yet, check this out: 59% of the students are considered "not economically disadvantaged." That means that 44% of the students are supposed not class disadvantaged, but they are ALSO NOT considered "*not* economically disadvantaged." 

Thus, I have to believe that the students who are not poor enough to receive additional academic support from the school or district (tutoring, counseling, learning disability testing, nutritional aid, etc.) are from families who still cannot afford to pay extra to OUTSIDE professionals for tutoring, counseling, learning disability testing, yet NOT POOR ENOUGH to receive additional support from the school. What happens to these students? This is why school vouchers are bogus. A "good school" is a "good school" because of the additional support wealthy and upper middle class families can afford to provide their children and perhaps generous PTSAs (to provide color paper and bountiful teacher supplies) at that particular school. Vouchers will NOT solve the problem of other academic support issues. Cuts to funding in public schools does nothing to help already struggling students who will not be able to AFFORD TRANSPORTATION to other schools that are "better" yet far from the students' district areas.

*[The graphics above are pulled off greatschools.net and are numbers from a high school in Atlanta City Schools.) Since the data are from a non-academic source (yet they do link to empirical sources), these are not necessarily peer-reviewed numbers, but they are indicative of a lot of scholarly studies elsewhere.] 

There and Back Again: When Will We Really Learn from the Past?

History is full of parallels, and too often we seem to forget previous lessons learned. Consider the following quote, and I will explain the source and its urgency afterward. But, notice how appropriate it is to today's issues, especially starting where I marked asterisks:

"...the whole world has been going through the fires of Hell…[and there are] signs that the peoples themselves are beginning to once again crave something more than…toils and toys of the mass-production age. *They are beginning to realize that because a man is born with a particular knack for gathering in vast aggregates of money and power for himself, he may not on that account be the wisest leader to follow nor the best fitted to propound a sane philosophy of life. We have a long and arduous road to travel if we are to realize our American dream in the life of our nation*" (416).

The quote is from historian James Truslow Adams's 1931 book, The Epic of America, a popular, best-selling book that year. As some of you know, I've been doing research for my M.A. in American Studies, which is how I came across it. At the time the book was published, the U.S. in was in the early years of the Great Depression. We now know from history, the Depression came about in part due to corrupt banking practices and excesses of the Roaring Twenties (sounding familiar yet?). Additionally, 1920s-1930s saw the alarming rise of extreme nationalist rhetoric in European countries, or jingoism, chauvinism, and nativism in other nationalistic movements (Britain, France, and the U.S. etc.) Does Brexit rhetoric and "Trumpery" seem far too similar now? Times and technologies are different today, but the danger is the same. Know history; read the signs. Let's not repeat the tragedies of the past. Think about it.

Wrestling with the World: Are We Really 'Winning' When We Win?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my 19-year old son, who has been very much engaged in a personal wrestling match with the world lately. One of the things he really struggles with is being open to listening to and processing information that goes against what he has determined is "true." He fiercely wants to "win" every prospective point, and anyone who takes exception to the whole of his view is one of the "sheeple." I'm not talking about politics, I'm talking about everything from table manners and driving habits to science and medicine to breaking the law. 

Sometimes I'm not even sure he believes what he is saying; he just wants to win the argument. In the past, I have felt that as his mother I needed to fight to set him right about his misguided beliefs, but I have painfully learned to patiently hear him out, calmly state my disagreement, and then walk away, regardless of what he throws out at me after that. He wins because he thinks he's had the last word; I win because I don't allow him to make me angry and upset. Furthermore, I also know that if I'm truly right, another chance will come again when he may be more receptive—or he will have learned in the roundabout the thing I was trying to save him from learning the hard way. Much of his argumentativeness comes from anger—not just anger, but also deep frustration, pain, and fear—all things that I could not hear when I was too focused on trying to correct his misguided arguments.

The social and political issues we are struggling with now come about most often when we act like adolescents, driven to adamantly "win" a point at the cost of more long-term conciliatory gains. Many people have become more like my son, in that they want you to accept what they believe wholesale and anything less renders you an idiot. We all have our beliefs and values, but the ability to remain open to listening to other perspectives is deeply important. Maybe much of what they say is misguided, but when you listen, you may hear something else—their pain, frustrations, and fear—and that is when opportunities arise to comfort and guide each other lead to understanding and greater unity.

When we don't listen, that's when the truth gets lost, 'alternate facts' are desperately thrown in any attempt to convince others their truth is THE undisputed Truth. There is then no negotiation of understanding, no resolution of cognitive dissonance, and no navigation toward compromise because the so-called truth gets butchered in the emotionally desperate process of reducing any opposing view into mincemeat. We must choose our arguments wisely and make more effort to listen, foster empathy, and to educate at the right moments—otherwise no one wins, and we remain locked in our personal wrestling matches with each other and the world.

The Demise of a Tree

I'm chopping down the apple tree in my front yard this weekend. It's become overwhelmed by Fire Blight, despite the fact that I've treated the tree and tried to stave off the its slow decline for about a decade now. I finally lost hope that it can be cured. Even though almost every year this tree produces a bumper crop of apples, this year they all ended up rotten and diseased before harvest time.

I guess you could say the same thing has happened to my personal hopes over the years since I last posted on this blog. I am still discouraged about why or how I might have done things differently in order to remedy the ailments that have struck my life over the last few years and have spoiled the goals I had hoped would come to fruition. After all, I worked really hard when I went back to get a second B.A.  in English Education. I graduated with a 4.0 GPA. I spent endless hours writing English papers and then planning, writing, preparing, and executing lesson plans. Student teaching was nothing short of stressful itself, but I learned a great deal about teaching and myself with that crazy experience, and I reflected on how and what I might do better. I was hopeful that there would be "many apples in my orchard." But that didn't come to pass.

Six years after I graduated and became certified to teach, I still have not been able to find a permanent teaching position.

There are many reasons why that happened. First, I got certified in early 2010, just in time for the economy to be the worst it had been since the Great Depression. Recently hired teachers were laid-off in droves, and those who kept their jobs were furloughed and had salaries slashed. Second, I am certified to teach Language Arts and Literature. When I entered my teaching program in 2007, the field of English was considered a "High Priority Teacher Shortage" in my state. However, that quickly changed after the recession. Today more than ever, English and Humanities fields have become marginalized areas because of the frantic urgency of pushing the STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). English classes are, of course, still required for high-school student across four years, but it's not a "critical needs" area like Physics or Mathematics. I didn't even bother to apply for jobs directly after graduating because I knew I probably had a less than five percent chance of finding a position ("five percent" is a random figure—the chances were likely even lower than that in my area). Finally, I also encountered some significant personal challenges and disappointments shortly after graduation, including family concerns and family health issues.

My solution was to continue on to graduate school. The rationale was that while  I waited for the economy and job prospects to rebound, I would go ahead and get my Master's degree—but not in Education. At the time, my university's M.Ed program required students to be current teachers anyway,  but to be honest, I felt the Education program was weak. Thus I ambitiously enrolled in not one but two graduate programs: Professional Writing and American Studies. Without getting into all the gory details in this particular post (I'll save some of that maybe for future posts), it suffices to say that many things did not go as planned as I moved forward, and they continued to get worse over the next few years. I couldn't have made-up a sequence of events more disheartening that what followed in reality. Most of the things that transpired were out of my control, despite the fact I tried to control them. What happened could be described using a quote from Star Wars: Episode IV.  Princess Leia says to General Tarkin: "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers," except' "star systems" weren't slipping through my fingers. What was slipping through my fingers was a galaxy of other little things that slowly overwhelmed me: students loans, car problems, house problems, money issues, and my son (that too is a story for another time.) Then, finally, the worst thing struck: I could no longer write. Writing  was something I had loved to do and prided myself on doing well, but it suddenly seemed to abandon me. And with that, my confidence evaporated.  You might say that it was as if I felt there were suddenly no more "Apples in the Orchard." That orchard that once had so much potential for producing great yields slowly withered away, and it took all my energy and hope with it. I floundered and lost my way in a very dark forest instead.

I still haven't completed either Master's degree, although I'm projected to finally finish my M.A. in American Studies this Spring semester. My inability to write really did a number on my being able to write a thesis paper, even though my head was bursting with ideas. But most disconcertingly, I still haven't found anyplace that feels like I belong, and I'm not getting any younger, either.

Some days I can pick my way through  the spoiled fruit that litters the ground around me; other days I  look around and all I see is rotten and barren terrain.

So, back to that apple tree in my yard.

In it's demise, I see something more symbolic in that for my life, too. Something lost, something very sad, certainly, but maybe there is a deeper meaning here. I want to think  there is something greater in its demise, and maybe I can figure it out fairly soon. Maybe there big obstacles in my own life I need to cut down. Maybe it's time to take a slice out of a different apple.  Or maybe it represents a need to make a clean break from something else altogether. I don't know. But I'm going to chew on that for a while and see what grows.

An American Horror Story: "Birth"

I knew I was right! This "horror story" is the horror story of the European invasion and contamination of America and the decimation of the original people and landscape of this country. The "new inhabitants"  (the ghosts) of this "Murder House" (our country) are, I suggest, the "newcomers"—the Puritan settlers, if you will. They aim to over take the "infantile" and innocent land, with little regard for the lives that are living. Yes!!!!! I knew it!

As I just finished watching this episode, I want to say it was very..."moving," but that sounds weird for a "horror story." I suppose, though, considering some of the horror in U.S. History, there are some very heartbreaking episodes in our past as well. The more I think about it (in my PTSD haze from this semester), Walter Benjamin's writings would probably have been the better choice for analyzing this series rather than Michel Foucault, although both scholars have relevance. Really, in all honesty, the best social theorist to use is Reinhold Niebuhr. Unfortunately, he wasn't one of the critical lenses we had to choose from to do our analysis in American Studies.

More to come as I take it all in. What a frickin' brilliant series this is...I would guess a lot of people don't "get it." But that's the American mentality for you...

Does American Rhetoric Use Undemocratic Vocabulary?

The boundaries of two of my classes this semester have collided in a rhetorical "mash up" of sorts. Through my writing class and my language class, it is becoming clear to me how more and more Americans have come to dismiss rhetorical arguments about American public policy-making as merely one-sided pieces of propaganda that have no merit.  Americans have either tuned out or are not included in legitmate debates about our Great Democracy that demand our critical consideration. There are many reasons that rhetoric has become the eqivalent of a four-letter word, but that is a topic for another post. However, let me go on record as saying that I believe the reasons for our' dismissive attitude toward rhetoric are valid.

Last week in my writing class, the conversation about rhetoric turned to the state of American education and the observation that young people are no longer "readers." The discussion included ideas about how to motivate young people to read more and the barriers that prohibit their reading proficiencies and critical understanding. It's a real concern because the future of our democratic society depends upon an educated American population. However, much of the "politi-rhet" about advancing the state of our educational institutions is pure rhetoric only—there is no "functional rhetoric." By that I mean that the purpose of rhetoric and the rhetorical argument is to spur the audience to some sort of tangible action to address the exigence of the situation. Yet American rhetoric has not been able motivate citizens to action over our failing educational system or even change the tunnel vision of those who have real power to affect significant change.

However, believe it or not, rhetoric molds our history, culture, and language and has a profound impact on "public discourse" within our grand democratic American Experiment, as de Toqueville called it, and  America is constantly evolving, which renders the "experiment" semper novum. Therefore, incorporating new "vocabularies" into our society becomes particularly important when there are certain voices in public rhetoric that are missing from the democratic process on which our country is built.

The crux of problem appears to be that an increasing number of groups in the American population deprived of the language and support through which they might engage in discourse about public policies.  Currently, our educational system fails to support new segments of the population, and consequently, these new groups become only invisible shadows in our society, but their presence still haunts the changing relationships and associations within America's pluralistic society. When there is no shared dialogue about civic participation and responsibility, the cohesive structure of a society begins to break down. Whole parts of the population are left in a netherworld or limboland, occupying neither a common space or place within the fabric of the country.

For example, more than a century ago when African-Americans were freed from slavery they did not have the knowledge or vocabulary that could give them in a voice in America, and it was purposefully withheld from them to keep them under the thumb of majority whites. Black people could not go back to Africa because the majority of former slaves were not even born in Africa, but they were not given a the tools to engage in the commonalities that bind a society together, and as a result, civil unrest and violence eventually ensured. Now, in the 21st Century, large contingents of Latinos, a majority of which are Mexicans, have lived in the U.S. for 20, 30, 40, or more years, but have never been citizens of this country. Although the South and Southwest U.S. were the indigenous geographic area from which their ancestors may have come, Mexicans are not welcome here anymore. Those that have been able to live here for generations as undocumented immigrants may feel American, but they are not considered American. When they are "sent back," although they may never have stepped foot south of the border, they are misfits in the Mexican culture to an even more dramatic degree than they were in the U.S. Their voices are not part of the "grand narrative," suggests Claudia Galindo, a professor of linguistics and culture at the University of Maryland, of the American history as a nation of democratic equals.

Until Americans reimagine a culture that embraces the rhetoric and vocabulary of what E.D. Hirsch calls "a Pluralistic Nation," until we reconsider the way we all relate to each other—remember e pluribus unum?— until our country revisits the way we view each other, treat each other, and conceive of our democratic responsibilities, our nation is made vulnerable to a potentially disastrous disunity, such as one Arthur Schlesinger warned against in the early 1990s (yes, even we liberals must also consider the voices of the conservatives like Schlesinger). The "rhetorical situation" must be broadened to include the stories, cultures, and vocabulary of all groups that have had an impact on the American Experiment and will continue to have in the future. It is in the historic chronicle of our nation to embrace and adapt to evolving philosophies of what it means to be an American and to listen to the variety of voices that make up the "remarkably diverse racial, religious, and ethnic origins" of America (de Toqueville). This can only be achieved by unconditionally allowing immigrants, whether of legal or illegal status, the access to respectable public and higher educations. Through tolerance, justice, and ethical action, a productive population that contributes to the on-going welfare of America can be truly articulated.

In order to facilitate the great strengths of our nation in the future, the educational system must prepare itself to act on the rhetoric that our country's leaders regurgitate. It means educators much actively expand the cultural vocabulary of rhetoric in our classrooms to foster a more critical and dimensional conversation. It does not mean to pay cursory, "politically correct" attention to various cultural groups, it mean to truly engage in issues that address cultural conflict, the principles of a democratic society—a society that respects the voices of all America's people, not just those that control the rhetoric. The loss of true democratic debates and the disregard for moral justice in our country should be what alarms us most and should be recognized as a frightening crisis facing our country today. We must support leaders who fearlessly use American rhetoric to produce not the rhetoric of "change," but to instigate palpable, substantive results that focus on the welfare of all, particularly when focused on local community involvement and improvements. Only by giving all segments of our society the tools to enter into the critical debates that will confront our next generation, can authentic conversations about the endurance of our "grand experiment" extend democracy for all American people, by including the people.

Stuffing Our Eyeballs

In the world of writing, "hunkering down" is a term taken from a section of essays in The Writing Life published by The Washington Post about "writers on how they think and work." "Hunkering down," can mean getting serious about your craft, but it can turn writers into becoming isolationists, solo adventurers,lonely wanderers in the phantasmagorical world of language. A Scrooge-like, Grinch-y recluse then emerges from an hazy veil of flickering images that casts shadows on a cave wall created by some magic lantern.  "Hunkering down" tends to beget some idea that the dedicated writer's only world consists of "spiritual and artistically inspirational" landscapes shaped by a profundity of words, sentences, and paragraphs.

However, the craft of writing is initiated by the opposite experience. It comes from watchful observations of the outside world, interactions with and between people, the exploration of places and times that fall outside the boundaries of the familiar, and attentive awareness to surrounding conversations. Wendy Wasserstein, acclaimed playwright and author writes, "the joy of being on the road is having dinner alone" (The Writing Life, "Holiday at The Keyboard Inn"). Dinner is a time to become a student of other people's lives rather than live in the solitary world of the mind. It is a time to immerse oneself and to "listen carefully . . . to judge harshly the surrounding couples," and to speculate about their private lives.

There tends to be a notion that the "serious" writer is some irascible loner, such as William Faulkner or, more recently, Cormac McCarthy, although the latter is known more for his hermit-like persona rather than his Faulkneresque irascibility. "Hunkering down" conjures an image of the lonely writer hunched over a slaving hot keyboard. However, to be an authentic writer, one must engage in the outside world, and make time to put aside the remote, virtual world that exists only on the printed page. Otherwise, as Patricia Cornell writes in her essay, which is also included in The Writing Life, "If I stop seeing, hearing, touching,

there will be no story. I will be a writer with nothing to say—a violin with no music to play," which inadvertently rhymes and might be used as a kind of mantra to accompany a writer on the journey to a final destination. Or, as David McCullough, author of the critically acclaimed book-turned-mini-series John Adams, quotes, "What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything."

"Hunkering down" means, then, not only getting serious about the so-called writing life, but also never forgetting that real life is rich with meanings to write about. We must “stuff our eyeballs,” as Ray Bradbury says, with metaphors and symbols of the actualities of the surrounding landscape—living metaphors that only then “bid [writers] jump to run and trap them” with words that subsequently “stuff” the page with “compacted truths of a life” that echoes with the refrain, “Live forever!”

All quotes are taken from The Writing Life, edited by Marie Arana, 2003)