I used to hate Halloween.  For me, it was a day that embodied the worst American virtues: commercialism, putting on masks, celebration without a purpose, gluttony and fear.  I actually wrote a post mocking what pagans might say about the commercialization of Halloween. All of that cyncism melted the first time I saw my son in a Tigger costume.

Here are some holidays I don't like:

• Columbus Day - a day to celebrate genocide, with no real 
• Valentine's Day - a day of unreasonable expectations and inflated prices
• Boss' Day - seriously, the one guy with privilege, power and extra income gets a holiday?
• President's Day - I just don't know what to do with it. What food should I eat? What music works with it?  It's so bland and school-marmy. 

Here some holidays I like:

• The Fourth of July - jingoism, barbecue and a chance to blow stuff up - the one day in a year that an Ed Hardy shirt wouldn't feel too out of place
• Halloween - who can be against a holiday with chocolate?
• Labor Day - a day where the only thing required is laziness
  
• Easter -eggs,  chocolate and Jesus on the same day - very cool
• Christmas - it took awhile for me to get into it (too campy, too kitsch, too disconnected to the gritty narrative of Christ's birth) but now I really like the season

So, here's a thought.  We should invent a new holiday to replace one of the lame ones.  I'm thinking it should combine an appreciation for all things local, the playing of seventies soft rock on vinyl, the eating of caramels and the throwing of water balloons.  I just haven't figured out a concept to unite all of those things. Any ideas?

It's a common trend in blogs to either share in venting sessions or try and give formulaic expert advice.  I understand the need to vent, though I prefer criticism of systems over criticisms of people.  It's also reasonable to provide advice about what works.

However, I find it refreshing when I read a blog that blends the personal and educational side of life.  I also respect a blogger who writes about both out of a sense of experience.  For that reason, I enjoy reading Betty's Blog: Timely Teacher Talk.  Sometimes she tells stories.  Other times, she gives a few practical ideas.  Sometimes it's commentary on something she has linked.  Yet, it's almost always relevant.

I was first drawn to her blog when she commented on my earliest posts on Teacherlingo.  Plus, her blog titled contained alliteration.  How tearcherly is that? She is one of the most active bloggers in terms of comments and feedback. One would think that her experience as a veteran teacher might make her jaded or arrogant.  Instead, her advice (when she chooses to dish it out) is wise and earthy and humble.

She doesn't have a ton of gimmicks.  No narcisstic drive to get people to read her.  No name-calling rants about colleagues. Instead, just a wise perspective on life and teaching.

You can download it at Internet Archive or listen below

photo credit - flickr creative commons -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thatkidwho/3237708673/in/photostream/

It's way too easy for me to make certain topics "personal" and therefore hardly accessible to people.  I'm reluctant to explain my political beliefs.  Sure, on a blog I'll lay out some ideas, but in conversation, I usually try to find common ground rather than engage in a critical dialogue.  I do the same with spiritual conversations.  It's why I was so reluctant initially in bringing up God on this blog.

It's not that I don't like talking about God, but that I am slow and meandering in my conversations.  I don't lay out "the gospel" in four steps or three principals or any of that.  When we lived in the apartments, I would talk existential philosophy with a literature major and we would venture into the topic of God.  But I'd go there carefully, because I didn't want to seem like one of those guys with a bullhorn yelling by the side of the street, preaching more about hell than about hope in Christ.

So, I have this friend Daren.  He's naturally shy and gentle.  The guy is really intelligent, but not the least bit pretentious.  What I really admire about him is that he genuinely believes in Heaven and Hell in an age when both beliefs are held as arrogant and he believes this enough that he talks with strangers about salvation, using metaphors ranging from business to farming to camping and he's so focused on the person he's talking to that he doesn't care if what he says is sounding smart.

You would think a guy like that would sound arrogant.  You would think he was always preaching and never listening.  Yet, when I was a freshman in college, I spent entire days with him and he'd have these conversations with people at the grocery store or at Kinko's or in his neighborhood.  I kept thinking, "He's going to offend these people," but his approach was so honest and straightforward and yet so gentle that people just responded well to him.

I mention all of this, because I hear a lot of people making comments about evangelicals.  It's easy to mock the Christian bookstore (I do it) and it's easy to mock the man with the bullhorn or the talk radio show host using Jesus as an excuse to sell GOP ideals.  But if I'm going to be honest, my beliefs about God most closely align with the evangelicals.  And if I really believe such offensive ideas, I need to be a little more honest and straightforward with people about Jesus and salvation and grace.

in recent years, the hospital has moved away from this image of a dull, sterile place to die

The hospital is a factory where we've outsourced the beginning and end of life. It's a narrative made up entirely of exposition and climax and lacking resolution. And the conflict? It's relegated to the cafeteria, where chain-smoking doctors and grieving widows and brand new parents try and make sense of the process in isolation.

It's antiseptic and cagey and I want to snap at the pleasant nurse in the Scooby Doo scrubs who takes away my daughter to check if she can hear.  I, for my part, want to test if people can listen.  One can go a whole life confusing the two and miss out on the dialogue. I devise imaginary tests people could give to me, not for comprehension alone, but for listening; small measures to see if I'm really present and not off in an imaginary place of abstraction.

Still, I'm struck by a trend.  This factory is growing human.  The computer is more of an android.  Meanwhile, schools are becoming more like what hospitals used to be.  We're becoming cyborgs.  Our hospital wall has framed art.  Real art. For aesthetic rather than functional purposes.  I might mock the Scooby Doo scrubs, but each nurse seems more like an individual.

So, it gets me thinking about what schools could recover from hositals.  I take out a pencil and sketch out a rough draft.  Christy and Brenna are sleeping.  I write.  It's what I do when I'm nervous.  I've been writing a lot lately.  I guess it's better than smoking.

Here's my list:

• Every patient is different - nurses seem to get this idea.  They realize that some patients handle pain differently and respond to words differently.
  
• The job is thankless and hard and sometimes messy.  
• You may not be able to get rid of the sterile environment, but you can humanize it with painted hallways and art and a movement toward authentic communication. 
  
• Emotions play a role in recovery.  Hospitals seem to be waking up to this reality.  If that's true of the body, isn't it possible that it might apply to the cognitive domain as well?
• We're wounded.  Hospitals understand the reality of life and death, of injury and conflict, of hard conversations.  True, they sometimes operate like an island, but they constantly beckon people back to the reality outside the walls.  Visitors come (sometimes awkwardly).  Doctors mention life outside.  Schools could use a little more of that. 
• There is a strong focus on actions connecting to life.  Although I do not always agree that avoiding pain should be a chief goal, the nurses seem to understand that their actions are all about helping people live well.  True, there is science and data, but it's connected to the well-being of a patient.  

I realize that this is overly idealistic.  I have not been exposed to the ugly underbelly of the money-making, market-driven health industry.  Still, on a basic, experiential, human level, it wouldn't hurt for edu-gurus to spend a little more time in the hospital and a little less time in hotel conference rooms. They might come up with similar lists.

Photo Credit
Flickr Creative Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joyoflife/428401602/

Random Question: Does anyone have official instructions on using emoticons in parenthesis?  I needed to use one in an e-mail this morning and it made the smiley face look like a double chin - a sort of Rush Limbaugh happy face. I feel like I've spent a good portion of my teaching career trying to tackle an ugly battle of "proper" English (while using very unofficial pedagogy) in writing.  The LOLs and OMGs and cuz's wore me down and then I was stuck in a social situation where an emoticon was absolutely necessary and I couldn't figure it out.

Hey Brenna Cathryn,

Welcome to our world.  It's beautiful and it's dark and it's amazing and it's terrifying.  I pray that you'll face life with courage and wisdom and boldness and humility.  I cried when I heard you cry and I saw you in person.  I wept like I did when your brothers were born.  You are hours old and you've already rocked my world.  I love you more than you can imagine.  I can't wait to begin this journey together.

If there's any message that I want you to know it's that nothing you can do will ever make me love you more and nothing you will do will ever make me love you less.  My love for you might look different over the years, but it will never diminish.  I can't promise life will be easy, but I can promise that I'll be there as best as I can through it all.

Love,

Dad

new urbanites have been advocating for more public gardens, but the reality is that the concept of "public commons" continues to disappear from public consciousness 

I haven't watched the Ken Burns special about public parks.  I heard him talk about the parks and he grew passionate and animated.  It was a far cry from the subtle nature of his documentaries.  At times he grew almost religious in his description of public lands.

It got me thinking about the concept of a public commons.  I used to listen to radio.  I still listen to public radio, but I don't listen to any music stations.  I wonder if we'll regret how splintered our musical tastes have become.  Call it pop and mock it if it's Top 40, but there is something to be said about a shared cannon.  Everyone my parent's age can tell you the words to "Bridge Over Troubled Water."  I can't tell you a single pop song released in the last five years.

This isn't meant to be an anti-capitalist rant.  American society has always held two opposing ideals in tension within a sometimes off-kilter, often harmonious paradox: the rights of the individual and the collective will of the public.  Out of fear of communism and the emergence of a "flat world" the public commons began to feel quaint and cute at its best or dangerous and socialist at its worst.  Technology and globalization accelerated the individualization of markets and the loss of the local politic.

So, here's a list of areas of public space that I see less often than I did as a kid (I'm 29 by the way):

• Public Shared Knowledge on Music: People listening to the same stations as opposed to Pandora or iPods
  
• Pay Phones - They've all been replaced with cell phones and other digital leashes
  
• Public Art / Free Museums - I get it, there aren't enough donations.  But something is seriously sad when kids who live in downtown can't visit the museums there
  
• Public Pop Culture - The slow demise of public airways in replace of cable and the splintering off of pop culture (which isn't always a bad thing)
  
• Truly Free Public Parks - the fees seem to increase, helping to guarantee that only the middle class can participate in community activities - thus, we have community recreational centers that charge kids to play basketball
  
• Public Drinking Fountains - Most people don't seem to care, because they're too scared of public water already (which is another concern - a lack of public trust in public resources)
  
• Public Democracy - today I heard a nurse say "I don't follow politics" when she and her co-worker couldn't figure out the name of the vice president.  Politics is now something to follow, a hobby of sort (like Fantasy Football)
• Public Shores / Public Beaches - I once visited a beautiful lakeside area of Alabama where no one could enter.  It had all been sectioned out within the last decade for custom homes.  Technically, the lake was still public, but there was hardly any shore left. 
• Public Neighborhoods - Kids sharing the neighborhood front yards as long congruent commons (I could also add the death of the front porch, the increase of cynderblock fences) and the slow emergence of gated communities as a result
  
• Public Roads - The hijacking of local roads by private industry forcing the public to pay tolls when their tax money paid for the initial building of the roads (or for that matter, the spending of public money on things like ballparks that force the public to subsidize men in tights playing for millions)
• Public Safety - We get tons upon tons of cheap plastic crap from underdeveloped countries and then act shocked when unregulated toys contain lead paint
  
• Public Education - Education being replaced by the local politic in favor of large multinational companies that determine the textbooks, curriculum, lobby for laws and "help" create the standards
• Public Defense - The outsourcing of a public defense system in favor of military contractors that do not have to follow the same ethical standards as the U.S. military.
  
• Public Officers - Replacing DPS and traffic cops with private machines that click snapshots of speeders  
• Public Information - The lack of access to public information, the lack of transparency in financial institutions 
• Public Domain - Copyright laws continue to get stricter and new media continues to be restricted in ways that hurt public commons
  

Photo Credit - Mr. Ducke's Photostream on Flickr Creative Commons

It's a common trend among edubloggers to vent about parents.  On some level, I get it.  Parents can seem apathetic to grades (Here's a shocker, I'm apathetic to grades, too.  I don't even believe in them.) Few of them sign up immediately for field trips or coffee with the principal or PTA meetings.  Some of them hover too closely.  Some of them don't actively monitor their children well enough.

I don't deny the reality of all of that.  In fact, if you search the blog archives well enough, you might find a few posts lobbing insults at apathetic parents.  I can remember moments in the staff lounge when I used the "these parents" phrases or mocked the helicopter approach. Something changed, though, when I became a parent.

However, I mess up often in parenting.  I correct when I shouldn't.  I let things slide that become a bigger problem.  I give in at the wrong moment because they have worn me down in a war of attrition and for what it's worth, candy corn really is one of the best things on the planet and sometimes it's a great addition to breakfast.  Don't get me wrong, I have "well behaved" kids.  But they punch each other and call names and lie to me and I'm so worn out that I can't imagine sitting through a PTA meeting on my free time.  

Tonight Micah had a fever of 103.6.  We soaked him in a cool bath and let him eat Otter Pops.  I'm not a pediatrician and for what it's worth, when I'm at the doctor, I'm hoping that he knows more than I do about the human body.  The temperature decreased, but I'm still scared and anxious and second-guessing whether he should be cuddled in a blanket tonight.

Is it possible that the confusion and terror I feel about things like sickness are what many parents feel about things like homework and grades and independent projects? Is it unreasonable for a parent to assume that the teacher should be more knowledgeable than the parents on issues of classroom management, assessment, instruction and motivation?  Yet, I've seen many teachers who not only request, but demand that parents serve them and fix any potential problems. I'd be offended if the doctor called me in and said, "Your child is sick.  I want you to come up with some solutions at home and bring me back when he's well."

I know it's an unpopular view, but I don't think a teacher should complain about parents unless that teacher has experienced the confusion, exhaustion and despair of parenting. And then, if still launching into a vent, the teachers should consider the worst moments of their parenting experience and maybe their words might sound a little softer.

Marzano is a bit like Snape. I can't tell if he's a good guy posing as a Death Eater or a Death Eater pretending to be good. I tend to agree with his conclusions, but his methodology and phrasing makes me sick to my stomach.  He's sort-of the opposite of Marx in that respect (whose diagnostic approach I agree with, but whose conclusions go awry - perhaps because he never worked hard labor in his life).

photo credit - this creative, mysterious pic is from red sunshine girl's photo stream on flickr creative commons

I'm posting an expanded version of a  comment on a real thought-provoking blog post from Doyle the Science Teacher. I recommend checking it out.  He lays it out in a much-less-preachy style.

People are quick to take the story of the balloon boy hoax and turn it into a lesson on lying.  I suppose that's easier for parents to use than, say, a story of lying about one's weight or age or popularity back in high school.  If I want to teach Joel and Micah about lying, it might be more dramatic and even more tragic to tell a story of being caught in a lie, telling more lies to hide the lie and then the freedom I felt in telling the truth.  Or I'll let each boy experience that himself.  Either way, Doyle's right.  The Balloon Boy story isn't about lying.  And it's not a teachable-moment-commodity to hand out to uncreative teachers.

I actually thought about using this story in my computer class in conjunction with a warning in Fahrenheit 451 about the greatest commodity in an amusement-based culture being fame and about the media hype and manipulation based upon fear. Bradburry called this one.  He said that, in the parlor room, with the imaginary friends, it would be all about your status and image. Call it Twitter followers or Facebook Friends or Arne Duncan's "Race to the Top."  The pursuit of fame, status and achievement all cause people to wear masks and make up stories and do stupid things for attention. 

I can see the story fitting well with either Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World. I don't think I'll use it, though. My biggest reason is that it kind-of feels like exploitation.  For all I know, this blog post might be exploiting a story as well.  I don't know the child, but it sounds like he's in a pretty crazy family and he's tossed into a media circus. I recently said, in a conversation, "I'm tired of this story.  I can't wait until it's over."  Now I'm blogging about it.

Neil Postman warned about the disappearance of childhood in a media-based world, where there is no distinction between adulthood and childhood. I keep thinking that, in this story, the adults (from the news anchors to the family to the audience) acted the most childish.

We can criticize the characters, because we don't know them. But it's the narrarator who really fucked this one up and it's the audience who bought into it too quickly. If I can criticize the character, I can ignore the reality that the plot is too often my own.  How often have I played pretend just to be noticed or gain some tiny slice of fame or feel important for a few hours?  How often have I been duped by media hype? If I can turn it into a story about lying I can miss how easy mainstream bought into words like "Axis of Evil" or "Weapons of Mass Destruction" or more recently "Yes We Can." 

Incidentally, I called it. When it happened, a few teachers were talking about it and I said, "It's doubtful that a six year old pulled it off. It's most likely a hoax." I felt awful at the time, because, if it was real, I would have been the world's most insensitive prick.

I realize that sounds arrogant, but it's not meant to be. The folks around me in charge of educating our youth should have been just as critical. Language arts teachers, trained in the narrative structure, should have identified author's purpose and bias and the absurdly pretend techno-setting and the foreshadowing of a narrative so common that it's become cliche.

I could stop here, with myself on a pedastal.  However, I was tricked a time or two, despite being a social studies teacher.  I believed that Afghanistan was connected to 9-11.  I believed, initially, that America would never actually torture prisoners.  At one time, I perpetuated a myth that the Civil War was about state's rights rather than slavery.  So, as easily as I criticize those who paid attention to cable news, I was duped by works from academia and articles from The New York Times.

photo credit - a cool little satire poster from jenosale's photo stream on flickr creative commons

Another great parody suggest to me by my friend Pamela.

People sometimes accuse me of not taking learning serious.  It's usually when I'm drawing robots or mocking Blackboard Configurations or comparing standardized tests to steroids (might boost performance, but you'll lose your balls in the process).  I've also offended people before in mocking elements of the church culture. 

So, I ran across this song that expresses how I feel about mocking the sacred.  It's this Regina Spektor song where she mentions that there are places where people never laugh at God, but that it's okay to laugh at things like God-as-a-Genie or Santa Claus.

Today my friend Quinn the Business Bohemian told me about reading a scene from the Book of John where Jesus looks ape-shit crazy, because he's taking a whip and attacking the people taking advantage of the poor and the making money out of the sacred.  I told him Jesus would probably go after a check cashing store or maybe a Christian bookstore.  Quinn thinks Jesus would take a whip to the Starbucks at the local megachurch.

So, it got me thinking about education.  I consider it to be sacred.  I take it very seriously and I have a feeling God probably takes it serious, too.  I wonder sometimes if he gets pissed at the way people turn it into a giant pyramid scheme and screw over the poor in the process. Which leads me to this question:

What educational  establishment would Jesus take a whip to?

So, here's the song that started this whole line of thinking for me.  I'm not a huge Regina Spektor fan, but I like this one.

People need hobbies.  Call it an interest or a pursuit.  Or if you find a way to serve others through it, call it a ministry or a mission.  Or if you want to sound smart, call it your avocation. Whatever it is, I suspect it is more necessary than simply engaging in escape.  Televised golf is an escape. Bungee jumping is an escape.

A hobby reminds us to be human.  It reminds us that life is more than one's work; that toil is important, but so is play; that motivation can be intrinsic.  It's more than that, though.  A good hobby is a corner of the universe that one can control and create an destroy.  I have a hunch that people without hobbies end up making other people their hobbies.  It's completely unfounded, but I wonder how many helicopter parents just need a coin collection or a model airplane.

A few years back, I chose blogging as my hobby.  It met my need for writing (I can't go a day without writing.  It's this impulse within me that won't leave) and for introverted interaction and for contemplation and for creativity.  Oh yeah, and it's free so I'm never worried about whether or not the enjoyment matches the investment. 

I blog often.  According to research, I blog more often than most who consider it a "hobby."  I'm an amateur.  This is my place to play. If I was a professional, I'd agonize over the correct number of blog posts per week and how to label them and how to Tweet them. Yet, when it's a hobby, I can throw it all at the wall and see what sticks.

This morning, I changed up the look.  I could tell you that it's the last time, but it's not.  That's the fun part of a hobby.  I get to take risks.  I sound so nonchalant about it, but it's been slow for me.  A few years ago, I would never have posted cartoon pictures, videos or podcasts.  I certainly wouldn't have sketched the icons or the header.  But I'm an amateur and that's what makes this thing so fun.

Recently, my friend Dustin showed me some code.  If you haven't seen his blog you should. Like me, he changes his blog up often, but he manages to do it without it looking like a complete make-over.  I have other friends who blog.  Dan used to, but he pretty much quit.  It's too bad, because the guy is brilliant and hilarious.  Quinn blogs, but he holds back sometimes and it makes me sad that the world doesn't get to see more of his genius. Andrew occasionally blogs and when he does, it's usually profound.

I feel like I'm finding online friends who blog.  They're like-minded people whose faces I might not recognize if they walked by me at the Lenny's Burger joint.  However, I feel like I know them, even if it's covered by a veil of ones and zeroes. I feel that I know some of them better than the folks in the staff lounge.

To me that's the best part of this hobby.  I started it to be my corner of cyberspace.  I fenced myself in, customized by page and started writing with reckless abandon.  Originally this blog was called a Billion Blogs of Solitude. Yet, this solitary experience has grown communal an to me that is the greatest surprise of the whole journey.  

Photo Credit - Flickr Creative Commons

I get uncomfortable any time we watch Veggie Tales. It's not that I'm scared of teaching the sacred.  It's just that I'm not sure that a violent, powerful, epic story like David and Goliath should be taught with a giant pickle.  (A student of mine drew angry vegetables, because "Sometimes you need a homicidal vegetable to cheer you up." It was a beautiful thing, really.  The antithesis of Larry the Cucumber.)

So, tonight Joel wants "the Moses story" and I pop in Prince of Egypt. The story is unflinching in its portrayal of a powerful God. So, when Joel asks me why the kids are dying, I'm stuck.  I want to rationalize it.  I want to attempt to soften the blow of a God that can seem brutal when taken out of context.  Instead, I ask him, "What do you think?"

He says, "It's sad, but I understand.  God makes people and he decides when they are gone.  It would be wrong if we killed, but he knows what he's doing."

After a long pause, he says, "If everyone got to live forever, the Earth would be too crowded."  In all honesty, Joel's concept of the world is limited to Tempe on the East and Goodyear in the West. A theist would tell me that it's evidence of how God hides truth in the heart of a child.  An atheist would use it as evidence of why my faith is infantile. I'll take it for what it is; a child trying to understand his universe. Sometimes it's my job to give answers and other times it's his job to find them for himself.

***

I dug up a sage plant today after we had drowned it to death.  It's hard to tell what to do in such a dry climate.  Each plant is different. Arizona is dry and I have a few others that are victims of starvation / dehydration. Photosynthesis sounds really predictable. Just some water and light. Still, I screw it up far too often.

My mind always wanders to teaching when I garden.  Some people can be "in the moment," but not me.  It becomes a metaphor almost instantaneously.  Today, I'm humbled by the reality that it's way too easy to starve and over-water in assessment and instruction. With some students, I wrote up their papers with so many questions and comments that they felt defeated.  Others slipped through the cracks.  I can rationalize it by saying, "I'm an electives" teacher, but the garden forces me to face reality.

Vygotsky used the term "scaffolding," as if it was a mechanical process of providing extra instruction.  It's not easy, though.  The reality is that it's a mystery.  I think it's why people feel the need to construct rubrics or quantify it in a score.  Mystery is hard.  When do I let a kid discover truth on his own and when do I correct ignorance?  How much of her grammar do I correct?  At what point do I hi-jack her writing and it becomes my voice?

My hope is this; that I will know my students well enough to figure out when to step in and when to retreat, when to speak and when to listen.  When this fails, my hope is that I'll be humble enough to apologize and that students will be gracious enough to accept.

photo credit - sutonhoo's photo stream on flickr creative commons

I hate most teacher books. I know, hate is usually a word I reserve for racism, genocide, the Dodgers and black olives.  It's just that I don't want to learn the five magical keys or the fifty rules or the seven steps.  I don't want to "be inspired" by a guru.  I've often thought that, in response to the popular teacher books like Three Cups of Tea and The Freedom Writers Diary, I should write Three Pints of Guinness: An Uninspiring Story of Teacher Burn-out or The Indoctrination Diaries: How to Strip Freedom and Raise Test Scores. 

With all my cynicism in mind, I have a few recommendations:

1. Learn Me Good - I appreciate the humor, the honesty and the format of this work.  I read it awhile ago and find it to be one of the best accurate portrayals of teaching.
2. It's Not All Flowers and Sausages - A kindred spirit, in the realm of being beaten down by the nonsense of the job and being inspired by students.  Unlike Educating Esme, this book doesn't let the author get too self-righteous in her rants.  Instead, it's humorous and slightly cynical. I've been reading her blog for a long time, so it's pretty cool to see this book come out of it.
3. See Me After Class - I picked this up after the author recommended it to me.  I'm not typically one to succumb to direct marketing.  However, I found the style to be refreshing, witty and honest.  Although her advice is a bit more direct than my meandering approach, I would recommend this to all new teachers.
4. Day One and Beyond - One of the best practical books directed toward middle school teachers.  He has a real broad, holistic approach with just enough humor and story-telling to break up the monotony of advice.
   

After talking to a teacher who is quitting before becoming a robot, I decided to sketch this. Incidentally, I just posted a bunch of older visual musings. One is "Dangerous Jobs" and the other is "The Day I Learned to Hate Science."

 So the first time I heard norteño music, I couldn't stand it.  I was a freshman in college and thought it all sounded like a drunk polka. I could tolerate Spanish rock, but anything with a tuba and an acordian had no place in the twenty-first century. All I could hear was the elements that made it foreign and unpalatable.

After awhile, I started hanging around homes and tolerating the music.  I could distinguish between Los Tigres del Norte and Vicente Fernandez.  It was subtle, but I started singing the songs on my own.  Eventually, I set a few Spanish stations as presets on my radio.  When fellow gringos would ask, I'd lie and say it was to learn a foreign language.

Eventually I moved past "appreciating the difference" and started hearing the similarities.  It was no longer "foreign"music, but rather human music.  I could listen to Counting Crows and Los Tigres del Norte and it didn't feel strange. 

It became a symbol for people.

It's impossible for me to love who I don't know and it's really hard for me not to love those I really get to know.

Perhaps a little trite, but it's become a conviction I have about life and the world and humanity.

Sometimes I get to a place where I label people.  Okay, daily I end up at a place where I label people. Easy targets include district office personnel, Fox News reporters and NASCAR fans.  Except I already have a few people I really like who are at the D.O. and a few who are NASCAR regulars. I still don't like Fox News reporters, but give me a few pints with one and I might.  

photo credit - I got this nifty blue pic Don Erre's Photo Stream on Flickr Creative Commons

I just re-read a few of my last posts and they seem to be non-educational and a bit whiny in tone. So, here is one directly related to teaching:

I use Ning with my students. It's actually the first of the programs they use. I have found that even the least technically exposed child seems to understand social networks like Myspace and Facebook. On some level, it's cool to have it all in one place.

However, within a week I start shifting toward Blogger, Google Docs, wikis, concept maps and other programs. Don't get me wrong, students still find the assignments and announcements, engage in the discussion board and occasionally blog on our Ning. It's just that I want them to create their own social network using multiple programs. I want their social network to be organic and authentic, using blog readers, blogs, Google Docs, e-mail and microblogging (in this case Twitter)

My issue with social networks is that the organization is too rigid and the groundwork is already laid out for the user. If we're not careful, we are programmed by the site rather than maneuvering our interaction in a more human, holistic way. I realize this might sound crazy, but I want some students to figure out how to use a blog reader, others to post blog links on a notebook, others to set their links to Delicious and others to save them to Google Notebook. I want students to customize their blogs to their own personality. I want them to figure out which posts to send to Twitter.'

When I think of my online interaction, it's fluid, interconnected and shaped by my own organizational structure. It's not organic, per se. It's online, after all. Our playground is still a one-and-zero shiny box. We just made the box slimmer and the lights flicker more realistically. However, if I'm going to play online, I don't want to be limited to the jungle gym.

photo credit
the cool little visual above was created by Damien Basille and can be found on Flickr Creative Commons

I have fewer comments than I used to get.  It's not a big deal, per se.  I just get into this ugly place sometimes where I wonder if I'm disconnected to my readers.  I can't seem to engage in a dialogue.  I'm perpetually internal. 

What confuses me, though, is that I have more people who are reading my blog, from a broader background.  I have more people linking to this blog, too.  So, it's not as if I'm totally irrelevant.  It's just that shifts seem to be occurring (or so I think). I'm not writing this out of self-pity.  It's just that I'm wondering if this is a trend with other blogs as well.  I have my theory about this:

1. People tweet about blogs they're reading and the author doesn't always know about it until later

2. People seem more likely to comment in a place that "feels" more secure like Facebook

3. More people are reading blogs in readers and more people are reading a higher number of blogs (hence the higher popularity of this blog - it's not that it's better written, more articulate or going viral - just that blogs, in general are all having higher subscribers.  So, it's a bit like inflation . . . which leaves this blog at a solid lower-middle class.  I'll call it "working class" and feel self-righteous about my new blue collar blogging identity)

I'm studying World War II in college when Wayne the Preindustrial Poet says to me, "Genocide isn't new.  Deliberately destroying an entire race is as old as recorded history.  A simple glimpse at Lamentations reminds me that, before we even had aqueducts or decimals, we had compassionate women eating their own children while warriors systematically starved civillians to death, marched them off as slaves and began forced assimilation."

Wayne always speaks like that, in full paragraphs.

"What surprises me about the Holocaust is the effecient and antiseptic way they committed mass murder.  Behind towns.  Huge industrial smoke towers.  I expect genocide to involve angry men hacking at flesh with machetes. I expect loud wails.  The Germans managed to murder with a straight face. Obedience. Authority. Rules," I explain.

"Human sacrifice is almost always an economic decision justified by religion. In America, we like our genocide to accompany land acquisition.  We do it in the name of following the rules and being obedient. We still deny it, because our story requires that we started from scratch. There is still an economic necessity to it."

"I see your point. I can't imagine the Germans naming weaponry and sports teams after Jews, but we do it.  Even after we've destroyed a tribe, we still manage to use their image for money. In Germany, it's against the law to deny the Holocaust.  In the U.S., we call it 'unpatriotic' and 'revisionist' if we fail to justify the Long Walk in our textbooks.  I can't imagine the Euro adopting Hitler's portrait, but we still have Jackson on the twenty."

Wayne the Preindustrial Poet stops me short in my self-righteousness.  "You know why they said nothing?  Because they wanted to pay their mortgage and protect their family and keep their jobs. They were the kind of people who would never have jaywalked, John.  Not cruel monsters, but nice people."

Wayne talks to me about Manifest Destiny and about the Germans quoting Luther and about well-intentioned secular humanists talking about the right of a woman's body over a silent soul.  He warns me that it happens in the subtly of language.  "Call an immigrant an alien and they seem less human.  Call a Jew vermin and they have no voice. Call a baby a fetus and doesn't feel so bad.  Call a civilian an unintended target and it doesn't seem like death."

Our authoritarian, press-obsessed sheriff is quoting make-believe laws to justify rounding up Mexicans in the name of the law.  What scares me is how often I hear people use economics, obedience and dehumanizing language to justify illegal, unjust and perhaps unconstitutional Arpaio's raids.  What bothers me more is, at the end of the day, I've done nothing, because I'm more concerned about my mortgage and my job and a safe place for my kids. And, no, I don't jaywalk, either.

photo credit
flickr creative commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/omaromar/316207064/

You can download the podcast at:

http://www.archive.org/details/BothAnd

Or you can listen to it below

The gist of it is that the deep conflicts that exist in education are often found in paradox and mystery.  Neither side is "right."

1. Knowledge: Transmission and Construction

2. Results: Relational and Task

3. Assessment: Qualitative and Quantitative

4. Teaching Strategies: Both and Art and a Science

5. Management: Mercy and Justice - Forgiving and Showing Consequences

6. Motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic

7. Student Choice and Teacher Decisions

8. Common and Differentiation

9. Climate: Academic and Human / Homey

10. Identity: Both Good and Bad

It's a subtle twist of language.  Standardized isn't okay, so you start calling it "common" as if it is something shared.  Teachers know it's a lie.  Sharing is horizontal, while "common" assessments are typically a unilateral power move by the McGraw McEducation Boxed and Processed Learning Corporation. 

Or they use a terms like "cooperative" to mean "do what we say" or "collaborative" to mean "spy on one another" or "accountability" to mean "engage in our pissing contest."  Or use a real innocuous-sounding phrase like "outcome-based" to mean "prove the unprovable" and "measure the unmeasurable."

Standards becomes standardized.  Unity becomes uniformity.  The fundamentals become fundamentalism. 

***

I talked to a teacher today who is quitting after this year.  "I'll become a robot or they'll replace me with a robot.  Either way, I always wanted to be a teacher.  I can't be one anymore."

She's good.  Real good.  She's compassionate and authentic and far from flaky.  I have a hunch that her kids love her.  I have a feeling that she loves them.  Still, she's tired of basal readers and Scantron tests and science that doesn't teach science and social studies that won't let kids think.  McGraw Hill beat the shit out of her and she's defeated.  

***

Learning cannot be measured any more than we can measure truth or God or love.  And learning cannot occur identically in any two people any more than two people discover truth or God or love.  It's a mystery.  People get real edgy with mystery. People thrive on predictable outcomes. It's what makes our modern system (sometimes) work. 

Photo Credit - Flickr Creative Commons - http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/1276092/

I'm not a fan of reality shows.  To me, they are far too contrived, predictable and cruel.

However, I was with my grandma the other day.  She has a tendency to say things offensive in trying not to be racist.  For example, "You know, Obama is such a clean-cut colored fellow."  Ouch. Or, "Beyonce is really pretty for a Negro woman."  Really, grandma?

So, here is the concept - My Latently Racist Grandma. It would be a show where we would take grandparents who consider themselves to be fairly tolerant people and place them in situations where their racism comes out.  The least racist person wins the prize.

For example, we would place my grandpa in Disneyland and see if he goes the whole day without a comment about Asians.  We would send another person's grandparents to a nursing home where everyone there is an ethnic minority.  On another episode, a young woman would introduce her fake fiance. 

I could be wrong.  This could be a flop.  Or perhaps this is a show that's already been created.  I don't have cable and I rarely watch t.v. Still, I think it's an idea waiting to happen.

Call this Spencer's Rules of Naming: If you have to tell me it's a community, then it's probably not a community.

We have a local Jesus-Flavored Country Club in town.  They charge people to drive past Christmas lights.  They provide a massive fitness center and they own apartment lofts so that old people can die in a Pottery Barn themed hallway.  The church continues to use "community" in its name, yet there is little sense that community thrives there.  It's just another amenity to sell along with their God-sponsored coffee and their spirit-filled tennis courts.  If I want to see community, I should visit a neighborhood church with two hundred members - none of whom act awkward during the "greet one another" time.

My parents live in a master-planned community designed specifically for old people (for the record, I don't see my parents as old yet).  They can walk to the tennis courts (I'm starting to see a theme here.  Tennis is supposed to be the seed for which all community grows) or the fitness center.  Or they could meet at the rec center and play pool.  It's a pretty place. Sort of a mix between Stepford Wives and Disneyland. Yet, the homes have this enclosed front porch and garages and the landscape is outsourced to professionals.  So, really, there is no common space.

Starbucks is a great place for people within a community to meet up, but it's far from community.  It's a prettier form of fast food, where I can sit in wooden chairs and stare at red or yellow walls.  Still, few of the customers talk anymore.  Every time I go, I see longer lines and fewer conversations.

At school, we have Professional Learning Communities.  If we buy all the resources, watch the DVDs, check out the website, go to the conferences and talk with their consultants, we will be a PLC.  Which might be true.  We'll be a Professional Learning Community, but that doesn't mean we'll be a community of professionals.

Community is organic.  It cannot be created with building blocks.  It happens with relationships.  The structural aspects occur later.  Community occurs when people need one another, when they grow to depend on each other for life.  It doesn't happen by analyzing data, but by having a pint together. I know that I'm part of a school community when I go to the staff lounge on a rough day and vent for a moment without feeling judged or when I share ideas without anyone worrying about who gets credit. It's an intangible, mysterious process.

Photo Credit
-A picture of Estrella Mountain Ranch, a Master-Planned Community
http://www.flickr.com/photos/juditha/274198896/in/photostream/

photo credit

what makes me different should be how I live and love

A Conversation I Made Up:

"Hey, isn't Dr. Thompson supposed to be a Christian accountant?"
"Yeah, he and I have had some great spiritual conversations."
"Really, because the dude did my taxes and nothing. No gospel presentation.  No Thomas Kincaide paintings on the wall.  He didn't use taxes as a metaphor for Hell.  I kept waiting for him to talk about God and it never came up. I thought he might, you know, hand me a yellow tract advertising Jesus, but it didn't happen.  He didn't even wear a cross."
"Was he ethical?"
"Yeah."
"Was he honest?"
"Definitely."
"How was his attitude?"
"He seemed pretty humble, pretty hard working. Really normal. But he even cussed once."
"Cussing isn't even a sin,"
"Yeah, but how does he know I'm not someone who would be offended by it?"
"So?"
"So the the guy just asked a lot of questions about my life and joked around.  He asked questions, but he never once asked if I believed in Jesus."

I mention that, because sometimes people want me to approach being a teacher as a follower of Christ in a method that doesn't fit me at all.  They want me to lead a Meet You at the Pole day (which sounds a bit like an advertisement for a strip club) and they want me to have the cleanest mouth in the staff lounge and they want me to pull kids aside and ask them  if they want to go to Heaven and keep a stash of free Bibles on my desk.  They want me to partner with a few kids and start a student-led Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which is ironic, because at my high school it was the athletes who acted the most un-Christian.

So, I read one of my favorite letters of Paul last night (I hate the term epistle, because it makes me think of a urinal) and he starts talking about these ideas of being humble and having the same attitude of Christ.  He tells the people to live out their identity, to run a race after something that's already attained.  The whole idea is that it's a lifestyle based upon humility.  At one point he says he's learned to be content in all circumstances. I want to be there someday.

I like the letter, because it feels sporadic.  It's not all systematic, like Romans. You get the sense that he really loves people and misses them and even at the moments when one might call it preaching, it's more like a friend giving advice to people he loves. Sometimes I read that when I get lost.  At the end of a quarter I can get into this ugly place where I cycle through a critical analysis with this goal of being a super-teacher and this letter always pulls me back.

I know that I can offend readers when I get too religious or philosophical.  However, I believe Paul's right.  I am strongest as a teacher when I'm humble.  My greatest asset is that I listen to students and apologize.  I'm transparent with them and I'm generally content.  The result is that kids know that I don't view them as fix-up projects. The crazy thing is that, even though I don't advertise it on my neck, kids figure out what I believe and over the course of the year, they initiate deep conversation.

I often hear people mock abstract art with the comment, "It's like a two year old created it."  I realize that much of what is abstract is planned well and contains elements of design.  But I also want to point this out: it's way too hard to be random, to create abstractly and to be different. 

One thing I love about this stage of development is that there is a deep connection to the tangible.  Micah isn't a budding artist.  He's like all other two year olds. Still, I'm amazed by the way he can create something entirely from his mind, lacking in any realistic form.

My friend Ed once told me that it's important to shine shoes before a job interview.  He said that a great manager will notice my lack of scuffs and recognize that I pay close attention to detail.  For what it's worth, I ignored his advice.  I don't do a great job of paying attention to details and I fight a constant internal battle against being pretentious.

For what it's worth, if I were a leader, I would fight the temptation to do the opposite.  See, if a teacher came to me with shiny shoes, it might send me a message that this person cares too much about the external, gets too easily distracted by superfluous details and has a strong desire to wear a mask.  I might assume that this teacher won't cut it in a world of tempera paint and fire drills and constant monitoring of learning.

I hope I'd look past the shoes, but I admit that I'm biased.  My best days occur when my shoes get messy.  They're the days I do a Belief Walk with students and I end up running or the after school projects when we paint murals or the day I kick a ball around on duty.  Call it a left-wing blue collar bias, but ever since childhood I've had a certain admiration for professions that require scuffed-up shoes.

I began All Things Alliterated in creating a Learning with IMPACT blog.  Each day, I had a specific post related to an overall theme.  I love alliteration, so I chose to use it in this approach. For awhile, it provided a specific framework for blogging.  I was feeling a little burnt-out and a little confused, so it just sort-of worked.

Monday Metaphor

Techno-Tuesday

What-if Wednesday

Thursday Thoughts

Philosophical Friday

I am considering bringing the themed day back and changing it up (perhaps Multimedia Monday or What Works Wednesday). We'll see.

A short podcast about humility.  You can download the whole thing at:
http://www.archive.org/details/IcarusGrounded

or listen below




photo credit - shoothead's photostream at flickr creative commons

It's my first year of teaching and I have the task of analyzing ethnic demographic data in relation to achievement scores.  Basically, it's stereotyping with good intentions (if one considers raising test scores to be good intentions. I'm not so sure)  Each person must give a potential cause and solution.

"Given the achievement gap between various subgroups, a few potential causes might be the case.  First, the Hispanic group (which is actually a bit offensive to many who call themselves Latino) might have lower scores due to a lack of language acquisition.  Another option might be cultural bias of the test itself given the . . . "

The Sultan of Standards cuts me off here."Those are excuses, not causes.  I need you to produce not excuse."  She has a tendency to restate herself with rhymes, even when the words don't really rhyme.  Her favorite is "collobaration not coblabberation."  Sometimes I wonder if she was mentored by Johnny Cochrin.

"Well, I guess one solution would be to contextualize the subject to the student's culture.  It would be part of differentiated instruction.  Perhaps we could study ethnography or sociology and maybe implement a little Paulo Freire."

"We're not going to overhaul the curriculum," she responds.

"Okay, then our only other option would be to get white kids.  They did really well on the AIMS test.  I hear they like casserole, so maybe we start adding tater tot casserole to the cafeteria.  Oh, make them feel really guilty.  Whites are suckers for that. Oh, and sweater parties.  White people love sweater parties."

"I'm not sure I see where you are going with this," the Sultan responds.

"Oh, I just thought that, you know, as long as we were labeling the minorities and blaming the teachers instead of thinking critically about the test, we might as well do some stereotyping of whites as well.  Like NASCAAR.  White people love NASCAAR.  I bet we could even do a scientific poll to prove it.  Then we don't have to call it a stereotype if it's data-driven."

So, as I look back at the smart ass conversation from over five years ago, I wonder what happened to me.  I used to get so mad about the injustices of the system.  Maybe I grew less idealistic.  Maybe I just learned to shut up and carve out my own little world.  Maybe they quietly reprimanded me too many times.  I just think back to the conversation now and wonder if saying something like that might get me fired.


Photo Credit
Flickr Creative Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dalboz17/1428259263/

I find it strange that . . .

a man who engages in two major wars gets a prize for peace.  For what it's worth, I vote for James Taylor.  Who could possibly engage in warfare while listening to "Fire and Rain?"

at the precise time of day that someone would want a Venti decaf, Starbucks sells only caffeinated coffee.

no matter where I choose to work, the copy machine is always broken.

people can so easily switch the terms "learning" and "achievement" and not feel as if they have sold their soul to the devil

in my ideal world, it would be the journey, not the time splits and kids would have a crowd cheering them on and they'd be embraced and encouraged

At one time "curriculum" meant "journey" or "course."  We still use the term "map," but now it's precise.  It's a GPS system where every student walks the same pace and we chastise children who are "left behind" and we get angry when the fast kids run ahead too far.  I suppose the ultimate idea is a global map, a standardized trail with efficient traffic flow.  According to Arne, we're on a "Race to the Top."

I thought about this term "curriculum" less than a year ago while running a marathon.  Crouched between the Superstition Mountains, I felt a connection to the land and to the runners with me.  It was solitary and communal.  It was a race but it wasn't.  After all, we would all get a medal in the end.  At one point, I vomited by the side of the road.  An octogenarian walked up beside me, placed his sweaty palm  on my shoulder and said, "You'll make it champ." He told me that he ran two marathons per year.  He said that he didn't do it to look younger, but to think better.  "I've never been able to separate the mind and body," he explained while jogging a ten minute mile pace.

Don't be misguided by the smiling sports-bra model at the front of Runner's World. Their writers understand something profound about life.  More so than any education magazine I've ever read. Recently, in a piece about Zola Budd (a victim of childhood success, political pressure and an unfair scapegoat of Apartheid). "She says that long distance runners are privy to a special relationship with pain and solitude and grace."  I tend to agree.  Then again, I'm a long distance runner.

If my students are going to run a course, I don't want it to be wind sprints.  I don't want to measure their success against one another.  I don't want to shout out time splits every half mile.  I want them to run for the joy of running.  I want them to learn about pain and solitude and grace.  I want them to learn for a lifetime and when they are at mile twenty-three, in pain, facing the mental battle of dimentia, I want them to keep learning. And, someday, my hope is they'll receive a medal at the end and a hug from the ones they love.

So, this is a podcast I created. It's part of the weekly podcast that I've been doing. I'll be posting them all to the blog soon. You can download it at this page:
http://www.archive.org/details/GoingAcousticTheFirstDayOfTeaching

or listen to it below:

 It's been a tough afternoon, so I listen to "Mr. Jones" from Counting Crows. I hear, "I want to be Bob Dylan.  Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky.  When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely."  Today I get the sense that he's describing me.  On some level, I want to be Bob Dylan.  Or maybe Bono minus to superhero complex.  I want to fly above others, well-liked and adored.

Call me Icarus.  I slip on the high-tech wings, develop an image of myself and fly above others with a tone of sarcasm and a sense of intellectual superiority.  I'm a bad ass, because I don't make photo copy packets and kids swarm to me when I'm out on duty and kids want to be in my class and . . .

I made a kid cry today.  I mocked him for falling over in his chair.  When he said it was an accident, I demonstrated the proper way to sit and even pointed out that my chair had wheels.  He responded with, "Why do you have to pick on me.  Can't you see I'm already embarrassed?"  Then he cried.  I apologized. He'll learn with a limp for awhile and it's my fault.

I yelled at another kid.  It's been almost a year since I yelled.  I equated his disruptions to the theft of another child's education and informed him that he owed his classmates millions.  I gave him the ultimatum to either shut up or pay up.  It was all very Clint Eastwood in my mind, though I think I looked more like a Will Ferrel character in the moment.

I hate my anger and my cynicism.  I realize they are from the same Icarus impulse to be above, to attain perfection, to be noticed and recognized.  But I always hit a place where I lose it.  I fall.  I crash.  I'm weak.  Now I'm the one limping.  As much as I hate my anger, it's the only thing that can ground an Icarus before he slams into the sun. When I apologized to the second kid, his demeanor changed.  He e-mailed me tonight to thank me for apologizing.

What if the best I can do as a teacher is not to attain excellence but to limp with the kids, forgiving and begging, hoping and questioning all along the way?  I realize this isn't exactly fodder for Teacher of the Year nominations, but for what it's worth, I still think the best thing to do with Icarus is to ground him.

It's no secret that I'm reading Amos right now.  It's got me thinking way too much about my world and my constant Biosphere 2 self-sustaining suburban reality I create.  I live in a world of swing sets and tater tot casserole.  It's easy for me to think this place is paradise.

Then I read this line, "They sell the needy for a pair of sandals."  I can lecture you on free market economics and Ayn Rand and forget that kids my son's age are making my shoes.  I can stop at that and paint myself blue and go to a G-20 protest, but miss the next verses about social sexual perversion.  Then I could try and reconcile the left and right and feel really self-righteous after reading the verse about women's stomaches cut open for imperialism and conquest.  I could get really critical in reading the verses, "away with your songs, I cannot stand the noise," and grab the largest stones to lob at the country club churches in my city.

I could do all of that and miss the verses about trusting in military strength or reclining calmly on a couch and enjoying the choicest meats and the nicest ointments as I sit here on a faux leather couch, typing away on a machine created by child labor in underdeveloped countries as I trust in my world power status that allows me to enjoy a Venti cup of liquid happiness at my leisure.

I could take it to the next step and start to think that theology is the same as action and get wrapped up in defining a very political Jesus who spans the left and the right and miss the phrase of "coming back to me."  I could easily think that God's mad at me and create a plan of Spencer's Social Justice and start making hemp clothing and limiting my showers to five minutes.

I could do all of that and miss the reality that he's weeping and he's angry and he "gets it" when a kid shows up to school and has to stash leftover toast into a backpack so his "illegal" family can eat.  I could easily read this and think that it's a list of what I need to do and miss the deeper reality that that knowing God and loving the poor are not two separate ideas.

After declaring the blog too cynical, I went ahead and re-opened "How to Be an Evangelical."  If we can't have laugh at ourselves and engage in satire, we're in the wrong place.  

***

I started thinking about the ridiculous way in which I complain about the holidays and so I created a pagan version of a conversation I've had to re-live in evangelical circles:

"Dude, I hate how commercialized Halloween has gotten."

"Me, too.  Kids run around saying 'Trick or Treat,' but they don't mean it.  They just want candy. How many of them will actually do a trick?"

"Greedy capitalists.  It's supposed to be about the autumn equinox, the harvest and all.  Now it's just an excuse to make money. Those kids don't even know the reason for the season, man."

"I know.  Where are the witches and wizards and woodland creatures?  Where are the gnomes and the spirits?  Now it's just a chance to dress like Dora the Explorer. I saw five Doras tonight and not one sprite."

"I bet they don't even sacrifice animals, man. I bet there's a bunch of Druids rolling in their graves right now."

"Even the churches have gotten into the act.  You know how Halloween is supposed to be based on the Roman goddess of the harvest, right?  I went to a church and it was anything but that. They had all these games and free hot dogs and face painting. Not warrior painting, either. Cutesy crap."

"Where were the temple prostitutes? You can't have a Harvest Festival without temple prostitutes. It's like they deliberately left that out because they were scared of being offensive."

"Yeah, where are the temple hookers, man.  Bring those back and we'll finally get people back to church.  Can you imagine a guy saying, 'Can't go to church today.  I've got Fantasy Football to take care of.' You can't can you? No self-respecting pagan man would choose football over temple prostitutes."

"It's like they took something sacred and made it all secular.  They just used it to sell stuff. I couldn't find one single fire tonight.  I saw cheap plastic shit, but no fire. What kind of a Samhain ritual is that?"

"The closest I could find was some Mexicans eating candy shaped like dead people.  But none of them could tell me the Halloween story. So even when the rituals continue, we've lost the narrative.  We don't know our theology."

"I know.  Hey, dude, seriously, is that an Enya CD?"

"No, no, it's not."

"Seriously, you have an Enya CD. They're such sell-outs.  They're not even pagan anymore."

I talked to a man the other day about the issue of profiling and terrorism.  When I asked him for criteria, he insisted that it's cultural rather than religious.

"You know, you don't go after all Muslims or even all Arabs.  You find the right suspects.  People with beards.  People who spout out Anti-American slogans. You know the type who want to start a revolution. Usually they're Gen-X-ers or they're college-aged."

I replied, "I'm glad Jesus never said anything anti-American, because he fits that description to a T."  So, whil Jesus won't be profiled, I'm worried about Iron and Wine.  Beard? You bet.  A few critical statements of our government? Check.  Gen-X-er? Yep.

Someone call Dan Brown.  We have a future conspiracy novel.  Folk singers are leading a nation-wide terrorist insurgency and they've won the minds of articulate, indie liberals, trendy college radio station DJs and disenfranchised suburbanites like myself who still cling to something that's not entirely manufactured.

Now if we could somehow tie this terrorist cell to the surburban street gang Mary Kay (they have the colors, the talk of dominating territory and even a hierarchical structure that resembles most drug cartels) then we'd have a real novel.

Photo Credit
Flickr Creative Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stincodiporco/2775053454/

Yesterday this guy named Stuart preached at our church.  He's a portly guy, a bit too loud, very conservative.  From all initial appearances, he's a lot like Rush Limbaugh. I wrote him off as irrelevant and judgmental without even listening to him the first two times I heard him preach.

I'm realizing now that his preaching is like a shot of whiskey. Most people feel the need to mix reality with a soda and syrup. But he's not a shouter or an entertainer or a three-keys-and-seven-steps and he doesn't use humor just for the sake of humor.  He just explains a passage and makes it real.

He doesn't use condescending language or assume stupidity in his audience. It's more than that, though. It's subtle at first, but he's raw and vulnerable and genuine.  I'm getting to a place in life where I can really respect a guy who can be himself without making himself into a big deal, who can be vulnerable in telling a story, not to gain sympathy but to illustrate some deeper reality about the universe.

There is something honorable about someone who doesn't feel the need to dress trendy, engage in cynical humor and become an expert in pop culture.  He's relevant, because he's real.

I used to believe that the biggest issue of the Digital Divide was one of access.  I thought that the solution for low-SES students was a quick dumping of cheap laptops into schools.  After working in a low-income school, my perspective changed.  I saw it as an issue of technology integration, a new pedagogy and some major paradigm shifts among students and teachers alike.

What I missed initially was another reality: the values of the New Economy, the issues of globalization, the connections that are so "necessary" for empowerment in a Digital Age are political and social realities.  I cannot believe that simply teaching a child to use a Word document will mean that child will have a higher chance of success in college or a "better" career.

If I want to tackle issues of the Digital Divide, I have to tackle issues of injustice.  If I'm going to be honest about Digital Ghettos, I need to be honest about a system that both formally and informally marginalizes that poor.  Politics, Economics, Social Issues: these are all taboo conversations in public education (I know, the public, the common space where honest dialogue ought to occur).  Yet, they shape the reality of the classroom.

I wish I could engage in the following conversation at my school:

• What political and social forces shape the Digital Divide?
• What are the real dangers of the Digital Divide?
• Should schools even prepare students for the "phantom jobs" of the New Economy?
• If schools prepare students for a New Economy and they live out a middle-class reality, is that not another form of imperialism? 

I know this starts too sound too abstract and too academic, but I think it's relevant.  For what it's worth, I think that a training on language acquisition without discussing the politics of language is just as abstract and dangerously academic-only.  Then again, I'm a social studies teacher at heart.

photo credit - flickr creative commons

If you think that providing a living wage for a household, keeping parents with their children or allowing an entire home to stay healthy would fit into the umbrella of focusing on the family, you're wrong.  Awhile back I heard an interview with Dr. Dobson, where he explained that what families really need are tax breaks - especially those that allow parents to send kids to parochial schools.

I'm not sure if Dobson understands the concept of parochial, because the parish concept tends to be bound together in a neighborhood and last time I checked, my kids can go to a neighborhood school for free.  When pressed on the issue of health care, he spoke out against the government take-over of a family's privacy and warned about "illegal aliens" being able to use hospitals.

It's easy to fall into the trap of seeing God through a lens of Red, White and Jesus and miss God's heart for the immigrant.  The Bible constantly refers to this concept.

Here are some examples:

• Abraham was an immigrant 
• Moses led a group of economically opressed Jews to a new land
• Rahab, the Jericho hooker was a prostitute who helped save God's people
• David led his early band of followers who were almost all immigrants
• Job defended the rights of the alien in his land
• Ruth was an immigrant who not only found love, but who's story eventually became a part of the David story
  
• Throughout the minor prophets it keeps talking about taking care of the foreigner
• God chose to reveal himself to humanity through a family that had to flee as immigrants and exiles.  Incidentally, I don't think Mary and Joseph had papers.
  
• The early church had so many immigrants in one location that the Holy Spirit had to use tongues at the Pentecost
• One of Paul's chief goals (indeed the book of Galatians seems to prove this) was that of cross-cultural reconciliation.  Multiculturalism isn't a dirty word.  It's God's design.

I'm not sure what the political answer should be.  I'm not sure if God has a preference for Amnesty versus Temporary Worker Visas.  What is clear, though, is that he tends to make it clear that we should provide justice and compassion to the immigrant. It's a dominant theme of the Bible (mentioned far more often than homosexuality)

So back to Dr. Dobson.  I'm guessing that his theology developed in a white, suburban, middle class world.  I'm guessing he's probably pretty smart, too.  He has compassion for families he knows.  He has the ear of many Republicans. My guess is that he missed this critical aspect of theology because of his own filter.  I teach in a minority school district.  We live in a mixed income, mixed race neighborhood.  I care about my students and want them to have a chance to get a scholarship.  For what it's worth, I'm grateful for the students I have who opened my eyes to this reality about God.