This is part of our Living Facebook Experiment. Please check out the blog if you haven't seen it yet.

A video connected to the Living Facebook Experiment that my wife and I are doing:

Yes, this is over-the-top satire:

Armed with the DVD's, flash cards and workbooks from Your Baby Can Drive, I begin the daily lessons.  Brenna fails at first, placing the laminated cards in her mouth and saying "vroom, vroom" with the model cars.  I scold her for not listening and tell her that her next "step" will be an hour of detention.

Christy thinks this is a bad idea.  She says that Brenna isn't developmentally ready to learn how to drive. I think she's making excuses.  Low standards.  Do tiger moms allow excuses?  Does Harvard take notes about being developmentally appropriate?  Not so much.  I want a child who will be competitive in a global economy.  I read recently that in parts of southeast Asia, children not only drive cars, but work in the industrial sector. Some of them are even getting married in their early teens.  How can we possibly win a race to the top when their children have such a head start?

I'm concerned about Brenna.  According to the curriculum map, she should have a firm grasp of red, yellow and green.  However, when we gave her the keys to the car, she ran through three red lights, stopped on a green and played with the turn signal stick.  How will she ever learn if she spends her time laughing and playing with the dashboard gadgets?

Maybe she needs Ritalin.


Feeling a little dejected, I park the dented up Scion and sit down with the flashcards.  Apparently she still thinks they're edible.  So, I move back to direct instruction.  Halfway through the lecture on limited liability insurance, she interrupts me with, "I poop."  I tell her, kindly, that bowel movements are no excuse for abandoning her education.  She then says, "Daddy love you," and I remind her that no amount of flattery will change my mind.

Maybe she needs more accountability.

Christy tells me again that I need to let Brenna mature.  She says that the point of education isn't simply preparing children for the future, but also meeting them in the now.  My wife is clueless.  She doesn't even have a degree in education.  So, I bust out the projector and share the PowerPoint slides with the graphs comparing Brenna's driver's ed progress to the national norm.  I remind Christy that we will do "whatever it takes" (including, perhaps, mild shock therapy) and that we will not allow our child to be left behind (I place heavy emphasis on this Apocalyptic language).

But, alas, my wife takes our daughter to the living room and lets her play with blocks.  I try to rationalize this by thinking that perhaps it's some sort of experimental STEM program, but Christy refuses to let me create a rubric for her design projects.

Bottom line: Don't blame me if my daughter grows up to be a failure.

The following post is a cross-post from a project my wife and I are doing together, where we try living out Facebook in real-life.  You can check out the blog at Living Facebook.

I don't know who this guy is, but it seems to capture how I felt today.

I walk into Ranch Market across the street with an autograph book and a camera.

"I'm a big fan of Ranch Market," I tell the lady at Customer Service.

"Yes, we don't sell fans here.  Try Wal-Mart," she explains.

"No, me.  I like Ranch Market," I tell her.

She nods her head and says, "I like the Ranch Market, too."

"Can you sign for the company?"

"No, no," she shakes her head.

Fail.

*     *     *

Christy tries the Postal Service. She chooses the socialized mail system and not the band with the Mario-Brothers-Meets-Death-Cab-For-Cutie sound.

"Nice weather," the lady says.

"Yeah, I'm a fan of this weather."

"Me, too."

"I'm a fan of the post office," she explains.

"We don't get that too often." The postal worker is right.  People tend to make assumptions about their service, despite the fact that they tend to run things pretty well.

*     *     *

I plan to stop by In-N-Out, but instead I have to settle for QT.  It's the Taj Mahal of convenience stores.  Or maybe not.  I suppose that would make it one part cheap fountain drinks and one part mausoleum and they'd probably lose customers if they started housing the dead bodies by the warmed-up taquitos.

"Hey, I'm a big fan of QT," I tell the man by the counter.

"Me, too.  They pay really well."  I bet they do*.

"I like the fact that you can choose between, I don't know, seventy different flavors of soda."

"Yeah," he says.

"Can you sign for the company?"

"I'm sorry. I can't do that."

"Can I take my picture with QT?"

"No, they don't let people take pictures here."

"Sorry," I tell him, recognizing how ridiculous I look.

"It's a crazy rule.  They act like this is sacred ground or something."

He rings up my order and I hang my head in dejection.  Turns out it's harder to be a fan of a company than I had thought.  For all the signs I've been seeing where companies implore me to follow them on Twitter or become a fan of them on Facebook, I'm recognizing that the average transnational company is the equivalent of a high-paid supermodel.  We want to believe we know them, because we know the image they've portrayed and the intimate stories through their public relations efforts.  But therein lies the problem.  Public relations.  It's impossible to have a relationship with an image.

As I grow older and more sophisticated, it's easy to think that I've gotten past the Tony the Tiger stage.  I tend to think of Target or Starbucks as a mechanical "it."  However, in subtle ways, I still to buy into the myth that I can have a relationship with the impersonal.  I perk up when I see the circular green star-headed sea lady offering me a sensual experience for a couple of bucks.

Perhaps it's because humans are designed to be relational and in a world where social media pushes us to develop an image, create a brand and market our lives, the line between business and personal continues to blur and thus we try and find meaning through identifying with external brands.  At one time "corporate" was a word used for the sacred.  Now we've taken the corporate and made it sacred.

Follow-up: I'm going to become a fan of Cartwright Elementary School Administrators tomorrow.  Perhaps I'll write some fan mail to my favorite companies.  Screw you, QT and your corporate diva mentality.  My first letter is going to In-N-Out.  After that, I'm thinking Sprouts and maybe Heath Bars. 




*My friend Quinn the Business Bohemian thinks QT might be a cult.  First they give people a high salary and a graveyard shift, forcing people to abandon friends and family.  They all wear matching uniforms and they hang out together.  Then the company offers to pay for the workers' health care.  For my part, I think they're colonizing the city.  Ever watched what they do?  They completely demolish the competition and set up their own cookie cutter stores, ruling the area with an air of effeciency.  QT has picked up where Great Britain left off.

photo credit: K.Muncie on Flickr Creative Commons

I've been doing a project where I live out various aspects of Facebook.  I'm writing about it at Living Facebook. 

My four year old, Micah, leads me through a backyard egg hunt.  "It's like Easter, but it's tougher.  The eggs are camoflauge.  I wish they were painted," he explains.

We move to the garden, where Micah warns me, "You have to feed them enough.  Otherwise they'll starve."

"Is it possible to give them too much?" I ask.

"Yeah, then they'll drown."

I pull an onion out and inhale.  "It smells like garlic," Micah tells me.

"Those tomatoes were once a seed," he tells me. "They came out of nowhere."

Tangible grace.  I didn't earn it.

Then he reaches the squash and says, "It's magical.  The flowers turn into food.  You should watch."

He's right.

I should watch.

I should feel.

I should smell.

*     *     *

Christy joins in the process, carefully explaining the details without trying to sound like a nag.  She explains the proper way to plant a blackberry bush, how to know when an onion is ripe, the best way to mix manure soup and how to handle brooding hens. For her, it's an art and a science and rather than straddling the line, she embraces the two extremes simultaneously, at one time reminding me to feel my way through it and at another time explaining me the precise strategy needed for the garden.

It's a mystery, the power of dirt.  Never sure when to let go and when to step in, when I'm starving or drowning.  It's parenting.  It's teaching.  It's all things relational.

Muddy.  Messy.  I'm five again, planting seeds and hoping for life to break through.  It's tangible.  Earthy.  Humble.  I'm remembering what it means to learn with my hands instead of just my mind.  I'm trying to be present.  Instead, I feel the rush of nostalgia.

I look over to Christy.  She wipes the sweat from her forehead.  She's beautiful. She doesn't believe it right now.  It's difficult to undue years of socialization.  But she's beautiful.  Naturally.

"You know, I like to do this type of work.  You can always ask for help," I tell her.

"And you can always volunteer," she reminds me.

*     *      *

I want to share this moment with a stranger.  However, we live in a culture where it's considered pushy to share one's beliefs with others.  I cringe at the Megaphone Jesus Screamer or the angry left/right protestors who carry banners and yell slogans.  What I'm realizing is that Facebook allows people to share ideas in status updates and try and convert people through causes and grow imaginary communities in places like Farmville.

Broken? Perhaps.

Collectively delusional? Most likely.

Meeting a visceral need that we've lost in a sea of postmodernism?  Definitely.

It's in doing my own Suburban Farmville that I recover the sense of satisfaction that occurs when I share my joy with friends.  Perhaps I was obnoxious.  Perhaps my tone had a little tinge of Megaphone Jesus Screamer.  Perhaps that's always a byproduct in trying to convert someone.  However, I'm recognizing that in trying to be polite, I have hidden some of my most deepest convictions and best experiences.  So, I get over my need to keep it to myself and decide to create a real-life status update.

*     *     *

I try to make sense of the frailty of life and the craziness of hope and grace made tangible, so, in line with Farmville, I figure I'll try and convert Javi the Hippie to my cause.

"Hey Javi, I think you should grow a garden.  I think it does something profound for the soul.  Maybe it's just me.  Maybe I'm crazy.  But I think everyone needs it."

But unlike a status update, this comment does not go unnoticed and Javi the Hippie tells me that he'll fix my sprinkler system if I teach him to garden and although we pretend it's a social contract, we know that friendship doesn't work like that.  It's messy.  it's muddy.  It's grace in tangible form.

The talk wavers between story and spirituality until finally I share with him my laundry list of Suburban Farmville activity.

"Javi, I pulled onions, watered the plants, found eggs, planted some bushes, turned the compost, replaced the ducks' water and . . ."

". . . spent time with Micah."

"Exactly.  So, how many points is that worth?"

"I don't know.  I hate Farmville.  I'm actually part of a Facebook group that hates Farmville."

"You're part of a hate group?" I ask.

"For Farmville," he says.

"Yeah, but hate is a strong word I usually reserve for mayonaise and genocide."

"I won't give you a point value.  It can't be quantified," Javi the Hippie says, refusing to budge, even for a Living Facebook Experiment.

"You're ruining this," I warn him.  But he refuses to budge.

Javi's right. It can't be quantified.

In the midst of a staff meeting, I decide to write an angry poem in order to retain my sanity:

Recipe Book
They hand me stacks of binders
and I put on my blinders
to the chart and the graph
of our golden calf
so we can find who’s best
on the standardized test

They make me take it
I try to make it
But when I break it
I have to fake it

If I could . . .

Create it
And relate it
They couldn’t rate it
So they would hate it

I feel like . . .

Picasso with a coloring book
A chef as a short-order cook
Plato on a worksheet
Louie Armstrong with a techno beat

Until then we’re . . .

Academic androids
feeding children steroids
while the data bores
with their testing scores
are pimping out each brain
students go insane
from the indoctrination,
with no emancipation

Standardization can feel overwhelming. How do I, as a teacher, make any difference in a battle against standardization? I think the answer involves being part sage and part lunatic.The sage is the one who calmly reshapes the system, gaining the respect of the power brokers and deal-makers. The lunatic, by contrast, rages against the system, speaking out boldly for what he or she sees as inhuman and unjust.

Sage Approach

1. Communicate Results: I hate the tests. However, I recognize that standardized teaching occurs at such a low cognitive level that authentic learning will almost always lead to higher test scores. People thought I was crazy for using authentic and customized learning strategies until they saw the test results.
2. Be Sneaky: When told to create a word wall, I used the word "asinine" next to "standardized tests." When told I had to use the math book, I had students examine the pseudocontext of the word problems.
3. Use Their Language: I learned to talk about data as I explained the authentic assessments. I learned to structure customized learning into lesson plans under "enrichment" and "intervention." I learned to find the standards that fit with differentiated instruction. In other words, I found a way to do what I wanted to do and use standardized language to explain it.
4. Decide When To Conform: I tell my administration each year that I will not write referrals. I will refer to procedures are "shared rituals" and I will work within a philosophy of "the freedom to learn." My class runs smoothly, precisely because I abandon the system of punishments and rewards. However, I also recognize that I have to grudgingly follow silly rules like shirts tucked in, straight lines and silence during tests. I explain to the students why I disagree with these rules and why I choose to conform on some of the small things. I use the following litmus test: Will this ruin learning?  Will this dehumanize students?
5. Find Common Ground: Often the proponents of standardization are not mean-spirited people who hate kids. Instead, they want students to thrive and fear that a progressive approach will water down standards. A sage is able to build a bridge between traditional reformers and authentic reformers so that people see a rational side to our argument.

Lunatic Approach

1. Reconfigure your class: I use groups, allow for movement and create specialized centers that students can go to at any moment. My students paint classroom murals and works of art on classroom canvases. All of these are small, subtle steps toward humanizing our classroom environment.
2. Teach the Reality of Tests: I tell my kids about the rigged system they are up against. Many of them have written letters speaking out against these injustices.
3. Speak Out: I talk to parents, district office representatives and the larger blogging community about my feelings regarding standardization. I've written a book and a guest article for the Washington Post blog.
4. Be Bold: When people told me that students needed to hand-write all drafts before using our classroom blog, I defiantly refused. When a curriculum specialist once told me that we couldn't do a documentary, because it wasn't "real learning," I told her I would rather lose my job than give up the project. There is a time when teachers need to stand up and say, "Okay, write me up. Fire me. Go ahead. This is too valuable of a learning experience to give up."
5. Provide an Alternative: While it's easy to bust on professional development, the lunatic can articulate a crazy vision of a better method of teacher learning (such as a PLN). Similarly, a teacher who hates standardized tests needs to have a list of alternative assessments that work better. In a Waiting for Superman world, it's key that we create a non-standard, alternative story that will be more compelling, authentic and inspiring than what's currently being peddled by the press.

Micah walks in and says, "The worst part of a house with no mirrors is that you can't see how sweaty you get during nap time."

"The mirrors will be back soon after we get our bathrooms fixed."

"I'm afraid I'll forget what I look like," he says.

Micah's right. It sucks to live in a house with no mirrors.

The worst part of a house with no mirrors is that you look at yourself through the distorted reflection of a toaster until eventually you believe the lie that you are somehow more broken than those you see around you.  Or you catch yourself peering back from the computer screen, your image trying to compete with the flickering ones and zeroes defining your world.  Or you gaze into a window, at the quasi-transparent self and it seems, in the moment, that you might just evaporate in the desert sun.  And that's why, as vain as it may seem, our home still needs a lot of mirrors.

A few days back, on my drive the supermarket, I noticed a shiny new box had been placed within the Socialist Amusement Grounds. (It's a dingy place where children take turns sliding on plastic and swinging from chains. If parents want a place for children to play, they ought to go to McDonalds and pay for the privilege of having fun.)

Children could simply push a button and instantly the city provided socialized water to anyone, regardless of income or legal status.

That's right.  Apparently any Freddy Freeloader can simply hydrate outside of the market norms that guide our great democracy.  Thankfully, most parents in the area chose to pass out store-bought, disposable bottles instead of allowing the children to sip from the grimy, germ-infested socialist water dispensers.

However, I noticed two children taking sips from the Fountain of Free, lazily sipping from our hard-earned taxpayer dollars. In the process, the children lost out on a great opportunity to save the planet (by recycling the water bottles) and stimulate the economy.

Critics might suggest that it's harmless for a child to get a free drink.  After all, if a child doesn't have a water bottle, he or she might experience dehydration in our desert climate.  However, a few cases of heat stroke might just be the small price we have to pay to send the message to our youth that nothing is free.  You have to claw your way toward wealth.  After all, where would we be as a nation if we passed out free food and water to underdeveloped nations?  Terrorists would see us as weak; as the Mr. Rogers of superpowers.

We'd be Canada.

A nation of cardigans.

If we want a kick-ass, Chuck Norris generation, it starts with teaching children that nothing is free, that we don't share and that altruism is the root of all evil.  It's time we stop indoctrinating children into a socialist ideology.  Eventually we can break down the Socialist Book Lending Program and perhaps even the Socialist Intelectual Development Program (so-called "school," as if they are a mindless mass swimming together in the ocean).  However, I think it's time we start small.  Start with the basics.

I urge you to contact your local representatives and urge them to replace all Socialist Water Dispensaries with vending machines.  Let the market decide what children need.  Give them choice.  Give them freedom.  Give them a free market alternative to socialist dogma!

I enjoy dystopian novels.  Perhaps it's the social studies teacher in me.  Or maybe it's that I love throwing around ideas within a context or allegory.  However, I am often disappointed when I finish dystopian novels.  Here's why:

1. Dystopias often fail in character development.  Yes, I want to see that society is broken.  However, I also want to see the psychological effects of recognizing the brokenness and the relational challenges that people face when dealing with a broken society. 
2. Dystopias often end with a chase scene.  I want to see what happens when the protagonist takes on the system to try and change it.  Yes, I see the point in leaving Big Brother or in escaping a Brave New World.  However, I want to see Jonas work toward changing The Community rather than finding a new society to join.
3. Dystopias often begin with the premise that it's the systems (often political) that lead to a broken society, when it seems that the hardest things to change are the larger cultural shifts that lead to the unspoken social norms that keep a dystopia intact. 
4. Oftentimes dystopian novels present a system that is either foreign to ours or simply a small part of our society.  The reader easily slips into the idea that "this must be bad" (think Ayn Rand's rejection of anything altruistic) rather than embracing nuance and recognizing that dystopias happen when good ideas are taken to a logical, extreme conclusion without a sense of balance or paradox. 

A decade ago, when the terrorist attacks occurred, I watched it on television.  It took three video repeats of the towers falling before I felt jaded.  So, I went on a run in the desert.  The tv news cycle infuriated me and I knew that what had happened that day was so human and so inhuman that it didn't belong on that medium.

Then I hung out with some friends. We talked.  We cried.

I tried to tell myself that I understood the need for symbols and totems and everything else that flag-waving represented, but it still felt foreign to me - like a badly produced action movie, minus Jean Claude Van Damme.  I remember wanting to walk away from the reality of it and then hoping that we could somehow fix it.

I remember thinking, at the time, that if we could just catch Osama Bin Laden, we'd fix it.  Whatever "it" was, it's still broken, even with Bin Laden dead.  Was it the system?  Was it the fear?  Was it the reality that America is not as nationally secure as I had grown up believing?

Or was it the frailty of humanity?  Was it the scary reality that I'm not as far from a guy like Bin Laden as I'd like to believe?  In actions, perhaps, but in motives, not so much.  Osama Bin Laden's death forces me to grapple with my humanity.

I get why people are celebrating on the streets.  People want justice, even violent justice, when they lose a love to a violent crime.  I also get why people are outraged that people are celebrating on the streets. Death seems tragic, even when it's an end to someone who caused so much tragedy; and love seems to be the only hope for a broken planet.

So I'm left feeling sad, confused, satisfied. It's strange. It's disturbing.

It's normal?

Throughout the last few years, I've been mulling over a few questions about our world:

• To what extent do we create a better identity?  What are the dangers in creating a "self brand" that is better than who we truly are? (especially online)  To what extent are we losing our sense of childhood as children are forced to create alter identities to interact with a globalized world?
• What permission to we give to people to reshape our stories?  How do we change our past stories to help make sense of the current narrative?  
• Why do we make a difference?  What drives us to do what we do?  
• How does society treat outsiders? In what ways do we use "saving others" as an excuse to marginalize the powerless? 
• What are the dangers in society shaped by choice and freedom? 

I've also been thinking through the power of metaphor, allegory and narrative in exploring these questions.  While the whole "superhero thing" has been played over repeatedly, I am drawn toward the action figure metaphor in thinking through some of the deeper social, relational and existential questions.

With that in mind, I wrote Drawn Into Danger.  I wanted a book with action and suspense, but also deeper reflection, metaphor and a sense of meaningful character development.  I wanted to get inside the hero's head in a first person fictional memoir.  In other words, I wrote the kind of book I would have read as an eighth grader; and for that matter, the kind of book I would want to read write now.

Despite my best efforts at promoting this work (and a good review from Publishers Weekly), I've sold a grand total of 26 books on Kindle and paperback combined.  I have a goal for this month.  I'd like to sell five hundred books.  I realize that it's a big goal and a big dream.  However, I actually really believe in this work and I feel unashamed promoting it. I've had a very positive response with both students and adults and I think it's worth reading.

Over the next two weeks, I will be providing my book for $8.00 print and $1.00 on Amazon Kindle.  I'm keeping the profit as low as possible, because I want the book to be accessible to as many people as possible.

What I ask from you, is your help.  I suck at self-marketing.  I'm not in anyway a natural connector or salesperson.  Moreover, I don't have money for traditional marketing. In other words, I won't sell many copies without help from my community of readers.

So, here's where I'd like some help:

First, please read it.  If it's a book that you find meaningful, please consider doing the following:

1. Tweet about it - either tweet a line from it or mention it on Twitter
2. Post a link on your Facebook
3. Write a review on Amazon.com (so far there is only one)
4. Write about it on your blog.  This could be an interview with me, a reflection on the book or a quick description of your thoughts.  
5. Recommend it to a friend