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"The truth shall set you free"?

11/27/2016

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I’ve been thinking a lot about Truth/truth lately, both the lower case kind and the capital T kind.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident….” 

How I wish we could reclaim the concept again—that there are some truths we all share, and that those truths are “self-evident.” 

When I was a grad student in the 1990s, relativism was orthodoxy—up to a point, rightly so.  Questioning the orthodoxy of a singular, objective Truth that applies to all people, in all cultures and subcultures, and at all times, became a necessary key facet of twentieth-century thought.  In The Postmodern Condition, philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard referred to the loss of “grand narratives”—singular stories that “explain everything.”  Religious narratives are a prime example, but so are other “grand narratives,” such as scientific methodology, American exceptionalism, the forward march of progress, the inevitable triumph and inherent good of market capitalism, and so forth.

Distrust of such “meta-narratives" was a hallmark of what it meant to be on the side of social progress.  We were taught, in grad school, to question truth claims based in an objective “reality,” since “reality” itself was seen as impossible to understand from anything other than a subjective viewpoint.  Truth with the capital T was understood as a weapon of conformity, a way of policing minority viewpoints.  Legitimizing world views with an appeal to an objective “reality” was seen as suspect.  The stories of the marginalized—“mini-narratives,” provisional and highly contextualized—need to be heard as a counterpoint to cultural dominance.

Somewhere along the line, something seems to have flipped. 

What happens when those with reactionary, hateful agendas begin to develop “mini-narratives” of their own, legitimizing their world views without reference to any concept of a “shared reality”?  What happens when we accept “truths” as so relative, so provisional, so contextual, and “reality” as so subjective, that any story is considered as potentially valid as the next?  What happens?

Here’s what.

When my first-year writing students were brainstorming potential research topics using inquiry-based learning, I was stunned when a full third of the class came up “Did we really land on the moon?” as a potential “line of intellectual inquiry.”  (I channeled my shock into writing a last-minute change in lesson plan for the next class session, on “identifying hoaxes.”  When I asked my students what gave them this idea, several of them told me they had “researched it in high school,” prodded by teachers who told them there was “credible evidence” that the moon landing had been staged.)

During a class discussion in Banned Books regarding censorship, about a third of the students agreed with someone who said that Holocaust deniers deserve “equal time” in academic settings because we need to “hear both sides of the story.”  (I channeled my shock into writing a last-minute change in lesson plan that I now call my “3E's” lecture: the importance of evidence and ethics in determining whether various stories are "equal.")  

Despite my best efforts to emulate a microbe under attack by an antibiotic by trying to evolve to the next, presumably unassailable level, the hits just kept on coming.

Was Barack Obama really born in Kenya?  Is Barack Obama secretly a Muslim?  Is Michelle Obama really a man?  Did Secret Security squads enter the homes of store clerks under cover over darkness and harass them for saying “Merry Christmas” to the shopping public? Was the Sandy Hook massacre an elaborate conspiracy staged by actors? 

Right now, there are so many things careening wildly astray in our society that it’s hard to know where to start, what to write about, whether anything I write can possibly do any good beyond helping me organize and articulate my own thoughts.  In the troubling days since November 8, this is the first piece of substantive writing I’ve even tried to do.  So much to say.  Too much to say.  (For me, writer’s block has never been about not having ideas; it’s always been about having too many ideas, more than can be wrestled into the linear pattern of words, sentences, paragraphs.) 

As I write, I’m already aware that whatever I choose to focus on, I’m glossing over things of importance—probably things of more importance than whatever I’m choosing to write about.  In the coming days, I’ll try to write about those things too—about hatred, prejudice, bigotry, dehumanization.  About fear, anger, ignorance, projection, deflection, avoidance, co-optation, complacency.

For today, just for now, I’m thinking about Truth.  I’m thinking about why, if we’re going to take a stance for social progress, for humanization, for inclusivity, for kindness and wisdom, we need to reclaim some sense of a shared reality.  And that truth must be built on the concept of a shared humanity. 

Because when I read comment streams (inadvisable if one values mental health), or dare to look at postings that turn my stomach when I try to grasp the depth of some people’s hatred for certain of their fellow human beings, one thing (among many) that occurs to me is: People came to this election cycle grounded in two completely separate “realities,” marked by completely different “provisional truths” or “mini-narratives.”  If we can’t legitimize what’s true or not true with reference to some kind of objective reality—however much we acknowledge the difficulty of achieving “objectivity”—then why not Holocaust denial? Why not neo-Nazism?  Why not racist conspiracy theories?  Why not racism?  Why not all the other ills unleashed by 2016 that have been enumerated in such painful detail elsewhere?

A few years ago, I had major surgery requiring an overnight stay in the hospital.  My “roommate” was a bitter elderly woman who, I was told, had been there for weeks.  When I was rolled in, she asked her family members to blockade the door to our shared bathroom with hospital furniture so that I couldn’t access it.  (When I complained to the nurses, they responded by bringing me antibacterial hand wipes and a bedpan, telling me, “There’s not much we can do about her.”  I complained to my surgeon when he came by the next morning to discharge me.  He hit the roof, reported the nurses to their supervisor, and sent me a letter of apology and a $50 gift card to the hospital gift shop—probably in an attempt to avoid a lawsuit should I end up with sepsis.)

But I digress.  The other thing my “roommate” did was run Fox News on her television—24/7.  (When I asked the nurses if she could turn the volume down at 2:00 a.m. so I could sleep, they offered me earplugs, telling me, “There’s not much we can do about her.”) For 24 hours, I was bombarded with the world view being offered, round the clock, day in and day out, to those who inhabit that particular "reality." Even through the morphine haze, I remember thinking, “If this is all I heard, all the time—and I believed it, because I lived in a world where there were no grounds for not believing it—I would be terrified.  And, probably, angry.”  Maybe even angry enough to blockade my hospital bathroom from being invaded by the patient in the bed next to me.  Angry enough to deny the humanity of others.

Right now there is so much we need to do that it’s hard to know where to start.  I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to state that the world as we know it --or thought we did--has been ripped to shreds.  And, as individuals, I think many of us fluctuate between wanting to fight, and fearing that it’s hopeless.  Fearing that the little actions of one person aren’t going to amount to a “hill of beans” given the enormity of what we’re facing right now—the raw, unbridled power that now seems to be trained on any of us who care about concepts like justice, or compassion. 

Or Truth.

I don’t yet know if it’s hopeless or not.  Some days I feel like there’s hope.  Some days, I don’t.

But if we have any hope of having hope, it seems one thing we need to do is get back to the idea that there is such a thing as objective truth (even as we acknowledge that, due to the limits of human subjectivity, no single human being will ever have the sole “hold” on Truth).  That we have to embrace, rather than resist, the idea that there are such things as right and wrong--however much we acknowledge the necessary complexity of determining that.  That we have to redefine “morality”—not as the policing of consensual sex, as the term is too often understood now, but in broader ways, such as whether we are treating all people as fully human and acting in ways that promote the common good.

We need, once again, to find some truths that are self-evident.


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Breaking my silence

10/8/2016

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I’ve been quiet lately. Today I break my silence.

The reason for my silence: the presidential election. Writing about it makes me feel queasy. Not writing about it makes me look apathetic.  

I've held back somewhat on politics this season—mindful of my position as an educator whose job it is to teach and treat fairly every student who comes my way, mindful and respectful of the diverse group of people on my Facebook page and in my life, mindful that I also represent an institution.  I remain, and always will remain, respectful of people whose opinions span the spectrum when it comes to politics, religion and more. Our shared humanity must always come first.  But for multiple reasons, I can hold back no longer—because of who I am.

I am the daughter of a man who immigrated to America—a man of mixed race, who suffered traumas we cannot even imagine, and who by and large remained silent about those traumas in his quest to move forward.  (If you’ve ever flown on a Boeing jet plane, you’ve witnessed my father's legacy.)  I was raised in an evangelical Christian community in which I was told to lie about my father’s birthplace (India), and to lie about his mixed ethnicity.  Yes, people calling themselves Christians taught me to lie—because in early 1960s America, the truth of being not-quite-white, of being an immigrant, was apparently a truth too horrible to tell. Because I suntanned easily, I was told to stay out of the sun so people wouldn’t think I was “from someplace else.”  My father’s origins were apparently a truth too horrible for the light of day.

I am the mother of a daughter who joined our family through adoption.  Our daughter was born in China.  The other day, our daughter asked us if Trump wants to send her back to China.  We assured her that will not happen; she is a naturalized U.S. citizen.  (Ridiculous, you might say; Trump only wants to deport the undocumented.  That misses the larger point—the psychic damage inflicted on anyone who does not fit into his imaginary homogenized world, or the systemic damage inflicted whenever entire groups of people are dehumanized for whatever reason.)

I am the daughter of a mother who was born with cerebral palsy—mild, yet noticeable.  She was encouraged to hide it, minimize it, not name it—all because she grew up in a time when it was considered shameful to have a physical disability.  As a little girl, she took piano lessons as a form of physical therapy. She would grow up to become a church organist/pianist as well as a piano teacher, in the process teaching all of us how to transform adversity into triumph.  Yet still, she always felt ashamed.  Still, she encouraged us never to utter the words “cerebral palsy.”

I am the proud relative of both gay and transgendered family members, whose identities I will not disclose without their consent. 

I am the proud niece and cousin of people living in several different nations—England, France, Switzerland, Spain, Gibraltar, Brazil, Australia, Canada, and more.  My relatives’ ancestries hail from India, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and Latin America, as well as Europe. When it comes to skin tones, hair textures, eye shapes and facial features, we pretty much cover the spectrum.

Thus, if you are related to me, you are by connection related to all of the above.  If you are friends with me, you are connected through our friendship to all of the above.  It’s time to stop referring to the people you consider different from yourself as “they.”  If you’re connected with me in any way, there is no “they,” just an ever-expanding “we.”  My extended family includes people from multiple nationalities and multiple ethnic backgrounds, adoptees and adoptive parents, people with disabilities, people of various sexual orientations, gender identities, educational attainments, occupations, religious and political affiliations, and economic levels.  If you think you’re far distant from any of the above—you’re not.  If you know me, it’s no more than two degrees of separation.

Many, many people—I’d even say most people—have suffered far more egregious ills than I have, so "woe is me" is not my intent in writing this. What I can say, however, is that in my earlier years, I went through enough to know what enormous pain and psychic damage can be inflicted when a child grows up believing there is something “wrong” with her at the core, knowing she doesn’t fit in, knowing she is whispered about, criticized, ostracized—not for anything she’s done, but simply for something she is.  As a kid, I used to agonize about not fitting in.  While that happened everywhere, it happened most of all in our evangelical Christian church—the place where I was taught—in word, though rarely in example—“Love the Lord God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.”

I used to agonize about not fitting in.  Now, as a woman in my mid-fifties, I’m grateful to have lived with the gift of knowing how “not fitting in” feels.  Never quite belonging can teach you a great deal.  Among other things, you learn that sometimes the cost of belonging is too high; that too often, belonging depends as much on whom you leave out as who you let in.  You learn that you haven’t really found a niche if the cost of belonging is your own silence.  You find friends who accept you fully, knowing everything about who you are, and you learn that it's important to try and live a truthful life, a life of purpose and integrity.  You learn how to recognize the humanity in everyone around you, not just those who happen to share some of your demographics. 

But the gift of not fitting in has a double edge: When exclusionary principles rear their ugly heads, they trigger all the pain you thought you’d once put to rest.  The memory of shame is always there.  You also feel the pain experienced by other targets, even when you’re not the direct target yourself.  So when a foul-mouthed public figure decides to run for president and build his candidacy on the bigotry you once thought you had outlived, it triggers a visceral, bodily reaction—a self-protective reaction—a reaction that weighs you down every day.  Though you want to emulate Michelle Obama and go high when others go low, you often feel too weighted down to fly.

And it’s not just a reaction to that candidate in isolation.  It’s a reaction to the many people who express enthusiasm for the same narrowness and bigotry that cut you off as a child, when you didn’t know any better than to internalize other people’s narrow opinions.  The sight and sound of thousands of people cheering this individual—it becomes too much to take in.  And it’s not just about you—it’s about your whole family, your whole network of friends.  It’s not just a cerebral reaction; it’s a physical sensation, a sensation almost like falling, a gut-punching fear.

(This was even before the most recent outrage over treatment of women and sex.  On the one hand, I’m relieved that more people are growing outraged; on the other hand, why wasn’t everything that happened before this revelation enough?)

I’ve always been cautious about speaking out.  Perhaps I’ve been too cautious.  These past few days, I’ve quietly de-friended a few people.  I now see that as the coward’s path.  Rather than go on de-friending without explanation, I decided to try and explain.  Why I feel this as strongly as I do.  Why I see the issues triggered by this election as having little to do with politics per se and everything to do with underlying values.  Why I understand the fear and isolation expressed by those who feel directly targeted.  Why it’s so hard for me to talk about any of this.  Why I have little patience for people who try to argue that the alternative candidate is “just as bad.”  (For the record, It’s. Not. Even. Close.  Rumors are not the same thing as evidence, and normal human failings—which we all have, including those in leadership positions—are not the same thing as gross sociopathy and demagoguery.)  Why I can’t stomach watching TV right now.  Why standard, reasoned political analysis currently fails to resonate.  Why, lately, I haven't been able to write.

And most of all: Why I’m grateful to have so many people in my life who do understand, who are going through life each day trying to be kind, trying to do the right thing.  And why those of us trying to live that way need to keep on doing what we do, in the hopes that one day, the demonization, dehumanization, and commodification of human beings will stop—and kindness and inclusivity will prevail.
​
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False dichotomy: true or false?

7/31/2016

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Lately I've been thinking a lot about the logical fallacy of the "false dichotomy"--always a rewarding concept to teach in first-year composition classes, because my students tend to grasp it relatively easily.  And in a society like ours it's so easy to come up with examples that are relevant, memorable, sometimes even funny.  And sometimes, not so funny at all.

I don't know if the tendency to think in all-or-nothing, black-or-white terms is peculiar to American culture (since I'm not a member of any other national culture, I'm not qualified to speak to anything else). It does seem, however, that in America we do an excellent job of perpetuating the belief that there are always only two choices.  We also do an excellent job of careening from one extreme view to the next, without ever stopping at a midway point.

Take sex, for instance.  I still remember viewing the puritanical outrage over Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" (an old story, I know), then scrolling through my TV feed, with seven or eight stations devoted to crudely titled infomercials for sex toys and no way at all to hide those from my children because parental controls don't work for infomercials. Really? Are there no options between "show it all" and "freak out completely at the slightest sighting of a private part"?

Or take alcohol.  Too often we discuss drinking as though there are only two options: out-of-control consumption that leads to tragedy, or introducing yourself by first name only every Thursday night in a church basement.

​Or so many other things.  As if we have to choose between accepting the unjust and horrific police shooting of a black man with a busted taillight, or accepting the unjust and horrific shooting of police officers.  As if we have to choose between eating healthy food 100% of the time, or eating all our meals at a fast food joint and supersizing every single one.  As if we have to choose between going $200K into debt for an Ivy League college education, or fifty years as a minimum-wage slave. As if we have to choose between approving of every declaration of war our leaders make, or supporting the troops who must fight them.  As if we have to choose between treating women as fully competent and worthy beings, or despising men.  As if we can't distinguish between those who follow a particular religion, and those who subscribe to an extremist and violent world view that they have attempted to justify through a twisted interpretation of a particular religion.  I could go on and on with examples.

So often, our public conversations are framed this way.  So often, we find ourselves internalizing these false dichotomies, too.  Perhaps in the case of America, this tendency is rooted in our Puritan heritage, a theology in which there are only two choices--heaven (our way) or hell (everyone else's way). 

I was raised in such a world, so I know from experience that that kind of mindset has its temptations.  If we buy into it, it certainly makes life feel a whole lot simpler and making decisions seem a whole lot easier.  Given how ridiculously complex our world seems to be growing, the prospect of simplicity is tempting. And given our society's obsession with endless choices, it's perhaps not surprising that many of us experience what psychologist Barry Schwartz called "the paradox of choice."  Having too many options can feel paralyzing. Let's simplify things. This, or that? Right, or wrong? With me, or against me? Deciding quickly can feel like a relief.

Furthermore, developmental psychologists also tell us that black-or-white is the way younger children see the world, and we all know that during times of stress, we tend to regress. Each of us still harbors an inner two-year-old, capable of being unleashed under the right circumstances.  (For some people, unfortunately, those "right circumstances" seem to be all of the time.)  During tough times, it's tempting for all of us to revert to the black-or-white, this-or-that way of thinking.

Most of the time, let's face it: black-and-white choices are wildly limiting. And I'm not going to jump into the cliche of saying "truth lies in the gray area." It isn't gray you find in between black and white (gray is just a paler shade of black). What you find in between extremes is the entire spectrum of color. That's where the richness lies. That's where the beauty is to be found.

And yet ... despite the fact that I can deliver a pretty solid lesson plan on false dichotomies and how to avoid them in one's writing, for the past few weeks I've been contemplating the fact that there may be times when there really are only two choices.  Alcohol is one example: moderate and responsible alcohol consumption is certainly possible for many, perhaps even most of us.  But for those whose bodies or psyches simply can't tolerate alcohol usage, they must avoid it altogether if they are to stay healthy and avert tragic consequences.  Similarly with food choices: while middle ground might be possible for a lot of us, if you've got a food allergy or a religious commitment, there's no in between. 

Much of the time the question of when to adopt an all-or-nothing stance is highly individualized.  It's vital that each of us know ourselves well enough--physically, emotionally, morally, socially, spiritually--to realize where the hard lines need to be drawn, and where flexibility might be in order.  

It's also vital to know the difference between the dichotomous choices we must make for ourselves, and the necessity to attempt to impose those choices on someone else.  Much political misstep, I believe, happens because some people who made their own choices--with every right to do so--then made the mistake of believing what's right for them should be imposed onto everybody.

Yet for all that, I've become vitally aware over the past few weeks that even in the broader public arena, circumstances sometimes arise when there truly are only two choices, perhaps neither one of them ideal (depending on one's viewpoint).  And it dawns on me that if we make a categorical statement like "Binary thinking is always a bad thing," we've just posed another binary.  If we say "dichotomies are always false," we've uttered a false dichotomy.

Sometimes we are forced to choose.  Sometimes there are only two choices.


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The Dystopian Chronicles

6/12/2016

1 Comment

 
For a while now, I've been arguing that if we wish to understand why the arts and humanities serve an important purpose, we can pick up just about any piece of dystopian literature to imagine what a society might be like if we excise such things as history, literature, art, music, theatre, philosophy, and so forth.  I still believe that.

But I'm now beginning to think that if we want to know what living in a dystopia feels like, we don't need to turn to dystopian literature. If we want to see the effects of a world deprived of both the humanities and humanity, all we have to do is take a clear-eyed, honest look around us.  The dystopia has already happened.  We are living it.  It's not the imagined future of a sci-fi writer.  We are already there.  

I'm not going to make a harebrained argument that we can stop this out-of-control gun violence by teaching literature or history.  That would be incredibly stupid to say.  Or that the frightening appeal of a rising political demagogue is caused by a decline in school music programs.  Equally stupid.  In fact, I think it's tacky as hell when people respond to tragedies and social injustices in a purely politicized, opportunistic way.  So I'm seriously trying not to do that here.

Yet at the same time, I think what's happening right now is a crisis of values--and in that respect, the question of what we foster in our educational system becomes clearly relevant. What kind of people are we?  Who do we want to be, both individually and collectively?  What kind of society do we want to have?  The kind of society that says "every man for himself," and that nothing matters more than profit margins, making money, getting ahead, looking out for number one--in the process commodifying human beings, reducing us to our roles as producers and consumers?  

Because if that's what we've decided is important, we'll design an educational system that is geared toward preparing us to function in those roles alone--with questions of meaning, value, ethics, purpose and compassion relegated to the private sphere.  We won't develop a shared cultural conversation about those matters. We'll function in an atomistic way.  

Which will make it all too easy to head down a path in which those who profit from weaponry will have more say than those who prioritize  nonviolence.  And too easy for people to remain in various "bubbles" of supposedly like-minded people, buying into the notion that people who are different from themselves are less valuable than they are, less than human, less worthy of life.  And too easy to avoid the big questions by distracting ourselves with noise and trivia.  Too easy to avoid the work of building community by fostering dissent and disagreement.  Too easy to perpetuate a culture grounded in fear--a primal emotion which triggers the fight-or-flight responses of anger and avoidance.  Too much rage, too much apathy.  The poet Yeats said it well:  "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

Fear translates easily into anger.  Anger (especially when combined with too-easy access to war-grade weaponry) culminates in days like this ... creating more heartbreak, more fear.  More anger.  More spiraling downward.  More scapegoating.  More ugliness.  

I don't want that fear and anger to be the foundation on which we build our society.  I'm trying to imagine (and it's hard today, but I'm trying), a society built on a strong sense of community, one that is engaged in conversations about ethics, meaning, values, and compassion.  And that's a risk. One that requires us to move beyond fear.

And if that's what we want, we will build an educational system that prioritizes those things. Training people in the skills they need to make their livings is crucial and will always need to happen.  But we also need to start talking about how we live our lives, and what we value as a people. We need to realize--and I mean "realize" in a really deep, powerful, turn-your-life-around way--that the lives of other human beings are as valuable as our own.  And we need to start creating a world grounded in that awareness.  

No, we can't get to utopia.  The world is never going to be perfect.  Not all violence can be prevented.  Not all prejudice can be uprooted.  I sometimes sound like an idealist, but I'm actually a pragmatically grounded idealist.  I know we can't solve all our problems. We're human beings, and human beings are instrinsically flawed.  We act out of self-interest--all of us.  So we'll always have stuff to work on, both as individuals and as societies. It's never going to be perfect. 

And you know what?  The fact that we can't create a perfect world is a pretty lame argument for not trying to create a better one.  

We might not be able to prevent all traffic accidents, but we don't throw up our hands, tear out all the streetlights, eradicate all the speed limits and remove safety features from vehicles and roadways, throwing up our hands at the futility of preventing "all" accidents. We do what we can and recognize that even when we can't reach "perfect," there's something to be said for at least doing "better."

And we have to do better.  My God, we just have to do better.  How much more of this? How much more?  

Why, right now, does compassion seem to be so hard?  Why does it seem so difficult for some people to not kill their fellow human beings?  Why do some people resort so easily to cheap and easy scapegoating that just perpetuates the cycle of fear and dehumanization, while resolving nothing?  

I know we can't be perfect.  But why can't we be better?

There's so much we have to do right now as a society, and none of us can do everything. We each need to play our part.  I'm an educator, so I have to go with what I know, and what I feel able to do.  Obviously, education isn't the whole answer here.  We have a lot of problems, and we need to find a lot of solutions.  

I do strongly believe that developing an educational system grounded in the humanities--the deep consideration of what it means to be human, not just for ourselves individually but for all these people with whom we share this planet--has to be one angle (among many) that we address. Conversations about our collective values, about how we conceptualize "self" and "other," about how we manage differences, about how we get to "better"--they can't be relegated just to the religious sphere or to the private sphere. Those conversations need to be part of every classroom, K through PhD, and we need to recognize that a purely utilitarian approach to education is probably going to create ... well, a world eerily similar to the one we're seeing around us now, in which we're growing increasingly numb to violence and dehumanization.  

Yeah, we all need to worry about how we make our livings, and that is part of what education is for.  But what use will those "livings" be, if we lose our very lives?  How much will it matter whether or not we have trained for "livelihoods" if we don't collectively learn how to value this thing called life?

My deepest condolences to all the loved ones affected by the massacre in Orlando...and every other massacre (too many to name here), and to all who are bereaved and frightened and frustrated and saddened and angry.  Enough.  This is enough.  We need to start doing better.  And there's so, so much that we need to do.

We each must start by doing whatever we can--however small that may seem.

​Peace.
​
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The day we turned purple

4/30/2016

1 Comment

 
I love the meme that circulated last week after Prince died, the one in which the Space Needle, the Eiffel Tower, and Niagara Falls have all turned purple. It's an excellent reminder of the ways that the arts can bring people together, in turn reminding us of why we need them. Can we seriously imagine a world in which artistic expression has vanished?  And if we can, would that be the kind of world we wish to live in? 

In this case the art form is music, but I believe this to be true of every other genre as well--poetry, drama, novels, sculptures, paintings, you name it. It's also true of the liberal arts disciplines that form the foundation for the expressive and performative arts: the most powerful artistic works are solidly grounded in such fields as history, literature, philosophy, comparative religion.  We don't necessarily need to be experts in all those areas to appreciate this fact, any more than we need to be huge Prince fans ourselves (though in my case, I am) to recognize his impact. As I incessantly tell my students, "liking" something and "appreciating" it are not the same thing, and our own personal tastes to the contrary, a significant aspect of becoming educated is learning how to appreciate the value of something even when we don't particularly "like" it.

In the case of Prince, he was one of those gifted artists who managed to draw in even people who normally wouldn't be fans--partly because he challenged our expectations by defying the usual expectations of genre. I remember an all-day workshop I went to back in the mid 80s, an introduction to music therapy that I attended because I was considering that as a career path (a dream I still haven't given up more than 30 years later, and I wish I could sign up for a few more lifetimes to hit this and a few others). Our workshop facilitator was, in addition to a licensed music therapist, a trained classical musician. Throughout the day she played classical works that she'd found to be of therapeutic value with many of her clients, in the process covering many of the "usual suspects" when it comes to music that heals --the inspiring final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Barber's powerful "Adagio for Strings" (this was just before Platoon would adopt it for psychological effect), the gorgeous "Agnus Dei" from Faure's Requiem (now one of my personal go-to pieces in times of crisis).

Then, she threw us all off by saying that, while many people who know little about classical music can gain therapeutic benefits by learning more about it, not all therapeutic music has to be classical. "This new piece I'm about to play really speaks to me, as well as to many of my clients," she said--and that was the first time I ever heard "When Doves Cry."

Decades have passed, but when I heard the news about Prince and "When Doves Cry" played on the radio for days, I flashed back repeatedly to that scene from my own past, in the process speculating about what my life might have been like had I pursued a career in music therapy instead of literature. The main barrier to taking that pathway, in my case, was the lack of accredited MT schools in our geographical area combined with the difficulty of changing locations, since I was already an adult with a spouse, a mortgage, an existing career, and the need to self-fund my education. Perhaps I didn't want it badly enough, since passion will often find a way. In any case, the road I've taken has been a fantastic one. Besides, I can't now imagine life without the particular people I've met, the experiences I've had, the places I've been.  It's all good.  Still, there are always the what-ifs.  For all of us.

As I expounded at length in my blog posts on celebrity deaths following the loss of Robin Williams in 2014 (read here for a long meditation on Michael Jackson and here for thoughts on Dead Poets Society), our mourning when celebrities die is never only about the person who's died. It is also about the farewells we all must say regularly: to our own prior selves, to our own what-once-was, our own what-ifs, our own what-might-have-beens. They are also nostalgic reminders of who-we-once-were, and poignant reminders of what-never-again-can-be (there won't be a live Prince concert in my future).

And when monuments from many different places light up in a single color in honor of a great artist, that reminds us of the power of human creativity to create bonds, even across seemingly unbridgeable divides.  That's something we especially need right now, at this moment in history when certain people who have the power and resources to bring about great good are instead choosing to use their considerable gifts to sow seeds of division and hatred by exploiting our prejudices and fears.

Less orange, more purple!

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The Cyclopes: They are not yet dead

4/17/2016

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Another nine-week lag, another straggling blog entry, another round of excuses.  I could plead the usual culprits--lesson plans to prep, papers to grade, department to administrate, family to raise--and it would all be true.  (As an aside, it's also the case that Simon Newman resigned from Mount. St. Mary's a few days after my last posting; let's hope the lessons of that episode are taken to heart by a good many people in positions to make it matter.)

I recently realized that beyond all that, I've been resisting my blog because current events almost scream for someone who writes about the humanities to talk about politics, and frankly, I don't really want to.  Only April and I'm weary of this election year already.  I'm even tired of online political discussions with the people I agree with!  (Speaking in person seems to be a different--and better--story.  There's still something to be said for body language, eye contact, audible laughter, and the power of human touch to transcend ideological barriers.  Something about these screens seems to delude many people into thinking verbal abuse becomes acceptable.)

And yet, blithely blogging on without regard to some of what's happening around us feels like it could be misconstrued for apathy.  Well, apathy, it's not.  I think I'm resisting the online political discussion not because I don't care, but because I care too much.  I resist because so much of what I'm seeing and hearing (sometimes, even from people who are ostensibly on the same "side" as me) makes me feel physically sick, and I wonder what's happening to us as a people when some of the public discourse we're hearing is, apparently, now considered acceptable.

All this was swirling through my head earlier this semester as I prepared to teach The Odyssey in my sophomore-level world literature class.  I'd read it many times, first as an undergraduate, and taught it five times in world lit.  But this time, for the first time, the "land of the Cyclopes" jumped off the page at me when I realized they are not mythical monsters from Greek antiquity.  The desire of many to keep themselves apart is still very much alive today:

They have no assemblies or laws but live/In high mountain caves, ruling their own/Children and wives and ignoring each other ...

Blessed with abundance, the Cyclopes either fail to realize, or fail to care, that they would actually prosper more if they cooperated and engaged in cultural exchange rather than remaining isolated, detached from any notion of the commonweal:

The Cyclopes do not sail and have no craftsmen/To build them benched, red-prowed ships/That could supply all their wants, crossing the sea/To other cities, visiting each other as other men do./These same craftsmen would have made this island/Into a good settlement./It's not a bad place at all/And would bear everything in season.

I guess we're not the first ones to invent isolationism, xenophobia, or misguided individualism.  (Whether this realization makes me feel better or worse, I'm not sure.)

Then there is Polythemus, extreme even by Cyclopian standards:  A man/Who pastured his flocks off by himself,/And lived apart from others and knew no law.  When Odysseus and his fellow sailors requested his hospitality and "give us the gifts that are due to strangers" according to the Greek concept of xenia (hospitality to the traveler), Cyclopes responds by eating two of Odysseus' men for dinner, tearing them "limb from limb/To make his supper, gulping them down/Like a mountain lion, leaving nothing behind"--a mere warm-up for the next day's breakfast, when he devours two more. 

Some symbolism needs no further explanation.  "We arrive in a place where the social code says that you welcome 'the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,' and instead of welcoming us, you destroy us."

Most of us probably know the rest of the story--Odysseus wreaks his revenge by using his wily craftiness to get Polyphemus drunk, telling him as he imbibes that his name is "Nobody" before attacking him, putting out one eye.  When Polyphemus calls out for help from the fellow Cyclopes, his scream of "Nobody is killing me!" allows Odysseus to emerge victorious. (Odysseus' own ego leads him to brag about his name before he leaves--ultimately inadvisable  since this is why Cyclopes urges Poseidon to curse Odysseus, making his homeward journey even more vexed than it already was).

I'd always wondered whether Polyphemus actually expected his fellow Cyclopes to help him, given that they lived in "high mountain caves," "ignoring each other."  It always struck me that for someone so disdainful of community, hospitality, and collaboration, as soon as he got attacked, the first thing Polyphemus did was scream for help from others. 

And then I look around and realize: The Cyclopes still walk among us--ranting against taxation yet screaming for help from the fire department when their own houses burn down, rejecting community despite their inability to go it alone, and viewing Others not as humans in need of hospitality but as fodder for their own insatiable appetites.

Nowadays we may not need to build "benched, red-prowed ships," but there is so much we could build if we harnessed our collective talents more effectively: a health care system that actually emphasizes care (and makes a modicum of sense); an educational system that ignites love of learning in people of all ages (and not just for money-making purposes alone); a food supply system that emphasizes health and minimizes waste; a network of jobs, housing options, and mental health treatment that offers meaningful solutions to those who face challenges; and so much, much more. 

Like the Cyclopes, too many of us have lacked the desire.  Too many people have eaten each other (metaphorically) rather than recognizing and implementing the benefits of xenia.  Like the Cyclopes, we've also got the resources.  We could say of our own land what Odysseus spoke when he reached the land of the Cyclopes: It's not a bad place at all/And would bear everything in season.

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Madman loose at the bunny hop: the complexities of "freshman retention"

2/21/2016

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This blog has been silent lately for complex  reasons (including, though not limited to, significant time constraints).  What finally pulled me back to this keyboard is the outrage at Mount St. Mary's College in Maryland.  

Quick background: The college president, Simon Newman (not an academic, formerly a private-equity CEO), proposed to address its high rate of freshman attrition by using a survey to identify and remove freshmen "likely to fail"  within the first three weeks.  It just so happens that this would take place prior to the September deadline for reporting freshman numbers to the feds, which would "improve" the school's retention rate on paper since four years from now, those students would have left early enough not to be counted. Furthermore, the survey would take place under deceptive circumstances: students would falsely be told "there are no wrong answers" and that there are no dire consequences for being honest, when in fact certain kinds of answers could flag a student for dismissal.  

As if all  that weren't ethically questionable enough: when some faculty members objected, Newman responded by saying, "This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies, but you can’t. You just have to drown the bunnies … put a Glock to their heads" (see link).

Outrage mounted--as well it should when a university president uses a metaphor of murdering students.  Then, when some faculty members and the provost objected to Newman's ethically questionable approach and homicidal mixed metaphor, they were fired for "disloyalty," despite having tenure.  (The fired faculty were soon reinstated, say updated news reports, though the board still "supports" the president.)

This situation is wrong on so many levels that I find myself briefly identifying with T.S. Eliot's poetic creation  J. Alfred Prufrock: "And how should I begin?" How indeed?  

In comment streams, roughly 90% expressed outrage, on various grounds: These punitive actions against faculty are a violation of academic freedom; this approach is not only mean-spirited, it is deceptive; such actions and statements are especially hypocritical in a Catholic university; education is not "business," and should not be under the auspices of corporate CEOs with a purely managerial mindset.  I agree 100% with all of those critiques.

Yet here I would like to address two issues that arise less frequently: the faulty assumptions underlying much discussion surrounding freshman retention, and the fact that the proposed surveys appear to be geared toward winnowing out students struggling with mental health  issues.

Accreditation bodies, along with college rankings such as that of U.S. News and World Report, often consider "percentage of students who graduate within four years" as a key indicator of college "success."  Students can become negative data points in two ways: by taking "too long" to finish their degrees, or by failing to finish altogether, whether by transferring elsewhere or dropping out completely.  When comparing relative institutional quality, failing to retain freshmen is a big, bad no-no, as is failing to "push them through" in a "timely manner."

In most respects I agree.  If students are leaving a particular college in droves during the first year, this doesn't bode well, and institutions surely should identify and address legitimate problems.  We hope students will come back.  That's always at the forefront of my mind, whether I'm teaching or making administrative decisions: We don't want to drive students away unnecessarily.  Furthermore, when we make scheduling and resource allocation decisions, we must keep graduation requirements at the forefront so we don't do things like fail to offer courses necessary for graduation, and in the proper sequence. Attention to these matters is absolutely necessary, no question about it.

But why students choose to stay, or go elsewhere, is complex.  Sometimes it really is an indicator that the college is screwing up--but not always.  I transferred twice as an undergraduate, and each time it was because of life circumstances rather than anything to do with the college.  Through the years I've talked to other transfer students,  and usually the decision to transfer stemmed primarily from personal situations.  

"Anecdotal evidence," you may say here, and that's part of my point: We need to move beyond anecdote and collect data not just on how many students leave, but on why they leave.  Technology today allows us to collect and store qualitative comments--not just numerical percentages.  If we're going to unravel the freshman retention puzzle, numbers alone are meaningless--unless those numbers are attached to stories, with those stories considered within a larger context in order to discern patterns. Yes, that's harder to do. But it's also necessary, and technology makes it entirely do-able.

When students leave, let's begin by asking them what happened.  Let's record responses in as much detail as possible, code those responses, and break them down ("disaggregate the data"--see, I'm learning to speak admin-lingo) so that we know not only how many students have left, but how many of those departures were due specifically to institutional shortcomings.  Where we do identify such patterns, let's listen to those concerns in a non-defensive way and take concrete steps to address them.  (Too often I've witnessed situations where, when students elucidated valid concerns, those issues were brushed aside--even as the college continued to press forth with its ostensible "freshman retention initiatives."  Sometimes institutions will do everything but actually listen and respond to the students they say they're trying to retain.)

It's the same when it comes to finishing in four years:  Though taking longer is sometimes due to problems with the college, that's not always so.  For one thing, the number of students who finish in four years may reflect little more than the number of students at that college who enjoy relative economic privilege.  Given the well-documented spike in tuition as well as the erosion of the middle class, large numbers of students now have to work while they are in college (as I did).  Working students who actually care about the quality of their education may simply need to proceed more slowly if they're going to graduate with a GPA--and a grasp of course material--that does them some good.

(I once attended a workshop on retention where an "expert" presented the stunning finding that students who reside on campus and don't work are more likely to finish in four years. Talk about faulty cause and effect; it's those who face fewer socio-economic barriers to begin with who can enjoy the luxury of living on campus without taking a job. That's a bit like saying studies show people who eat at the most expensive restaurants go on to earn the most money. Fact is, they already had the money in the first place.)

And if someone takes a bit longer, frankly, is that the end of the world? When students who face challenges persevere through adverse circumstances and still manage to finish college, shouldn't we be applauding their success rather than seeing them as "failures"--black marks against the college--because they didn't move through quickly enough? Again, when students take longer than the four years allotted to them by our society's socially constructed conveyor-belt mentality, why don't we ask them what happened, and collect and respond to qualitative data in a meaningful way--rather than presuming that either the students or the institutions are "losers" because they failed to meet a time constraint that was artificial to begin with.

My own father, a man of working-class origins, was an immigrant who came to the U.S. to work in avionics, after earning an engineering degree that took him seven years because he had to work full-time while studying.  The oldest of eight children, he'd assumed full responsibility for the family when their father died suddenly when he was still a teenager. Silly me: I'd always thought my father's story was inspiring, and that his perseverance in the face of long odds made him an outstanding role model.  Now I realize that had his college been ranked on its ability to "produce graduates" in the allotted time (three years, in the country where he was educated), he would have been a bad data point--an indication of institutional failure.

Sometimes students take longer to finish because they had to re-take courses they failed. Yet when students fail courses, it is usually because they have made poor choices all along.  Through the years I've noticed this little pattern: students who fail to attend classes, fail to do assignments, fail to do the course reading, fail to take notes, and fail to seek assistance when they're struggling ... fail the course. Surprise, surprise?  Certainly there are sometimes extenuating factors, such as family crises or serious illnesses. However, in many instances the primary "factors" are effort and commitment.  In such cases, students should fail, and "pushing them through" is precisely what the college should not be doing.  

It's a funny conundrum: one the one hand, many employers bemoan the fact that too many college graduates are unprepared for the work force, while on the other hand, colleges are pressured to "push them through."  Yet "pushing through" students who apparently lack the necessary work ethic--and, as a result, fail to master course material--is exactly what will produce more unprepared workers. Ultimately, students need to be the ones responsible for their own learning, and those who don't take that responsibility are the last ones we should be "pushing through."  Natural consequences, anyone?

I hope this doesn't put me in company with the 10% of comment stream contributors who thought President Newman was on to something. A few people actually commended Newman for "getting tough" and "refusing to coddle" the "lazy students" who feel "entitled" (presumably because of too many participation trophies, an error in logic that I've addressed at length elsewhere in this blog).  To some extent I agree: colleges shouldn't coddle students, and we should be tough on those who don't do the work (or who cheat--a whole other issue that I won't get into here).  

What these commenters apparently fail to realize is that Newman wasn't proposing to "get tough" on students who don't do the work.  Newman's proposal didn't respond to actual student performance but instead would use a questionable survey, presented to students under deceptive pretenses (and probably in violation of informed consent laws), to identify students who might prove problematic, according to some imaginary metric.

And--as reported in the article linked above--much of that metric seems to rest on issues of student mental health.  Questions included whether the students frequently "felt depressed," "couldn't shake the blues," or felt that "nobody liked them." This implies that the stance toward students facing emotional challenges is simply to "drown" them--as if today's epidemic of mental health issues is something we can simply sweep aside, a problem we can solve by sending suffering people elsewhere.  

A better solution is for institutions to help those students it identifies as struggling with such issues. and, while I acknowledged above that some students fail courses due primarily to lack of effort, we must remember that sometimes the root cause of student struggle is adverse life circumstances. In those cases, counseling and support services are far more effective--and morally supportable--than bunny-drowning. (As someone who lost both of my parents while I was earning my own college degrees, I can testify to the efficacy of on-campus counseling in helping students cope when life offers its worst.)  

As most of us who teach at any level can probably attest, mental health issues are epidemic today, in all generations.  And that to me is a sign of a deeper systemic problem. If all the apple trees are dying, a competent orchardist doesn't assume he has a crop of flawed trees. Instead he looks for the problem in the environment--perhaps a nutritional deficiency in the soil, or poor weather conditions, or pestilence. Humans are likewise organic beings (however much we sometimes pretend otherwise), and as such, we also thrive, or wither, within the context of an ecosystem.  

The high prevalence of mental health distress we're experiencing now points toward a widespread problem in our human ecosystem.  I would submit that the core of that problem lies in dehumanization.  Could the reason so many people are struggling emotionally nowadays be related to the fact that our society conceptualizes people as something other than human?--as "data points" (or "consumers" or "human resources" or other disembodied entities), or as obstacles to be removed along our own path to success, or as evil "others" whom we must defeat in order to secure our own moral supremacy?

Or as "bunnies" that must be drowned, in order to improve our "freshman retention numbers" and rankings?
​
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The challenges of leaving behind "No Child Left Behind"

10/25/2015

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Finally, some good news out of Washington, D.C.: a move away from excessive standardized testing and No Child Left Behind (here's a link to just one of the many articles on the subject).  

As a university professor who teaches first-year writing courses (often more than one) to incoming freshmen every year, I've seen first-hand the effects of our excessive K-12 focus on testing.  While I'm loathe to over-generalize, over the past six years I have noticed a growing tendency among my college freshmen to want simple "yes-or-no," "right-or-wrong" answers.  

"Students nowadays can't write," complain many of my colleagues in other disciplines, and when I push those folks to specify what they mean by "can't," I usually end up hearing that students have lousy grammar, or that they "haven't mastered XX citation style" (usually the complainer is only concerned with the citation style associated with his or her field).  

But grammar and citation are often the least of my students' problems; what really holds back their writing, I notice, is a tendency to spout hackneyed, pre-set views ("Childhood obesity is a major problem today," "Abortion should/should not be legal because [insert standard talking points here]"), using a stilted five-paragraph format that exists nowhere in the world outside the classroom.  When I look closely at student grammar, I may see a few subject/verb agreement errors or misspelled homophones, but what I notice is not error per se so much as lack of complexity.  What I'd like to see, and what I try to work on with my students, is more complex sentence structure, more sophistication in vocabulary, punctuation, subordination and organizational structure.  But doing that requires more sophistication of thought, which in turn requires a willingness to engage with complexity and ambiguity--and that, I would submit, is what is really missing in much of today's student writing.  That, I also blame at least partially on the black-and-white, right-and-wrong approach to learning that has been fostered by NCLB.

"Good" writing is not just "error-free" writing--or writing that conforms to conventions of a particular academic discipline or workplace genre.  Standard conventions of any discourse community are relatively easy to learn and to teach, once a newcomer becomes familiarized with a particular domain. What is much harder to learn, and to teach, is the intellectual complexity that characterizes the most compelling writing.  Simplistic thinking ("A, B, C or D"?) leads to simplistic writing; complex sentence structure can't occur in the absence of complex ideas.  If student writers are to do more than regurgitate standard talking points, they must be willing to wrestle with ambiguity--something to which the standardized testing mentality with its "one right answer" is horribly unsuited.  

This is only one of the many ways our students--as well as our teachers, our educational system, and our entire society--have been intellectually shortchanged, not only by NCLB per se but by an entire culture obsessed with testing, standardization, quantification, and instant gratification.  (Have you fallen into the trap of blaming today's young people for wanting what they want and, like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, wanting it NOW?  Look at the outrageously impatient timelines stipulated by NCLB--which wasn't written by young people.  Impatience and desire for instant gratification are not millennial generation problems--they are cultural problems that the millennial generation merely reflects.  Faulty cause and effect fallacy, anyone?)

So naturally, I'm happy to hear we are finally starting to steer our educational conversation toward the limits of standardized testing.  I fear, however, that "limiting testing to 2% of classroom time," as the current administration proposes, will not be enough to foster the kind of idea-rich, creative, complex educational environment that will best serve not only our children but our society as a whole.  

What needs to happen--to borrow a phrase I recently heard from a colleague--is akin to "turning around a battleship."  For beyond NCLB, we still face numerous  challenges when it comes to building a truly effective educational system.  A few that come to mind (consider this a non-exhaustive list, as others may have additional points to suggest):
  • We need to remove the ugly profiteering motive from our classrooms.  Let's not forget that NCLB wasn't just about "reform," but was about disproportionately lining the pockets of numerous for-profit entities.  The short-term greed of a few should never trump the long-term needs of the many.  
  • We need to stop the national sport of teacher bashing now, and follow the lead of the many cultures who respect teachers as the professionals they are.  (And yes, like it or not we do need teacher unions, to look out for teachers' collective interests.)
  • We need to address funding discrepancies in our educational system (as Jonathon Kozol pointed out in Savage Inequalities so many years ago).
  • We need to redirect our national spending priorities to put education at the forefront.
  • We need to revitalize aspects of the curriculum that have been shortchanged in the NCLB era--music, drama, art, shop, home ec, and social studies, to name only a few.
  • We need to re-infuse our classrooms with the joy, excitement, and sheer fun of learning and growing, rather than approaching the dissemination and creation of knowledge as though they are the definition of drudgery itself. 
  • We need to adapt and make more flexible some of the current institutional strictures that dictate how teachers can teach.  (Common Core, for instance, while it offers much of value, also straitjackets the teaching of certain subjects with arbitrary regulations like "70% of student reading must be nonfiction.")
  • We need to reduce administrative/bureaucratic bloat and place educators in charge of the educational system.  
  • We need to broaden our concept of what "student success" looks like to include qualitative, not only quantitative, factors.  
  • We need to lengthen our time horizon for determining whether learning has happened, rather than assuming an "outcome" can be "achieved" in just a few weeks, or even months.  (Basically, we need a huge cultural dose of patience.) 
  • We need to remember that education and job training, while closely related, are not entirely the same thing--and that while the purpose of education encompasses the important goal of "preparing students for the work force," it also reaches far beyond that, preparing students for citizenry as well as for lives rich in meaning and purpose. 
This battleship is mammoth, and we're not likely to turn it around any time soon. 

But battleships can be turned around, and if we're going to do so, we have to start somewhere.  Dismantling NCLB means the ship might finally be starting to turn in a better direction, and that's encouraging.  We do need to remember, however, that we're going to have to do much, much more than simply dismantle NCLB if we really want to turn around the "battleship" of our current educational system.  Onward!
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Bring back wood shop and home ec! (plus orchestra, French, drama, history, literature and all that)

9/30/2015

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 The other day a friend of mine posted an article by Nicholas Wyman in Forbes (here): "Why we desperately need to bring back vocational training in schools."  

You might assume this is a strange article for me to be plugging, given that my blog is ostensibly about saving the arts and humanities in higher education—not a cause usually associated either with reading Forbes or with promoting vocational training.  But if you assume that, you assume wrong.   

I completely agree with Wyman that we should return shop classes to the school curriculum—and let’s extend that to include home economics as well (while untethering both endeavors from antiquated, gendered assumptions). That isn’t to say that we should minimize the humanities, or foreign languages, or the performing arts (nor does Wyman ever say that).   I say we need more of everything.

When you think about it, why wouldn’t a pro-arts and humanities person be in favor of vocational training?  After all, how are we going to enjoy concerts or literary readings or theatrical performances if nobody knows how to build the facilities that house them?  (For that matter, how are we going to go to the bathroom at such events if we don’t have janitors and plumbers?)  How are we going to store materials in archives and libraries if nobody is trained in the climate-control technology we need to keep materials from deteriorating? How are we going to live in houses if nobody knows how to build them? How will we even survive if nobody knows how to grow food?

On a practical level, it sounds like a no-brainer—of course we need all kinds of occupations and all kinds of people.  That seems obvious, right?  But I’ve met enough snobs in my lifetime to make me wonder if it really is all that obvious, and I’ve known more than a few panicky parents who would faint away at the thought of their own child growing up to be, say, an auto mechanic.  
We need everybody.  Snobbery is ugly.

Collectively, as a society we make a number of false and potentially harmful assumptions.  We assume that those who engage in physical, tangible work are incapable of and/or uninterested in the life of the mind.  We assume that the “voc-tech” track leads to a “lesser” life.  We assume it is both acceptable and necessary to label, classify, and qualitatively “rank” human beings based on how they earn their livings.  We assume that some means of making an honest living are more honorable than others (doctors, lawyers, professors or entertainers are considered more “valuable” than plumbers, carpenters, secretaries or hairdressers, for example). 

As if that weren’t enough, we extend our assumptions to include avocations—as if people’s interests outside the workplace should somehow “track” with their occupations. We assume that some hobbies are more worthy than others (classical music is “classier” than rock music, the ballet is morally superior to NASCAR, etc.); and we assume that one’s livelihood should dictate one’s leisure pursuits (retail clerks read Nora Robbins, not Virginia Woolf).  

Simply reversing the values assigned to these assumptions does not do much to change the status quo.  I’ve known many so-called “blue collar” folks who, understandably weary of feeling put down by those who wear whiter collars, reverse the values assigned to various pursuits: NASCAR may be considered “lower” than ballet, but hey, “at least it’s manly”; classical music and theatre are for “wusses,” and so forth.  (This kind of “reverse elitism” is often accompanied by the gendering of certain leisure preferences—what better way to diss something than by feminizing it?  But I digress.)  

Even Wyman falls into this same assumptions-and-classifications trap when he states:  “Not everyone is good at math, biology, history and other traditional subjects that characterize college-level work.  Not everyone is fascinated by Greek mythology, or enamored with Victorian literature, or enraptured by classical music.  Some students are mechanical; others are artistic.  Some focus best in a lecture hall or classroom; still others learn best by doing, and would thrive in the studio, workshop or shop floor.”  

On the one hand, I don’t disagree.   Who would argue that different people have different preferences, skill levels, interests and capabilities?   And who would claim that we shouldn’t try to meet the educational needs of the widest possible range of people?  (Don't answer that--I've met people who do seem to believe that.)  

On the other hand, I find this particular statement too reductive—too “either/or.”  Why is it not possible for a human being to be both mechanical and artistic?  

My father was an engineer who dabbled in oil painting.   My mother trained and worked for years as a bookkeeper; she quit that job to teach piano.  My husband worked as a union carpenter in commercial high-rise construction before becoming a history professor (who can still fix almost anything and knows how to remodel our house).  I myself worked for many years as a stenographer before I returned to the university and developed my current professorial career.  We are fortunate to have developed both “vocational” skills and academic capabilities, and I’m fortunate to have known (and been raised by) people who refused to accept the kind of “either/or” trap that Wyman both points out and, paradoxically, falls into. 

I know many such examples of people who engage in creative and/or intellectual pursuits and know how to do so-called “practical” things.  Arguing that we must choose between two options is as short-sighted as arguing against learning new languages when studies show clearly that bilingualism confers many cognitive benefits.  Considering how the human brain operates, wouldn’t knowing how to do a multitude of things, some labeled “mechanical” and others labeled “artistic,” work in a similar way?  

Wyman points out, I believe correctly, that high school voc-tech classes were originally challenged because of concern over “tracking” students at an early age, which often straitjacketed those labeled “vocational.”  Yet, rather than getting at the roots of the issue—our society’s obsession with “status,” disrespect for physical labor, and limiting assumptions about where certain kinds of people “belong”—the powers-that-be decided to remove the voc-tech option from the curriculum altogether.  (This move, I would argue, actually had the ironic effect of reducing the status of technical workers even further.)
   
What should have happened is for voc-tech training to stay in place, but without the negative stigma and without a “tracking” approach that trapped people for life in a whole network of limiting assumptions.  Wood shop lovers could have been welcomed into the orchestra or drama programs, aspiring scholars could have learned how to craft objects in metal, and students of both genders, regardless of career aspiration, could have learned to cook and sew.  (Granted, nobody can do everything—there are so many hours in a day—but why can’t we envision an educational system that offers people a smorgasbord of options?)

In the future we may well experience a return of vocational training to secondary schools as the need for “practical” job training becomes more acute.  After all, if our climate keeps heading toward catastrophe, the day will come when those who know how to do hands-on things have a distinct advantage over those who do not. (For instance, lots of affluent people may discover the hard way that it takes far less skill to brandish an environmentally correct re-usable shopping bag than it does to grow organic vegetables yourself.)

But that doesn’t mean the arts and humanities are useless, either.  Nor does it mean they should be preserved only for an elite few.  After all, the humanities address and express what it means to be human—and that includes everybody.  All human beings must make a living somehow (unless we are born into wealth, which most of us are not), and like it or not, we might not all be able to make our livings in arts-and-humanities-related fields.  But that hardly means the arts and humanities should be done away with.  All people benefit in multiple ways when a society offers a robust arts and humanities infrastructure.

Why does it seem so hard for us to envision an ironworker who loves to attend—or even act in—the theatre?  Or an electrician who writes poetry?  Or an art history professor who knows how to fix a leaking sink?  Or a lawyer who tinkers with racecars?  Actually, many of us probably know a good many such people (because real people are always more interesting and multifaceted than stereotypes, thank goodness).  We just need to stop thinking those combinations are weird, open our minds, move past labels, and embrace all kinds of work and leisure pursuits as valid, valuable, and potentially enriching.

We lack collective imagination if we can’t envision an educational system that accounts for complexity in both human capabilities and human needs.  Why can’t we contemplate, and bring into being, an approach to education that teaches people the practical skills that will help them to make a living, and imparts the creative and intellectual attributes that will help them to make a life? 
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Just say no to academic rigor

9/12/2015

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A couple of weeks ago, we went to the open house at our son’s high school.  The principal—a decent guy with a stellar reputation—told us we’ll be pleased to know that this school has ranked second in the state for “rigor,” behind one of the prestigious private schools.  From what I could tell, most of the parents looked pleased.

You hear it everywhere nowadays.  Rigor, rigor, rigor.  Schools need to be rigorous.  Rigor is good.  Beef up academic rigor!

When it comes to learning, I think rigor is a terrible idea.

Okay.  Before you come after me with your torches and pitchforks, note what I’m not saying.  I’m not saying that holding high standards is a terrible idea. Nor did I say that slacking is a good idea.  I know the principal well enough to know he meant well, and I know the parents were pleased because they have high expectations for their kids—as well they should.  I have high expectations for my own kids, as well as for my students.

When I seek professional services, I want people who hold to high standards.  I want to be treated by doctors, nurses and pharmacists who are masters of their field.  I want a lawyer who‘s known for winning cases and negotiating workable solutions.  I want an auto mechanic who knows how to fix my car the first time, and an accountant who doesn’t take shortcuts, and a hairdresser who fusses over details, and a bus driver who follows traffic rules, and a plumber who repairs leaks the right way.  I want to listen to musicians who know how to keep time and play in tune with expression, and I want to read work by writers who know how to craft a sentence, a paragraph, a full story.  I have low tolerance for slackers.  I don’t like it when my students don’t show up.  I want more of everybody.

No matter what the field of endeavor—educational, occupational, creative—I want to work with people who have been well-trained by teachers with high standards, and who have internalized that high-quality teaching so that they now hold themselves to the highest standard possible.  If anything, I think our standards as a society need to be higher.  For too long, we’ve accepted the mediocre as “good enough,” and I for one am pretty fed up with that. 

Excellence, yes.  And we're falling far short.  But rigor?  No.

To explain, I’ll crib from some of my own work—an article I published in a peer-reviewed academic journal last year. (Because this blog is semi-anonymous for reasons elucidated elsewhere, I’m keeping my name, the title of the article, and the name of the journal out of here, but you’re welcome to message me privately if you’d like the reference.)  In that article I pointed out that the term “rigor” derives from the Latin “rig(ēre),” meaning “to be stiff” (hence the term rigor mortis, to mean “dead”).  Definitions include: 

(1) strictness, severity, or harshness, as in dealing with people;  (2) the full or extreme severity of laws, rules, etc.; (3) severity of living conditions; hardship; austerity;  (4) a severe or harsh act, circumstance, etc.”; “obsolete rigidity” . . . “the inertia assumed by some plants in conditions unfavorable to growth”; “rigidity or torpor of organs or tissue that prevents response to stimuli” (World English Dictionary; italics mine).

Severity, harshness, hardship, austerity?  Obsolete rigidity?  Inertia?  Conditions unfavorable to growth?  Rigidity that prevents response to stimuli?  Is this what we want in education?  Especially if we want people to be performing at higher standards?  If we’re truly going to foster excellence, aren’t growth and response to stimuli what we need, rather than what we want to prevent?   As I stated in my article: “If we make the ‘organs or tissue’ in living organisms so 'stiff' that they are incapable of responding to stimuli, and if we encourage conditions that are 'unfavorable to growth,' just how is learning supposed to happen?”

Incompetence, it seems, is rife everywhere.  As a society, we need to set the bar higher.  But then we also need an educational system that teaches people what they need to know to jump over that high bar, whatever their endeavor may be.  For that to happen, the educational environment needs to create the conditions that are most favorable to growth and response.  What we need is not rigor, but vigor. 

It’s a cute rhyme, but it works.  As defined by the WED, vigor is “an active strength or force; healthy physical or mental energy or power; vitality; energetic activity; intensity: force of healthy growth in any living matter or organism” (WED).  That sounds to me like the kind of environment more likely to lead to deep learning, mastery, and enthusiastic engagement with one’s field—and, I’d add that excellence rarely happens when people do not enjoy what they’re doing.  Enjoyment and excellence are companions, not opposites.

Of course moving from “rigor” to “vigor” would also mean moving away from unimaginative approaches to education, over-emphasis on that which can be quantitatively measured, and standardized tests where teachers are judged not on the basis of whether they create environments conducive to growth but on how many students fill in the right bubble with their number 2 pencil. 

That, in turn, would mean cutting into the yield of the for-profit testing-and-test-preparation behemoths that now have their tentacles into virtually every aspect of our educational system, and eschewing the dehumanizing corporate business model that places utility before humanity.

Enough with the so-called "rigor. "

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    The Underground Professor teaches English at a small private university. This blog explores how we might revitalize the humanities in the twenty-first century--and why it's important that we do so, in light of the our culture's current over-emphasis on profitability, quantitative measurement, and corporate control.


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