Charge to St. John's Employees Aug '17

The following is my charge to St. John’s employees during our in-service week. I usually work from notes alone, but I’ve drafted a prose version since some people asked for a copy. So the language is not quite the same as when I speak. It also definitely loses something without the slides, so maybe you can imagine them. And while you’re doing that, maybe you can conjure a sense of my delivering the remarks with an Obama-level rhetorical flair.

The picture you see is Inspiration Point in Yosemite. That seems appropriate given point of a charge. Plus, if we are going to think about the big picture, this puts it in perspective. That waterfall you can barely make out is actually just over 2400 feet tall.

Yes, normally I give you my charge the day before we start; but I decided to do it today for very particular reasons. You know we have our board retreat tomorrow, and heads of school know each of us is just one bad board meeting away. Plus I may still be in jail come Tuesday. No, not the drunk tank; I’m attending the political rally downtown on Saturday evening, and you never know what could happen.  Just as a priest often keeps politics out of the pulpit, I try to keep them from this podium. But there are times one shouldn’t keep silent. That’s tied to why I switched to today. Maybe it’s my own needs right now, and something about this feels a bit self-indulgent. But I know that some of you feeling the same yin-yang of this week as I am. We have the exuberance, energy, optimism as we launch into the new school year. Yet we can’t ignore the larger context of cultural malaise (only way I can describe it). Inspiration, indeed, is needed; and what I humbly will try to provide. I’ll do so by talking about why a St. John’s matters so, so much, especially now.

I’d like to begin by talking about this guy. Anyone know who he is? I doubt it, but if you do, don’t say. Let me give you some hints. He was born in 1976 in Arlington, and he later went to went to St. Stephen’s Episcopal in Austin (a fellow ISAS school), where he was a near-classmate of my sister-in-law. He then attended SMU, where he became an entrepreneur, starting the EZ Laundry dry-cleaning service on campus. He moved to Nashville and started a media company selling billboards for country music, which was bought by Clear Channel. Off to Los Angeles to start the cable network Reality Central. All of this by age 30. Obviously a total slacker.. Then came his second biggest claim to fame—he and sister finished second on The Amazing Race. Do you know yet? You certainly will by Blake Mycoskie’s greatest feat: founding Tom’s Shoes.

In case any of you don’t know Toms, it works this way: you buy a pair, and a pair goes to a needy child somewhere in the world. It started when Mycoskie was visiting Argentina in 2006, and he met a woman providing shoes for children. He learned of and saw the effects of being shoeless—blisters, sores, infections, long-term consequences. Very quickly he decided to start this shoe company, first called Shoes for a Better Tomorrow; shortened to Toms. He began with very limited resources, and was quickly overwhelmed by demand after a media story. By 2013, Tom’s had donated over 10 million pairs. He expanded beyond shoes. In 2011 Tom’s partnered with Seva Foundation to focus on eyeglasses. Each pair bought led to glasses, medical treatment, even optical surgery for someone. Then in 2016 Tom’s Roasters coffee started, with each bag purchased led to week of safe water.

Tom’s has influenced several others. Schools had Tom’s shoe events for their proms. The students would get their fancy duds, then buy Tom’s and decorate them to wear to prom. The Falling Whistles program involved selling whistles to combat civil war in Congo—a program that became part of the first 8^th grade service learning capstone here at St. John’s. Warby Parker, which is a 1:1 eyeglass program. Method eco-friendly cleaning products gives part of their profits for environmental clean-up efforts. Veev, which features acai berries in beverages, donates a dollar for every bottle sold to rain forest preservation. Feed reusable grocery shopping bags provide free school lunches needy students. So the ripple effect has been tremendous.

This summer read Blake Mycoskie’s book, Start Something That Matters. At first I was plagued with all sorts of liberal guilt. Yes, I work in education, which certainly matters. But I thought about the privileged circumstances in which I’ve always done so. And it’s crucial for me to feel real purpose and meaning in my life. Meanwhile, the really big takeaway for me was that if you’re going to do something that matters, need three things. You have to care deeply. You have to imagine the possibility of better. You have to muster up the courage to act.

One I stopped wallowing in that liberal guilt, I started thinking hard about why what we do here at St. John’s matter. Maybe it’s rationalization, but we’re working with kids who will be in positions to make a real difference in the world. And that certainly matters.

The ripple effect of Mycoskie’s makes me think of the rice-chessboard story. The inventor of chess was asked by emperor what he wanted for his reward. The inventor asked that the emperor put one grain of sand on first square, and double it on each successive square. The Emperor quickly agreed, thinking he was getting off easy. Well, you can see what happened. Halfway through there were 4,294,967,295 grains of rice, and at the end there were 9,223,372,036,854,775,808.

Here’s the point—take this an analogy. And just as rice was so valuable back then, what you provide now is priceless. If you have a truly positive impact on 10 kids this year; then at some point they have positive impact on 10; then each of those ten… Very quickly you have somehow positively touched 1000 people. It’s not long until that hits a million. And that’s just one year’s worth of work. Plus—and this is truly awesome--any moment can be the one which makes that difference.

Why does that happen here so often at St. John’s? There are many, many reasons; I’ve synthesized them to three.

First, our values. Service, respect, gratitude, connectedness, civility, empathy—we bring those to the forefront and keep them there. They are our values as an Episcopal school. We don’t just talk about them; we put them into action. It’s education with a larger purpose. It’s learning what it means to lead a noble life. It’s how you foster that; how you model that.

Second, our approach to school—more particularly, our approach to learning. We see everything as a chance to learn, and to do so joyfully, and to grow through the process. We recognize that deeper learning involves a double loop. On the surface, one learns to solve a particular problem. But one is also, probably more importantly, learning the habits of learning. It’s also inherent in what we realize meaningful learning is and isn’t. It’s not just knowing answers; not just study or training. It’s more a cast of mind, an outlook, an approach to life. It’s not automatic. It requires energy, thought, even bravery. That’s because real learning is not just finding out what others already know. It’s discovering for ourselves by questioning, thinking, testing something it becomes our own.

Third, our approach puts us on the right side of history. You’ve heard me say many times we have to educate not for our past or present, but for kids’ futures, the world in which they will be living. To do so, have to accept we live in time of discontinuous change. Discontinuous, not continuous, as it can often feel because of numerous small changes. But really significant change happens through what I call the Slinky effect. Forces gather slowly, then burst forth. This pattern tends to prompt progress more than steady change does because it demands more extreme questioning, rethinking, and adaptation. Those are things one can do only if one knows how to learn, and to do it well.

We also are right side of history because of what we do. Think of it this way. If we were to look back at the 20^th century and think about the most significant events and figures, a logical selection would be World War II. This would lead us to think of people such as Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt. But, as important as they were, I could argue they are not really the most significant. Instead, I’d hold forth people such as Einstein, Freud, Margaret Mead, Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr. Why? They changed the way the world thinks! They caused us to re-imagine possibilities. And isn’t that what you do for kids each and every day?

More contemporarily, we live in a time of intense culture wars. We can assign plenty of blame to all points of the political spectrum and elsewhere, and we’re masters of finger-pointing. The issues are festering, heightening, gaping. There is no telling the effect on kids, now and in the long-term. Remember times like this have happened before and likely will happen again. When they do, it moves far beyond the political. It becomes ethical, spiritual, existential. While cultural, it becomes very personal. Right now, it’s gnawing at me that I taught a founder and now major leader of the alt-right. I wonder how that gangly, goofy kid became a face of evil. How does that happen?

If we look at our nation’s history, this is not something new. It has manifested itself in different ways. During one of our first presidential elections, Jefferson was scorned for owning a Koran. At different times we have feared Mormons and Catholics. We’ve spewed anger at various immigrant groups, including those from which many of us are descended. There’s been both overt and unspoken racism against Latinos, Asians, Blacks; and phobia directed towards members of the LGBQT+ community and other marginalized groups. Some of this we have forgotten. What we remember, we can’t believe we engaged in. Some of it lingers, sometimes in the form of painful scars.

But when we look at that history of our nation, we also should draw hope. We move forward, individually and collectively. The history of America, for all its dark moments, is one of gradually greater acceptance and inclusion. That is how it should be. That is why it’s so crucial that at St. John’ we stress intellectual analysis, civil discourse, character, and service. Our national history is one of gradually learning the principles we already know here, capture in our fifth tenet of Episcopal education, straight from baptismal covenant: respect the dignity of every human being. In doing so, we respond to hatred,  to what and whom we cannot understand with a Christian type of love. We strive to gain that understanding, some sort of clarity. We continue that ongoing quest to heal ourselves and the world

Ours is the type of education that will help answer the real question. It’s not how do we make America great again, but: How do we make America grateful again? Actually, it goes beyond that. The entire world needs the type of education that St. John’s aspires to provide. Because all those things I’ve talked about, those and more, they ultimately do perhaps the most important thing that people need: it’s an education that plants and nurtures seeds of love and hope.

Product or Person? Yes.

     My previous post, which began with a reference to Frank Bruni's Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be and then juxtaposed its premise to the Colleges Change Lives consortium, ended this way: "The question is: Do our schools--does our school--lead to a product or a person?" I promised to tackle that question in this subsequent post. I don't know that I'll answer in any definitive fashion, but I hope to pose some important points for consideration.
     Schools are caught in a bit of a trap here. For so long, going well back in the tradition of independent schools being bastions of privilege, part of their cachet has, like certain colleges, been in producing a certain type of graduate. It would not be uncommon to hear someone referred to as "a ___ man" or " a ____ woman," almost to the point of stereotype or caricature. Still, schools took a certain delight in this and it made for rather easy marketing. It also provides a certain comfort, a sort of tangible proof that the mission has indeed been accomplished. Even now, when our campuses our not quite so cloistered, we still associate certain types of people with certain schools. Some of this is due to the self-selecting process of choosing schools and the by-product of cultural immersion, as each school has its own ethos. Therein lies the real answer...and the real challenge.
     Let's consider the topic of diversity (or multiculturalism, or equity and inclusion; for the sake of this example, I'll use diversity). Independent schools are, thank goodness, no longer such exclusive WASP enclaves. Over time many have become, at least by the numbers, more reflective of larger society. (Let's go ahead and acknowledge that extensive elements of privilege remain, however.) Let's consider two hypothetical schools; we'll call them A and B. They have very similar demographics, including a very diverse population. School A is known for producing a certain, very clear type of graduate. School B is as well, but much less clearly defined. My immediate, although perhaps unfair, conclusion would be that School A takes a diverse population and funnels those kids along a clear path towards definite goals. As for School B, I may conclude they allow the diversity to play out in more various ways.
       I realize I'm oversimplifying and ignoring myriad nuances, particularly about a complex topic. But I think the question it raises is fair, even crucial. And it could be applied in many areas in various ways. We have to dig very deep, probing far beyond the verbiage in our mission statements and philosophies. It's a heavy question.
      Just what is an education for?
      If it's a means to an end, then the emphasis becomes product. Even if it's about the development of a person, but with some preset measure of success, the person by default becomes somewhat secondary to the product. Inevitably, because of how institutions function, there is going to be some of this. The question is one of degree.
     If it's about self-discovery, then the emphasis becomes person. More particularly, about a person realizing potential and discovering possibilities. But it's not individualism careening towards egocentricity. It occurs within community norms and values, albeit sometimes pushing against them.
      While I tend to consider the latter ultimately more meaningful, I also appreciate the tension here. The best schools don't necessarily answer in one way or the other. Instead, they grapple with the issue, struggling for a balance that allows for both product and person.

How Educators Can Help Turn Back the Doomsday Clock

                So the doomsday clock has been moved closer to midnight, primarily in response to the election, inauguration, and first week of Donald Trump as president. Depending on one’s views on the situation, one may think it’s ticking faster than ever or one may think that’s an over-reaction prompted by a liberal media. I’m not going to take a position on that, and while I am going to become a bit more political than I like to in this blog, I’m trying to express this with the voice of an objective educator.

                Before I begin, however, I have to acknowledge doing so is becoming harder. Personally, sometimes I can lean so far left that I could tip over at any time. However, I try hard not to let that seep too much into my work other than how I treat people. I don’t see a school’s job as dictating what someone should think about a particular topic. But we should be teaching the right way to approach topics and how to engage individually and collectively in a search for understanding that improves us.

                That is why when I consider all the things which have so many people upset and anxious and angry and scared, I see a certain irony in the doomsday clock being moved forward when it comes to our children and their education. Yes, there are the oft-expressed concerns about what children may be learning and feeling. But I’m looking at this in more practical terms. It’s not just about the nomination of a person who seems amazingly unqualified to be Secretary of Education. It goes right to one primary purpose of education—preparing our children for the future and the world they will be entering.

                That is where the irony comes in…although irony may not really be the right word. Right now it seems as if President Trump and his people want to “Make America Great Again” by turning back to clock to an earlier time. And it’s a notion which I don’t believe can happen except to America’s detriment. Like it or not, with remarkable acceleration the world has become a highly-interconnected, highly-interdependent single system, except for some notable outliers who choose to practice isolationism and suffer for it. The issue is more than an economic one. Thriving in such a world requires an empathetic openness to other cultures and people, one that leads to a sense of “we” rather than “us and them.” Countless studies have shown how cultures benefit from the intermingling of diverse perspectives. The moves we’ve seen thus far smack of a hubris which seems to assume the trajectory of the world will change because the United States wants it to.

                But, despite whatever remains of our prominence, it won’t. History, short- and long-term, shows us that. Empires crumble; revolutions happen. Throughout the ages there have been doom criers. Yet the world continues to progress. Despite what we often think and feel, the reality is that it is less violent and moreaccepting place than ever. But recently we should be feeling true urgency. Perhaps now more so than ever, as educators we need to be thinking about how we help our students be a meaningful part of that forward march. Without engaging in extremism or proselytizing, we have to model the ideals and have the important conversations. Our students can be the ones who get that doomsday clock turned back. And that isn’t about liberalism or conservatism, Democrat or Republican, internationalism or jingoism. It’s about what should drive educators at any time: an optimistic belief in humanity.

The Post-Election Challenge for Educators

       After the recent presidential election, as a school leader I felt the need to share some thoughts with faculty and staff. Their reaction has prompted me to post it here as well. I hope it provides some food for thought, a bit of comfort, and a ray of optimism:

Dear St. John’s,

            Obviously the recent Presidential election has triggered strong reactions across our nation. Naturally, that holds true for many at St. John’s, a school full of passionate, thoughtful people who hold diverse perspectives.

            At such times, people experience myriad emotions, all valid and needing to be worked through. Doing so may take some of us a long time. Perhaps like me you find yourself swinging wildly across a gamut of feelings while groping to make sense of it all.  If your candidate lost, you may be angry and despairing. If your candidate won, you may feel joyful and misjudged. You may wonder about people you have considered colleagues and friends. Whatever the case, we must not let recent events divide us. Always we should uphold our fifth tenet of Episcopal education to be “an inclusive community where the dignity of every human being is respected.” Such respect begins with striving to understand. If we don’t, we tend to demonize.

            Even before the campaign, our nation was beginning to fracture, mainly because of fear. We live in what’s been called “the age of anxiety.” Depending on our particular circumstances, we tremble with fears real and imagined. They are personal, often intense. Fear can overwhelm everything else. It causes that fight-or-flight reflex. It lurks in the reptilian, most primal stem of our brains.

            We have evolved far beyond that. We can rise to our better nature, to evoke our higher angels. We can gather our courage and tap into the unique human spirit comprised of heart, mind, and soul. It allows for rationality and empathy and forgiveness and compassion and love. It urges us to seek unity in an ongoing search for the ideal, with hope a shining beacon.

            Such optimism propels our individual and collective mission as educators.  The challenge of this historical moment is how we seize it to become better educators in all aspects of our lives.  To educate shares its etymology with educe, meaning “to bring out something latent.”  Our ultimate calling is to educe that which is potentially awesome, not only in our students but also in ourselves, in each other, and in our nation. I urge that we strengthen our resolve to do just that. Thus we will foster the safety and healing and love our world needs, now and in the future.

            In the meantime, if you wish to talk about this or anything else, as always I’m here for you.

Sincerely,

--Mark

Shocked Out Of Silence

                As an educator, I’ve long held schools should teach students how to think, not what to think. Such a high wire can prove tough on which to balance, especially with older students when exploring meaty topics. Some of my proudest teaching moments came when, after particularly heavy discussions, students said they couldn’t figure out my exact beliefs about the issue at hand. Having incredible power to influence students, teachers must tread carefully. Quite often, that necessitates adopting as objective stance as one can. I feel this even more strongly as a head of school. It can be hard, both professionally and personally. You can grow frustrated with feeling that on certain subjects you must restrain, even silence yourself.

                The shootings in Dallas on July 7, 2016, have me reflecting on this stance. Dallas has been my home since 1990. Any time something extreme happens in your backyard rather than elsewhere, it ignites an ember previously only smoldering. St. John’s Episcopal School has a special relationship with some Dallas officers, as do a few employees in their personal lives. Furthermore, if my family had not been out of town, my daughter likely would have attended the peace march. I probably would have gone with her; my wife and son may have come. Our dinner conversations often become animated about political and social issues. We’ve all agonized over events of the past several years. My wife worries about what it means that for this generation of teens 9/11 is a first memory, the beginning of a grotesque panoply of violence around the world.

                It’s not just Dallas. In this country it’s Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, Charleston, Orlando, Baltimore, Ferguson, Staten Island, San Diego, Newtown, assorted schools and universities. Abroad it’s Paris, London, Baghdad, Jakarta, Turkey, Jerusalem, Somalia, Tehran, Norway. As those are just the ones popping into my mind, the list is thus sadly incomplete. The cruel irony is while statistically we live in one of the safest eras ever, we feel quite the opposite. Perhaps our anxiety stems from the random yet not-so-random nature of the violence. The terrorists—and aren’t all these acts of mayhem acts of terror?—seem to strike anywhere at any time, yet with very specific intent. No group seems immune from someone’s bile. Our fear and loathing spike off the charts. Life seems to have reached some sort of tragic singularity, the real world and the worst of the Internet having merged. In such a climate, I derive a weird tinge of gratitude that I still can be shocked.

                We also shouldn’t be totally surprised by this happening in Dallas. Yes, we have progressed greatly over the past few decades. The marchers portrayed a diverse mosaic, protestors and police swapped flowers while taking selfies, and we saw a beautiful lovefest at Potter’s House. But we suffer from the same human vices as most areas. We remain a city deeply divided, and not just by the Trinity River. De facto segregation organizes our neighborhoods and public schools and churches and civic organizations. Dallas is called one of America’s gay-friendliest cities, yet homophobia is prevalent. And Dallas is one of the more liberal areas of Texas, where state officials see keeping transgender people in the “right” bathrooms as a top priority. Right now in Dallas—everywhere, I think—the hope is that the love found within the pain endures. Only then will come deeper, more systemic healing—from not just recent events, but also institutionalized wrongs.

                Education can provide a balm. For that, we have to rethink its purpose and embrace its possibilities. School can’t be just about measurable outcomes, test scores, securing employment, and international competitiveness. Education needs soul. An education that matters helps young people gradually discern how to lead a life full of meaning and purpose. That’s intensely personal. For many young people today, that means battling injustice. For example, they wisely reject the notion we should—or ever could—be color blind regarding race. Instead, they desire to see empathetically how all our individual differences affect the way we experience the world…and the myriad ways each of us can enrich the world. I’m proud St. John’s Episcopal School strives to be “an inclusive community where the dignity of every human being is respected.”

                I still believe schools must walk a fine line. In reality all schools teach two general curricula. One is the explicit curriculum: the subjects, the defined program. The other is the implicit curriculum: the lessons a student discerns through watching adults and the cultural practices. While both matter, the latter has vaster implications. Thus, while we should not overtly proselytize or politicize, we can insist on some basic and universal human values. Ideally, a school encourages us to fly with our higher angels.

                I don’t pretend to have all the answers to our massive challenges. My current pain and confusion, combined with ongoing experience, erase any such quixotic fancy. After all, traces of festering rot have plagued humans forever. Still, I believe we can contain their spread. To draw strength these days, I find myself often recalling a story from earlier in my career, when I worked at another school. An administrator and I were dealing with a painful racial incident. As we sat in his office, he began to weep and stammered, “I’m trying so hard to deal with this as the head of the upper school and not as a black man.” Suddenly I had a tiny understanding of race in a way I never had before. As my own tears formed, I said, “You’re the head of upper school and you’re a black man. Don’t try to separate those two things. In fact, I think it’s going to be extra powerful for these kids to see how this incident has affected you in both ways.” He needed that permission not to silence part of himself. Once he had it, he helped us all move forward.

                Now I’m giving myself the same permission, even though I’m not sure exactly what it means as a head of school. I suspect it will be much like it was when I worked with students. I won’t preach or make sweeping declarations of truth. But I will ask many very pointed questions. I won’t be as silent. Then maybe together we can figure all this out.

Wrapping Up Day One of #NASIAC 2016

                During a rich conference, I always spend some time reflecting on how I can weave the threads of a day together. So this will be a process post in which I attempt to do just that. If it becomes incoherent or I veer too far off topic, please forgive me. But what follows is literally a look at the inner workings of my mind.

                After breakfast with a dear former colleague, I headed to a session on diversity. One speaker prompted us with a great question: Why is diversity vital to your mission? In answering, we had to consider several domains, one of which was the intellectual rationale. This is something I’ve pondered and written about quite a bit as it’s tied to creative and innovative thought. Diversity increases possibility by bringing multiple perspectives and experiences and ideas to the learning process.

                This segued quite naturally into Randi Zuckerberg’s keynote, in which we heard about all sorts of tech trends. Some were a bit old hat (at least in current tech terms), but some are just emerging. Her examples of the tech in action were both mundane and ridiculous. The real point is that much of what’s happening was, just a generation ago, inconceivable. That is, it was except to those who had new diverse conceptions of the possible. Meanwhile, in an awesome development, from what I’ve picked up via the Tweetstream, more sessions this year have focused on new models for independent school education. Someone—sorry, I forget who—tweeted that things this year seem to be more about possibilities.

                I also attended two sessions on branding. Both could be reduced to one key idea: how are you going to capture and express naturally what is truly powerful and unique about your school? That’s a very challenging task, more than it might seem. It’s particularly so when, bottom line is, we all have in common that we want to prepare kids for their futures, whatever the nuts and bolts of doing so may be.

                With that in mind, we have to think about young people and the two general notions running through this post. They have a wonderful, refreshing comfort with all sorts of diversity. They have grown up accustomed to what many of us at their age considered the impossible. Naturally, they question everything. Even college (at least as we know it), for so many of us the ultimate marker of success, is coming into question.

                These are all things with which many of us are still coming to grips. But we can’t wait until we become totally comfortable. It’s an increasingly diverse word in every sense, and with that comes even more disruption. I would hope our brands show us not only accepting but also embracing the opportunities that affords us as independent schools who have all we need to be responsive to such a world. It begins with taking a flying leap into possibility.

A Course Idea Both Parties Should Support

       Listening to President Obama's State of the Union address  and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley's response, I couldn't help but be reminded of a post I wrote three years ago. In it I decried the current political climate and wondered about the lessons it teaches children. One excerpt reads:

 I’m wondering more about what lessons young people are gleaning from what they witness. What are they learning about leadership? About constructive debate? About seeking compromise? About thoughtful deliberation? About respectful disagreement? About respect in general? About working together for the common good?
                This last point is crucial. We face enormous problems—energy, environmental, financial, technological, infrastructure, international—which will require our collective resources to solve. However, we continue to squawk about our disagreements to such a degree that we cannot collaborate in any fashion. And the frightening thing is divisiveness tends to breed greater divisiveness. When and how does it end?                In the big picture, I don’t know. Perhaps when some situation becomes desperate enough that we have to pull together.  In our own corners of the world, we can help children by asking questions and initiating discussions with them. At just about any age, children have reactions and opinions, often laced with insight that we can neglect in our busy adulthood. We must model the desired behavior. Simply put, to have the type of political leaders and citizenry we want and need, we have to nurture the essential qualities. It’s hard, slow, often messy work. It’s vital work. Imperative work. (Full post here.)

Now I have to agree with the President's statement of regret that the situation seems to have worsened.

       One positive that I've been thinking about is what a fascinating time this would be to be a history or political science teacher. Or an teacher with a predilection to consider what I'm going to describe.

       Think about the current presidential campaign. Of course, currently the rise of Donald Trump is receiving a majority of the attention, with Ted Cruz becoming a more prominent figure.That's on the far right side. What is not receiving nearly as much attention--but is perhaps just as telling--is how well socialist-leaning Bernie Sanders is doing in the polls. So we have both extremes with plenty of support. It's a fascinating development to consider; we could read multiple, varied implications into it. Is it that people are just fed up with the norm? Is it an even further extension of the divisiveness I describe above, moving from political chambers to the larger public? Is it an Internet forum coming to real life? In many ways, both the extremes run counter to some basic American tenets, from basic human rights to capitalism. While I'm not enough of a historian to know for sure, I have to think this is one of the most extreme times in American history. Even if it's not, I think my proposal has merit. I'd love to see a course focused on the current election with, to borrow theme of Steven Johnson's latst book, a focus on how we got to now. Studying history is learning a story. I'd like to see this one told backwards--to take some of these ideas and use them to unpack history. For example, some of what has been proposed about refugees could lead to a fascinating exploration of issues regarding immigration since our founding. Or one could look at various takes on wealth and issues that spin off from that. If not a full course, perhaps an ongoing unit within a course.*

       Even if one proceeds chronologically, taking such an analytical approach to any area of study is important for another reason. Besides what kids learn from the rancor and discord, such extremism tends to strip away critical thinking and sense of nuance. So I am reminded about another my posts as well: "Help Students Pop the Filter Bubble":

Pariser writes, "Democracy requires citizens to see things from one another's point of view, but instead we're more and more enclosed in our own bubbles. Democracy requires a reliance on shared facts; instead we're offered parallel but separate universes" (4). Innovation and creativity lie at the heart of economic development, yet we're removing much of what can fuel them. Our diverse world is becoming more and more interconnected and inter-reliant; yet we dwell in a world that can foster narrow-mindedness.

     With our students growing up in such a world, schools have an even greater obligation to reconsider their large-picture mission. It's about how to live a meaningful life in such a world. That means awareness and critical thinking, not mere fact accumulation. That means helping students make connections, not keeping disciplines separate. That means learning to ask the right questions, not mere bubble coloring. That means grappling with relevant problems, not made-up examples. That means collaborating with diverse groups, not working in isolation. That means learning to use powerful technology, not letting it use us. That means helping them pop the filter bubble.

This notion is, of course, directly tied to points made at the start of the post in that we can't erase the bile until we're able to develop the necessary perspective and empathy. If we can help students in this regard, then we can take heart in knowing that we care producing the sort of leaders who can fix the current mess.

*Long ago I taught an American Lit class--really American Studies--in which I took this approach. We began with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and asked, "How did we end up here?"

Processing #ChangingtheOdds Conference 2015

     Last Thursday and Friday I had the great fortune of attending the Momentous Institute's Changing the Odds Conference in Dallas. It's an amazing event, with perhaps the most stellar line-up of big-name presenters, as you'll see by the names sprinkled throughout this post. The theme was Chaos to Connection, and the program unfolded in a way that fit that perfectly. It also touched upon multiple aspects of education in a very holistic fashion--mind, body, and spirit.
     Any time I attend such an event, I like to spend some time reflecting and trying to integrate the pieces into a single big idea. With any luck, it won't be one of the more explicit ones. (You can read two such pieces after last year's event: one here and another here.) This this I was having some trouble coming up with anything even though so much of the experience has resonated with me. Then, on Saturday night, some friends invited us to see the musical Matilda. This morning the seeds of an idea began to sprout. This process post is an attempt to see how they grow.
     If you know the story of Matilda, based on the book by Roald Dahl, you may just want to skip to the next paragraph. Matilda is a little girl who is incredibly smart, so intelligent that a friend worries her brains will ooze out of her ears. Her intellect appears mainly through her voracious readings, and I won't tell you the other ways so that I don't ruin the story for anyone. Her parents are psychologically abusive, and she attends a hellacious school dominated by the bullying headmistress Agatha Trunchbull. She insists on strict rules and procedures and calls the children maggots; punishment is swift and brutal. Trunchbull refuses to see anything special in Matilda except that might be a threat in some way. The heroine is Miss Honey, Matilda's teacher, who overcomes her own fears to help Matilda.
     In some ways the connection to the conference is rather obvious, in that many of the speakers focused on helping students overcome trauma. The institute focuses heavily on social-emotional health of children; one goal is to help children learn how to help their glitter settle.
     But as I've been swirling my mental kaleidoscope, another idea has emerged. Yes, Matilda is an exceptional child. But an underlying message of the conference is that all people--especially all children--are exceptional. Thus I've discerned an unstated but loud cry for greater non-standardization of education. It's necessary for both individual development but also an educational system that serves everyone.
     The amazing Story Corps project led by David Isay reminded us how each individual has a powerful story. Those stories guide us, shape our perspectives, forge our character, and give us something powerful to contribute. We can learn from each other, We heard how blogger Glennon Doyle Melton survived the depths of her mental illness and now sees it as what enables her to inspire others. Paul Quinn college president Michael Sorrell told of how his near death from a cardiac event led him to become a better leader. All that makes sense when we think about how, as Daniel Pink illustrated, true motivation depends on autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Similarly, author of The Gift of Failure Jessica Lahey argued that children have to be able to discover on their own what they can and cannot do in creating their own checklists. None of this happens in a world of rows and worksheets and bubble tests. In fact, psychologist Lou Cozolino explained how the assembly line system of education can inhibit learning because of how the social brain works best.
     For me, this boils down to three key issues as identified by Sir Ken Robinson. He said it's a matter of considering conformity versus diversity; compliance versus creativity; and linear versus organic. I see the question as practically rhetorical. I say "practically" because the ideal remains so elusive for far too many young people. They lack opportunities, or their talents go unrecognized or are devalued. We spend too much time focused on what kids should do...and not enough allowing them to discover what they could do. We're too much about efficiency and quality control; any flaws must be immediately fixed. If they're extreme enough, we scrap that product. There are those fortunate few who drop out at some point and succeed anyways. We tend to glorify them and hold them out as examples of how school doesn't work for everyone. True enough. But we forget about the much greater number who end up struggling for the rest of their lives. Yes, the standard approach works well enough for the majority. But is that good enough? Don't we want more for each individual?
     That's why we don't just need teachers. As educators we need to see ourselves as what Kevin Carroll called catalysts. We have to be the agents that spark change--on our own little corners, in schools and systems, and for each child. Then each will feel valued and empowered. Rather than merely conform, they will live per some lyrics from Matilda's "When I Grow Up":

When I grow up, I will be brave enough to fight the creatures that you need to fight beneath the bed each night to be a grown up.
(When I grow up)
Doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it.
If you always take it on the chin and wear it
nothing will change!
It doesn't mean that everything is written for me.
If I think the ending is fixed already,
I might as well be saying
I think that it's OK!
Just because you find that life's not fair
When I grow up
Just because, I find myself in this story,
And that's not right!

Help Students Pop The Filter Bubble

     Recently I've begun reading what I have come to consider one of the most important books I've encountered for quite a while: Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You. I'm about a third of the way through, and I see enormous implications for society and some clear directives for us to consider in education.

     I'll summarize the gist of the argument. So much of what the Internet has become, not surprisingly, is about monetization. More specifically, how much money can be made by using the incredible amounts of data that can be gathered by tracking one's clicks. As companies gather that data, they analyze it and deliver a more personalized on-line experience for each user. Think of it as Amazon's recommendations run amok. Pariser explains, "More and more, your computer monitor is a kind of one-way mirror, reflecting your own interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click" (2). At first glance, this seems harmless enough, perhaps even desirable in some ways.

     But think again. What Pariser calls "the filter bubble" is "a unique universe of information for each of us...which fundamentally alters the way we encounter ideas and information" (9). The danger is that we are subject to "a kind of invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own ideas, amplifying our desire for things that are familiar and leaving us obvious to the dangers lurking in the dark territory of the unknown" (14). Since humans love confirmation of our own schemata, we welcome such a world, sort of like listening to media which only confirms our political beliefs. And, Pariser points out, "By definition, a world constructed from the familiar is a world in which there's nothing to learn" (14). 

     Furthermore, such a world essentially removes some of the basic elements that drive learning. In many ways learning is driven by our need to make sense of a degree of dissonance. It forces us to adapt, which necessitates learning. Piaget talks about our need to achieve balance in a constant process of assimilation and accommodation. In assimilation we fit everything into our sense of the world; in accommodation, we adjust our world view because of new information. Pariser cites psychologist George Lowenstein, who says "curiosity is aroused when we're presented with an 'information gap.' It's a sensation of deprivation" (90), comparable to the desire to tear open a present. Taking that idea a step further, Arthur Koestler "describes creativity as 'bisociation'--the intersection of two 'matrices' of thought" (93) in ways that "re-shuffles" already existing constructs.As we know from the work of Steven Johnson,  heavily cited in the book, creativity also depends heavily on serendipity (see http://tokeepthingswhole.blogspot.com/2010/12/lessons-from-break.html). How does that happen when "the filter bubble invisibly transforms the world we experience by controlling what we see and don't see" (82) and "dramatically amplif[ies] confirmation bias" (87)?

     This has large-scale consequences. Pariser writes, "Democracy requires citizens to see things from one another's point of view, but instead we're more and more enclosed in our own bubbles. Democracy requires a reliance on shared facts; instead we're offered parallel but separate universes" (4). Innovation and creativity lie at the heart of economic development, yet we're removing much of what can fuel them. Our diverse world is becoming more and more interconnected and inter-reliant; yet we dwell in a world that can foster narrow-mindedness.

     With our students growing up in such a world, schools have an even greater obligation to reconsider their large-picture mission. It's about how to live a meaningful life in such a world. That means awareness and critical thinking, not mere fact accumulation. That means helping students make connections, not keeping disciplines separate. That means learning to ask the right questions, not mere bubble coloring. That means grappling with relevant problems, not made-up examples. That means collaborating with diverse groups, not working in isolation. That means learning to use powerful technology, not letting it use us. That means helping them pop the filter bubble.

Thoughts Prompted by a Tribute

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email telling me that I should read Tanner Colby’s most recent book, Some of My Best Friends Are Black: The Strange Story of Integration in America. I receive many unsolicited book recommendations, usually robo-generated based on my buying patterns. I ignore just about every single one. This one I didn’t, because it came from an educator at my first school, Episcopal School of Acadiana, where I taught Tanner Colby over 20 years ago. Along with this new work, Tanner has written numerous articles and best-selling biographies of John Belushi and Chris Farley. I had no idea.

There is more to the story, but first I have to praise this tremendous book. Tanner spins a tale that mixes his personal realizations with a much larger history in a way that forces introspection. The work is incredibly well-researched, with very human experiences set within a vast social context. It’s truly intelligent, insightful, and beautifully crafted. Tanner also strikes that delicate and elusive balance between pricking our consciences without being sanctimonious. He also manages to infuse appropriate humor into a difficult subject. I laughed aloud when he described Acadiana as “a more humid Ireland with better food.” I just devoured the book, so proud that the author was one of my former students. I must admit, I took special delight in noting how many of the different sentence patterns Tanner used that I had taught him.

Now, with a nod to Paul Harvey, here is the rest of the story. Why was I emailed about this book and not Tanner’s earlier work? At the end was the “Author’s Note.” It began:

Above my computer, I have posted a report card of mine from Lafayette’s Episcopal School of Acadiana, dated 10/25/86. In the comment section my sixth-grade English teacher, Mark Crotty, has written, “Whenever Tanner turns in something, he says something like, ‘This is great’ or ‘This is an A.’ Well, he needs to do more than say it; he needs to do it. Tanner certainly has the ability and the desire. Now he needs the drive.

Grade for the first quarter: C+.

I would first like to thank Mr. Crotty for my C+. Without him and a handful of other great teachers, I might still be an idiot. (289)

Wow. Just wow. I was floored. Honored. Humbled. Dumbfounded. It is so incredibly cool. I have to admit, I’ve read this passage over and over. And, yes, I’m bragging here in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. Please forgive that, for there are larger points, ones for which you could change the teacher’s name and the message would still be worth stressing.

            As the philosopher Karl Japsers has written, how we respond to setbacks often determines the type of person we become. Rather than let that C+ become an excuse, Tanner used it for motivation. He developed resilience and grew in determination; it helped to steel him for the very difficult life of a writer. Dealing with setbacks also helps a person to grow in empathy, a quality Tanner reveals throughout the book.

            Along those same lines, while I like to think Tanner’s writing ability has deep roots in my class, he took away larger, more ambiguous lessons. On paper I was teaching him composition skills, such as sentence structure, paragraphing, mechanics, word choice, and supporting detail. Nowhere do I recall ever seeing a curriculum which delineated to not let a student remain an idiot. But it really is the goal, however tongue-in-cheek.

            That goal can manifest itself in any number of unforeseen ways, at any given time. Sometimes it’s early, such as when a child asks probing questions about life or when a teenager becomes passionate about a certain cause. Often it’s years down the road, when someone draws on their composite experiences to deal with the vagaries of life. That C+ which seems so tragic at the time could turn out to be a blessing.

            Finally, Tanner’s gracious tribute reminds me of what I want my children to experience in school, why I willingly write those massive tuition checks each year. Yes, I want them well educated in the traditional sense. But more than anything, I want them spending their days being influenced by as many great teachers as possible. (And truly great ones are rare.) No matter what my children end up doing as adults, whatever they take from those relationships is what will serve them best.

            Thank you very much, Tanner. I am not going to change that grade from sixth grade. But for your most recent work: A+.