Experience is not the best teacher. I never thought it was, but now that I'm experienced, I think I can say so, and maybe people will be more likely to listen. There isn't a best teacher, and even if there were one, it wouldn't necessarily be experience. Youthful energy and openness would be a contender.

Experience can teach us what can sometimes work for us. It can build up our repertoires. We try something, and if, for some reason, it does or doesn't work, we may learn to try or not try it again. If we do try it again, we may have a better sense of how and when to try it. So I'm not saying experience isn't a teacher at all.

But experience can be a lousy teacher. It can make it so that you're unwilling to try something that really could work this time. You don't try it because you "know" better. The thing you don't want to try may closely resemble something you've tried. It may remind you so much of something you've tried before that you're experiencing deja vu. Experience has closed your mind. If it were really the "best" teacher, it wouldn't do that kind of thing.

Now that I'm more of an Old Fogie and less of a Young Whippersnapper, I find myself tempted to use my experience as a weapon, or at least as an unfair tool. When a person with less experience seems to be tearing apart my ideas, I'm tempted to say, "When you're my age, you'll feel differently." I actually don't have a clue how someone else will feel when that someone else is my age; lots of people are already my age, and we're far from unanimous.

But if someone pulls rank on you by using her/his experience, there isn't really any way to rebound. It's a real conversation-stopper. The only way to prove that you won't feel differently when you're my age is to get to be my age. And that could take a long time. Besides, by then I'll be even older, with any luck. Unless my victim has been painstakingly keeping detailed records, I won't hear, "When you were forty-seven years and sixty-five days old, you said I'd agree with you when I was your age. Now I'm forty-seven years and sixty-five days old, and I still disagree."

Don't get me wrong; experience can teach. It can be a great teacher. If you use it well, it can help you and other people find answers, avoid potholes, and evaluate strategies. A person who has been working and thinking for a long time has probably accomplished a lot more than the proverbial monkey fooling around with the typewriter (you remember - the one who was supposed to reproduce the works of Shakespeare).

But a friend (an experienced friend) once told me that someone who has been doing the same kind of work for forty years may not have forty years of experience; he/she may have one year of experience, experienced forty times. Experience, like any other teacher, needs to stay current and keep growing if it wants to be a good teacher. And really, I think it's a waste of time to argue about who's the "best" teacher.

(Back to Index)

"Back to Basics"

I tried writing a brief article about Back-to-Basics movements. At first, it didn't work. Back-to-Basics movements have been haunting me for twenty-five years, and my thoughts and feelings about them could fill up a book. They are based on points of view that are as hard to pin down as the "open classroom" concept. I think two things they all have in common are the feeling that schools today are neglecting something important and the sense that they used to pay better attention to whatever it is.

So I'll work on the word "basics," and then examine what "back" has to do with it. When we use the word "basics," I think it helps to think of "frills" as the direct opposite. A curriculum based on "basics" teaches children important things that aren't easy, but are worth the effort. A curriculum full of "frills" spends too much time making sure things are fun and exciting, and lets kids coast from grade to grade without getting what they need. I hope that is a fair distinction.

My basic objection to "basics" is that to me, its use implies a static view of education. A quick look at the past two hundred years reveals an evolutionary trend in curriculum. Reading started out as a "frill." How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm now that they've read a book? Noah Webster et alia decided that we ought to have a uniform way to spell each word, did some good PR, and as a result, children have slaved over spelling lists to learn Webster's code. In spite of all the slaving, to most adults and children, the code is still a well-kept secret. And any mathematician worthy of the name knows there's nothing static about math. We define "basics" as we move along. Howard Gardner's work on intelligence may give art, music, movement, self-concept, and human relations new respect. I foresee a day when mainstream critics of public schools bemoan the fact that some children graduate from high school unable to respect themselves or relate to other people. A lot of us already quietly bemoan the fact; maybe we're a silent majority. Have I made my point? Basics change, and opinions about what is basic vary.

Now for the word "back." Every time I hear "back-to-basics," I wonder whether I've missed something. When were basics? People often refer to the 1950's as a time of vintage basic education. Are we going to bring back Ted, Sally, Puff, and Spot? I went to school in the 1950's, and was lucky enough to learn to read, write, spell, compute, etc. anyway. I was a "smart" kid. There were about six of us in my class. The rest of the class envied and pitied us. We got lots of praise and ridicule. If you were one of the "smart" kids, perhaps you think it was your "basic" education that made you that way. I don't think so. I think you were lucky, as I was. And maybe, like me, you graduated from high school unsure about yourself, and insecure about friendships.

I'm no longer so threatened by back-to-basics movements. Partly, it's that I don't have to prove myself each year; I'm not getting paid any more. But more to the point, I know we can't go home again; even if we reach consensus on what the basics are, I'm sure we can't get there backwards. (Back to Index)

Report Cards

Children get report cards. Teachers do them. Parents read them. Not me, though. I don't have to put checks, numbers, and letters in the boxes, and I don't have to write, "Mildred has been working hard to develop more self-control in class. I encourage her to keep up the effort," or "Cedric responds to all challenges with intelligence and enthusiasm. It is a pleasure working with him." Instead, I take a nap. I could be wrong, but I think most teachers envy this freedom (though some would ski rather than nap). There are so many sound reasons for teachers to hate report cards. I've isolated three of them, but I'm sure there's more.

Reason #1: Human beings are dynamic.The report card is not dynamic; as the child grows, the report card stays the same.What a child does during a particular minute, day, week, month, season, lesson, unit, crisis, or good time may be untypical of the child, but if the timing is wrong, it ends up on the report card. Perhaps some day soon there will be dynamic report cards that change from day to day. As I think about it, it sounds a little like an improvement and a little like an Orwellian nightmare. Meanwhile, teachers have to summarize children and hope that the summaries have good effects.

Reason #2: There's an awful lot of pressure to be perfect. It comes from some parents, media, peers, teachers, and others in people's lives. We hear it as children at little league games. We hear it as adolescents, and we never outgrow it. Finally, we pass it on to our children. Since no one actually is perfect, no one escapes the effects of the pressure. Even the child who seems close to perfect is always afraid: What if I make a big mistake? What if they find out that I'm actually not so great? So every time a teacher mentions an area for improvement, there is the chance that a child and/or the child's parents will feel like a failure.

Reason #3: Nowadays, many teachers believe in the cooperative approach to learning. It's partly based on a hunch many teachers have had for years, but lately solid research is supporting the hunch. The competitive approach simply doesn't do the best job. When children are motivated by the pressure to perform better than other children, they don't do as well as children who learn together. Even children who seem to thrive on competition often do better without it. If you watch children who have just seen their report cards, whether in class or on the way home, you may see the competitive spirit at its worst. All the work a teacher may have done to deliver the message, "We're all in this together" is suddenly at risk.

I don't have an easy alternative in mind. Parents need to know how their children are doing in the complicated task of growing up. They want to know how they're doing as parents, and how the teachers are doing as teachers. Most parents are too busy to spend a lot of time in the schools, and the question "What did you do in school today?" doesn't usually yield much, even after an inspiring, successful day in school. Regrettably, report cards, so far, play a role. I think I'll go take a nap.(Back to Index)

Politics

Do you remember the moment in Animal Farm when Napoleon (the Lenin pig) ordered the dogs to drive Snowball (the Trotsky pig) out of Animal Farm? Napoleon had taken charge of the education of the pups, and they had grown up loyal to Napoleon. I read the book in high school, and though I had no plans to be a teacher, I was struck by the awesome and potentially dangerous power entrusted to those who work with children.

On the one hand, teachers cannot avoid influencing children's political thinking. Neither can parents. If we present ourselves as devoid of political leanings, or embarrassed about them, children pick that up. On the other hand, our politics, if well-developed, are based on years of study and thought. They are also based on our personalities and events in our lives. We hope that our children's political thinking will develop so that they participate intelligently in our democracy. We don't want them to be carbon copies of ourselves, but neither do we want them to appall us with their politics.

I've worked to help children understand politics without indoctrinating them. I rarely gave hints about my politics. My beard and bumper stickers may have given me away as a bleeding heart, tax-and-spend liberal, but only to those who knew and trusted stereotypes.

Meanwhile, children "rooted" for candidates, often as they rooted for a baseball team. The timing of national elections and world series games is unfortunate. Before each election, I faced a class of children who knew which candidate was the "best" one. Their reasons varied. Some supported candidates' stands on issues, but most based their leanings on image, parental influence, and peer influence. I hope that's less true of adults.

Adults have to be careful with their power. I remember that Mr. Loucks, my junior high social studies teacher, cautioned us during the student government elections: "Don't just vote for candidates because they are good-looking. Think about how well they'll do the job." Coincidentally (or not), there was a national campaign going on at the time. We could choose a good-looking president, or one whose campaign slogan was "Experience Counts." Partly to avoid being superficial, and partly to rebel against my parents, I supported the experienced one.

I encourage children to wait. Each year, around election time, I tell them about some of the concepts they will learn later, and some of the experiences they may have later that will help them develop political opinions. I ask them to try to focus their political thoughts on issues that are important to them now. They often confuse the words "vote" and "root," and I try to get them to see the important difference. I want children to form opinions based on sound thinking and information.

There is no easy formula for dealing with children's political thinking, in or out of school. I have voted pretty much the way my parents have, and I suspect that my daughters' politics will probably follow suit. But I hope our good sense in the voting booths is due to genetically inherited intelligence and wisdom, and not indoctrination. (Back to Index)

Teaching Disabilities

Jonathan Kozol once coined the phrase "didagenic learning disabilities" - learning disabilities caused by ineffective teaching. He borrowed the concept from the medical world. An iatrogenic disease is one caused by a doctor. I think these terms can be useful. I don't think people become teachers in order to prevent children from learning, but we can all think of teachers who have made learning difficult for us. In fact, the only ones who never have are the perfect ones.

We have terms such as "dyslexia" and "attention deficit disorder" to describe children's difficulties in school, and we are careful to stress that children with these problems can learn; they just require alternative instructional strategies. Tests are designed and administered, educational plans are written, and all kinds of alternative instruction is tried because we recognize that not everyone learns the same way. We remind children and their parents that Leonardo DaVinci and Albert Einstein were learning disabled.

But I don't think we have publicly acknowledged "teaching disabilities." I think the term can be useful. Teaching-disabled adults can teach; they just require alternative instructional strategies. Before I alienate anyone, let me be the first to cross the line: I am teaching-disabled. I care very much about being a good teacher, and for years, I've been developing strategies to compensate for my disabilities. When parents say that I get kids excited about music, that I get them interested in stories, or that I focus well on children's feelings, I appreciate those comments very much. But when someone calls me well-organized or predictable, I feel as if I've won a major victory. Organization and predictability are, to me, what frontwards letters and numbers are to some learning disabled children. They sometimes seem to be what distinguishes me from the capable people.

Teachers work hard to deal with disabilities - their own and children's. Whether you find a teacher disorganized, inflexible, insensitive, or any other unflattering adjective, perhaps the teacher is working on it. We all work to strengthen our strengths and remediate our weaknesses. If your child seems to be having a "bad" year, and you think it's because of a "bad" teacher, or at least a teacher who is not right for your child, something needs to be done about it, but please notice that this sentence refers to three people. How much of the problem is owned by each of the three, and what can be done about each person's portion? Once we accept the existence of learning disabilities and teaching disabilities, I suppose the next step is to take a look at parenting disabilities. But that's another story.(Back to Index)

Music

It is time for music to take its rightful place as a priority in schools - not replacing reading, writing, math, etc., but not eliminated by them, either. Music is a way to access concepts that are hard to access in other ways. And it's how most of us learn the alphabet. It is fairly conspicuous in most kindergartens and first grades, and in many second grades. Primary teachers usually make sure children use every kind of intelligence they have to learn what they need to learn. But all kinds of things happen after the primary grades to prevent music from being a major part of the curriculum, a major learning tool.

Imagine, for a moment, a school in which reading is treated the way music is treated in most schools, and hence, in society. The reading teacher sees the class for a half hour each week, in a reading room, if one is available. If not, the reading teacher brings a cartload of books into the classroom. Either way, the classroom teacher takes a much-needed break. She/he does not really know specifically what happens during reading time, but no matter. Incidentally, on the way to the teachers' room, the teacher passes a child who is late coming back from the music disabilities teacher, and tells the child to go to the reading room. The teacher then sits down over a cup of coffee to look over some simple adagio movements the children have written. He/she is not much of a reader anyway (in fact, is word-blind), and there are two assemblies per year when children display their reading skill. Some have taken reading lessons, and gone to reading camps, and are able to read entire books! Most have already learned that such children are gifted, and publicly or privately think reading is mostly a way of showing off.

I hope the absurdity makes a point. We have set up a structure that puts music way down on the priority list. During my years as a teacher, occasionally I would hear a complaint about how much time I spent on music. It actually was a very small portion of the day, even in my most musical years. I know teachers who use music very effectively throughout the curriculum. I admire them, but during my years in Wellesley, I only scratched the surface of music's potential. I used music to build classroom community, but used it only occasionally to teach math, language arts, and science. I enjoy music, and have some musical talent, so I thought it was "my thing," but not something I should "impose" on uninterested children and parents.

If you are one of the millions of people who grew up thinking you had no musical talent, I urge you to look again. I don't mean you should take piano lessons. That, done the way it's often done, can reinforce negative feelings. Just ask yourself what happened to make you think you had no talent, or why you think music is for the talented while reading is for everyone. And please try not to will music avoidance to your children. Music is a mostly unused learning tool which can open doors for children who are too often left outside.(Back to Index)

Writing

Because of some excellent teaching, or at least due to the absence of awful teaching, I became a writer. I almost wrote "compulsive" writer, but that makes it seem like a problem. Let's see...Perhaps I'll write "prolific" writer. No. That refers to quantity, but doesn't convey my passion for writing. I'm sure there's a word or phrase in the English language that says what I mean. I know - I'll try a sentence: I often feel compelled to write, not by some requirement imposed on me by someone else, but by the need to be sure people at least have a chance to know what's on my mind. There. That is close enough for now.

Today I sat with Ethel, a girl in first grade, as she wrote in her writing journal. Her teacher is excellent, and I don't think she's had much awful teaching so far. She wrote, "The earth is a round ball. It has water and dirt. People who died are in the dirt. My aunt died, and she's in the dirt. She used to take us camping. I miss her very much." She spoke to me as she wrote, and there wasn't a clear dividing line between the things she would say and the things she would write. We writers may have to be technicians, but we are also artists, and we're often surprised to see what ends up on our canvasses. I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes, and felt them in mine.

As she wrote, she occasionally asked me how to spell a word. I helped her sound words out, and as you probably know, English sounds don't correspond to spellings as neatly as they do in other languages. I think it's because English absorbs foreign words faster than other languages do, and has been doing it for a long time. But don't quote me on that. At any rate, insistence on correct spelling is not an effective policy in teaching writing to English-speaking children - especially not in first grade. All three first grade teachers at the Fort River School agree on that, as do more and more teachers all around the English-speaking part of the world.

If you are in my generation, one preceding mine, or a member of a younger generation who still didn't grow up with "invented spelling," you may not have had enough chances to know yourself as a writer. Or maybe spelling came easily enough to allow you to get on with the art of writing. It did for me. Invented spelling is a license to write, and it can make all children (compulsive? prolific? passionate?) writers. It means the important part is what's on your mind, not whether you use the right letters.

Of course, someone has to be able to read it. But that's not as important, especially in the beginning, as is the joy of writing. Which would you rather read - what Ethel wrote, "The arth is a rand ball. It has wodr and drt. Pepl hoo dide are in the drt. My ont dide, and shes in the drt. She yust to take us caping. I miss her vary much.", or something written by a child afraid to misspell words: "I like cats. I like dogs. I like cars. I like my dad. I like my mom."?(Back to Index)

Mr. Blue

When I graduated from college and landed a job as a teacher, I was given a new name: Mr. Blue. I didn't like the name. To me, it wasn't a symbol of respect. As far as I knew, plenty of people respected me, and none, so far, had called me "Mr. Blue." Furthermore, I was a young whippersnapper from the local college, and some of the high school "children" I was going to teach seemed older than I was. I wore a three-piece suit every day so people would know I was a teacher. As far as many of them knew, college was a place where you burned draft cards, organized marches, and said rude things about sacred American institutions. "Mr. Blue" or not, I didn't get as much respect as I would have liked.

At first, when I had student teachers, I encouraged them to feel free to use their given names. But I soon realized that if I was going to be Mr. Blue, then someone named Cathy or Dan would be seen differently by the children. A school is a culture, and has its own cultural norms. In one way, it was easier to be the children's ally if, like them, you were called by your first name. In another way, it was harder to get their attention, compliance, and (yes) respect if the one you were supposed to respect didn't seem to have a first name. So I encouraged student teachers to use their last names. Like it or not, it made a difference.

Now, as a volunteer, I have the chance to get my real name back. I've worked mostly with four classes - three first grades and one third grade. In the Leeds school, the first graders call me "Bob" and the third graders call me "Mr. Blue." (I surprised myself by introducing myself to the third graders as "Mr. Blue." I think I missed the children of Wellesley, and thought this would help. It did.) At the Fort River School, Irene's class calls me Bob and Ms. Thrasher's class calls me "Mr. Blue." It's an open space school, and some of the classes are separated only by cabinets. Children have several reasons to pass through a class other than their own, so Mr. Blue can be greeted as Bob, and vice versa.

There are teachers who have strong convictions about the name question. Some feel that it's hypocritical, elitist, undemocratic to insist that children use "Mr.," "Ms.," "Miss," or "Mrs." Others feel, equally strongly, that a large portion of respect is bound up with symbols, and the title is an important symbol. They will much more easily accept a diagnosis from a physician named Dr. Glasser than from Ruth, even if Dr. Ruth Glasser is intrinsically one person.

Some issues inspire me to take a stand. Not this one. I know that the only people I really don't want to call me "Bob" are salespeople who are trying to sell me something I may not want to buy. My daughters call me "Daddy," even now that they're adults, and it's all right. Children in Wellesley call me "Mr. Blue." Some of you adults call me "Mr. Blue," either because I was your teacher, or because I was your child's teacher. That's all right, too. But if you are talking to the real me, not one of the roles I've played, whether you know it or not, you're talking to Bob.

-Mr. Bob Blue(Back to Index)

Wellesley

In 1974, I applied for teaching positions in the Boston area. I was hoping to teach in Boston, and help right the wrongs Kozol wrote about. That year, for reasons I support, Boston was looking for teachers who would help make the Boston Public Schools more racially balanced. My racial characteristics were pretty much like Kozol's, and I was not hired. My wife's cousin, Linda Goulding, was a teacher at the Hunnewell School in Wellesley, and she was going to have a baby. I came, talked with Sam Beattie, the principal of Hunnewell, and was hired.

My ecstasy was mixed with severe anxiety. I was afraid that I would like teaching in Wellesley. After all, I grew up in a suburb, and suburbs were known to be more open to new ideas than cities. Especially well-to-do suburbs. I was afraid that I would abandon my dream of bringing justice to the starving masses, and settle comfortably in Camelot.

My fear was realized. For years, I was embarrassed when I told people that I taught in Wellesley. At first, I'd add, "but I want to teach in Boston," and then later, as I got to know Wellesley, I'd add instead, "but it's not the kind of place you think it is." I wasn't the only one who was embarrassed. Most parents I got to know explained, "I really don't belong in Wellesley." If Wellesley lost all the people who are embarrassed about living in Wellesley, it would be a ghost town.

And then I was at a meeting at which we were trying to form a network called the Children's Music Network. In an embarrassed mumble, I mentioned that I taught in Wellesley. I started my usual verbose apology. Ruth Pelham, whose life and songs seemed like a guiding beacon to me, brushed off my apology with the statement, "Kids are kids." That sentence changed my life. I realize that on one level, it's on a par with "A rose is a rose is a rose," or Yogi Berra's "It's not over till it's over," but it spoke directly to my problem. If I wanted to bring justice to the starving masses, working with children, whether they had enough food or not, was a way to do it.

The schools in Amherst and Northampton have more of the diversity I'd hoped to find in Boston, and never found in Wellesley. But in the words of Ruth Pelham, kids are kids. Here, Malaysian kids, kids with two fathers or two mothers, kids from interracial families, cousins in the same household, all come together to be a community. And as they do in Wellesley, they sleep over at each other's houses sometimes, get excited about holidays, argue with each other... they are children, with all the charms, irritations, hopes, frustrations, etc. that children have.

My name is Bob Blue, and I've lived and worked in Wellesley. Got a problem with that?(Back to Index)

One of Those Days

10.

Did you ever have one of those days? We humans are always trying to explain why "those days" seem to happen. Drop into the teachers' room on one of "those days" and you'll hear the latest theory on what causes "those days." A sugar high after a holiday. A snow day. An impending or recent vacation. A change in atmospheric pressure. Cabin fever. Spring fever. The end of the school year.

Do you know what I'm talking about? The day the class seems to fall apart. The day a certain child who is usually difficult to manage is suddenly impossible to manage. The day when all your best laid plans run amok. Murphy's law and the law of the jungle seem to be the only laws. On those days, it's a good thing teachers have each other. The anxious question, "Is it me?" is answered with a reassuring, "No, it's them. My class is that way, too, today." If it happens at home, single parents wish they had partners, and two-parent families wish there were a third parent.

Well, now that I can sit back as a volunteer and observe, I see that we adults are pretty much in sync with the children. Sugar highs, atmospheric pressure, etc. alter our moods as well, and like children, we blame other people. We don't notice that we are behaving differently; we notice that they are. And they ought to do something about it! They should have more self-control.

There was one particular day I had a moment of clarity on the subject. I'm proud of that moment, and I'll tell you about it. I won't tell you about some other moments, and if someone else tells you, I'll deny it ever happened. Besides, the class deserved it.

I came to school wishing it were summer vacation and knowing it was March. I put on a happy face, which lasted about five minutes. Soon I was snapping at the class. Then I had my moment. May all you parents and teachers have such moments. I said to the class, "Put your hand up if you think I'm in a bad mood." Most hands went up. Then I said, "Put your hand up if you think it's your fault." Again, most hands went up. Finally, I said, "Well, it's not your fault. I came here today in a bad mood. Put your hand up if that ever happens to you." Most hands went up again. We talked about bad moods, how children and adults want to be treated when they're in bad moods, how many of them were also in bad moods, how we could get through the day without doing or saying things we'd later regret.

That approach can't work forever. We have to be models for children, controlling our behavior so that apologies aren't necessary. But it can't hurt, once in a while, to acknowledge that we're human, and that we are dealing with the same stuff children have to deal with.

Later that day, a child came up to me during a quiet moment and said, "It's okay, Mr. Blue. My parents blow their stacks all the time." I knew the child's parents, and knew the child had fairly patient, loving parents. I smiled.(Back to Index)

Sadness

11.

I've recently made a new friend: sadness. I've known sadness for a long time, and it's been hanging around with me even longer, but I've only recently made friends with it. I used to pretend it wasn't there, bar the door when I saw it coming, and look for a way to get rid of it if it got inside. Nowadays, though I don't invite sadness to visit me, when it does come to visit, I invite it in and offer it some tea. Paradoxically, I think I'm happier now that I've let sadness into my life.

Like many people, I was raised by parents who didn't want me to be sad. That certainly doesn't qualify as grand-scale emotional abuse, but now I wish they had let me feel sadness more when it came. It's a pretty good emotion. It teaches. Not that I think parents or teachers should devise ways to make children sad. But life already provides plenty of chances to experience sadness, and too many adults have learned to fight the feeling. President Eisenhower responded to the death of his child's dog by buying an identical dog, never telling his child. I must have been about ten years old when I read about it, and at the time, I thought it was a wonderful thing to do. Then I looked at my dog, Chipper, suspiciously. No, it was the same Chipper I'd always known. I wish President Eisenhower had been honest with his child.

Medicating sadness through various cheering-up strategies is one of our national pastimes. Some people ingest or inhale substances (chocolate counts). Some go to cheerful places or rent cheerful movies. Our culture supports this approach: "You're never fully dressed without a smile." "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile." "Put on a happy face." I haven't kept up with more recent songs, but I'll bet the message is still in there somewhere. Sadness has gotten a pretty bad rap; it doesn't seem to have full citizenship the way happiness does.

As a teacher, I often hear adults respond to children's sadness in ways that are in keeping with our cultural taboo: "Cheer up. Maybe you'll do better next time." It's true, of course. Maybe the child will do better next time. But maybe, for the child, that's not the point. Maybe the child needs a little time to be sad, and perhaps some recognition of and respect for the sadness: "That feels pretty bad, doesn't it? You really wanted to do better, didn't you?" And maybe the child needs to cry. Many of us have learned that words that "make" a child cry must be the wrong words. But sometimes words that help a child cry, or permit and respect tears are exactly the right words. (Back to Index)

Religion

12.

Even more than we get political views as we grow up, we get religion. We don't worry that we will burn eternally if we like a candidate our parents don't, but we're taught at a very early age whether to believe in a deity, and if so, which one to believe in, how to worship, and whether ours is the only way that leads to salvation, terminal bliss, inner peace, etc.

Most children get a pretty heavy dose of religion before they get to school. Like the pledge of allegiance and various patriotic songs, religion isn't necessarily understood ("Are father, Richard in Heaven, Howard be thy name"), but is absorbed. Whatever it means, it's sacred, whatever that means. Parents who are careful not to indoctrinate their children may find that their children are absorbing the indoctrination other children get.

So how does school fit into this? I remember moving to a new town just after I turned seven. Most of the kids in my new school seemed to believe that a fat man slipped down all earth's chimneys in late December, around Hannukah, and left presents for good kids. I was good, so I wasn't too concerned. But kids also seemed to believe that long ago, a man was killed, and three days later came back to life. They said that when I died, my soul would come out of my body, and meet this man. I had nightmares about this until my mother assured me that we didn't believe in that.

Religion, in one way or another, will be in school. The term "voluntary school prayer" is redundant; anyone who thinks we can legislate a deity out of a building must not think that deity has much power. Moments of silence in school happen. The one or two days I was legally required to allow a moment of prayer in school, I was told to ask whether there was anyone who wanted to lead the class in prayer, and whether any children wanted to wait in the hall while this happened. One child asked me, "What's prayer?" I told the child to speak with her parents about it - the only buck I've ever passed, as far as I know.

The immature rebel in me wanted to lead the class in a Hebrew prayer, to make the point about diversity, and then learn and teach prayers in Navajo, Hindi, Swahili, etc., so that children would be exposed to all the options. But the adult rebel in me objected to the whole process. Respect for diversity, when it comes to religion, is close to respect for privacy.

Since children are going to practice and discuss religion in school, whether or not teachers are involved, I think teachers ought to get involved, but very carefully. Each year, I gathered as many people as possible in my classroom to talk about memories of winter. The gathering was scheduled so that Hannukah, Christmas, and Kwanza were not far off, but over the years I heard about solstice rites, Santa Lucia Day, hockey games, the Tournament of Roses Parade, and many more rituals. I think religion was treated with respect, but I also think some children heard a kind of reverence connected with the Tournament of Roses.

This article cries out for a final paragraph which points the way to educational salvation. But no. I'll allow a moment for you to silently come to your own conclusion.(Back to Index)

History

13.

I just had a talk with my father. I told him about this book, and he suggested that I write an article about history. I belong to a generation that wasn't going to trust anyone over thirty, but we changed our minds about fifteen years ago. So I'll write about history, but not because my father told me to.

Henry Ford said that history is bunk. I don't like much of what I know about Henry Ford, and he probably didn't mean what I mean, but a lot of history qualifies as bunk. Robert Fulton didn't invent the steamboat. Christopher Columbus may have discovered America, but so did plenty of other people, before and after Columbus. People are still discovering and rediscovering it today, and I'll bet there are plenty of people who will never discover it, some of whom live here. History has all kinds of reasons for being bunk, and it's good to keep them in mind as we teach history.

For one thing, history was written by people. That fact, in itself, suggests a certain amount of fictionalization. Ask two people what significant things happened yesterday, or even this morning, and you will get two very different stories, even if they are in the same household. Even if they were joined at birth and never separated.

Furthermore, after history is written, it is selectively published, so the human element again comes into play. By the time it gets to children, Columbus was a brave, committed thinker who set out against all odds to prove to a very skeptical populace that the world was round. The pilgrims settled in Massachusetts in a way that allowed the native population to blend peacefully with the newcomers. The civil war was fought to free the slaves.

A brief look at the widespread dishonesty in history books can lead one to give up on history. But hold on. In one way, it's interesting to find out what has happened, or, more accurately, how people seem to have interpreted events. Most of what we learn in history or any other discipline ought to have that going for it. If it's interesting, other reasons for studying it stand a fighting chance.

In another way, history can teach us things we need to know in order to keep going, and maybe make things better. I like quoting Lily Tomlin (or her ghostwriter): "Maybe if we listened to history, it would stop repeating itself."

An honest approach to history would look more like "Rashomon" than "The History of Our Nation," by one of the regular textbook publishers. "Rashomon," for those of you who don't know, is a movie in which the same story is told from four different points of view. But four points of view are not enough; every moment of significance was lived by many people, and each person may live and relive the moment in different ways.

So maybe history is bunk, and maybe our efforts to debunk history are also bunk. But closing our eyes to the past and attempting to reinvent the wheel as we blaze a trail into the future, never trusting anyone over forty-five, is bunk, too.(Back to Index)

Neverland

14.

James Barrie may have been having a flash of insight when he thought of the name for Neverland. It was a place where you could experience eternal carefree youth. Those of you who really remember your youth must remember that it was never carefree. Let's go back and look.

Not back to infancy; that would be too obvious. You remember how terrifying it was to be brought into a world where you depended on giants who didn't know what you wanted, no matter how hard you tried to tell them. Occasionally, you would experience moments of pleasure, but as soon as you got comfortable, the sources of pleasure would be removed. It was as if the only purpose for the pleasure was to give pain a context.

Let's go to some time when you at least had some idea of what you wanted, and some chance of getting it. Let's try second grade. If you were lucky enough to be born into a functional family, by second grade, things may have been starting to look okay. You were still pretty dependent, but the giants were getting smaller, and some of them seemed to understand what you wanted, and even care. You could even get a lot of it for yourself, which was very gratifying.

Still, you found yourself in some pretty strange situations. You spent a lot of your time in a building where the giants were in charge of everything. You hoped to please them, but that wasn't easy. They gave you rules, which helped, but you still had to read their minds much of the time. And that wasn't easy. Sometimes they didn't seem to know what would please them. What pleased them once would infuriate them another time.

If you had to go to the bathroom, you needed a giant's permission. And since they never had to go to the bathroom, they didn't understand what the problem was. It was strange. The giants at home used the bathroom plenty - often, when you needed it. But not the giants in this building. Most of these giants, though seeming to mean well, had no idea what it was like to be your age. Some even seemed to envy your youth.

Have you had enough? I have. Let's go back. Could we stop in this stationery store on the way back? I want to get a birthday card for my mother. She's turning 77 next week. Let's see... All these cards seem to suggest that getting older is not desirable. I guess I'll have to make her a card. Maybe because I've spent my life with children, I think getting older is cool. I'm going to be fifty in a few years, and I can't wait. Of course, when I'm fifty, I'll probably wish I were sixty. But that will happen soon enough. My health is a problem, but you've got to expect some problems. At some point, I suppose I'll die, and I'd rather not do that.

I grew up in a youth culture, yet somehow, I escaped our culture's attitude about growing older. I worked with young children, and unlike most people who spend their lives working with young children, I'm male. If I were female, our culture probably would have made me self-conscious about my graying hair or wrinkling skin. If I hadn't worked with children, maybe I would have forgotten how important it was to me to get older. Most people do. For the most part, age is really wasted on the old. (Back to Index)

Kinderlieb

15.

Love, one of my favorite words, has too many meanings. I'm going to have to invent a word for what I'm talking about in this article. Kinderlieb. It's the kind of love healthy adults have for children. It's the kind of love that inspires a lot of good parents, teachers, daycare workers, pediatricians, and more to try to be better at what they do. It is also responsible for a