Today marks history; regardless of whom you voted for, or if you bothered to vote at all; today will go down in history. My boys are at the kitchen table with oatmeal and the front page of the paper; the one with all 43 past presidents pictured as well as an above the fold full color picture of President-elect Obama. They are discussing how past presidents died, and how many of them wore false teeth. It is amazing to me that they consider this day exciting for the fact that they are staying home this morning to watch the inauguration, but really truly do not see that America will forever be changed after 9:00 this morning, pacific standard time.
I remember my dad making us watch the moon landing; it’s been described to me so many times I think that I actually have a memory, even though I was only three. We were gathered in the living room around a small black and white TV and I was so bored; this was not a Hannah-Barbera cartoon. Dad and Mom were so intense, so still and focused. It was important and even I understood. History was made that day and I was oblivious. We also gathered around the TV to watch President Nixon give his resignation speech in 1974; that memory is sharper. Again, we were together as a family of six, silently watching a small TV, and again my parents stuck me with their intensity. At age 11 I knew that they were sad, and worried. Our family did not discuss politics, ever; my Dad still believes that is private and personal, akin to your salary.
In some ways it is a blessing that my younger children don’t look at President Barack Obama and see him as the first black President of the United States, but simply as the next President; one whose poetic speech made Mommy cry when they watched his victory on TV. We were divided at the primaries in our house; Mommy wanted Clinton and Niklas passionately stumped for Obama. Niklas is 9. In some ways their lack of surprise shows progress that they would blithely go about their business of being boys and see nothing more fascinating in the crowds than Chicago Cubs baseball caps. What they don’t see is the amazement, the pride, the sacrifice and the pure hope. Hope that this man and his beliefs can inspire and lead us to change.
William Ayers speaks of change also, in his book To Teach the journey of a teacher, “Our commitments should include a faith in the ability of ordinary people to shape the solutions to their problems, the importance of rethinking each step as we go, and a willingness to embrace partial measures and small changes that point toward justice.” Again, the theme of change, but in a judicious manner, one that will keep the best of what is occurring and begin to fold in the lacking elements that will serve great portions of the student body.
In the Parade section of the Sunday Seattle Times paper was a letter written from President Obama to his daughters; one that spoke of the reasons he decided to take his family on this journey to be President. He stated “I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential- schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. …I want us to push the boundaries of discovery so that you’ll live to see new technologies and inventions that improves our lives and make our planet cleaner and safer. And I want us to push our own human boundaries to reach beyond the divides of race and region, gender and religion that keep us from seeing the best in each other.”
William Ayers (dare I speak of Ayers and Obama in the same blog?) in his book, would concur that it is schools that must be worthy of their students, and that hands on learning, as opposed to a pre-packaged curriculum, will take a student farther and deeper, in the hands of a capable teacher. President Obama had previously chosen for his children the University of Chicago laboratory school; stating that he had taught there, and that it was five minutes from their home. “A good fit” he called it. On the University web site they state “Learning by doing has guided the efforts of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools since Professor Dewey opened its doors over a century ago… Our mission is focused on students. We are more than just test scores and college admissions statistics. We are about learning well and complementing the work of one of the world's premier institutions of higher learning, the University of Chicago. Our academic program is rigorous, but we are as interested in the development of character as we are in scholastic achievement.”
Joel Spring, in his book American Education also speaks of character development, stating that the No Child Left Behind legislation specifies that instructors must integrate character education into nearly all school subjects, and raises the concern that this is a point of conflict between personal and public goals for schools.
Can character development be taught? And if so are the teachers the right ones to do that? Many many points of view out there, some accepting of this additional challenge, some pointing to the number of hours that the child is in school versus the number of requirements on their time there. They saliently point out the difference in the number of waking hours that the parent has the child and that perhaps that is better left at home. Without character development I do not see the Nation welcoming their 44th president; nor do I see our schools edging towards a more Ayers-like nirvana… smaller schools, with teachers at the center of the classroom practice. Teachers, those who are passionate, invested, creative, courageous and willing to embrace change.
Towards the end of his open letter to his daughters President Obama states “I hope both of you will take up that work, righting the wrongs that you see and working to give other the chances you’ve had. Not just because you have an obligation to give something back to this country that has given our family so much – although you do have that obligation. But because you have an obligation to yourself. Because it is only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.”
One of the indicators of crisis spoken of in President Obama’s inaugural address was that “our schools fail too many.” I can list the things that I believe are failing our students; classroom size, materials designed for hands-on learning, teachers who are given canned curriculum and required standardized tests, inequality in funding for technology, buildings, playgrounds and specialists, students who are not ready to learn in that they are hungry, abused, afraid or lacking the ability to sit still for long periods if time and find themselves at odds with their own body.
President Obama states that we have an obligation to give back, that our true potential can be realized when we join in with something bigger than ourselves; reciprocity joined with moral character.
Some have compared the ideas coming from this President to the ideas that spawned the Civilian Conservation Corps and other ideas from the New Deal. I believe that Ayers would agree that these were “partial measures and small changes that point toward justice.”
When will we see this change? When will it happen? When we are courageous enough to begin the first steps, the first measured response that will make some of the ideals of the University of Chicago laboratory school a possibility in Tacoma Wa, Yakima Wa, Watsonville Ca, Norris Tennessee, and on and on.
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Ah, the continued attempt to link Ayers and Obama... will it never end??
ReplyDeleteYou may not have noticed yet that Vivian Paley's book that we'll read in a few weeks is about her classroom at the Chicago Lab School. Is there no end to these insidious connections?
The concerns about things like schools teaching character development or moral development intrigue me, as if any teacher can orchestrate the movement and the daily dramas of 25 children in a very small space without some principled appeal to the greater good and some general routines for working out the inevitable difference in expectation, needs, and hopes. Teachers can maintain order by teaching obedience to authority, or they work toward deeper moral reasoning. Either way, there are lessons of character being taught.
Ayers has been writing in his blog that while he's not thrilled with the new Secretary of Education, he understands that in a democracy, it is not the job of those in power to dictate from above but for citizens to actively participate in creating the changes that they deem important. He's writing about some really interesting projects in Chicago schools that made a difference in the lives of kids and that were started by parents and/or teachers, not orchestrated from Arne Duncan's office.
There is a growing sense of the importance of teacher leadership (even among corporate sponsors who are funding some good projects) in building strong schools, so we'll keep talking this quarter about the role of teachers in creating excellent schools for all kids rather than waiting for someone else to take that initiative.
Maybe sometime soon, kids will just take for granted that they all go to excellent schools and will sit around kitchen tables everywhere having similar conversations about the similar things they're learning, regardless of the communities into which they were born.
Are not all things possible?