cairns

As Robert McAfee Brown once said about the meaning of life, it is “our task to create foretastes of [the Kingdom of God] on this planet — living glimpses of what life is meant to be, which include art and music and poetry and shared laughter and picnics and politics and moral outrage and special privileges for children only and wonder and humor and endless love.” (Frost & Hirsch. ReJesus. p. 29)

What I find interesting today as I finish one book and begin this one, is that the folks who see the Gospel in this liberating participatory way are the least likely to take things literally.

Fully aware of the dangers of literalism, I wonder still what would happen if we took Jesus teaching on these areas literally.  If we have become walking, talking, laughing, loving vessels of God, why should our creativity be limited to mere “glimpses?”  Is God’s?  Are we doing our work or participating in God’s?  What if we took it seriously that we are living in and contributing to the very present Kingdom of God?  Looking backwards it could bring me to tears, looking forward it gives me goosebumps!

peace

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Had a very good final day with my kids.  One young man came up serious and polite and said, “I want you to know you have been a turning point in my life.”  Pretty wonderful for a fourth grader!  Lots of hugs, some second and third hugs about did me in.  As much as kids love summer, they are going to miss our class time together.

Also got to share with them that while we stay neutral in public schools and require respect for all views, it does not mean that all things are equal and true.  Assured them that there is Truth, there is right and there is wrong, there are choices that lead to a quality life and ones that do not.  I congratulated them on being the highest achieving homeroom I have ever had.  I reminded them that when they see me at school next year, we are still teacher and student.  But, I also assured them that now when they see me away from school they are my young friends and free to ask me anything they need to know about Truth, right, wrong, life.  AND I am free to answer!

I promised them that they will be in my prayers until we are back together and invited them to have their parents contact me if they need anything over the summer.  We laughed a lot, learned a lot, and practiced loving respect.  I cannot ask any more than that of my little friends.  Well done kids, well done!

peace,

Greg

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The young students in my fourth grade room WANT to learn.  I give them new things to try and they work, they question, they try more, they practice, they check to see if they are on track, they ask when they get stuck, they work some more.  They obviously enjoy working to learn new things and enjoy the accomplishment of gaining new knowledge.

So WHY are we running off to assemblies every day?  Why do we have these interruptions without advanced warning in order to try and plan some reasonable progression on lessons?  What happened to “time on task” which was considered SO important after the effective schools research came out?  Why do the local professional development people tell us to stick to the tested standards, if the administration is going to keep sending us off to the gym for another program that is not based on them?  What good will it do the Governor, State Superintendent, or local Superintendent to lengthen the day or school year if we spend it doing every possible field trip and assembly whether they are accomplishing our learning goals or not?

I am more convinced than ever that the Barney character on How I Met Your Mother said it all.  Our society is no longer concerned with actual accomplishments.  We value those who appear to do big things and fear those who actually do anything above the minimum.  I for one think it is sad.

I would start talking about examples at church as well, but this entry might become endless and even more judgmental.  But, you see I am over fifty now.  My people are not known for living to a hundred, so I know I am well into the second half of my life.  I will not stop being the oddball now.  I intend to keep doing things that  are real, that matter, that help…even if I am protecting a community that does not care from the danger of giants where others see only windmills!

peace

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Strange that while I have been off work I have read two books on forgiving acts that seem unforgivable, one by Volf with a broad theological and philosophical treatment and one by Gobodo-Madikizela that is anecdotal.  I ordered one.  My wife bought the other.  Both were selected before the events of the last long week.

All of the hurdles have been crossed except for this one: how do you deal with a daughter who seems to have totally changed from the child you raised?  Where does a person lose empathy for the results of their acts on others?  How does a dearly loved child turn on you in the most vicious ways and then act like nothing happened?  Can she really believe the unbelievable?  Is there a serious internal problem, or just teenage turmoil?  Maybe a doctor’s visit today will have some answers.

One thing I know, the timing of two accounts of how the cross brings us to the ability to forgive what we could never have imagined, is NO accident.  I need them both.  No academic exercise here today.  We are full force into reality of faith and life on this chaotic mud ball!  Time for faith to work.  Time for forgiveness to be real.  Time to find healing and a healthy path forward.  There are no alternatives.

peace

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Another false assumption of the current movement in mass education is the basis for standards.  It sounds so good to assure parents and tax payers that all schools know and teach the knowledge that all children need at each grade.  But, the lie is right there on the surface.  There is no magic list of what all children should know at any age!

For example: at one time, it seemed to make sense to teach the social sciences according to the theory of  ‘expanding horizons.’   The youngest children learn about self and families, followed by neighborhoods then their own city and state, next comes one’s own country and finally hemisphere or world.  This was based on the assumption that children had a concrete world of local experience which would make sense to them followed by a growing ability to understand similarities and differences as broader places and social differences were studied.  That child no longer exists in the global information age.  Buckminster Fuller used to love to point out that the world where the mama and children only knew the world of home until daddy came home and shared the news disappeared the day daddy came home and the children by the radio excitedly told him, “Daddy, Daddy, Lindbergh landed in Paris!”  Today’s child has ready access and constant exposure to information from and about the whole world.  Who possesses the magic list that says which place and topic she must know at what age?  Nobody.

To tell the child that is excited about Africa or Japan, whales or polar bears, large numbers, squares or geometric shapes that some all knowing committee of adults declared the topic off limits because it is not on this year’s test is obscene as well as absurd.  But, unless the child pursues education outside of the school environment, that is exactly how the current standards movement works.  Teachers are repeatedly told by trainers and evaluators that anything that will not appear on this year’s test is a waste of time and not to be covered.  So children get only what the teachers are required to teach.  Never mind if you are lucky enough to have a teacher or classmate who just got back or moved to your town from a far off land with stories and pictures.  Never mind if you saw a special on television or the Internet that excited you to the core of your being about some topic.  Never mind if only what you struggle with is on the school list and what you love and excel at is not.  Everything has been decided for you by a political process far from the local classroom, parents or voters.  The whole thing is deadening to natural enthusiasm for knowledge.  The universe of possibilities is traded for a myopic list.

And we have agreed to look only at the nasty emporer, and never turn our eyes to anything of beauty elsewhere, because we have bought the lie that there is a magic list of what children should learn and when.  The entire concept is contrary to the nature of children and how they (or we) learn.  No wonder Gatto’s fans point to us and say what you do is schooling, not education.

peace

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He is repeating the grade and failing again.  He can do the work, I have seen it.  He can pass the state exams and does.  He usually gets “A’s” on my classroom tests.  But when it comes to the daily work, he becomes Bartleby.  He just sits there, quiet, hiding under his long hair hanging forward, and shakes his head.  He is always late, comes slowly creeping down the hall in his own little world.  AT least if he knows you are watching!

Catch him when only kids are there and its completely different!  He is smiling laughing joking rough housing running — being a kid — until he sees an adult.  Then, just Bartleby again.

So we met as the “Intervention Team” today in all our professional grandeur.  We discussed his home, his record, his scores, potential to qualify for ‘help,’ and we declared him to be OK.  He is not OK.  But, we know why.  We have met his family and we know why he acts like he does.  We have nothing to offer him and so we declare that he shall be promoted and “see what he does.”  We say he is OK.  He is not.  Neither are we.

peace

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She ran into me with a kind of shoulder and hip side bump strong enough to move a grown man about a foot, laughed, and ran off to get on the bus.  OK, I started it.  Another girl was manning her spot on safety patrol this afternoon and I was teasing them both.  I had intended to tell today’s patrol girl she looked more intelligent than usual as an irritation to my little friend who is usually on that spot, but today’s girl had her coat all twisted under her crossing guard gear and couldn’t figure out how to operate the zipper and get untangled.  Bright young lady that she is, she was looking anything but confident and intelligent!  So my lame little joke wouldn’t work.  But, I told them both anyway and the three of us had a nice laugh about the situation.  Then on the way to the bus, she blasted into me and laughed her way home.  And I knew she was OK for another day.

You see her father died about a year ago, and her mother has been ill this year.  Her grades have slipped from usual straight “A’s,” and her attitude has been a bit surly at times when corrected by teachers.  Can I blame her?

But, today — for one more day — today, we got the work done, we laughed, she got the last laugh, and skipped away OK.  For today she is OK.

peace

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Years of reform, research by countless professors, advice from endless consultants, accountability from politicians (now you have to enjoy that oxymoron!), measurement by high stakes testing, and where are we now?

There is still a top and a bottom.  If IQ theory is true, there always will be.  If abilities truly differ and every individual is taught to potential, then the gap should  keep getting bigger!  But sadly it is not the predictor here. 

No the bottom is still predictable not by ability, but by income and ethnicity.  To be sure those with special needs still struggle, even more so when they are forced to take the exact same tests as their non-challenged counter parts.  But, that is not our biggest failure. It is in poverty and race.

By the time they come to me, they already have some sick sense that they are the last.  They have already bought that role.  I try to convince them they can achieve, can grow, can surprise everyone who doubts them.  And they look at me kindly as a nice but crazy old man.

You see we evaluate them yearly now with tests we know are predictable by income.  And, we tell them the scores are theirs not ours.  We tell them over and over they have failed us at age 6, 7, and 8.  We no longer tell them they can grow up to run the country, cure disease, or write the great works.  We tell them they are “low scores,” below the curve, not measuring up, hurting their school…

We still leave them behind.  They just aren’t children anymore.  God forgive us.

peace

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