engaged intellectuals

My dear friend and colleague Lane Clarke at Northern Kentucky University sent an email about this story from NPR on the 826 in Brooklyn. I’ve heard and read about 826 before, but somehow it got wrapped up in the sticky webs of my mind and I had nearly forgotten about it completely. I love the concept: really cool, kid-enticing storefront (spies, superheroes, etc.) that mark the entrance into a really cool, creative space where kids read and write. Love it.

I was in a kindergarten classroom this morning where children are not allowed to make any noise for two and a half hours each day for three days for fear of disturbing the testing classrooms next door. Instead of their usual greetings, sharing, mingling during their creative projects, and moving about the room - the way kindergarteners and other students need to do - they are watching videos. Instead of engaging in rich curricular work, they sit silently at tables.

Kindergarten is not tested in this school.

But the kindergarteners are. Their experiences are yet another one of the “unintended consequences” of a high-stakes testing regime in our country. And they know the “big kids” are taking a “big test” and everything needs to be silent. So the kids taking tests can’t think of anything but the tests - and the kids supporting the “silence” for the test takers can’t think of anything but the tests.

More “collateral damage” done by the billion dollar testing machine wreaking havoc in our schools and on our future as an educated, engaged democracy.

We know tests are biased and advantage students from English-speaking, White middle-class and affluent homes.

We know schools and teachers have narrowed curricula to focus explicitly on the high-stakes test-preparation areas of reading and math often leaving behind science, social studies, language development, fine arts, physical education, and project-based experiences.

We know children vomit on testing days, teachers have insomnia, and principals are stressed to the max.

We know children, teachers, principals, and parents cry when a score comes back only 1 or 2 points below proficient.

We know test-preparation has dumbed down curricula and bored our students (and teachers) to death.

We know so much  more…

WHY DO WE KEEP DOING THIS?!

I modestly propose three steps toward change:

1. Find colleagues and community members to read and discuss Collateral Damage

2. Contact your local, state, and federal representatives and encourage them to read Collateral Damage (perhaps we could even buy an extra copy to send out to folks - or photocopy the first chapter and mail to them)

3. Start a local, grassroots campaign to “End High-Stakes Testing and AYP Sanctions”

Find some others concerned about the same issues:

No NCLB

Susan Ohanian

Anti-NCLB Legislation

Awesome Anti-NCLB merchandise

I have never been so happy to see, feel, and hear rain in all my life. My windows are being pelted with droplets, the leaves on the trees are dancing wildly, and I am smiling from ear to ear. When news programs claim one day that “experts” say the greater Atlanta area has 3 1/2 months’ supply of water and then the next day those same “experts” say we are already down to 81 days’ worth of water, what is one to do but panic?

How does the ol’ saying go? The mother of innovation is necessity (or something like that, no?)

Well, we certainly need water. So where is our innovation now? Or do some people still hold onto the hope that a magical spring will be discovered to replenish our lakes?

It is time to conserve.

It is time to imagine.

It is time to be innovative.

It is time to be critical.

And what a perfect time to engage students of all ages in interesting critical inquiry work around water.

Wouldn’t it be great if students researched a community’s water usage and plotted the usage alongside size of family? Size of home? Size of household income?

Having lived a number of times as a child without running water in the house, I know for a fact that folks struggling to pay the water bill are likely to conserve and reuse water supplies in the home. It has been said before, but I’ll ask it again here, could we learn valuable lessons from people with humble means about stretching resources, conserving resources, and living in ways that are more eco-friendly?

Now there’s a great critical inquiry: What is the carbon footprint of a family with a low income level versus a family with a high income level?

but back to water…

Who is using all our damn water???

Could students learn about and work toward promoting climate-appropriate landscaping versus the kind that needs constant watering?

What about swimming pools, fountains, and other privately-owned luxuries that slurp up water supplies? Now that would be an interesting mathematical investigation: How many gallons of water are used in the greater Atlanta area (or any metro area for that matter) for private swimming pools? If those private pools were not filled in late summer, at what levels would our major lakes be now?

And what a great ethical inquiry too: The Army Corps of Engineers has been releasing millions of gallons of water from north Georgia downstream to save the mussels in Florida. When wildlife and humans both need water, and the water supply is greatly diminished, who gets the water?

A comment was sent to me about the hospital letter and it is the closest thing to hate-mail that I have ever received. The more usual comment/email I get is glowingly complimentary thus I wasn’t sure what to do with this particular post!!! Though the writer was passionate in her expression of disgust towards me for writing the letter about my experience, she did raise a couple issues that might be important for readers to consider as I work through them myself. She claims that the worker had a right to freedom of speech, that I should have stopped to “educate” the worker regarding my experiences and views that opposed those she was espousing, and that I should not have sent a letter to her supervisors but instead handled it with her personally.

I’ll briefly respond to each of these issues below, then write about what all this might mean as we work toward a more socially-just way of being in the world:

Freedom of speech: This is tricky territory isn’t it? When does my “freedom of speech” become diminished as a result of the professional expectations of my job? How, or does, freedom of speech get played out differently in one’s work life and in one’s private life? I haven’t given enough thought to these questions to offer any insight here, but I do know that as an educator I do not see it as my “freedom of speech” right to denigrate groups of people who are supposed to be served by the educational system.

Stopping to “educate”: African American folks often complain that they are constantly expected to “educate” White folks about their racist ways, even when they were presumably unintended. Some people take on this position happily while others steer completely clear of it. Perhaps working-class and poor people should also be expected to “educate” middle-class and affluent folks about their classist ways - even if they are presumably unintended? I don’t believe this is always possible, nor always the best route to take, but I’ll offer some thoughts here:
1. On a better day, I might have pushed back a little and (too) politely asked, “Why do you say that?” or “I actually disagree with that,” because I do those things on a regular basis. But I was in PAIN, exhausted, and more than anxious to just simply get out of the hospital and get home. I didn’t have it in me in that moment - and there are many other moments when I don’t have it in me either.
2. I completely agree that personal interactions are an important way to work toward changing racist, classist, sexist, etc. beliefs and behaviors. But such change is not likely to happen in a 5-minute one-time talk with a stranger. At least a letter to the facility will put the issue on their radar and perhaps create opportunities for more “talk” about the issue to be ongoing and productive rather than a one-time shot.
3. So, I guess, I believe that it takes lots of efforts on lots of levels (interpersonal, institutional, private, public) to work toward a society that is filled with people who respect one another and act in respectful, non-judgmental ways.

Don’t go to the supervisor: Would the commenter suggest that this is true if the worker violated me directly (shaming me for being on Medicaid) rather than indirectly? My guess is no, at least my advice to anyone who is personally violated by a worker in an institution that is supposed to be caring for citizens would be to approach the worker’s supervisor to register a complaint. So…how is it different when the listener of offensive comments does not directly belong to the group that is being overtly offended? Does the listener have the right to complain? Ask for an apology? Go to a supervisor?

Here’s what I think: Different experiences are differentially “offensive” to me as a person, and differentially offensive to others as well. I have experienced thousands of interactions that are blatantly classist - some against me, others against me indirectly, and still others that were much farther removed from me personally. Sometimes these experiences make me feel so powerless in the situation that I simply can’t respond in the moment - and those are times when after-the-fact letters, complaints, conversations, etc. may be the only recourse. Other times the experiences are so enraging that I can’t help but lose my temper in such moments. But, most of the time, the experiences are somewhere between those poles and I make decisions about which offensive comments to essentially ignore, which ones to register in my mind and decide not to patronize the business any more, which ones to “talk about” with family, friends, and colleagues afterwards, which ones to push-back on in the moment requesting that the offender reconsider her/his comments, and which ones to take-on beyond the offender.

On my spectrum of offensive, had the woman in the hospital stopped the bantering when I tried to wheel myself out of the office, I would have likely ignored it or talked to friends, family, and colleagues, but little beyond that. It was the persistence of the comments even as I was trying to politely excuse myself that pushed me to take-on the issue in a broader way. I was not in a position to “handle” this issue with the woman personally, and feel very strongly that this is an issue that is much bigger than me and the woman in that office. It is unfortunately an issue that impacts millions of people’s lives daily and therefore should be talked about, cared for, and responded to in public, private, and institutional ways.

What are the best ways to work toward change?

My favorite answer - it depends.

Sometimes it’s interpersonally, sometimes it’s publicly, sometimes it’s through writing, sometimes it’s through relentless pushing-back, sometimes it’s through revolt, sometimes it’s through teaching, sometimes it’s through kindness, sometimes it’s through anger, sometimes it’s through sheer desperation. But it’s always through passion and persistence.

I received two phone calls this morning from representatives of Athens Regional Hospital. They were each genuinely concerned about the experience I had at the hospital and vowed to make a change, including conducting sensitivity training through their Human Resources department. Each of them said that such comments are never appropriate, but particularly inappropriate in the context of Athens Regional Hospital in Clarke County.

Kudos to Athens Regional for taking a stand against classism and racism in their health care facilities.

And for the rest of you out there - silence is complicity. Speak out - do something to make a change.

peace,

stephanie