engaged intellectuals

This post on Glenn Sacks’ blog supporting father-child relationships led me to Vanity Fair’s story Men Evolving Badly, a weak feminist attempt (by a man) to reassert and deconstruct the power of the penis among the super rich. Sadly, however, the writer generalizes this power to all men and does not engage with the class hierarchies in the U.S. My letter to the editor:

James Wolcott might claim to be a feminist given his perspective in “Men Evolving Badly” but he would be well-advised to step back and take a lesson or two in radical feminism. Just as he writes “The primary threat to the psychological well-being of most men (and women) isn’t sexual or pop-cultural but economic…” he reveals the limitations of his own class privileges when focusing his attention on the super rich. It may be true that the “odds still favor the penis-bearer” in the wealthy class, but take another look at the working-class and poor ranks in the U.S. and you might find another story altogether. Keep in mind the millions of men behind bars who were largely (90% or better) arrested during a time when they were living below the federal poverty level, and many because they had fallen behind in child support payments while struggling to keep a roof over their own heads. The “roof entry to the helicopter pad” is foreign territory within a context of deindustrialization and the feminization of working-class jobs where many men are lucky to find minimum wage jobs or day labor. Instead of focusing on the devolution of the narcissistic, power elite, take a walk through neighborhoods annihilated by the greed of corporations and financial institutions where fathers are playing soccer with their children in the street or crying behind closed doors because their wives left them, took the kids, and now they can’t afford child support payments. Radical feminism aims to end oppression of all kinds – you can’t look at privileged men in one class without recognizing the sufferings of men in another.

Policies that “mandate” a particular action are on my mind today, perhaps because I’ve crawled out of my conference-induced fog and I’m turning my attention back to the presidential campaign a bit. John Edwards (just love him) and Hilary Clinton both recommend “mandating” health insurance coverage for every American citizen - Barack Obama “mandates” health insurance for every child but not ever citizen.

What do mandates get us? What is the underbelly of mandates that might punish the very people who always need a little extra financial wiggle room? Let’s think about “child support.”

Picture this: A mom and dad argue a lot and finally one of them hits their breaking point. The mom decides to move out of the house with the child, and though the dad wants desperately to have custody of the child, the mother is awarded custody. Now the father and child are separated, but allowed “visitation” as long as child support is paid.

I didn’t tell you that both parents were working for minimum wage - but that’s a very important part of the story.

So now you have two separate single-headed households trying to make ends meet on minimum wage earnings (about $240.00/week take home). Out of approximately $1,000/month, each has to pay rent, buy food, provide clothes and food for the child when the child is with them, pay for gas, gas and electric in the homes, etc.

The court orders the dad to pay $480.00 a month in child support. That’s approximately 1/2 his income and moves the dad from poverty level living to well below poverty level living. He can’t pay his bills any more when he takes his weekly child support payment to the courthouse.

He falls behind in child support.

Goes to court.

His license is suspended (YES - this is one of the punishments for not paying your child support).

Visitation is suspended (YES - so now he loses his son too).

He tries to find alternative ways to get to work, but arrangements fall through.

He loses his job.

Gets further and further behind in child support (only 3 months can quickly be more than 1300.00 - a very heavy debt for this father).

He experiences depression.

Goes back to court because he is now 6 months behind in child support.

Goes to jail (YES - this is another punishment for not paying child support).

Dad is wrecked. Child is wrecked. And mother still doesn’t have any additional financial support that she so desperately needs for her son.

He didn’t want her to leave in the first place and cried on the phone almost daily trying to get the family back together, but she insisted it would never work. He wanted custody, but the courts would not seriously consider that.

Who does this “mandatory child support” policy help? Hurt? Destroy? Advantage?

Who are the dads (I say dads here because we rarely hear of “Deadbeat Mothers” but instead “Deadbeat Dads” - the derogatory way of referring to dads who don’t pay child support) who didn’t want to lose their families in the first place, tried to get custody of the child, then experience a rapid spiraling out of control of their life because they fall behind in child support payments?

Who are the dads who never feel the financial pinch of the hundreds or thousands paid for child support each month?

These “mandates” always seem to hurt the ones who have persistently been hurt by the economic structures in our society. In many working-poor families everyone loses when child support payments are mandated and policed by the state.

What will happen if health insurance is mandated? The same folks will be punished for their inability to pay the price of coverage and still maintain a roof over their heads.

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

La Misma Luna/Under the Same Moon This fabulous new film in independent theaters portrays the life of a young boy in Mexico living without his mother who has illegally immigrated to the U.S. I won’t give away any details, but bring your tissues and rally signs. It could make even the most conservative anti-immigration person reconsider dehumanizing laws that break the hearts and spirits of tenacious, driven, hard-working Mexicans. I haven’t yet used it with any of my courses but I will - and I will ask students to pay close attention to issues of language, literacies, and power within the intricate complexities of U.S.-Mexico relations. I will also ask students to consider the broader context of contemporary immigration around the globe and how capitalist economies and globalism is impacting social class relations beyond national borders.

Only recently have I turned my ear toward the discourse of “why” students need or should want an education. I’m stunned, however, by the saturation of the topic with the “to get a good job” discourse.  Most of you out there are likely reading this wondering what rock I’ve been hiding under…but here I am shaking my head in bewilderment wondering what business second graders, fourth graders, sixth graders have thinking their whole life of schooling is for a “job.”

After being in many classrooms, talking to teachers and my university students about what education is for, and hearing many parent-child and teacher-student conversations like “stay in school…get a good job” from all social class backgrounds, I’m trying my best to insert some equally-important options within this otherwise authoritative discourse on what education is for:

What about creativity? Can education be about learning to create? Learning the possibilities of what a creative mind and body can do?

What about social action? Can education be learning about social injustices and working to organize and change those injustices?

What about self-fulfillment? Can education be finding something that makes us happy, filled with passion, willing to work and work at it because it’s fulfilling in and of itself?

What about the journey of becoming a whole person? Can education be about learning and doing in ways that helps me continue on the journey to become a whole person, with knowledge about myself, my history, my shared experiences with others, my interests, my dreams - and the know-how to follow those dreams (whatever they may be)?

What about freedom? Can education be about studying, researching, gaining knowledge and multiple perspectives of that knowledge to be emotionally and intellectually free from the oppressive structures in our society? And to work against anti-freedom practices, beliefs, structures.

These are just a few possibilities off the top of my head - I’d love to hear about others that have been, and can be, overtly inserted into the discourse of education. It would be great if children, teachers, adults, and all of us could have a robust vocabulary around what education is for…beyond getting “a good job.” All good jobs, my friends, don’t lead toward feeling whole, fulfilled, powerful, etc. In fact, many jobs don’t. So let’s let education be a place where the “job” doesn’t restrict ideas of what a person can be.

Go vote.

Yes, the election process is only one marker of democracy in our country and perhaps the more important things we do are the daily interactions we have with people that work toward democratic living, but we should all still vote.

Come on Mr. President…do you think a new initiative will disguise the atrocious failure of No Child Left Behind? Despite his (false) claims that Math and Reading scores are higher than ever, George W. Bush continues to search frantically for any potential success story in the realm of education during his administration. It’s time to face the facts, however, and those include:

1. The federal government has never made sufficient funds available to pay for its NCLB mandates in education leaving local districts and state bodies scrambling to pay the bill, often resulting in the elimination of art, music, PE, and other “extra” classes, field trips for children, classroom materials that could be used for hands-on learning experiences, and even in some cases eliminating faculty or support positions. Leaving local schools and states standing with the enormous bill for NCLB mandates is both unethical and unconstitutional.

2. Curricula (ESPECIALLY in schools serving many working-class and poor students and students of color) has been narrowed so much that students no longer have the option of receiving a well-rounded, rich education that can prepare them for being engaged citizens in a democracy. Even in “Math” and “Reading” students are merely being taught to take tests.

3. The testing frenzy is so out of control that even kindergarteners can be found in classrooms sitting at their seats with paper and pencil. For many kindergarten classrooms, long gone are “luxuries” such as recess, rest time, story time, dramatic play, and hands-on exploration.

4. Students are being pushed out of school so they will not bring a school’s overall score “down.”

5. Teachers are pushing every boundary possible, and even some outright “cheating” on tests to avoid the devastating results if a struggling school does not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

6. Teachers are told to “teach the ones who you think can pass” and essentially forget the others. Geesh…that sounds a lot like leaving children behind.

7. Even affluent suburban schools are finding it difficult to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) because their scores tend to be high to begin with and to consistently increase those scores every single year is nearly impossible. Thus, the testing frenzy and detrimental effects infiltrate all schools with teachers complaining, “everything is about the test!”

Don’t believe me? There are hundreds of publications about the detrimental effects NCLB has had on children, families, schools, teachers, administrators, budgets, test scores, and education. Here’s one of the latest.

No Child Left Behind is up for Reauthorization this spring. Let’s not continue to allow this Act that is designed for inevitable self-implosion to ruin educational opportunities for all children - and most of all for the children who have been underserved by the system for so many generations.

And Pell Grants for Kids is just another way to rape public schools of funding and give public funds to the private and faith-based sector. Yet another attempt to erode public education for all. Can we not see the writing on the wall?

Jane Van Galen has a great post about a book she recently read regarding replacing the income tax system with a retail/consumption tax system in the U.S. Lots of folks have been talking about this, and Jane has received an interesting comment from “Ian” about how a “Fair Tax” would work.

I agree with Jane about the refreshing feeling of imagining a concrete, economic way to work toward equity rather than always working more abstractly around issues of morality and other things that are extremely important (access to schools, technology, entry-level positions, housing, etc.) but always already within an existing inequitable system. Completely redefining the very system of taxation seems like something that may make a real difference and something that is actually possible to accomplish in the near future - if, that is, it would truly make a positive qualitative (and quantitative) difference in the lives of working-class and poor people.

Obviously there is a lot of bantering around about this already - check out some of these sites:

Americans for a Fair Tax

Fact Check

Fair Tax Calculator

Fair Tax Blog

With all this going on…how is one supposed to know what to think?

What does “freedom” mean?

“[O]ne of the tenets of a democratic society is that men [sic] be allowed to think and express themselves freely on any subject, even to the point of speaking out against the idea of a democratic society. To the extent that our schools are instruments of such a society, they must develop in the young not only an awareness of this freedom but a will to exercise it, and the intellectual power and perspective to do so effectively” (Postman, 1969, p. 1)

From Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. (1969). Crap detecting. In Teaching as a subversive activity (pp. 1-15). New York: Delacorte Press.

“The only freedom that is of enduring importance is freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while” (Dewey, 1963, p. 61).

From Dewey, J. (1963). The nature of freedom. In Experience & education (pp. 61-65). New York: Collier Books.

We can laugh at this satirical commentary on the burden of long work days, the cost of day care, and the potential for outsourcing child care to countries like India. Of course, I know all too well the student who sat in my office yesterday afternoon and told me that his father’s assembly line job disappeared after 23 years (along with the pension he would have earned in two more). When I think of real people pushed to the limit, this comedy begins to have teeth that bite back, and I’m reminded of Jonathan’s Swift’s A Modest Proposal. How can these satirical texts help us critically analyze policies that affect our loved ones? Watch the clip from The Onion.