Thoughts on Destruction

Thing 1, my seven-year-old, has a memory that is, at times, jaw-dropping. In the car just now, coming home from lunch, he mentioned something about me needing to use insurance money to fix a rip in the roof of my convertible. I had that car--a VW Rabbit--in the mid-1980s. When it was that I told him this story--or why, or in reference to what--I have no idea. It's certainly nothing I told him more than once, and it's certainly nothing I told him recently. But he remembers everything.

I loved that car, even as it began, over the years, to decay. First the emergency brake went (I had to carry a cinder block around with me in case I had to park on a slope), then the knob off the gear shift, then the latches holding down the soft-top roof. Eventually I sold it to one of my students who was eager to have something she could work on and play with.

One day, when I had the car parked somewhere around the Medium Sized Southern School from which I had recently graduated, I returned to find the car slashed. I never left anything valuable in the car--nor did I ever lock the doors. When I bought the Rabbit, the dealer let me know that the top, which was insulated and multi-layered, was probably more expensive to replace than anything else. So I didn't want to give anyone incentives for tearing into it. Take the car--just don't rip the roof.

Well, some idiot came along and slashed the roof anyway--and not even all the way through. A big gash on the outside that didn't cut all the way to the inside. And nothing else taken or disturbed.

Being the kind of person who Dwells on Things (maybe even Broods, on occasion), I thought a lot about the meaning of it all. Why cut through a car's roof if not to get into the car? What was the point? Was it really just to prove to me that there was someone out there in the world capable of wreaking havoc? Was he just trying to let me know that he could break things faster than I could keep them in repair?

That wasn't exactly news. I mean, I was well aware of the fact. There are two kind of people in the world (yes: people who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people who don't. But seriously, folks): people who use their energy and power to create, and people who use their energy and power to destroy. This is not cultural--there have been mound builders and ziggurat erectors and city planners and artists and sculptors and composers from the dawn of human time, and in every corner of the earth. And just as there have been Builders, there have been Wreckers. Sometimes the Wreckers have come from outside the wall and sometimes they have been homegrown. No one has a monopoly on creativity...or destruction.

But what a strange urge! Why is it so important to prove to someone that you are capable of destruction? Why is that warning shot across the bow of civilization important for some people? Is it because the opposite urge--the urge to create and build--seems intimidating and dangerous to those incapable of it? Does it smack of hubris--something requiring a take-down, a stiff dose of reality, whether in the form of graffiti, vandalism, or Semtex?

Obviously, these ruminations back in the late 80s would have taken on a very different hue had the incident happened after 9/11/01. Because, let's face it, the obliteration of the World Trade Center was the ultimate expression of the destructive urge, undertaken by people utterly incapable of building such towers, and using as their destructive weapons airplanes that they were likewise incapable of building.

But remembering all of this again today, I think back--as I did when my roof was slashed--to something from my own past. And suddenly, again--now as then--I don't feel so smug. Because I'm wrong: there no Them and Us. There is only Us.

Back when I was in middle school, I went to a summer camp in Massachusetts. I had spent my early years in day camps because my parents had a summer house up in the mountains, and that was "away" enough for all of us. But as I got older, my parents thought it would be good for me to try sleep away camp at least once or twice. So I began my sleep away camp experience at 12 or 13.

In this particular camp--a boy's camp--we slept in three-sided lean-tos--shacks, really--that were humid and moldy and smelly at all times. There were three sets of bunk beds against the three walls, and six boys per cabin. One kid in our cabin was a genuine pain in the ass. He complained all the time. He was spoiled. When we went on a hike and someone got hurt and needed a bandage, he refused to give up his bandanna--because it was expensive and he didn't want it to be ruined. We all hated him.

And was I relieved that we all hated him--that he got to be the goat instead of me? You bet I was.

Well, one lazy afternoon we were all sitting around the cabin--all of us except the Goat. And it occurred to us, in the way that terrible ideas seem to drift in on the breeze and take over everything like a strong odor, that it would be fun to cut holes in the Goat's underwear. Why this particular idea occurred to us, I don't know. He had underwear; we had Swiss Army Knives. Apparently that was all that was necessary. So we opened up his trunk, took out all his briefs, and cut big holes in all the crotches. We laughed and laughed. Then we cut his soap in half. That was also pretty funny. Then we cut up his letters from home. Then we threw his transistor radio in the woods. Then we ruined his tennis racket. Then...

Well, you get the idea. When we finally looked up and caught our breaths and...came to...we realized that we had utterly destroyed everything this boy had brought with him to camp. Hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. And no one could exactly remember having decided to do all that. We had decided to embarrass him with some holes in his shorts. And then we just got... carried away.

Carried away. It's a very interesting turn of phrase, isn't it? What is it, exactly, that we think has lifted and carried us? What force external to us do we blame for moving us away from where we intended to be and who we thought we were?

Obviously, we did the only thing that honorable pre-teens could do--we lied like hell about what had happened, and told our counselors that we had seen some Strange Adult lurking around the cabin. I don't think it occurred to any of us how ludicrous the story was, since only one boy's possessions had been touched.

The counselors made it clear to us that the police would have to be called in if, indeed, an outsider were involved. They interviewed us separately and worked each of us over until we broke. In the end, we all gave each other up. Amazingly, we didn't get kicked out of camp. We just had to pay to replace the Goat's things.

I remember this particular incident because it was rare and strange for me. Perhaps it isn't for lots of guys, but it is for me. I don't tend to think of myself as having much a destructive urge. I take no great joy in wrecking things or seeing things wrecked. Some people find carnage fun; I just don't. I'm a creator, after all--a writer, a team-builder, a developer of programs, blah blah blah. What happened to me back then? Was I possessed?

Whatever it was, I'll tell you one thing: It was fun. There was joy in that moment, at that moment. I don't think I credited it at the time--I was too afraid of it. But there was tremendous glee and fun and...euphoria, really. Complete Dionysian release.

There is something freeing (if a little apocalyptic) in letting that urge loose upon the world. It's awful in the real, original meaning of the world. You stand in awe of what you can do. From the outside, we see that as juvenile: "Nyah, nyah--look what I can do." But perhaps, sometimes, there's something intoxicating and frightening in it, as well: "Holy shit--look what I can do."

Sometimes we take our creative urge for granted and forget to celebrate our potential. Obviously we should pay respect to that urge and its products, and cultivate it in ourselves. We can do great things, and each of us is capable of imagining and bringing into reality something wonderful. But we need to pay homage to our destructive urge as well--to note it, and be aware of it, and pay it a kind of grim respect. To pretend it isn't there is to ruled by it--in secret, in silence, unaware, and from a very dark place. One day, all of a sudden, it erupts--and we look around in horror, saying "What happened?" Saying, "I got carried away." Saying "It was the devil!"

The old Greeks knew how dangerous it was to serve one god to the exclusion of others. To them, nothing was more important than balance. Feed all of the Powers that rule the universe (within us and without us) and avoid having any one of them possess you utterly. Obviously, our more advanced culture knows that this is nonsense. The very idea of balance is old and stodgy and stale and foolish. It's boring, really. The ideal, for us, is the extreme (sorry: Xtreme).

But maybe that makes sense. After all, we aren't aiming for the Good Life; we're aiming for the Afterlife. The sooner, the better.

Climb aboard.

Is Our Children Learning?

Or..."Oh, the Humanity!"

The Roller Coaster

And then everything changed.

Day Two of our professional development segued from information downloading and resource organizing to more of a work session—the teachers finally got to dig in to the curriculum materials and begin doing some planning.

My room was focused on a Grade 9 civics course, custom developed to focus on local history and issues as a way to engage kids as they transition to high school and help them feel a part of something larger than themselves. The course is titled “Be the Change,” from Gandhi’s quote, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

As the teachers began to put the pieces together and see how traditional civics was being married to project-based learning and supported by a number of supplemental resources supplied by interesting and interested non-profit organizations, they began to get excited. Suddenly, yesterday’s affectless and self-involved drones became animated and committed teachers again. They began to plan, and share, and argue. But instead of arguing about accountability or assessment or being forced to change, they were arguing about the right things:

“This project about revising the student code of conduct--what are they really supposed to do with it? I mean, be honest.”
“Look at page two—they’re supposed to submit their proposed changes to the school board.”
“But that’s ridiculous; no one’s going to take them seriously.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Please.”
“The district really wants this course to work—they’re going to support it. It’s our job to make them support it..”
“But listen—look—every single ninth grader in the city is going to be submitting proposals? That’s crazy.”
“And hard to ignore.”
“Even if the board cared, which they won’t, it takes years to get anything changed around here. They’ll be seniors by the time anything they asked for gets adopted. It’s just going to make the kids cynical.”
“It doesn’t have to. It’s actually a great teachable moment, if that happens—it helps show that change is slow out in the real world—that not everything is instant gratification, but that slow doesn’t mean non-existent.”
“Maybe…”
“And even if none of the changes are adopted—hell, that’s real world too. Maybe it will discourage some of the kids, but at least it’s honest.”
“That’s true.”
“And then…and then...you know what else we could do? Listen…”

And then there was this exchange:

“You’re asking us to teach [Famous Local Labor Strike X] in the fourth week, using Internet resources, but I’ve never taught U.S. History—I’m not sure I know enough, and it’s coming up so soon…”
“Hey, I teach right down the hall, and I’ve taught U.S. History for years. Buy me a coffee some day after school, I’ll get you up to speed.”
“That would be great. But you know what would be even better? You come teach my class that day.”
“I’ll do that if you help me set up the debate next week, because I’ve never done of those that worked, and I know you do Model U.N.”
“I can do that.”

Which was followed quickly by:

“You know what we ought to do? We ought to set up a Yahoo Group or something. Now that we’re all going to be doing the same thing, it’s crazy not to be talking to each other.”
“Yeah, I’m hearing all all these great ideas today, but we don’t get to see each other all that often. I don’t want to lose this.”
“It’ll make it easy to post comments or suggestions, or questions for each other.”
“Share lesson plans…”
“Ideas for field trips…”

And on and on it went.

I tell you, it filled my little heart with joy. No lie. It’s worth all the crap we go through, all the negativity, all the politics, all the defeatism. It really is. To see just this much change—just this much engagement and collaboration and…hope—to see just one teacher move from a world-weary “My kids can’t do this” to an excited “I think this will work,” and to know that something great is going to be happening in the classroom.

Ah, that blasted hope. Just when you’re ready to give up, a single taste is enough to lift you up and keep you going.

It’s a curse.

Deaf to All the World

I'm here In Big Unnamed School District doing some back-t0-school professional development. Midway through the day, the superintendent arrives to speak to the teachers. Remarkably, this superintendent is neither an egomaniac nor a blowhard nor a tyrant. He speaks plainly and honestly to the teachers--plaintively, even--about the state of the Big District. It is not a good state of affairs.

The public school population has plummeted in recent years (I think "plummet" is the only fair word here), and parents have made it clear to the Supe, in community meetings he has held, that they have no interest in putting their kids back in to the district without some pretty Radical Action. The message is clear, from parents, from test data, from independent surveys: the district is failing its children.

The district has just entered Corrective Action Stage II, which means that the state could take them over and do whatever they feel is necessary. They have not done so, and have put their faith in the Supe and the Board and their plan for Radical Action. The Supe apologizes to the teachers for the rapid pace of change, but says, "to be perfectly blunt, I feel like if we don't move quickly, we may not have a district left to work in."

Meanwhile, working conditions are not bad, compared to other similar districts in the state and across the country. Class size is not bad, resources are plentiful, and salaries are comparatively healthy.

But, he warns, none of those things will hold if the population keeps dropping. Kids are leaving the system in droves--either being pulled out by parents or dropping out as soon as they hit high school. If we care about this district, if we care about our children, we need to pull together and work together and be willing to change what we're doing. Something Needs To Be Done, and he is determined to do it.

And now he will take questions. Here they are:

1. What about our raises?
2. What about my seniority?
3. What about my job protection?
4. What are you going to do if there's a teacher strike (which could happen any day)?
5. Happy workers are hard workers, and we are not happy workers.
(yes, I know that's not a question, but that seldom stops teachers)
6. I don't feel like I'm being respected.
(ditto)
7. You say most class sizes are small, but my classes are too big. What are you gonna do about that?


On and on it goes. The Supe does his best to answer all of their questions openly and honestly, without recrimination or bitterness, all the while appealing to the crowd to think of this as a shared burden and a shared challenge, for which they will have to find shared answers.

To put it simply, they are not interested.

It goes on for an hour. Not once--I'm not exaggerating: not once--does anyone talk about the students, and what they need in order to succeed, or the district as a whole, and what it needs in order to survive. Never once is there an acknowledgement that they are part of a school community or a city community, and that the problems are large and complex. Not once is there an acknowledgment that people are trying hard to make things better. The entire hour is just one long shriek of "WHAT ABOUT ME?"

I love teachers. I am a teacher. My parents were teachers. My wife is a teacher. Her parents are teachers. Believe me, I do not like bashing teachers.

But good GOD. How can people charged with instilling wisdom and insight in our young be so wildly deaf and blind?

WWGWBD?

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, whether you opposed the war or supported the war, or even if you once felt one way and now feel the other way (you flip-flopper), the truth of this glorious flowchart is inescapable and real.

I tried to paste it in here, but I can't get it sized right and legible. So go see for your own self.

http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2007-02-18%20--%20what%20would%20george%20w%20bush%20do.html