The Unexpected Battleground

Censorship.

It's an ugly word for an ugly variation on what seem to be the constant twin human companions of ignorance and intolerance.

As a teacher, a mother, a book lover and someone who is slowly, slowly trying to inch professionally into the world of children's literature, censorship feels like glass shards beneath my bare feet--painful, inexplicable and one would think unavoidable.

But maybe not.

My censorship rant today was triggered by children's author Kate Messner, whose new book is the newest in a long line of censorship victims.

Messner's book, The Seventh Wish, is about a middle school girl named Charlie who, like so many kids her age, is trying to navigate between the  worries and joys of preadolescence, and the struggles of dealing with drug addiction within her family.  

Kate Messner, a former middle school teacher and author of countless wonderful, award-winning middle-school books, found herself staring directly into the  eye of censorship this week when a school in Vermont cancelled her author visit less than 24 hours before the event, and sent back all their ordered library copies of The Seventh Wish.  

The school had arranged for Messner to visit back in January, and had received a copy of the book at that time as well.   They had a full six months to read the book, to consider the subject matter and perhaps reach out the Messner to discuss themes in the book.

And yet they waited until less than 24 hours before her visit to cancel and return the books.

I can tell you the "why" of this very easily.

The school  most likely announced Messner's visit and shared the title of her new book.  A concerned parent (or parents) discovered the subject matter in the book, bristled, perhaps gathered together other like-minded parents and took their concerns to the librarian or principal.

My rant is not about parent rights, or about dismissing parent concerns.  Parents have the right to guide their own children as they see fit whether I or anyone else agrees with them or not.

My rant is about exploring the path increasingly less-taken.
The path of reason, logic, tolerance and reality.

As Messner eloquently says in her blog post,

"We don’t serve only our own children. We don’t serve the children of 1950. We don’t serve the children of some imaginary land where they are protected from the headlines. We serve real children in the real world...And whether you teach in a poor inner city school or a wealthy suburb, that world includes families that are shattered by opioid addiction right now. Not talking about it doesn’t make it go away. It just makes those kids feel more alone."

It is a huge mistake--and a pointless exercise--to try to build a world for our children that only reflects one reality.   The real world is there and whether we like it or not as parents and teachers, far, far closer to our children than we probably know.  

But we aren't powerless in the face of the real world.  We have, if we choose to use it, the powers of discussion and empathy.  And we have books to open us up to using these powers.

Part of the lexicon of children's literature uses the analogy of "windows" and "mirrors".   Children and young adults need both.  Sometimes they need mirrors--reflections of their own lives that break down feelings of isolation and trigger self-reflection, discussion and at times change.   Other times they need windows--explorations into worlds that are not their own, so that they can open their hearts and minds up to the people and situations around them.  

Which brings us back to the question of whether or not Messner's newest book is appropriate.

I would say yes.

Is it appropriate for all readers?

Well, I'd have to answer that question with another question:  Is any book appropriate for all readers?  Of course not.  Not all readers are Harry Potter fans.  Not all readers are Judy Blume fans.  And not all readers will pick up The Seventh Wish  and feel an instant connection.    But then again,  some young readers may need to read this book--as a window or a mirror--and not know it.   Just as some 11-, 12- or 13-year old girls (or boys)  didn't know they needed to read Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me Margaret until after they had read it.  

We are treading a dangerous line in censorship where the demands of the few are starting to overpower the needs and rights of the many.  Our current politics are fraught with this poisonous mind-set, so it is no surprise that it is trickling into other areas as well.  

I fully support a parent's right to decide what they want their child to read and not read.  But that decision needs to apply to their own child.   Teachers and librarians are almost always willing to move heaven and earth to offer an alternative reading choice.  

The students at the school in Vermont that refused Messner's book may continue onward in their young lives without reading The Seventh Wish.  Concerned parents will feel vindicated.

And students for whom Messner's book would've been a mirror  into their own lives will continue, possibly feeling alone, ashamed and/or overwhelmed.  And students for whom Messner's book would've been a window into the life of perhaps friends or family members will continue in their own lives, feeling worried and confused.

And the difficult, challenging topics that parents, teachers, students and all of us need to open up to the light of reason, logic, tolerance and reality will all be shoved a bit further into the dark.

Thanks censorship.
Thanks a lot.






You can read Kate Messner's original blog post here at: http://www.katemessner.com/the-seventh-wish/

The Memorial Day Question

And so we have reached another Memorial Day.  The parades are parading.  The flags are waving.

The memories are unfolding.

The memories.

For that is what Memorial Day is, right?  "Memory" is the etymological and emotional root of "Memorial Day."

And I, like many other Americans, am remembering my own family members and friends who served in the military.

But this morning I also awoke with a question, nestled beside my memories.

Exactly what are we memorializing?

The answers to this question can be found in thousands of news stories, carved into marble headstones, etched onto dedicated art works.  The answers can be heard in interviews and speeches and in music.

We are memorializing pain.

And sacrifice.

And loss.

We are memorializing the cost of war, the price we as a nation are convinced we must pay for peace.

We are memorializing the bravery that everyday men and women had to (and have to) pull from deep within themselves to meet unimaginable challenges.

We are paying tribute to the soldiers who did not return home. And we are paying tribute to the soldiers who did return home, but burdened with haunting visions, missing limbs, wounds visible and invisible.

Memorial Day is a day for reflection and gratitude of course, but it is also a day to deeply consider why this pain and sacrifice, this loss and bravery continue to be demanded.

It is  a day to recommit ourselves to a vision of peace.

This morning I woke up wondering why our national and personal memorials to the burdens of war and conflict are not balanced by an equally dedicated celebration of peace.  A day where the speeches and editorials, celebrations and debates center on personal, national and global peace.

I woke up wondering if we, as a nation and world, could even envision a world at peace.

Not a perfect world, for perfection is an unattainable goal.

But a world without bloody conflict, without red-button trigger fingers trembling over nuclear arsenals.  A world without sudden marketplace car bombs.  A world where we no longer had child soldiers or refugees risking their lives on leaky escape boats.

A world where we cared for each other amid our differences instead of killing and wounding each other because of them.

Whether explicit or subconscious,  peace is the rock-hard reason behind the  military sacrifices we remember on this day.

Peace MUST be the reason.

As I watch my fellow Americans blur their Memorial day awareness, sadness and contemplation behind red, white and blue buntings, bright flags, barbecues and parades, I wonder if we've forgotten--if we're no longer really aware of what it is we are remembering and why.

Once we lose sight of this, can we really ever achieve peace?

Defining Leaders

I was driving home today and, as usual, NPR radio voices filled the car.

The story playing during my drive was centered on leadership lessons taught at West Point Naval Academy.  A male senior cadet was describing a serious mistake he had made during the week-long survival training required for all West Point students before graduation.

It was the last day of survival training and he was cleaning his gun (which, for the exercise, contained only blank rounds).  An overlooked round had remained in the chamber and went off--a serious no-no in a training situation designed to prepare soldiers to move undetected through potential enemy territory.

The discussion turned to the lengthy lecture this cadet received from his superior officers, and the lessons of leadership contained within.

The NPR reporter began listing those traits that mark an effective leader.  

As the list rolled on, I realized that the list of traits being described in a military setting was precisely the same list of traits that mark an effective teacher.


Because yes, teachers are leaders.  
Effective teachers  know how to lead as well as guide.

But....

what about effective leaders?

Perhaps, just perhaps...

the most effective leaders...

teach.

Effective leaders should know how to teach and guide.

Leaders such as the President of the United States.

I propose this for your thinking enjoyment:

Could it be that the most effective Presidents--leaders--the United States has had have also been teachers?

I'm not going to start listing names here, because that opens up an inevitable battle of opinion that I tend to shy away from.


Perhaps the mark of a great potential President is in his/her skills as an educator.

As we approach yet another Presidential election,  maybe one of the questions we should ask ourselves about the candidates is this:  What would this candidate teach me?  Teach us as a country?

If you wouldn't want a candidate as a teacher, chances are you won't want him/her as the leader of your country either.  

A pretty good litmus test if you ask me.

If you don't think you could stand being in a classroom for 8 hours with a candidate, what makes you think four years of this person as the leader of your country would be any better?

Food for thought my friends.

Between

Once upon a time there was a person who lived between.

Between now and then.

Between happy and sad.

Between full and empty.

Everyone accepted that this person was between.

“That person is perfectly between. So perfectly balanced.”

But this person did not feel balanced. 

In being neither here nor there, this person felt stuck.

“I feel stuck”  The person said.  “stuck in the middle.”

This person was the middle child of three.

This person had brownish middle-colored hair.

This person ate middleish foods—plain peanut butter sandwiches and scrambled eggs and buttered noodles.  And when this person ate, this person was both a little too full, but wanted to eat just a little bit more.  

 This person read books that  usually ended too soon, yet had storylines that went on too long.

This person got tired, so tired of between.

This person longed to feel furious about something.    Or to love something blindly and completely.  This person wanted to feel absolutely stuffed with food, or absolutely ravenous. 

Living in a world of self-imposed gray middleness, this person wanted vibrant color. 

One day this person opened the closet to reveal shirts and pants in every shade and design of gray.

The person sighed.

“Sigh.”  

The person turned around and went to the desk where the gray computer waited.

The person turned on the computer.  A flood of everything poured from the screen, and the person struggled against the tide of color and opinion and passion. 

Then the person, with held breath, typed in the word

LIFE

And hit return.

A thousand sounds came from the computer speakers—

Songs and voices

Bird chirps and elephant roars

The humming of engines and pounding of drums

And the whir of a million people walking and eating

And hugging and talking.

The person was overwhelmed and gobsmacked.

And so happy.

So happy.

The person added LIFE to the online shopping cart

And typed in the credit card number

Digit by painstaking digit

Because the person wanted to get it just right.

Then the person waited in the world of gray

Wearing the gray clothes and saying

Between words, eating between

Foods that were not quite satisfying.

In the fourth week of the promised three to five

LIFE arrived. 

The person looked at the box

And was terrified to open it.

What if it didn’t fit quite right?

What if it made the person dizzy?

What if the person had an allergic reaction to life 

And had to send it back?

The person got the scissors

And painstakingly snipped each piece of tape

That held the box of LIFE closed.

The person snipped the last piece of tape

And the box sprang open.

LIFE exploded everywhere.

LIFE spilled onto the floor and ran down the walls.

LIFE filled the cupboards and saturated the pillows.

The person was covered head to toe in

Brilliant, blinding, noisy, imperfect, delicious

LIFE.   

It was the most painful, wonderful feeling

That the person had ever experienced.

And when the person threw open the closet door

The clothes inside were sparkling rainbows of

Color and texture.

And when the person opened the cupboards and refrigerator,

a million conflicting flavors and scents poured into the

person’s mouth and nose.

The person staggered into living room and 

Fell back onto the sofa that sagged

Beneath so much LIFE.

The person’s eyes closed and dreams and fantasies

epiphanies and terrors assaulted the person’s mind

And imagination.

And it was wonderful.

WONDERFUL.

Wonderful Life.

A Mini-Rant in May: Education's Sweet Irony

The Merriam Webster Dictionary offers three definitions for the oft-misused word "irony".  The third definition reads:

" incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result"

Boom.  American education in a nutshell.

I was inspired to look up the word "ironic" after a dear friend, and incredibly talented and dedicated fellow teacher underwent the process of taking a state-required teaching test to prove that she is worthy of being a teacher.

This test involved the following hurdles:

1. The test was 7 hours long.
2. A retinal scan was required to enter the test.
3. To go to the bathroom test takers had to have their right hands scanned.
4. The test was entirely computerized, composed of 4 long essays and 200 critical thinking questions.
5. The testing site could only accommodate 14 test-takers at a time.

How ironic.

In order to become a teacher and stay a teacher, one must undergo the same grueling, dehumanizing, disconnected testing process that all good teachers try so hard to counterbalance when teaching.

Good teachers try to humanize; tests such as these dehumanize.

Good teachers strive to build critical thinking skills, empathy, a global perspective and broad knowledge to prepare their students for life.  Tests are a flat, emotionless peek at what a student knows at that discrete moment about a specific selection of subjects.

Good teachers know that real learning is complex, full of frustrations and self-doubt as well as joy and growing confidence.   For the majority of people, tests are all about frustration and self-doubt.

Good teachers know that achievement is more about the process of learning than the product.  Tests are entirely product-driven, reducing the complexities of learning into a number.

How ironic.

Testing companies, like any company, are profit-driven.

Their job is to make money.

They make money through testing fees, selling study materials, offering test-prep classes and tutoring.

They make money by convincing us that when all of our experiences, knowledge and work have been reduced down to a single number, we are somehow worth more.

This is a horrid reduction of everything education can and should be.
And it is a huge lie.

My dear friend knows this.
I know this.
We all know this.

How ironic it is then that this lie still holds so much power over us all.

One of Two

One of Two

It was one shoe of two.

One without the other.

A fractured pair
laying upside-down there
reflected and blurred
in my car side mirror.

Why one shoe?

Why that lonely black stiletto
abandoned in the spring green grass?

Why so precariously perched
on the street curb?

Absurd.

The signal changed from red to green
and I rolled away.

One shoe of two
quickly sliding from sight
and yet caught
in my thoughts.

CHM 4/22/2016

Spring Rainstorm--A poem

Spring rainstorm last night
found me driving a friend
to the emergency room
of a major Chicago hospital.

Big city emergency room
predictably
enveloping us
into endless waiting.


I was not the main event last night.

I was  a supporting character,
so I had the luxury of  waiting as a spectator,
watching the waltz of life
that paraded in and out of
the dim, stale, oatmeal-tinted waiting area.
The only spots of color
were ER red neon
and slick educational posters about HIV.

I watched the waltz from my swaybacked plastic chair--
The wheezing elderly man with a grubby bandage covering half his face.
The scared and squabbling parents of a screaming toddler.
The worried Chinese grandparents who brought in their feverish grandchild, but who spoke
only Mandarin.
The exhausted-amused parents whose son had shoved a ball bearing up his left nostril.

A pre-teen boy with a broken foot.
A basketball player with a broken finger.
A young girl with strep.
Tiny feverish babies.

And us.

The partners in this dance were the staff members-
nurses, doctors, EMT's, firefighters-
who stepped into and out of each individual swirl
on the ER dance floor.

This dance was far more familiar to them, and each of them dealt
with the rise and fall of fear/pain/anger/sorrow
in his or her own way.

Ambivalence.
Empathy.
Brusque efficiency.
Humor.
Compassion.

It was a dance with no beginning and no end
as the dancers themselves appeared then departed
leaving to be eventually and inevitably blown
into the spring rainstorm
outside.

CHM 3/2016