The Tao of the Classroom

When I was in my teens, people started paying attention to vocabulary as a means of social change. So, I would say that I grew up in an era of what has come to be called Political Correctness. And, like anything that asks you to pay attention to yourself, we reacted strongly against it. We would much rather someone else be responsible than to take responsibility. But I remember going through J. Fennimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer and finding first-hand how we described Indigenous people (and he was seen as sympathetic). I bring this up, because my son pointed out to me that we seem to have arrived at a point where the precision of language is working against us. For anyone who knows me, there is clarity on how hard that is to write down. But let’s look at this.

In a time when racial, gender, and economic restrictions are being examined at levels heretofore unseen in this country along with a need to understand from a variety of perspectives, I have found we are edging out opportunities for growth. To illustrate, I will use myself to avoid liability litigation from others.

I became aware of issues around race, gender and class very slowly. I grew up in a white, middle class rural community. My contact to race was Soul Train, I had no idea that was any other way to look at gender than men & women seeking each other and economic disparity was addressed with food baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was the problem. But I was blessed to become part of the solution.

I have already posted where I have ended. But the key here, in this piece, is to make clear people tolerated me saying some really stupid things (stupid from my perspective today), informed me why they were ineffective and helped me to see a bigger picture. In the same way we are becoming clear that poverty is a reason, not an excuse, we need to have the same patience with the privileged. I know we want to make someone the bad guy. But my experience is that the opposite of war is not peace, it is collaboration. In the same vein as I would never tell a rape victim that she should forgive her rapist, I would never put forth that people of color need to just share a coke and hug with the racist in the neighborhood and life will get better. But the fact is, my job, as a “white guy aware,” is to connect with those folks, and get them to see a bigger picture.

What I am asking is that, in education, in social media, in discussions anywhere, try not to jump down someone’s throat because they use the wrong nomenclature. Not everyone may be as educated, as aware, as informed as you, but their heart may be just as big. Minds are changed through compassion and that works in all directions. I am blessed because someone, actually several someones, took the time to walk me through. Don’t be pissed because someone chooses not to, just keep moving. But the more conversations we can have where the emphasis is on precision rather than correctness, the more chance we have to move people to a new level of understanding. And THAT is what I want in my classroom.

There is a common misconception in the public in general and in education specifically. It would sound something like this: “African-American history is for black kids,” or “”Women’s Studies is for girls.” It has plenty of other incarnations, but you get the drift. If you are going to be a teacher ANYWHERE, you need to have a firm grasp on the concept of cultural competencies. I am going to focus on an African-American perspective here for the sake of space, but you should substitute in Latino/Latina studies, Gender studies, Native Studies, and so on.

See, the idea that these specific focus perspectives only serve the folks that fit that category is what brings responses such as “all lives matter” to things like the Black Lives Matter campaign. We (meaning here, American culture) want to believe that we are inclusive, but we aren’t and we get defensive when we are called out on it. I feel safe in saying that because, if I stopped most any white person on the street and asked who Nat Turner was, we would have less than a 1% pass rate. (Of course to be fair, not many can id the Bill of Rights either.) The point is, integration in America has always meant that “minorities” become like the Euro-based culture. The more accurate word would assimilation, you know, like the Borg.

The problem is, I was raised with phrases like “the great melting pot” and “all the colors of the rainbow,” so that is what I expect. I also have come to realize, as an adult, that that perspective is much more productive and functional than the reality we are attempting to continue with this bury-our-heads-in-the-sand mentality. My life is richer and of more value to the community as a whole because I have opened myself to be educated about a variety of non-Euro-based cultures that exist here in the US. Never have I felt this a threat to my Irish/Scottish American heritage. I grow larger, not smaller by being inclusive rather than exclusive.

We need to find a way in American education to teach about all of our history and be able to point out problems and not feel like we have to see ourselves as terrible because we made mistakes. Humanity as a whole has not done wonderfully well in the morality category. Accepting that you are not perfect is a good way to start making a change. Ask anyone in AA.

I live in Michigan and our largest metropolitan area is Detroit. Currently the Detroit Public Schools have been out of local control and run by the State for the last 6 years because of their low performance ratings and their high level of debt. In the time the State has been helping, the performance ratings have dropped and the debt has risen. Now, our business minded governor has proposed creating a second Detroit school District. The original one, funded by the taxpayers in Detroit will simply exist to pay down the half billion dollar debt. The second one will be run by an emergency manager that will have sweeping powers. (You may have heard about Emergency Managers in Michigan if you followed how well they took care of Flint’s water recently.) But the reason I bring all this up is because none of these actions handle the problem. They address saving money, but there is absolutely zero in here about saving schools. So we will cut school budgets, impoverish school staffs, possibly privatize several schools (a resounding failure thus far in Detroit) and no one of it addresses the real problem. Why?

Because no one knows what the real problem is. Trust me, if they did, they would be accepting their Noble Prize as they descended from their gold-plated cloud. Education in Michigan is a mess. People who should have a strong voice have been locked out of conversations by a legislature that is more worried about avoiding blame than actually getting something done. Our legislature makes sloths look like Richard Simmons. They won a court case with Highland Park schools that stated, essentially, as the major funder of the Public School system, they have no responsibility for the quality of that system, or to even provide a focus for what education should look like.

This is what happens when people want to run schools like a business. SCHOOLS ARE NOT BUSINESSES.  Just because there is money involved doesn’t mean it is a business. In a business, if your product or service doesn’t sell or work, you can close your doors and try something else. But we can’t do that with schools unless people are willing to stop have children until we get it all figured out.

Now I refuse to believe that the best and brightest in this State cannot find some processes that will allow for all kids to have a decent shot at a quality education regardless of where they live. But we are going to have to put making a profit on it aside and we are going to have to put political agendas aside. We are going to have focus, step way outside the box and fund appropriately whatever we come with. Because there isn’t anything more important in the long run than an educated and informed populace.