What's the Matter with Those Guys??

going around and a friend says she's going to send it to me so I've been thinking up my answer.

The email asks you to name six things that are "different" about you.

Now, to look at me and my friend, you'd think we were typical suburban Moms, driving around in SUVs and station wagons, all wrapped up in the kids and paying the bills and etc. So how could either of us have six things that make us "different?"

One of my six things is that I am an atheist. Friend is a Catholic, so this leads to some interesting conversations. Remarkable mainly for their amicable and yet probing tone, I'd say.

Now, if you are running for President, you probably won't be an atheist. So, on some level, you believe in what I consider to be some really strange fantasies. And you propose to run the country I live in!

But, unless I just don't vote, my choices are likely going to be between one slightly less religious Christian over a slightly more religious Christian.

And I've got to figure out if your odd beliefs are going to make it possible for you to make rational enough decisions about things that will impact me and my family.

Now, another thing that makes me "different" is that I am a homeschooler. Actually, we are a family of unschoolers. If you don't know what that means, you can look it up. There is a lot of information in the tubes about unschooling -- and some of it is even true.

But for our purposes here, the point would be that I do not send my children to the local public school.

Not because I send them to the local church school, which would be the norm around here. But because, after trying public school and after a great deal of thought and study and discussion, this is the path we have chosen.

But not many Presidential candidates are going to be homeschoolers. And they sure aren't going to be unschoolers!

So, I have to look at each candidate and try to figure out what the heck they mean by their statements about "education" and how what they mean might impact me and mine. How are their do-gooder or "it takes a village" or other sentiments likely to restrict my choices. If at all.

Everyone's for "education" and everyone has their ideas about what to do to "fix it" or what the sources of any problems are. And they'll all have to mouth the appropriate amount of pro-education platitudes to get the teachers' unions support. Or try.

(If they are Dems anyway, and who the heck else am I going to be looking at really -- because this is one area where Dems make me look at Reps! But then I quickly look back, after I get a load of what religious wackiness looks like and what anti-choice thinking could lead to. . . )

But from among the Dems, what sort of noises could I be looking at that might make me think a Dem means much of anything when it comes to education? I honestly don't know. As a "different" sort of Dem Mom, I don't know which Dem is likely to get the idea that I want to be left alone to homeschool in peace and to see my tax dollars and others going to help any and all children and young adults who want to improve their lot in the world through learning.

Which, and this is where I think all the pols end up just being full of hot air, is not really just about racking up more credit hours.

So, community college. Sure. All for it. But I need a candidate to tell me what he really means when he talks about making more community college available to more students. What strings are attached? Who is putting together what? Who's paying for what? Blithe offerings of "more for all" isn't enough anymore.

Which isn't to say that I could vote Republican. But I want to hear details from any candidate who wants to talk about education.

Like, how does "more community college" tie in with the candidates energy policy? (Because, you see, I think it should. . .)

OK, off to check on DH and try to think of some more ways I am "different."

Nance

About being different:
What about being married to, and living as an equal partner with, the father of your children? These days that makes you and me (and Liza, for example) quite a minority, and then we're a mere sliver of that group because within that relationship we are strong and independent individuals, not "helpmeets" on home assignment from heaven to serve patriarchs and raise an ideological army.

About why school teaches the wrong lessons:
It's not the curriculum, evolution versus whatever, or how many years of PE to require. It's the Socialization, doesn't everyone across the political spectrum agree? It's the attitudes, beliefs and default behaviors that hierarchical, standardized school "teaches" our impressionable young kids -- unquestioning submission to ritual,authority and the clock; form over function, FTE over family, NCLB over community; individuals young and old are (interchangeable) numbers who serve the institution rather than the other way around, etc.

Such lessons fit so seamlessly with socialized, organized religion that I marvel daily at how people who see the potential dangers in one, can't see it in the other. Why aren't we alarmed to action by the way fundamentalists naturally take to all that school structure and control and the clock, and rote and ritual, authority and punishment. Public or not, they LOVE schooling and rules for every situation, at least those I know, because it's comfortable, it's what they have been taught about right and wrong (don't think or argue, just follow the laws set down for you!) and such schoolish lessons are the very things that I worry give them the ultimate advantage in the struggle to govern us all . . .

we could worry about. (And I think personally we run into a disproportionately large number of them in hsing circles and that may warp our perceptions about the real influence they have. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking. )

But moving to which political candidate I can get enthused about. . .

Which one, if any, has any idea that learning is separate from schooling? That education is an important thing and was long before unions or Christianity or science classwork.

Who is willing to stand up and say he sees the connections between putting up with cruelty in the classroom (today's FCAR list had a pip of a post from a parent wondering how to help his gifted son who is deeply distraught over the unrelenting pressure of the FCAT -- one tiny example of the dehumanizing circumstances we put children through every day) and calling that progress because more kids manage to survive meaningless testing (or drop out but never mind about them.. . ) and what other cruelties we are willing to put up with.

War, yep, that's one. People freezing -- to death! -- in the United States. Every winter. It happens every winter and we put up with it.

Homelessness and hunger and lack of healthcare -- and we put up with it.

Which candidate can learn from any of this and lead us to value learning so we can do better by our fellow citizens.

I'm not talking about giving everyone a spanking new house or free food or anything "radical" like that. I'm talking about ideas like the original suggestion that community colleges could be better utilized.

Yep, they could be. But not in the oh-so-limited worldview that hopes every Mom out there can get her AA so she can be a nurse some day.

There has to be more to out abilities than this sort of paltry response!

Which political candidate is brave enough to be bold, to have big ideas, to inspire long-term thinking, and value learning and education for all they bring to us -- not just determining the teachers' salaries when they can drill the kids well enough on this year's crappy test.

Nance

I think I may have to nominate Nance as my next progressive candidate!

Public education is so much more than school, and public school is so much less than education.

That's a very thought-provoking statement. I'd like to see that fleshed out a little bit more.

just picked up a psychology book titled "Power versus Force" and another one called "Choice Theory: a New Psychology of Personal Freedom." The contention of the former is I think, that if you have real power to attract and influence, then you don't need force, and vice versa, that using force (as the government does with compulsory education?) is an admission you don't have power. Interesting, kinda like insisting school and education aren't the same thing -- I tended to use power and force as synonyms until today, I think.

The subtitle of Power versus Force is "the hidden determinants of human behavior."

No doubt I'll blog both books as they might relate to school and education, but I ought to read them and think about them first, I suppose!

I grew up poor, actually in a Nineteenth Century environment. In the early days my dad plowed with a footburner (one mule pulling and he holding the blade steady). We had two rooms with tarpaper siding. Typical for the time on a Wyoming homestead. School was the good part. I was fortunate to get to college on a wing and a prayer. Mainly, I was so adament against taking a fifth year of high school to become a teacher that I got my way. In our one-room school I saw how hard teachers had it, and decided I would have no part of it. If you recall I posted a diary about being an FDR Democrat since 1933.
College was interesting and at least it brushed some of the tumbling weeds off me. In the 40s I worked in international student exchange, took non-credit courses at Columbia Teachers College and finally found some "education" which I liked. Ted Brameld taught night courses at the New School. Check him out. Because I was associated with the American-Scandinavian Foundation I knew about the folk schools in Denmark. They are the model for Myles Horton, who is remembered for his union work in Tennessee. Ultimately, he became an enabler to the civil rights literacy program. He, like other community activists, know that the learner is the teacher, who may be able to polish the issues at hand, but the real teachers are the community members who have a need. (Similar to what is happening on a blog of homeschoolers, beehandlers, or whoever.) Not to slight dedicated religious people I will also mention the Ecumenical Institute where I attended weekend seminars. They were four Methodist preachers, fresh out of divinity school, with their wives encamped in an old Catholic Seminary on the west side of Chicago. Theirs was a gestalt method. It was a little too regimented in some ways, but it was not parochiaL Good things came from what they did in a small section which they called Fifth City. "Womb to tomb" was their motto when it came to education. Proof of their effectiveness came when Dr. King was killed. A lot of the west side burned but nothing happened in Fifth City. A glimmerinc of all this bootstrap learning came to me years before. I met a young Mexican who had been sent to study agriculture. He was himself mostly Indian and was to help Mexicans prosper. He told me about the "each one, teach one" program they had.
Bootstrapping is still beng talked about. Only last week I saw former US Representative Badillo (first Puerto Rican in the House) tell about how he has learned more about how Latinos need to learn. He admitted that bi-lingual education was his early idea which he later decided was not a good one. Now 75, and still handsome, he continues to take part in New York City affairs.
These are some of my ramblings. If I have a philosophy for education, it is that one can enable the willing to learn. Stringent teaching, planned propaganda, and most sermons have one thing in common. They are an exercise in arrogance. Just before I left Chicago I earned a Masters in Vocational Guidance from the College of Education at Roosevelt Unversity (considered to be a sister institution of the New School). Because I didn't have a teaching certificate, I could not take the degree in School Counselling. Teachers from the Chicago public schools were my classmates, nost of them very bright and terribly anxious to make brownie points in the system. Although their intentions were probably benign, it is my opinion that school counselors spend most of their time "telling" rather than "communicating" with students. The couse I had to take was on administration and I almost suffered from foot-in-mouth disease. The young man was bucking for a principalship, I guess. He taught nights while finishing his Ph.D. As I looked back on what he considered to be education, I think of the fellow who took over as CEO of the Chicago Board of Education at the turn of the Century. So you know what I think of Nicklebee, NCLB. Lamar Alexander is coming up for reelection in 08. He's the fool who was adamant about having no Dept of Educ before he became its Secretary. It's big business. My Senator is going to hear from me. He grew up a few blocks from where I live. His daddy worked at ALCOA. He was smart enough to get a company scholarship to Vanderbilt, and then on for a law degree at NYU. But as a Senator, he lacks vision. Better than the one we just retired, but that's not saying much.
All education is local, all learning is needed or else forgotten, all posturing about education is enough to drive a parent crazy, and all diatribes like this one will do no good.

I'm so perturbed over federalizing the curriculum of every child in the country that I become useless to a good discussion.
So let's start here: Tools: computers with multi-media capabilities; instant communication between board members, parents, and community organizations. Venues: libraries, museums, and theaters. (Note I do not say school buildings.) Personnel: Large numbers of highly trained professionals in various fields; experts in learning differences; good public health systems for a healthy school start.
Our schools have always had to exist on a base of conformity. With high cost of bus transportation, heating buildings, and new structures for new neighborhoods, the public is strapped for funds. This requires a philosophy of conformity. It was made worse when larger buildings were built, making assembly line scheduling even more necessary.
How could there be more collegiality in the learning experience? It harkens to the old parochial system of the Catholic Church. The coach, the pastor, the teacher all worked out of the neighborhood school. The Catholics can't do that for their own followers any more and stil support a system which runs all the way to the Vatican. With modern life in the US, it is not reasonable to expect that all persons of the same faith live in the same community. So keep the religious function separate. We would be left with a community system. Actually it exists in limited ways in rural areas in the United States now. But it could also exist in large and small cities. So we start with a building which might have been a school and which can be used for community meetings at night, elections of local and national officials, and is first and foremost a learning center. The community will learn how to establish rules with the governor so they can conduct their own school. Finances will need to be worked out with the state, but they will be less than the current system. The kids walk or bike to school. Parents formerly driving across town for the soccer game can help in their own neighborhood. Now, even in small towns like where I live, the children don't have a chance to play with each other. (I will tell you another time about what I did in my neighborhood when I still had the house.)
In the 60s the catchword was "anomie." "Growing up Absurd" was a popular book. I asked one baby boomer if he had read it. He replied he didn't have time to read it because he was doing it. The "me too" generation is what will wreck the world if we don't learn to help youth. They have all the advantages before them on one device or another, and yet they search for a friendly emoticum on MySpace because there is no one to play with when they get home from school.
On a summer Sunday afternoon, I used to walk to my schoolhouse and read the encyclopedia. What children have now makes me wish I could have been born in 1975. I spent hours looking at the fly-specked globe with the blue water and some pink, yellow and green blobs called countries. Somehow I got the notion that no line on a map kept people from seeing who was on the other side of it unless there was a tall fence. It came natural for me to study international relations. "International" is hardly an operative framework. Nations have different meanings than before. The Balkans couldn't hold together. And now we have Iraq, which was glued together by empires looking for oil.
The underschooled tend to rely on what they believe is god given. With more schooling the territory stretches further. Even Emerson started by teaching in a church school.
Politically, on this globe, there will be demarcations and they can be called nations if they want to be called that. They may need some trade treaties and local currencies, but they will know that "globalization" is here to stay. I think of the world as a great big neighborhood, with some uppity people, a lot of super ones, and a few too rough to love. If my mind could take me from a dry farm on the prairie to cyberspace in only 85 years, just think what a child born in this decade may experience! Well, we can't imagine it. What we can understand, however, is that technical innovation has so outstripped personal relations between family members, community members, national citizens, and world citizens that we are literally at each other's throats. Why can't we learn to get along? Because we are divided into organization charts, and we have not been able to learn enough problem-solving skills to help each other.
Even global business is learning faster than politicians about the give and take needed by strangers in a strange land. I haven't been to Europe recently. But I am very curious how things are going with their diversity. They seem to have the need to make laws about respecting people who are different. Did you ever think how futile it is to make a new hate-crime law each time a new group is hassled? There should be one law (there is--to not hassle other folks.)
During Viet Nam there was sensitivity training and Esalen. Don't tell the educational hierarchy or they'll repeat that mistake. You know all that stuff about the first 6 are the character years, the next 8 are the social ones, and then comes style with high school. We are talking culture. And I believe it doesn't change with a smattering of style-rehab. This "takes a village" has a place somewhere. Although to tell you truth I haven't read Hillary's book since it first came out. A little African-American girl in my neighborhood begged me to let her keep it. That child had a rough start. Last I heard she is making it.

I should probably point out to start with that I didn't go to school in this country (or American overseas schools) for more than three years, so I've had the benefit of getting such education as I have in Europe, mainly Germany and the UK.

And frankly, the results I see here are despair-inducing. In Europe, it's perfectly normal for people to speak several languages, be deeply familiar with the classics of their own language (and others), in short, to have an awareness of their own and neighboring cultures that America simply does not. That's broad-brush, but seems a reasonable depiction of things as they are.

It's easy to blame the school system for this, but I think it misses the point to do so, because there's more to it. As much as we like to talk about education, our culture doesn't value it. One small clue: I'm not aware in either French or German (or British English) of a grade-school slur comparable to 'four-eyes' or 'egghead'. Vice versa, the jock culture of our high schools isn't duplicated elsewhere, with the possible exception of Britain's Public Schools (which are of course private). The direct result of this, I'd argue, is that the heroes of our culture aren't authors or scientists (as in France), but sports and entertainment stars. Consider the implications of the word 'star' in itself, and what it implies about the social position we afford those so designated.

Another factor is what we expect of our kids. In my background, it was expected of me, with no opt-out clause to suit my personal desire, to understand Goethe and Beethoven, Thomas Mann and Julius Caesar. There were absolute standards of cultural literacy, and if you didn't like them, well, too bad for you, because they weren't (and aren't) going away, and you had better measure up. This was on the level of knowing which fork to use for salad: expected.

By contrast, what we do in America is this: we let our kids say what it is that they want to learn. If they're not interested, fine. If it's too hard or too boring to put together a sentence that qualifies as 'English', sure, fine, whatever floats your boat, kid.

Thing is, it wasn't always thus. Up until roughly the 1960s, New York (for example) had a school system primarily focused on making the kids of immigrants into Americans. This system was the envy of the world, and produced world-class results. This because, in my opinion, it wasn't 'child-focused', but standards-focused.

Nowadays, by contrast, we're trying to make the whole process as painless as possible, and leave out the really hard stuff. We don't, for example, expect our kids to be able to recite Shakespeare, let alone the KJV. Too boring, that, too rote, and we're past that, you know.

And as a result, we're churning out millions of morons who think that our culture (and by extension, our society) ultimately exist for their gratification. That's the problem right there. It's not the schools that are at issue, it's us and our expectations.

The US is a young nation. It has, relative to population, so much space. And, despite the way many Americans might characterize us, it acts politically in defensive mode. From the time of Monroe until the latest hour of criticism against Chavez or Castro, officialdom worries about whether we have what it takes to be us. Ridiculous, perhaps. However, we exhibit the swagger of adolescence with an attempt to produce certainties in a society. (But why did we have to have a poster boy for president?)
Brag subjects range from pizza with real cheese to sexy cars to "diversity." Diversity, turned on its head, comes out as "How do I stack up?" Watch your language and don't pull a Biden or a Kerry. Kerry's "joke" had truth. If you don't get an education, the only thing you'll know how to do is join the army. That highlights an element of what is wrong with federal education. The NCLB act has a provision requiring those who accept government funds to allow military recruiters into the schools. As for Biden, I'll let him parse the word "clean."
Coming from the part of the country where Alan Simpson is a living symbol, I understand how people are anxious to conform only to stay on the right side of the law. That's not to say the percentage of bigots, roughnecks, and downright outlaws in Wyoming is higher than in other states. But it does allow a movie hero to say "Smile when you say that, pardner."
Aren't we afraid of talking about class? And don't politicians make points out of that fear? Maybe we should just have education. (Remember that my definition of learning does not emphasize the institution of school.) Education, or learning if you prefer, should mean that a citizen can mature to take care of his/her needs and those of the family. Business will jump if they can't find workers who know basic arithmetic and writing skills. A particular society will judge its members by what extra conversational and athletic skills they have. I expect even some of those ornery Wyomingites like Shakespeare. I have to confess I didn't get to Beethoven until arriving in Iowa. And I guess there are quite a few New Yorkers, born and bred, who have never been to Lincoln Center. BUT. Now let's mention the E-age.
I sit out here in what many consider to be redneck country and exult at PBS's Lincoln Center events. Or I can turn on C-SPAN2 weekends and hear what authors have to say about their books. And of course my trusty little radio can play a CD with classical music as I drift off to sleep.
Progressive is a part of doing what you want to do, giving the other fellow a chance to do what he needs, and recognizing how public and private organizations must exist in order to encourage us all to be thinking people.
Problem solving. Like what we are addressing here. Problem solving in regard to putting facts, manners, and some "culture" into little kids until they are old enough to survive on their own is very important. Just how much we want the solving to be done by the likes of Margaret Spellings and how much we want governors to do it and how much parents and local school boards do--that is the question.
Instant communication, cheap air travel, and a chance to learn can take care of what goes forward. And all us closet teachers, thinking we are political wizards, will perhaps be able to see what's coming ahead. As a little kid, when I got hot and bothered about something, I was responded to by my dad who said I'd never know anything about it a hundred years from now. True. But some of us just can't stop wondering about what is in store for "posterity."