Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

We live within circles of family and friends. Happiness and wellbeing depend on the quality and endurance of those circles. Our ability to learn and grow is effected by those circles. The gospel hymn borrowed for the title of this post asks the universal question of whether our circle will remain unbroken when we pass into the next life. The hymn expresses our imagination and faith.

We seek a circle of pleasure, learning and stories - a circle of people who share and build a common history.  We become more and more as our circle grows and endures.

Tell me a story.

Teach me.

Listen to my story.

Let me teach you.

We can be friends.

Maybe forever.

I’ll remember you.

I am because of you.

Family Cemetery in Montford Cove

We stood in the old family cemetery in Montford Cove looking over the layers of hills, ridges and mountains toward a distant range of mountains. We were supposed to be working with the crew cleaning up the cemetery.  Rodney’s chainsaw buzzed at the edge of the tree line. He and James tackled a big pine hanging over the graves. Rodney manned the saw and James pulled a rope to keep the tree from falling on the graves. I was more interested in browsing the encyclopedia of Don’s 90-year-old mind.

“Is that Hickory Nut Mountain, that biggest one there?” I pointed toward the mountains to the west.

“That first one, the little one closest to us, is Oak Hill.” He said, then went to naming others to the left and right. “That most distant mountain, that’s the Hickory Nut Range, runs from Lake Lure up to Black Mountain.  I used to hunt deer all over that range.”

“Oak Hill, wasn’t that the name of the school down there?” I pointed toward the intersection of Bill’s Creek Road and the Cove Road.

“Yea, but the first Oak Hill School was right down there,” Uncle Don pointed to the base of the hill below the cemetery.

Uncle Don is my access to the circle of ancestors. He is a son of my great-grandfather, George Hosea had 13 children, seven by his first wife and six by his second. Don’s grandfather and great uncles were veterans of the Civil War. Hugh and Fritz, two of his half-brothers, helped write the family history, a big circle that intersects about 100 other circles of in-law families. Mind-boggling is the mathematics of our genetic lineage. It spreads like a giant web across the centuries. But that’s just math and has nothing to do with the important circle. The stories make the circle vital to us. We keep the circle unbroken by preserving the stories.

Lydia Louisa, was the two year-old child who survived being scalped by Cherokee Indians. When the Indians returned to her father’s farm a few years later and found the girl missing half her scalp, they knelt in a circle around her, asked her to stand on a warrior’s hands and began a chant to channel her strength and endurance.

Elisabeth was the wife of James who was off with the colonial militia when British Major Patrick Ferguson marched his troops through their farm.  Elisabeth stood up to the British major and kept his troops from butchering her sheep.

Lydia Louisa’s granddaughter and namesake married John Hosea Hemphill. In 1846 they established the farm in Montford Cove that is the site of our family’s pilgrimage.

Israel Leander, the oldest son of Lydia Louisa and John Hosea, was the lieutenant who gave his chaplain a watch and a letter for his mother when he foresaw his death leading his Confederate soldiers across the battlefield at Mechanicsville, Virginia.

John Posey (J.P) was Leander’s younger brother who joined the Confederate army in the desperate days after Gettysburg, left home and disappeared into an unmarked graveyard for prisoners of war.

Posey, named for his deceased uncle (J.P), was a skilled carpenter working on George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate, who loaned Mr. Vanderbilt 50 cents so he could buy some eggs offered for sale by a woman employee.

Francis Emma, a granddaughter of John Hosea and Lydia Louis, was a young woman skilled in gymnastics and music. She joined the circus and worked as juggler, acrobat, clown and musician.
George Hosea, a grandson of John Hosea and Lydia Louisa, raised two sets of children and kept the family and farm together through the Great Depression.

Uncle Don

My great Uncle Don was George Hosea’s son who survived the European campaign of WW II and then survived a deadly fire in 1956 when he rescued the driver of wrecked fuel tanker. He, his wife, daughter and son-in-law maintain the family farm and the old cemetery.

These are just a few of the memorable stories that go on and on, most existing only in oral history. The web of stories and personalities is the circle that defines us. If we are inclined to worry about the endurance of the circle, we need to worry about a modern culture trending toward the dispersion of children across a much broader landscape where aunts, uncles and cousins are fewer in number and prone to get lost in the distant masses.

The failure of our schools has less to do with pedagogy and curriculum and more to do with the fragility of our circles. Posey, the skilled carpenter, as a younger man, taught school in the log building below the family cemetery – one teacher for students, ages 6 to 18, hardly a school we would duplicate today.  But his students belonged to a bigger and more local circle than most modern day students.  Posey’s students had many other teachers – mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and neighbors. Learning was face-to-face, hands-on and centered on facts and skills related to a smaller world.

We still sing the old hymn because we yearn for what we know we are missing:

There are loved ones in the glory 

Whose dear forms you often miss.

When you close your earthly story,

Will you join them in their bliss?

Will the circle be unbroken

By and by, by and by?

Is a better home awaiting

In the sky, in the sky?

Will the Circle Be Unbroken is a popular Christian hymn written by Ada R. Habershon with music by Charles H. Gabriel. 

Politics and Learning to Swim in Murky Waters

Image from inkcinct.com.au

You might think politics is an inappropriate topic for a blog about learning and living; but, like most things in life, politics involves learning. We were not born Democrats, Republicans, Libertarian or Undeciders. We learned to be those things. Here’s the short version of my political learning - without candidate endorsements.

Conversation with my dad (@1960):

Me: Dad, are we Democrats or Republicans?

Dad: Democrats.

Me. What’s the difference?

Dad: Democrats are for the workingman and Republicans are for the rich man.

No elaboration needed. We were not rich. My family worked to earn money, so the workingman-logic explained why we were Democrats. As I gained some family history, the logic held up. During the Great Depression, my great-grandfather twice lost his money in bank failures, which, according to family narrative, were the fault of President Hoover and the Republicans. President Roosevelt and the Democrats saved us. The REA brought electricity to Montford’s Cove. The WPA and the CCC provided work for the unemployed. Social Security provided some assurance old people would not become totally dependent on their children. It was a consistent narrative: Democrats for the workingman; Republicans for the rich man.

My family’s loyalty to the Democratic Party actually goes much deeper, all the way back to when Andrew Jackson turned Thomas Jefferson’s Republican party into the Democratic Party, through the Civil War when two of my great-great uncles died fighting for the Confederacy, through Reconstruction, the Great Depression, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. My branch of the family has been loyal Democrats for 180 years, with only a few wayward relatives.

But learning politics is not all about family tradition. Given the tendency of my generation to reject tradition, predisposition only partially explains my political leaning. Experiences outside the family affect the political values that underpin our political loyalties. I grew up in a segregated culture rife with prejudice. To me, the Civil Rights legislation championed by the Democratic Party seemed like the right and moral course of change. While many Southerners abandoned the Democratic Party because of the events of the Civil Rights era, my father’s family remained steadfast Democrats.

The Vietnam War and Watergate were powerful lessons in the fallibilities of politicians and generals.  The skepticism born of those events was confirmed by my experience as a college student. Exposure to thousands of students from different places and cultures expanded humanity. Science ran headlong into the mythology of religion. Classes taught by real historians, mathematicians and literary critics nurtured a different and, hopefully, more critical mind. Truth became illusive.  What had been black and white in childhood turned multiple shades of gray in adulthood.

Twenty years of working and living outside of small town North Carolina brought a wider circle of friends: a multitude of African-American students and teachers, Catholics, Mormons, Hindu, Moslems, atheists, gays, lesbians, people of Iran, India, the Philippines, Greece, England and Cuba, soldiers and ex-military people, prison guards, prisoners, people who lived in communes and people who smoked pot. They have been my friends, students and co-workers. The variety of people I have known and liked has contributed to my belief that inclusive laws, equal rights and protection of the weakest, poorest and least able are essential properties and responsibilities of government. Government based on religious doctrine or the concept of manifest destiny has no place in society. A narrow view of “the people” is the precursor of fascism.

The experiences and principles I’ve acquired do not necessarily point to one political party or the other; but they do exclude many personal values and beliefs that we typically think belong in the political domain.

Finally, only in my late years, have I arrived at a view of politics that I would recommend for everyone.  Be wary.  All political speech is deceptive. It is an exercise in selecting and spinning facts.  Political speech is laden with words and phrases charged with fear, anger, pride and other emotions.  Political speech is designed to encourage decisions based on emotion, not on knowledge or reason.

Here are my recommendations prior to November 6: Disregard the news, the polls, the speeches and the political ads. For the most part, forget the events of the past four years. Study the broader history of the political parties and their candidates. Judge the politicians on what they have done, not what they have said. No one knows the future, but we can know the past. Deciding how to vote may feel like treading through murky, murky water.  But we have got to do it to live in a functioning democracy.

86 Words for Kid-Trouble

Got to thinking about the troubles, fears and discomforts of childhood - the dark and now the humorous part.  For me, that was 50 years ago.  Is your memory of childhood different from mine?  Maybe you weren't troubled.  Girls, maybe you had a wholly different perspective on trouble. If your childhood was only 10 or 20 years in the past, maybe your trouble was more digitized or electrified.

I'm inviting you to comment on my list of childhood troubles.  Suggest additional words.  Help me see the other perspectives.

Abandoned houses, Attics

Backrooms, Basements, Baths, BB guns, Beggars lice, Bicycle chains, Black widows, Broccoli,      Broken windows, Bullies

Cherry bombs, Chiggers, Chores, Cigarettes, Cockle burrs, Copperheads, County fairs, Cousins, Creeks, Culverts, Cat briars

Dinner time, Doctors, Dark

Excuses

Farts, Fibs, Firecrackers, Flat tires, Flirts, Four letter words

Grammar, Green beans, Gnats

Hammers, Homework

Idle time

Jawbreakers

Kisses

Ladders, Lawn mowers, Locked doors

Matches, Mud, Multiplication

No-see-ums

Outhouses

Peashooters, Peeing contests, Playing cards, Poison ivy, Preachers, Principals

Questions, Quarrels

Railroad tracks, Rain, Riverbanks, Rocks

Spelling, Saturday matinees, Sawdust piles, Saws, Shovels, Slingshots, Snowballs, Spitting contests, Spray paint, Sunburn

Teachers, Television, Teasing, Ticks, Tree swings, Tree houses

Umbrellas, Underwear

Valentines, Vacations

Wasps, Welts, Whippings

Exaggeration

Yellow jackets

Zippers

Dangerous Schools

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Poem by Gwendolyn Brook @1960

Teenagers striving for coolness: It’s a dangerous thing.

Shi was a good student who stayed in chronic trouble – coming to school late, skipping classes, cracking jokes and spending much time in ISS (in-school suspension).  His first day in high school, he got off the bus, went straight to MacDonald’s, then arrived an hour late for classes.  Within a few weeks, the lady in the school office knew him so well that when he finally arrived she had his late slip completed with name and date and only had to fill in the arrival time. The breezeway between school buildings was a noisy place where students congregated to brag about smoking, drinking and partying.  Getting to class on time was not easy. ISS was often so full there were not enough desks.  When Shi was in class he rarely paid attention; but he always did his homework and maintained good grades.

Then his older brother was killed in the early morning hours while involved in something no-good. “I told you it was going to end-up this way,” his stepfather said. It was a life-changing event, but initially not in a good way. “I wanted those people to pay for what they did,” Shi said.  Angry and confused, life seemed pointless. Hanging out with friends and wandering aimlessly around the neighborhood, he rarely went home until late in the evening. “You’re going to end up just like your brother,” his mother told him. Her comment fueled his anger.

At some point, Shi realized his mother was right.  He had some tough choices to make.  Bad forces were pulling him down. Fortunately, he was admitted to the Middle College at NC A&T University and found a different peer group – students more interested in academics than in making trouble.  Now he is a senior with an opportunity to graduate from high school with some college credits - if he hangs-on. 

Shi told this story to Dick Gordon, host of The Story, heard daily on public radio.

“Do you worry about going back to your old ways?” Gordon was asked him.

“Yea, it could happen.”

“Why? What could pull you away from all you have gained?”

He was silent for a moment then Shi said, “East Market Street.”

“I don’t understand.  What’s on East Market St?”

He laughed. “All those things that nobody needs.  You can get it right down there – drugs, alcohol, sex, gangs.”

“But why would you go back to that?”

Silence again, then, “That’s where my friends are.  And my family.  My people.  My father, my cousins and aunts and uncles. They’re all on East Market. That’s where they do what they do. Sometimes I go there.”

You can hear the story of Shi Leach in his own voice at: (http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_092712.mp3/view).

Before Shi was a student at A&T’s middle college, he was a student at Smith High School, one of four large urban high schools in Greensboro. Smith, along with Dudley High School, serves mostly minority students. They are Title I schools with large numbers of students living in inner city poverty.  It is difficult to be either a student or a teacher in these high schools. Last week, a Dudley student left in-school suspension, returned to the classroom where she had been dismissed and beat and severely injured the teacher.  A student posted a photo of the teacher lying disheveled and unconscious on the floor.   For students to succeed academically at these schools, they have to reject the prevailing culture.

We tolerate the conditions in these failing schools because we are isolated from them. A few miles across town from Smith High School is an equally large but academically more successful school – Grimsley High School. Here are the 2012 SAT results for the two schools:

Smith: 122 students tested; 802 average math and reading scores

Grimsley: 303 students tested; 1077 average math and reading scores

The Grimsley students are bound for UNC and other good universities.  Smith students are mostly bound for GTCC where they will take remedial classes before they can be admitted to real college classes.

It is far easier to point to the problem than to a solution.  Some schools are failing, but they are the symptom (not the cause) of the real problems – neighborhoods in economic distress, fatherless families, rampant teenage pregnancies, gangs and hopelessness. We rarely produce enduring reform in schools in these failed neighborhoods. We could, but it requires a long-term commitment from very talented teachers and administrators. As Guilford County Schools so clearly demonstrates, a principal who institutes noticeable improvement in a failing school is on the fast track to a better assignment in a better neighborhood. Struggling schools are not places where good teachers want to work.  Grimsley High School has 19 teachers with National Board Certification. Smith has seven.  Dudley has three.

At this point, for children born in these zones of failure, it is a matter of individual strength. Shi found strength and clarity about his future in the nick of time. Mothers and fathers must fight for the safety and well being of their children. The power has to come from within: one mother, one father, one teenager at a time. It is easy to think we are disconnected from these people and their stories. Shi is a voice on the radio. The beaten teacher becomes a statistic. His attacker’s picture in the paper is just another criminal on the other side of town. But we are not disconnected people with separate stories. Their stories are a part of our stories – stories with no real ending, stories that flow together into a larger and unfinished book.

How Sarah Learned to Read and Write

Me, Sarah and Max

Three year old Sarah brought to me a piece of paper on which she had written:

X  T  O

T  X  O

O  T  X

“Daddy, Daddy,” she said.  “Look what I wrote.”

I looked at it and smiled. “That’s good writing. I’m proud of you,” I said.

“Would you like me to read it to you?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Sarah pointed to the top line and said, “That says ‘Daddy’.” Then she pointed to the second line and said, “That says ‘Sarah’.” Pointing to the last line she said, “That says ‘Maxie’.”

“That’s great. Now you’re writing and reading words.”

“Yea, I’m going to read them to Mom.”

I truly was impressed.  Sarah did not know all the letters and knew nothing about spelling, but at three years old she understood some important aspects of how printed language works.  She knew that -

○     Writing is a means of communicating.  Spoken words are represented by written symbols.

○     Words are comprised of letters, not numbers or other symbols.

○     The same letters can be arranged in different orders to produce different words.

○     Print is read from the top of a page to the bottom of the page.

            Young children have remarkable abilities to learn language simply by mimicking the language at home. That natural language ability applies to written language when there is plenty of written language around home to be mimicked.  My children had that opportunity. They were read to daily from birth.  There were hundreds of children’s books in our home. Scattered around the floors and furniture, a book was always within reach. By age three, Sarah had heard her favorite stories read so many times, usually on someone’s lap with a finger pointing to the words, she could pretend-read them to her younger brother.

            Instruments for writing and drawing were equally pervasive. It began with a fat crayon tucked in a small fist making circles, loops and line. In a few months abstract art became recognizable figures. Incomplete figures became more complete. Scribbles became letters and, by age three, letters were arranged in a deliberate order that demonstrated some of the proper conventions of writing.

            By the end of kindergarten, Sarah could write and spell a dozen or so words - mostly proper nouns - the names of family, friends and pets. In 1986, kindergarten children were not pushed beyond that level of skill. Independent reading and the writing of sentences were saved for first grade. 

            First grade and, to some extent, second grade were not particularly good school years for Sarah. The content of reading and writing was tedious and boring. The short, simple stories with limited vocabulary were bland. Near the end of second grade, she got her hands on a Judy Blume book, It’s Not the End of the World, a chapter book about divorce for older readers. I’ll never know why she was attracted to that book, but she read it, perhaps because of something she feared.  Maybe she knew a classmate whose parents were getting divorced.

            My daughter’s early experience with written language illustrates that a child can go, within two years, from being a non-reader in kindergarten to an independent reader who can read a lengthy book with a complicated story. It can happen quickly, even when school-based instruction is not particularly useful or interesting.

There are obvious limits to what can be inferred from this story. Sarah is only one child and does not represent all children. Gender and genetics could a factor. However, there are well known principles in this story that everyone should understand:

●     Humans are biologically programmed to learn language early in life. The longer it is delayed, the harder it gets.

●     Home and family are key factors. In a language-rich home, learning language happens naturally without formal teaching.

●     Compared to a language-rich home, the language of school can be both technical and limited. Teachers will likely encourage listening and reading while discouraging talking and limiting writing.

●     Mothers, fathers, siblings, extended family and neighbors are the first and most powerful teachers. They provide the language playground young children inhabit.

Generalizing the value of family literacy beyond my personal experiences is problematic. A fourth of our nation’s children live in poverty - the highest percentage in any industrialized country. I am an educated man with the means and desire to raise my children in a literate home. But poverty does not have to be an obstacle to literacy. It is not costly.  Literacy is a cultural tradition, not unlike the kind of food we eat.  Words, sentences, stories, poems and information are free to anyone who chooses to avail them. All parents possess life stories. They own points of view, ideas, songs, rhymes and information to be shared. We have access to libraries with a deeper and longer view of culture.  With these possessions parents can build a language world that leads children to literacy.

Read for yourself. Read to our children. Take dictation from children and let them watch as their words become print. Let them trace their words.  Soon, they will be reading and writing to us. Soon they will become the newest member of a literate community.  

Spiritual Life and College

In a presentation to our Greensboro College faculty, Chaplain Robert Brewer shared information about the spiritual lives of our students.  Over 60% feel the college supports their spiritual life (important note – we are a small, Methodist affiliated college). In addition to reporting on our students, Chaplain Brewer shared information from national studies of the spiritual life of college students.  He seemed dismayed.  I was not surprised.

Religious affiliation of college students declines during the college years. According to a survey of several thousand students, only 11% entered college claiming no religious affiliation, but 24% left college claiming no religious affiliation. Christian students showed confusion and ambivalence toward their faith.  They associated Christianity with good values and principles, but also believed Christians are judgmental, hypocritical, anti-gay and too involved in politics. Other studies of college-age Christians found their core beliefs can be reduced to "being nice", and that being nice entitles them to comfort and happiness. The studies also showed that college students find their Christian faith does not help them withstand the “storms” of life, and that it is a faith that does not last beyond high school.

My response to the chaplain was that he was describing a stage of life that should not surprise him.  After all, the studies focused on a time in life where young people step outside their familiar circle of family and friends and embark on a spiritual journey with new powers of reasoning that make it easy to be skeptical of absolutes and confused by the contradictions in their faith. After all, his own report acknowledged that the faith of childhood does not prepare young adults for complex concepts like forgiveness, loving your enemies, compassion, sacrifice, concern for others and justice.

Let me personalize this:

Nine years old: I lay on my back in the grass, sunlight fading away, a sliver of moon above the eastern horizon, a few early stars glimmering in the violet sky. Where was God?  Maybe the stars were portals in the dome of the universe and, if I had a spaceship, I could get close enough to see through a portal into heaven. The preacher said God was watching over us and could see all that we do, that if we had faith in Him and did our best, we would go to heaven.  Where was heaven? On the other side of the dome?  On Sunday mornings, we pursued God and heaven.  Days ended with homage to the pursuit. Mom knelt by my bed as I prayed. “Now I lay me down to sleep . . . if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”  Rote speaking, difficult to ponder.

Going to church was a weekly ritual. We all went to church, and I mean ALL - mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Church was about sin and salvation. Sermons were pointed and fierce. Backsliding within the family was easily recognized and much talked about.

I wanted to be in the circle and safe from Hell. But I wasn’t always good.  I stole candy bars from the service station on the corner.  And prayed about it. I wanted to be made new and better. After being immersed in the baptismal waters, I checked my status the next day. I pinched my arm, wiggled my toes and waited for God’s voice to confirm that I was a new boy. An inkling of confusion came upon me when I could not discern any difference. From that day until now, life has been occasional moments of holiness interrupting a steady-state of non-holiness and backsliding.

My spiritual journey took its first detour during my college years when I became un-churched. I might be wrong, but I think that is the way it has to happen for some of us.  We have to step outside the circle of what we have inherited and find out where we really belong.  Maybe some of us belong within our spiritual inheritance, but I don’t think we know until we step outside of it and test it’s strength. College empowered me to be more fearless about matters of faith.

Many in my family would say I have lost my faith. I have long since accepted my spiritual state.  Backsliding is now someone else’s term.  I’m not a holy person, but I find spirituality, sometimes in a church, but often in a book, or in colors and textures of the earth and the sound and feel of water and wind. I have known people of many different faiths, Christian and non-Christian. I have friends who never speak of religious faith, but in their capacity for love and forgiveness I sense something strong and good. In the places I have been and the people I know, I am confident I belong to something bigger and more eternal than myself. That may not be satisfactory for you, but that’s between you and God.

Learning and the Soul

As we approach the start of another school year let’s consider some wisdom from our old friend Socrates. 

The power to learn is present in everyone’s soul.

Socrates located learning in the soul. He and his contemporaries viewed the soul as the essence of the human. For the Greeks, the soul included the functions of reason, emotions and “appetites” (desires).   For Socrates, the soul was the engine of learning. This is not a modern idea.  At least in the domain of secular education, the soul is out of bounds.  The brain is the body’s organ responsible for learning.  I am a student of modern education.  I believe in the usefulness of modern theory and practice about teaching and learning. It provides scientific information about how teachers teach and learners learn. Would-be teachers are advised to study it carefully.  I also believe Socrates was correct in indentifying the soul as the agent that powers learning.

We are, regardless of age, in charge of our own learning.  Good teachers draw students’ attention to their lessons. They ignite memory, understanding and action. Good teachers control many aspects of learning, but they do not control the soul of a student. It is difficult to connect with a soul that is fearful or depleted. If the body is hungry or is lacking sleep, learning is impeded. If the mind is distracted or addled by desire, learning is delayed. Learning happens under the conditions of hope, curiosity and a yearning to understand.  Teaching based on authority and technique may have short-term benefits for some, but true teaching reaches deeper and balances reasoning, emotions and appetites.  True teaching empowers the soul to continue learning in the absence of the teacher.

Here is the larger context of Socrates’ statement about learning and the soul:

The power to learn is present in everyone’s soul. The instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body. . . Education takes for granted that sight is there but that it isn’t turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately.

Notice the turning from darkness to light metaphor - from blindness to seeing, from ignorance to understanding.  Notice the reference to turning the whole body, which explains why schooling in ancient Greece began with physical training and the arts.  And finally, learning is re-directive.  The soul that believes it is on the right path and has no need for more knowledge is not the learning soul.

Another piece of wisdom from Socrates:

The virtue of reason seems to belong above all to something more divine, which never loses its power but is either useful and beneficial or useless and harmful, depending on the way it is turned.

Socrates refers to our ability to reason as a divine endowment - but with qualification. Our endowed reasoning can become either a beneficial tool or a harmful tool, “depending on the way it is turned”.  Socrates placed the responsibility for directing and nurturing the soul on parents and educators:

Good education and upbringing, when they are preserved, produce good natures, and useful natures, who are in turn well educated and grow up better than their predecessors . . . Those in charge must cling to education and see that it isn’t corrupted without their noticing it.

It is a vital responsibility we have. It leaves me mystified. I have tried to be a good parent. My children have become good adults, but I think I was lucky to have children born with “good natures”. The outcome of my teaching has been mixed.  I’ve helped many children improve their reading and writing. Many of my college students have become good teachers with enduring careers.  But I admit: I have lost many souls. Students have not always been attentive. Their minds have wandered. I have no evidence of their turning.

Think about that. And more frightfully, think about the indirect but harmful results of education: weapons of mass destruction and deceit, clever but greedy souls manipulating laws and economies, obfuscating technologies, industry destroying the natural order, and a soulless culture addicted to entertainment.

If you object to the inclusion of the soul as the agent of learning, then you must find some other comparable concept or mechanism that empowers learners to learn.  And to seek the good in themselve and others.

The quotes are from Plato’s Republic, (1992), translated by G.M.A. Grube, published by Hackett Publishing Co., Indianapolis, Indiana.

Algebra: What's the Point?

Image from http://www.zazzle.com/

The NY Times ran an op-ed piece by Andrew Hacker titled “Is Algebra Necessary?” Since I had such a memorable high school experience in Ms. Collins’ Algebra II class (see last post), I’ll weigh into this fray. 

Hacker makes at least two main points: (1) The current algebra curriculum has little practical relevance for students, except for the 5% entering the work-force in careers like producing animated movies, developing investment strategies or setting airline ticket prices. (2) Proficiency in algebra is a major stumbling block to high school graduation and success in college.

Hacker’s proposed revision of the math curriculum would involve better teaching of practical math for our personal and professional lives.  Instead of pure algebra and calculus, students would be taught the history of math and how math is applied to professions.  The standard math achievement (for the 95% who will never directly apply algebra) would be mastery of basic math needed for personal finance, measuring, estimation, and “citizen statistics” (understanding the reliability of numbers and how we use numbers to describe important issues).

Many who oppose Hacker’s view argue that algebra plays an important role in developing reasoning and problem solving skills. They suggest it is a form of mental training. Like an athlete who lifts weights to improve physical performance, students study advanced forms of intellectual disciplines to improve thinking and reasoning. I’m not sure about the accuracy of this analogy.  The brain is not a muscle. But, if we’re going to have schools, we should aim to develop advanced thinking skills.  We don’t just need advanced thinking skills for work, we need them to solve complex problems at home and in our personal lives.  I doubt we can develop those skills without putting students through a rigorous math curriculum.

The debate should not be about whether or not to teach algebra, or to whom.  We can teach math to young children in ways that lead to success in algebra. Children manipulate objects to solve problems. They sort, group, count and rearrange things when adding and subtracting and learning geometry. Algebra is the use of symbols to represent unknowns in math problems. In the equation x + 2 = 7,  “x” represents the unknown. Algebraic reasoning allows us to find the numeric value of “x”. Algebra is thinking symbolically about the physical realities of the universe.  Sal Kahn provides a more thorough and inspiring explanation in his introduction to algebra.

Here is a relevant story from my recent observation of kindergarten mathematics:

A teacher began a math unit with a pretest that required her 20 kindergarteners to solve two types of problems: (1) If I have 3 apples and you have 4 apples, how many apples do we have together? (2) If together we have 5 apples, and you have 3 apples, how many apples do I have?  She read the problems to the students and gave them paper apples to help work the problems. Five students solved the first problem, but only 1 of 20 solved the second problem.

After several days of practicing similar problems, always using objects to arrange, group, add and subtract, the teacher gave another test. Eighteen of 19 students solved the first problem and 11 of the 19 students solved the second problem.

The teacher was disappointed in the results, but I was surprised by how many students solved both problems.  Some of the students were only 5 years old. Previously, kindergartener math instruction taught children only to recognize numbers and count objects.  Addition and subtraction were first grade math. In 2012, good kindergarten teachers show children how to add and subtract by thinking “algebraically”.  The children do it surprisingly well if the teacher demonstrates the process and provides plenty of practice.

We should rethink the context and method of teaching algebra.  Without the manipulation of objects and without the application of algebra to the real world, many students will miss its purpose - to think logically about how the universe works. 

Algebra is not the only tool for abstract reasoning. Grammar is an abstraction of language.  “Subject + predicate = sentence” is an abstraction of a simple sentence structure. Obviously, we can learn and use language rather well without knowing its grammatical structures and principles; but, learning grammar and using it to fine-tune our use language is relatively easy as long students are capable of thinking abstractly about language. Failing grades in grammar results from the same flawed teaching methods that makes algebra difficult to learn – instruction that relies too much on the students’ memory of “rules” and not enough on students’ understanding of the relationships among things.

The highest level of schooling, whether it occurs in high school, college, university or graduate school, should produce learners who can think and reason abstractly.  Algebra and grammar are tools of abstract reasoning and we’ve got to teach those disciplines at the times and in the manner that nurture thinking, reasoning, and abstracting about the natural and human world.  Teaching algebra in the context of real objects and real-world problems must be added to drilling students in proper mathematical procedures.  Teaching grammar in the context of meaningful and interesting language is the only effective way to teach grammar.  But we cannot set a precise deadline by which all students show mastery of these abstract disciplines.  We must allow for the natural variations in human ability. Believing that all students can apply abstract reasoning (without the use of real objects or meaningful language) by a particular age is the flawed belief of people who never mastered algebra or grammar.

Math: By intimidation . . . or not

“Change them signs, two at a time . . . Change them signs, two at a time,” Ms. Collins’ Georgia drawl echoed off the concrete walls as she walked up and down the isles of her algebra class.  She bent over James’ left shoulder as she squinted at his ciphering through her wire-rimmed glasses. Suddenly, she jumped back, pointed at his paper and said, “Boy, I told you.“ She began pounding rhythmically with both hands on his shoulders. “Change them signs, to at a time . . . Change them signs, two at a time.” The students behind them suppressed their snickers as James’ face turned beet red.

In 1966, Ms. Collins, a legendary spinster, was Marion High School’s most eccentric teacher.  No one crossed paths with Ms. Collins, nor failed to do her homework, nor willingly offered a solution to an algebra problem (except of Mason the Bully).

Her poundings on boys’ backs were more embarrassing than painful.  But then there was her ruler.  If the back-pounding didn’t get a boy’s attention, she might grab a hand, turn it palm up with fingers bent backwards and rap the exposed palm with her ruler.  That hurt.

One day she approached Wally Childers and raised her hands to commence pounding.  Wally was a big guy, one of the tallest in the class, head and shoulders taller than Ms. Collins. Just as she got to him, he jumped up, flew over his desk and jumped an empty desk between himself in the door.  He was gone in a split second, never again to attend Ms. Collins algebra class.

She was an intimidating teacher who knew the textbook forwards and backwards.  Rumor had it that she was math whiz, that she could calculate the cost of her groceries faster than the cash register, but her instruction was strict and un-inspiring – strictly limited to solving the equations and proofs by the book.  If the book’s instruction was not enough for a student, Ms. Collins could only resort to her chants and threats. Though I was an A/B algebra student, the point of the mathematical abstractions was missed.  The point of being in her class was simply to be correct and avoid getting embarrassed.

I would like to think that math instruction for high school students has changed over the past forty years. In all likelihood, few math teachers are physically beating algebra into their students; but they are still struggling to make math relevant and interesting to students, and few of them can offer much more than the explanations already present in the textbooks.

Fortunately, any modern day student with access to a computer has an alternative teacher.  His name is Sal Kahn.  Eight years ago, Kahn offered online math tutoring to his younger cousin.  His lessons were highly successful. When he got more requests for tutoring, he began posting them on YouTube.  Now, there are over 2000 of his lessons on-line, each of them getting at least 20,000 hits.  In 2009, Kahn quit his job as a hedge fund analyst and devoted himself full-time to developing his YouTube channel. With support from outside sources (including Bill Gates), Kahn and his high-tech employees are developing Kahn Academy as a web site that ties together his YouTube videos with practice activities and record keeping systems that allow any student or teacher to use the resources free of charge.

His use of technology is relatively simple – video screen capture of his desktop, a drawing program, and a microphone to capture his voice.  His explanations are systematic, clear and precise.  In terms of method, his explanations of a math concept and process are coupled with careful descriptions of the logic. But, since the lessons are on-line, the learner can listen to them repeatedly if necessary without risking teacher frustration or wrath.  With the additional use of the practice activities, the learner can check his accuracy and understanding. The record keeping system tracks performance and offers token rewards.

To get an idea of how Kahn applies his teaching method with the on-line technology, go to this link that shows his most basic lesson – simple addition: http://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/addition-subtraction/v/basic-addition

Now, compare the simple addition lesson above to one of Kahn’s basic algebra lesson, solving simple equations: http://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra/solving-linear-equations/v/solving-one-step-equations

If you have read some of my previous blogs, you know how skeptical I am of the value of schooling.  There many reasons for that skepticism, most of which have to do with the inconsistent quality of the instruction, the difficulty of providing instruction that matches each student’s ability to learn, and the lack of support for schools from families and communities. 

There is a 20 year-old argument over how technology is going to change schooling.  The Kahn Academy is a good example of how it might.  Via the internet, the clear and inspiring instruction of one lone teacher can reach any student, any time. That’s not to suggest that millions of students suffer through poor teaching can simply walk away from school and get what they miss on-line.  After all, the face-to-face human element of good teaching cannot be easily duplicated on-line. I won’t live long enough to collect on this bet, but I will wager you that 50 years from now, thanks to technology, schooling probably won’t look anything like it does today.

Justice and the Road to Nowhere

How to define justice is problematic for philosophers.  For the non-philosophic, it is less of a problem.  Justice is fairness.  It is the application of the golden rule: treat others as we would like to be treated. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates kept challenging is friends to define justice.  Polemarchus said justice is giving to each what he is owed. Thrasymachus said justice is the advantage of the stronger. None of the definitions held up well to Socratic examination. Thrasymachus got frustrated when Socrates refused to offer his own definition, perhaps because, among groups of people, justice is illusive. Here is a good example from Southern Appalachian history.

The Road to Nowhere begins in Bryson City and winds across the lower ridges of the Smoky Mountains.  Just past Swain County High School, it enters the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, traverses forested slopes overlooking Fontana Lake, crosses Nolan Creek and ends at a tunnel.  Barricades block motor traffic from the tunnel, but not hikers, horseback riders or teenage graffiti artists. Hikers enter into a fading light that slides away until footsteps and trickling water echo through darkness. The motionless air smells of mold and horse manure. Guided by a frame of daylight at the far end, hikers slowly regain decades of graffiti accumulated at the exit and emerge into the forest.

The tunnel is a threshold between the man-made and the nature-made.  At the exit of the tunnel, the Road to Nowhere ends.  Travelers must walk or ride horseback into a vast region of mountains and streams.  Hardy travelers pass each other, their cross-purposes subdued by the harmonic sounds of a modern wilderness. The forest at the end of the Road to Nowhere has not always been a wilderness and will never be what it once was. Scarred by the rusted remains of conflicts, the Smoky Mountains is a classroom and a laboratory for human culture and science.  Nature lost control centuries ago.

The history goes way back. In 1776, the mountains now encompassing a national park existed within a vast Cherokee homeland. After the Declaration of Independence, colonial militia in western Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina attacked and burned every Cherokee village in the Little Tennessee valley.

For 50 years, Cherokee territory shrunk as white settlers encroached from every direction. By 1838, when U.S. army troops rounded up 16,000 Cherokee, they were a tired and defeated people.  They marched compliantly along the Trail of Tears, an 800-mile walk to Oklahoma. Disease, exposure and starvation killed 4000 Cherokee.  Four hundred Cherokee hid out in the remote mountains and another 600 Cherokee, who had gained state citizenship through intermarriage with white settlers, remained behind.  These 1000 Cherokee became the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. They now live along the southern edge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

A hundred years after displacing the Cherokee from their native lands, in order to create the national park and Fontana Lake, the federal government displaced several thousand white citizens who had lived in the Smokies since the Cherokee removal. Fontana Lake displaced 1300 families and cut off road access to upstream farms, churches and 33 family cemeteries.  In 1943 the federal government promised to build a road around the north shore of the lake to provide access to the cemeteries.  By 1969 six miles of the road were built, including the tunnel, but funds for the continuation of the road dried up.  For the next 40 years, the displaced families fought with the federal government and environmentalist over the completion of the road.  Environmentalist wanted to preserve the backcountry of the new park.  Families demanded the deliverance of the road and access to their cemeteries. 

Both white and Cherokee people who live around the boundary of the national park see little purpose in government. Money does not buy justice. Victims are nameless and faceless. They are citizens subsumed by the larger citizenry.  

I had an intimate encounter with the cultural conflicts of the Smokies when two fishing buddies and I hired a couple of Cherokee Indians to pack our camping and fishing gear into the backcountry. After fishing for three days in an area where the horses couldn’t go, we met our Cherokee friends in a campsite where horses were allowed. They had a big tent and a tarp that covered a portable table, a two burner stove and a campfire. They had beer chilling in the creek, liquor, jars of moonshine and marijuana. A big pot of chili was cooking on the stove and cornbread baked in a Dutch oven on bed of coals. The Cherokee shared their riches with the less than successful fishermen.

We spent a rowdy night swapping tales and jokes about day hikers in expensive clothes carrying binoculars and bird books. The white boys’ stories fell far short of Cherokee bravado and contempt for regulations. They carried an axe and chainsaw to keep the trails clear for their horses and to provide firewood. One claimed to be a chronic poacher, once paying a $1200 fine for a bag of ginseng – a dollar per plant. “F____g judge, it’s our woods.  We were here first,” he said. The other once paid a fine for cruelty to animals.  His horse had broken a leg in the backcountry.  Lacking a gun, he put the horse down by slitting his neck. A passer-by reported him to the warden. “F_____g judge, what was I supposed to do – leave the horse there to be mauled by bears?”

When the Cherokee got us back to the other side of the tunnel, two Harley Davidson motorcycles roared through the parking lot and stopped in front of the barricade. The motorcycles shut down.  Two guys and a girl got off the Harleys. The girl pulled a video camera out of bag and walked past the trailer where the horses were tethered and toward the entrance to the tunnel. 

In a few minutes, she returned. “I didn’t see nobody in the tunnel,” she said.

“Did you walk to the other end?” the older man asked.

“No, I ain’t walking through that tunnel.”

“It don’t matter,” the younger guy said, “I’m going.” He cranked the Harley and started rolling toward the barricade.

One of the Cherokee yelled, “Hey . . . hey, you can’t drive that cycle through that tunnel.

The motorcycle stopped and the driver looked back.

“What’s your problem?” the older man asked.

“He can’t drive that god-damned motorcycle through the tunnel.  You see that barricade.  It’s there for a reason.  The U.S. Park Service don’t allow it.”

“I don’t see anybody from the park service around here,” the older man said.

“You can’t drive that motorcycle through the tunnel,” he yelled again.

The girl with the camera walked up. “People do it all the time.  I saw the videos on You Tube.  You should hear the roar of the engine in the tunnel.”

“You can’t drive that motorcycle through the tunnel,” the Cherokee yelled as he looked at his horses.

“We rode all the way up here from South Carolina, just to ride through that tunnel.”

“Well you ain’t riding through that tunnel today.”

The older man looked at the Cherokee, then looked at the horses.  He walked over to his friend with the motorcycle still idling.  They talked for a moment. The girl got on the bike. The younger guy looked at the Cherokee and then roared away from the barricade back toward Bryson City. The girl gave the Cherokee the finger.

“We’ll come back later,” the older man said as he pulled away on his cycle. 

“Dumb ass bikers,” the Cherokee said.  “Those horses would never ’ve gone near that tunnel again.”

I don’t think much of the needs of those three Harley folks. But in the long history of the Smoky Mountains lies a problem for justice – whatever it is. How do we provide it for the groups that comprise the larger group? Who makes the laws?  Who appoints the judge? To provide for white settlers, we displaced the Indians. To preserve a scenic view and memory of nature, we displaced their ancestors. I am certainly a beneficiary of that displacement. We required a few thousand to sacrifice for millions – the greatest good for the greatest number. Justice aspires to work that way. But in some events and from some points of view, Thrasymachus was right. Justice is the advantage of the stronger.