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.

Old Age and Wealth

Most days I don’t think of myself as particularly old, but it helps not to look in the mirror. Okay, I’ll be honest.  I think about old age more than I should.  And I fear it.

I recently started rereading Plato’s Republic and, low and behold, one the first conversations between Socrates and his friends is about old age, and about the whether or not wealth eases the difficulties of growing old. For a conversation that occurred about 400 years before Jesus conversed with his disciples, this conversation seems remarkably modern.  Here it is, presented as a script for a radio play. For ease of reading, I’ve made a few minor changes to the wording and omitted a few lines that required footnotes to be fully understand.

__________BEGIN SOCRATIC CONVERSATION__________

Old age and wealth: A conversation in which Socrates talks with Cephalus, an elderly friend, about how it feels to grow old.

Clephalus:  Socrates, you don’t come down to see me as often as you should. If it were still easy for me to walk to town, you wouldn’t have to come here; I’d come to you. But, as it is, you ought to come here more often, for you should know that as the physical pleasures wither away, my desire for conversation and its pleasure grows.

Socrates:  Indeed, I enjoy talking with the very old, for we should ask them how the road of old age travels, what kind of road it is and whether it is rough and difficult or smooth and easy. I’d gladly find out from you what you think about this, as you have reached the point in life the poets call “the threshold of old age”. Is it a difficult time? What is your report?

Cephalus: By god, Socrates, I’ll tell you exactly what I think. A number of us, who are more or less the same age, often get together and talk about it. The majority complain about the lost pleasures they remember from their youth, those of sex, drinking parties, feasts, and the other things that go along with them, and my friends get angry as if they had been deprived of important things and as if they had lived well then but are now hardly living at all. Some others moan about the abuse heaped on old people by their relatives, and because of this they repeat over and over that old age is the cause of many evils. But I don’t think they blame the real cause, Socrates, for if old age were really the cause, I should have suffered in the same way and so should everyone else of my age. But as it is, I’ve met some who don’t feel like that in the least.

Indeed, I was once present when someone asked the poet Sophocles: “How are you as far as sex goes? Can you still make love with a woman?”

“Quiet man,” Sophocles replied. “I am very glad to have escaped from all that, like a slave who has escaped from a savage master.”

I thought at the time that Sophocles was right, for old age brings peace and freedom from such things. When the appetites relax and cease to solicit us, everything Sophocles said comes to pass and we escape from many mad masters.  In these matters and in those concerning relatives, the real problem is not old age, but the way people live. If they are moderate and contented, old age, too, is only moderately onerous; if they aren’t moderate and contented, both old age and youth are hard to bear.

Socrates: When you say things like that, Cephalus, I suppose that the majority of people don’t agree. They think you bear old age more easily, not because of the way you live, but because you are wealthy. For the wealthy, they say, have many consolations.

Cephalus: That’s true; they don’t agree. And there is something in what they say, though not as much as they think.  A rich person might find old age hard to bear. But a bad person would not be at peace with himself in old age, even if he were wealthy.

Socrates: Did you inherit most of your wealth, Cephalus, or did you make it for yourself?

Cephalus: What did I make for myself, you asked! As a money-maker I am sort of between my grandfather and my father. My grandfather inherited about the same amount of wealth as I possess, but multiplied it many times. My father diminished that amount to even less than I have now. As for me, I am satisfied to leave my sons not less, but a little more than I inherited.

Socrates: The reason I asked is that you don’t seem to love money too much. And those who haven’t made their own money are usually like you. But those who have made it for themselves are twice as fond of it as those who haven’t. Just as poets love their poems and fathers love their children, those who have made their own money don’t just care about it because it’s useful, but because it’s something they’ve made themselves. This makes them poor company, for they haven’t a good word to say about anything except money.

Cephalus: That’s true.

Socrates: It certainly is.  But tell me something else. What’s the greatest good you’ve received from being wealthy?

Cephalus: What I have to say probably wouldn’t persuade most people.  But you know, Socrates, that when someone thinks his end is near, he becomes frightened and concerned about things he didn’t fear before. It’s then that the stories we’re told about Hades, about how people who’ve been unjust here must pay the penalty there – stories he used to make fun of – twist his soul this way and that for fear they’re true. Whether because of the weakness of old age or because he is now closer to what happens in Hades and has a clearer view of it, he examines himself to see whether he has been unjust to anyone.

If he finds many injustices in his life, he awakes from sleep in terror and lives in anticipation of bad things to come. But someone who knows that he hasn’t been unjust has sweet good hope as his constant companion – a nurse in his old age, as Pindar says.

It is in this connection that wealth is most valuable, I’d say, not for every man but for a decent and orderly one. Wealth can do a lot to save us from having to cheat or deceive someone against our will and from having to depart for that other place in fear because we owe sacrifice to a god or money to a person. Wealth has many other uses, but, benefit for benefit, I’d say that this is how it is most useful.

_________END OF SOCRATIC CONVERSATION___________

So, if I, John Max Jr., am worried about old age, perhaps rather than looking in the mirror or into the state of my bank account, I’d best look into the state of my soul. Now that is a tough one – counting my acts of justice and injustice and worrying about the balance of my words, deeds and decisions.  Will there be enough time left?

Coming later – Socrates on justice.

Here is a link to an on-line copy of Plato’s Republic: http://www.literaturepage.com/read/therepublic.html

The conversation in this blog occurred near the beginning of Book I.

Your Next Contribution to a Covered Dish Dinner

            It’s Saturday afternoon in July and a brain-frying 95 degrees in the shade – which is why I’m inside and looking for something fun to think about.  So I picked poke salad - because of Tony Joe White’s Poke Salad Annie.  In case you don’t remember it, here’s a link to a YouTube cut of White’s performance on the Johnny Cash show, circa 1970: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPO9qXCyyg.

            You won’t have any trouble finding pokeweed.  It’s all over the southern United States. Probably along the edges of your yard or sunny road ditches leading to Grandma's house.         

Mature pokeweed (from http://bulletin.ipm.illinois.edu)

           I’ve tried branch lettuce and rabbit tobacco, but can’t say I’ve eaten  poke salad, so I started wondering how to prepare it.  What I found were a few recipes and lots of cautions, e.g. – it’s poisonous, will kill you, even starving animals won’t eat it.

Immature pokeweed

            In spite of all the cautions from a variety of agricultural/scientific agencies, there are plenty of web sites that explain how to cook pokeweed.  If you like it, you should plan to attend the Poke Salad Festival in Blanchard, Louisiana. Though I’m not going to try it, here’s a recipe (from: http://www.trippyfood.com/tag/poke/) that sounds like how Poke Salad Annie might’ve prepared her pokeweed:

·      Pick enough young, tender pokeweed leaves to fill about two paper grocery bags full.

·      Boil them in water and rinse.

·      Boil and rinse.

·      Boil and rinse.

·      In a well seasoned iron skillet, fry several chunks of bacon and cook down for the fat.

·      Add the pokeweed, scrambled eggs, onions, salt and pepper.

·      Remove the bacon, unless you really like something bitter and foul-tasting.

What remains is, according to the web site, delicious.

By the way, Indians used pokeweed berries to make dye and smoked dried pokeweed roots for medicinal purposes.

THIS INFORMATION IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. 

 EAT, SMOKE, TATTOO OR MEDICATE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

The Max Rules

            If life is a card game and we are the cards, Max is beyond a wild card.  He’s a card we’ve never seen before. The game is figuring out how he plays – how he fits with the other cards.  

            A late afternoon in June, a time to relax on the patio: Max rides the bicycle in circles around the driveway.  Victoria the six-year-old rides the adult tricycle.  Too tall to sit on the seat, she stands on the pedals and follows Max until he makes an unpredictable turn and there’s a near crash.  Two little girls from next door join the fun: Gwen, another six-year-old, climbs in the basket on the back of the tricycle and makes it even harder for Victoria’s underpowered legs. Morgan, the fourth grader and Queen of C-A-T, dribbles the basketball and dodges the cycles.  Cleo the Dog nods in the clover and keeps a nervous eye on the motions.

            Max, our 29-year-old, developmentally delayed, mysterious wild card, is an incomplete master of the bicycle.  Balance, steering and pedaling are good, but braking is primitive – dragging feet or swerving in a split second.  Squealing, yelling and barking ratchet up the fun.

            We tolerate the chaos because Max the motion seeking wild card seldom has opportunities to play with the commonly known cards – the sixes, the eights, the tens.  His behavior is too exotic.  Communication requires intuition.  As a wilder than wild card, he makes all the rules.

            Since she was four years old, Victoria has been living with Max.  He fits snugly into her deck of cards. Now a six, she’s as good as the Ace of Spades. Finally, after a year of watching Max from their backyard, Gwen and Morgan have been lured into the game.  They like the big tricycle, the basketball goal, the swing, the climbing wall, and a bucketful of whiffle balls and bats.  Like most young children, they spent days staring in amazement at this grown boy who seems like a little child.  They are timid. Cleo the Dog is big and jumpy. Previously they only played with a few known cards. Now, their deck has expanded. They can play by the Max rules.

            The occasion makes Mom and Dad happy. 

            Step back from the game and consider the mystery card – a very little boy in a very big body – a brain that seizes, lungs that wheeze, eyes that never look at what they perceive and other body systems that work on a varied schedule. Vulnerable to diseases unidentified and unnamed.  Talents that fly undetected. Hands that pitch and catch from vision’s periphery. Ears sensitive to notes and keys missed. A contagious laugh for jokes and rhymes that never grow old.

            Life is just a metaphor. God speaks from the burning bush. Trumpets bring down the walls of Jehrico. Odysseus communes with the spirit of his deceased mother. Jesus walks on water, casts out demons and Thomas touches the nail-scarred hands. The sun, the moon and all plants and animals are filled with spirits.

            Too many of us fail to live the metaphors or understand them. Thus is Max’s purpose.

            An instinctive hugger: On the Arkansas Queen we sit in the sun on the upper deck as Little Rock’s little skyline drifted past.  Max gets out of his seat, steps behind us and gives an elderly black man the unexpected hug. I’m sorry, I say, he doesn’t know any better. That’s okay, he says, we all need more hugs.

            The unknown man plays the cards he is dealt.

Bullies: Mitt, Mason and Me

Billy the Sissy lived on the other side of the woods from our Virginia Avenue house. A fat, effeminate little boy, he was rarely out his mother's sight. One summer day my friend and I lay in wait with slingshots and a pile of acorns in some shrubs at the edge of the woods across from Billy’s front yard. When he came outside to play we pelted him with acorns. Without even looking in our direction he put his hands over his head and ran inside. A few days later we hid again in the shrubs and waited. A car pulled into the driveway. Billy and his mother got out and walked toward the front door carrying grocery bags. We let loose another barrage of acorns. They mostly clinked off the side of the house, but one must have hit our target because Billy yelped. His mother turned toward the woods and yelled. "I know you are over there in the woods. You leave my boy alone or I'll call the police."

We were fourth graders, cowardly bullies and afraid to confront our victim face to face. Back then I did not give much thought to bullying. A sissy was on my mind. Bullying was something boys did. I did not like being the victim of bullies, but bullies held status. They were unafraid of retaliation or the wrath of adults. They were independent and free of control. They were not subject to orders. They established the order.

In high school I had a friend who was the school’s prima bully. I'll call him Mason. He was average size, wiry, quick of wit and creative. He knew every insult, every dig and tease. He was master of the posture and look of intimidation. When Mason and I were in the tenth grade, Billy the Sissy was a freshman. For the first month of our sophomore year, any time Mason passed Billy in the hallway, he busted him a potent smack on the fleshy part of his upper arm. The smack and Mason’s laugh resounded off the metal lockers. The teachers never saw the bullying and Billy never told. He was compliant, like all perpetual victims.

            Mason the Bully might have been morally deficient, but he was smarter than most students and some teachers. He routinely tested and pushed classroom boundaries. But bullying was only one segment of a complex character. I discovered our junior year in high school that Mason got up at five every morning and did his trigonometry homework, which explained why he could solve the problems no one else could, and which later explained why he got a full scholarship to a university and now operates a nuclear power plant.

I have not seen Mason since high school. I wonder if he left his bullying back at Marion Senior High School.

As you may know, there is another smart kid of our generation who was a bully in high school. According to reports (Washington Post account) Mitt Romney was a high school bully who led an attack on a gay student.  He and a posse of followers tackled a gay student and cut his long hair. Romney says he cannot specifically remember the event:

Back in high school, you know, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously, I apologize for that… You know, I don’t, I don’t remember that particular incident [laughs]… I participated in a lot of high jinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far, and for that I apologize (The New Yorker).

            If Romney did what former friends and peers have described, he would remember it and has missed an opportunity to talk about growing up, the nature of adolescence and how people change as they become adults.  No one’s character should be judged solely on actions in high school.  Among Romney’s peers who participated in the hair cutting event, or witnessed it without reporting it to school authorities, were boys who went on to be an attorney, a dentist, a prosecutor and a principal. Their memories of the event are vivid and their regrets deep. And they understand that a person at 17 years old probably will not be the same person at 37.

            Bullying is a major concern among middle and high school teachers.  We finally recognize how pervasive and damaging it is. In addition to the types of bullying that have always been recognized – physical and verbal bullying - we now count spreading rumors, social isolation and sexual exploitation as forms of bullying. Cyberspace adds a new dimension to bullying.  It allows bullies to spread rumors, images and videos of their victims to a worldwide audience. We now understand that bullying has consequences beyond temporary trauma. Chronic bullying can be life changing and deadly.

            Middle school is the place and time when we realize there is a tug of war going on for our soul.  Students have an emerging ability to see themselves from the outside and to see events from multiple perspectives. But there is built-in interference to budding maturity. Every nerve beats a rhythm – “gotta connect, gotta connect, gotta connect with my friends”.  The middle school is a swamp full of friends, but it is a context for teaching students about bullying – what and why it is and the long-term impact it has on both bullies and victims. Though rapidly changing bodies and volatile emotions make it difficult for them to carryout long-range plans, middle school students have lived long enough to have a sense of time and the future.  They are still young and believe the world should be a safe place.  But, they are close to the brink of cynicism.  They have learned that adults are flawed and not always truthful or competent. They value fairness but are close to learning that life is not always fair.

            Preaching to students about bullying will not work. Didactic adults rarely connect with adolescents.  We have to be as clever as the students and not tell them what to think, but use stories from good literature and raw history and let them identify the bullies and victims. Let them point out the consequences. If we ask the right questions, they will expose their own goodness.  And when they forget, we can offer another story, and another question, and draw them back again . . . and again . . . and again. That tug of war never quite ends.

8th Grade Test Questions: 1895 & 2012

Image from commonsensejunction.com

What do exams given at the end of a course or a school year reveal about our children and about the quality of their schooling? In 1999, there appeared on the internet an 1895 exam given to graduating 8^th grade students in Saline County, Kansas.  Below are some questions from the test of grammar, mathematics, orthography, U.S. history and geography:

Grammar

·      Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

·      Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.

Mathematics

·      Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.

·      What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at 20 cents per sq. foot?

History

·      Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.

·      Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

Orthography

·      What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?

·      Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography

·      Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.

·      Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.

The complete test can be viewed at http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/quizzes/8thgrade_test.cfm.

            Some folks cite this test as evidence of declining rigor of schooling over the past century.  It is apparent that most adults could not pass the test today.  I certainly couldn’t. But, consider the nature of academic exams. School learning often emphasizes short-term, rote memory of names, dates, facts and details.  Humans can force lots of information into short term memory.  We can stuff our brains with information for a short while, but the old adage is true for most of us: "Use it or lose it" .   Though we should not use the 1895 test as an indicator of the decline in modern schooling, it is an interesting historical document.  It shows us of how schools and exams change over time.

            Compare the subjects tested in this 1895 exam with the subjects today’s students encounter.  Science is almost completely absent from the 1895 test, as is government, world history, literature and the arts.  The exam requires students to name, define, describe and find.  Missing are more important thinking skills like compare, analyze, apply and evaluate.  The exam recognizes no part of the world other than the U.S and Europe.

            In spite of the flaws in the 1895 test, it is still reasonable to criticize the rigor of today's testing system.  Academic tests still underestimate the level of knowledge and skill needed to survive and thrive in today’s world. State departments of education have routinely manipulated standardized tests to make schools appear more effective. Standardized tests function as political tools as much as educational tools. The U.S. Department of Education is raising the political stakes by tying federal education funds to states’ willingness to adopt more rigorous curriculum standards.  The new standards in English and mathematics will require students to demonstrate significantly higher levels of skills with an emphasis on applying skill and knowledge to modern day problems.  Here are two math problems from the new 8^th grade math curriculum:

·      Frank Rd and James Rd. make a perpendicular intersection. The state wants to build a new road. The new road will intersect 3 miles north of the intersection on Frank Rd. and 4 miles west of the intersection on James Rd. How long will the new road be that intersects Frank and James Rd? The new road would cost $10 per foot to pave. What would be the cost of the new road? (This problem is similar to the 1895 problem to calculate the cost of a board, but this 2012 question will required students to use geometric knowledge to find the length of the road before they can calculate the cost of paving.)

·      Use the Internet to collect statistical data on the top five home run hitters for the current season as well as their career home run totals. Graph the data and determine if it is linear or non-linear. (There's nothing remotely close to this question on the 1895 test.  In 2012, eighth grade students will have to use modern technology to find data, then plot the data on a graph to determine if there is a linear or non-linear relationship between career home runs and home runs in a current season.)

The only item on the 1895 test that required writing was the 150-word essay asking students to demonstrate their understanding of the rules of grammar. Compare that 1895 essay task to this language and history assignment from an 8^th grade unit on the Holocaust:

·      Imagine you are Jewish and living in Nazi occupied Europe. Write five diary entries, describing what life is like, what events happen to you, what is going on with your family, and any other information that makes it seem like a real diary. Include lots of details and specific facts such as a name, place of birth, where you live, type of work, interests, etc. The diary will be graded based on effort, facts, details, grammar and creativity. (The 1895 essay question was an assessment only of grammatical knowledge. This 2012 assessment will require students to understand events and facts related to the Holocaust, then project themselves back in time and to a different point of view.)

Our criticism of modern schooling often does not take into account how rapidly the world is changing.  In 1895, eighth grade was about a far as the typical Kansas student could hope to go in school. The world view of a 14 year-old living in Kansas would have been limited to the continental United States. Their heritage was mostly rooted in Europe.  Asia, Africa and South America were little more than vague continents on a globe.  White, Native American and African American societies hardly intersected.  Boys and girls were limited to stereotypical adulthoods. Technology powered by electricity was still over the horizon.

Image from usi.edu

            Ironically, the eighth grade graduates in 1895 might have been prepared for their world at least as well as today’s high school graduates are prepared for their world. But that's hard to know. We don't live in that 1895 world. The schools of 2012 and the tests used to measure learning today are still flawed. Today’s young adults need far more than schooling has delivered, but maybe we are not being realistic about what schools can do for our youth in the absence of stable families and communities. In 1895, the quality of home and community life might have been more valuable to children than the quality of schooling. The good news for today is that technology has given us a level of access to information that could not have been imagined in 1895.  A variety of forms of schooling are available to almost anyone who really wants it, and many of us now realize learning is truly a life-long endeavor. Education is no longer the exclusive domain of brick and mortar schools. Most of us still need teachers to help us learn some things, but the potential for self-teaching is very real.

8th Grade Wisdom

Photo Credit: Einstein Wisdom Poster

Eighth graders are typically the oldest students in a middle school.  They are 14 years old and constantly amazed by their own intelligence.  Pleasing adults is a thing of the past.  Life is about connecting with friends. Teaching eighth grade is hazardous duty meant only for clever adults. Here are a couple of episodes from a real eighth grade class. Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

Tameka sashayed around the perimeter of the room toward the pencil sharpener.  She eyed her classmates, pecked the top of a boy’s head with her long fingernails and whispered something to a friend who responded with a laugh.  She arrived at the pencil sharpener with all eyes one her, including the teacher’s.

            Ms. Tolley had begun her lesson on African folktales. She paused and made eye contact with Tameka.  The pause endured for a second as the teacher looked from the girl back to her empty seat.   Tameka grinned at one of her friends, then began the slow journey back toward her seat.

            It was a one-person parade. Tameka’s hair was long and stylish; she wore lipstick, multiple bracelets on both arms, and dangling earrings.  Her nails were long and painted. While she made her way back to a desk, the boys attended to her slow walk. 

            Five minutes into this lesson, Tameka journeyed to the bathroom in the corner of the portable classroom.  While Ms. Tolley talked about the characters in the two African folktales students had read, voices whispered loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to be understood.  I waited for Ms. Tolley to confront Tameka, but she ignored her and kept talking about common themes in the two stories. 

Students began to focus more on the lesson when she used a slideshow to present images and key words about characters, themes and how folktales had been carried to the Americas during the slave trade. Several times during the slideshow she called students by name and asked for their attention to the information.  After the presentation, she gave students a graphic organizer and asked them to work in pairs to compare the two stories. Within the first five minutes of the activity, she had to restate directions and remind students of her expectations for their work.  After ten minutes, she told the students they had three more minutes to finish the graphic organizer. While the students worked in pairs, Ms. Tolley walked among the desks, asked questions and made suggestions.

            After the graphic organizer activity, Ms. Tolley held a whole class discussion about how the two folktales were similar and different. Near the end of the discussion, she returned to the slideshow and presented images that depicted American tall tale characters, Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan (stories the students were familiar with). As a ticket out the door, Ms. Tolley asked students to write at least three sentences about how the two African folktales were different from American tall tales.  Most students complied and handed her their sentences as they left the room.  The lesson had lasted about an hour. I was impressed by the teacher’s determination to teach her lesson.

            When I returned several days later, Ms. Tolley was finishing the unit on folktales. The desks had been pushed to the sides and the students were seated in chairs in a large circle.  This was supposed to be a seminar, with less teacher talk and more discussion -- like Socrates had taught his students.  Before the seminar began, Ms. Tolley reviewed the rules.  Raised hands were not required to talk, but only one student could talk at a time.  No interrupting.  Students were to speak loud enough to be heard, to justify answers, and to be courteous to each other.

            The seminar was about The Beauty and the Beast, which the students had finished reading.  Ms. Tolley started the discussion with a question, “What is a sacrifice?” 

            A boy said a sacrifice was like a gift.

            “Okay, give me an example?” said the teacher.

            “Well, it’s like if I have something my friend wants, I give it to him.”

            “Okay.”  Then she went around the circle, addressing each student by name, asking for an example of a sacrifice.  Most were similar to the first one -- a sacrifice was some kind of gift. 

            The turn-taking came to Tameka, the girl who had sought so much attention a few days earlier.  She was dressed down today, jeans and a sweatshirt.  “It’s got to be something important to you,” the girl said.

            “Yes,” the student teacher replied, detached like Socrates.  “Explain.”

            “It’s like when you’re low on cash and your friend asks you for some money.  You give her some anyway, even if you’re nearly out and need it yourself, “ she said.

            As the talk went around the circle, a few eighth graders picked up on what Tameka had said.  They gave examples that were more in the ballpark of sacrifices, rather than gifts.

            Then the question turned to the story of The Beauty and the Beast.  Which of the characters had made the greatest sacrifice?  The students did not agree.  Some thought Beauty had made the greatest sacrifice because she left her family to live in the castle with the Beast.  Some thought the Beast’s sacrifice was the greatest, because he had nearly died.  It was a long discussion, sometimes more like an argument.  Rules were forgotten.  Occasionally, several students talked at one time, and not always courteously.  Ms. Tolley’s voice remained calm.  Somehow, each time the discussion seemed about to slip over the edge into pandemonium, she brought it under control and urged the students to listen to each other and to provide more justification. 

              Forty minutes into the lesson, these reluctant students had been engaged in a heated discussion of a work of literature.  Although the tone of discussion was not always courteous, it was always on task. No one had been disinterested enough to wander away, either physically or mentally.

            Ms. Tolley asked Tameka her closing question, “What sacrifice could you make to help someone have a better life?”

            Tameka thought for a few seconds.  Ms. Tolley waited. “Give some food to the poor. Respect my parents. Share with my brothers,” Tameka said.

            One student argued against sharing with her brothers.  “I have five brothers and I’m the only girl.  They treat me like dirt.  I ain’t sharing with those turkeys.”

            “Well, girl, you need a change of attitude, ” said Tameka.  “A sacrifice I could make would be to work on my attitude.  Sometimes you gotta try to get-along.”

            The pause in the discussion wasn’t long, but it was noticeable.  Tameka and Ms. Tolley made eye contact for a moment, then they both listened to the next student’s example.

             If all teachers worked as hard as Ms. Tolley, schooling would, indeed, be beneficial for everyone.  The episodes above provide a glimpse of how much energy and patience are expended by teachers in a short amount of time.  The episodes also show that schooling is as much about ethics as it is academics.  Teachers and students constantly make decisions about what to say and do – either intentionally, based on personal ethics, or intuitively, based on impulse and emotion.  At all levels, schooling works when teachers and students come to accept a similar set of ethical values – the desire for knowledge and wisdom, respect, kindness, curiosity and patience.  The best teachers have clever ways (often subtle and indirect) of moving students to the common ethical ground shared by good people.