New York Trip, upon our safe return

A week after we've come home, I've finally posted the info from our last day and a brief (believe it or not) retrospective on the trip as a whole. What a kick! I have heard the term Anglophile used to describe those who are infatuated with all things British. Would I be the first to coin the term New York-ophile? Probably not. I've asked Zach, Lauren, and Zach, my friends in the city, to send me only the most pleasant stories about their lives there, so that we can pressure Paige to agree to move there, but, as my friend and colleague Bill Gsell said, "Ain't gonna' happen." (Then I said that maybe she could be convinced if Noah went to college at Columbia or Fordham or NYU, and he marveled at what a terrible idea that was, noting that the absolute last thing Noah would want would be his geeky dad following him off to college. I'm pretty sure Bill thinks Noah is the unluckiest kid in the world, doomed to be warped into nerd-hood by his father. I assure you all, Noah is very happy, as you can see here:

For some reason, Paige hates that I posted that picture on the New York Blog. She'd prefer something like this, perhaps?

Or this one?


Anyway, it's good to be back.

Oh, and one of the student-teachers at school noticed and correctly identified my new shoes as Starburys. This is probably as close as I will ever come to cool!

New York Trip

I'm trying to keep a daily blog so parents and friends of our school's choir tour to New York City can keep up. Here's the site. Wish me luck. Posting pictures ended up being harder than expected.

http://chsnytrip.blogspot.com/

Hopefully I'll be seeing Zach and Lauren as well as a friend I haven't seen in 12 years, Zach Dye, this Friday. Maybe I'll blog about that here. Wish me luck (and rest).


(I call it "Nerd Leaning on Mailbox")

An argument for socialized medicine

It would be both unethical and illegal for me to republish Timothy Noah's piece "Would You Privatize Defense: The case for socialized medicine, part I" here in this blog. I know this. But I'm still tempted.

Please read it, so I don't have to break the law.

I think this piece is important. It's an argument that appeals to reason rather than hyperbole. It also appeals to those who are more likely to be critical of socialized medicine, conservatives of the libertarian strain, because those same people thoroughly believe that national defense is a government obligation (in the most extreme cases, government's only obligation).

Here's why I think this piece really stands out: I can't fault the logic. Just when Noah seems like he's gone off the deep end, taking it all too far, I realize he's remained entirely consistent in his metaphor. Our national health system really is that ridiculous. Then, when it seems that this would be an opportunity for an easy partisan twist noting that Democrats are closer to recognizing this reality than Repblicans, Noah refrains. He stays true to the logic that has made the article both frightening and persuasive: It doesn't matter whose solution is slightly closer to nationalized health care, because anything less than full national health care means the candidate or party still hasn't recongized the underlying truth that protecting lives is a job for governments, not markets. Or worse, it means they know this to be true, but don't have the courage to take on the powerful forces that benefit from the lie of superior free market health care.

Maybe I'm buying the metaphor to eagerly. Maybe I'm missing something. Please, can someone explain how this logic doesn't follow? Show me how these are apples and oranges, and private health care is better than public, as opposed to private defense. Or show me that he's wrong on both fronts: that a war fought by more and more private contractors (like our current wars) are more likely to succeed than wars past, with a government led military. Good luck with that one. But seriously, show me how he's wrong.

Or, if he's not, let's work to spread this idea so that candidates with less courage (or more pragmatism, which might be the same thing) will follow in Dennis Kucinich's footsteps because it will become politically expedient.

Can we move on this quickly, please, because in less than three years I have to sit down and negotiate another contract where medical benefits are going to be the biggest issue because of our stupid system. So, someone show me how our stupid system really is the way to go, and I should be glad to be debating with management about who should eats its exponential cost increases. Or, failing that, let's do something to fix this health care cluster-f--- now.

On Re-reading 1984

Reading 1984 for a second time has been a very powerful experience. When I read it in high school it was a fun intellectual exercise. I was able to intellectualize the emotional power of the book, to separate myself from the story and examine the ideas from a safe distance. I have not enjoyed that luxury this time. It has been terrifying.

When I finished it for the second time, my first thought was that I had done something awful to my students. I pictured them coming back into my class, pale and wide-eyed, overcome by a new perspective on the world that soiled their innocence in some irreversible way. I had, by assigning this book, loosed the shackles and freed them from the cave, but they had not left to see the bright sun. Instead, they’d seen the evil of the chains for the first time, and no amount of human goodness or divine grace would ever erase that knowledge.

Then I shook this off. They might understand it as I had at their age, but the complete horror of it would elude them. I remember going to see Schindler’s List with a group from my high school when I was a kid. Throughout it the students had laughed. I knew they were trying to cope, but I’d despised them for it. Now I understand their youth. They were rejecting the knowledge of the horror of mankind. Bless them for that. My students will do the same. Let them have this instance of doublethink, of knowledge they forget while knowing they are consciously forgetting it until they forget even that. Let them laugh.

But I can’t bear to let them trivialize it. I imagine myself saying, “If this book didn’t affect you in a powerful way, if you didn’t recognize the awful truth of it, then there is something deeply wrong with you.” And they would nod and agree that it was both true and horrifying without the slightest inclination to change their own beliefs or actions. Their experience would be just like my first reading: an intellectual exercise divorced from the emotional experience which simultaneously included a coherent and seemingly complete comprehension of the facts of the book, and a disinclination to internalize the wrong-ness to the extent that it might motivate them to a complete understanding. And I would quickly forget my reverence for their innocence and sneer at their naïveté. Despite their agreement, I would think they were the exact kind of horrible little monsters I’d accused them of being: people who are morally culpable for their unconscious cruelty.

But I know that’s wrong. I know that is hypocritical to a degree I cannot bear. I live in a country that incarcerates people without trial, that tortures people to the point that they lose the sanity necessary to be tried for crimes they may never have committed, that attacks another country that never did it any harm for a host of stated reasons, none of which are true and none of which, even if they were true, would any sane person choose to die for. I live in a country where 76% of the populations call themselves Christians, and everyone has access to scripture, but we willingly doublethink ourselves into believing Jesus would make allowances for our militarism and wealth. I live in a country where the government can dirty the skies and call their actions the “Clean Air Act”, and cut down forests and call it the “Healthy Forrest Initiative”, where they can claim they don’t commit “affronts against human decency” and we know, to the same degree of certainty that we know that they exist at all, that they are lying, but we do nothing.

I buy my fast food. I pay my credit card bills. I pay my taxes. I go to my job and do my work, and that work compels me to read a book like 1984, which shows me, beyond any doubt, that a truly sane person would be running through the streets, screaming at the top of his lungs about the madness all around him. I don’t even see myself as cowardly or lazy or immoral. Through doublethink I forget these rational conclusions and accept the status quo with the kind of mindless, trudging will of a man lost in a desert, stumbling aimlessly towards the hope of water. And I help my students do the same, and my son after them. “Don’t laugh during Schindler’s List,” I say, “but don’t go running screaming through the streets, either. Get a job. Get a mortgage. Pay your taxes. Watch your TV and buy the crap they sell you. Be like me.”

My students’ reaction may indicate that they are deeply wrong, but not as much as their teacher. They still may end up crying foul, saying no, running screaming through the streets some day. But me? Well, I guess I love Big Brother just a little too much.

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

Ignorance is Strength.

2 + 2 = 5

My letter to Santa

Some clever satirist in the town of Hazleton, PA has posted a great site in response to the city’s Illegal Immigrant Relief Act. It poses as a site for the city government, and makes it very clear that Santa, as a foreigner, is not welcome in Hazelton. Check it out:

http://nosantaforhazleton.com/index.html

One part of the site allows people to send letters to Santa. I wrote him a letter. I feel badly that I had to sign it "Sarcastically", because that should be obvious, but I would hate for someone to think I was serious. Here’s my letter:

Dear Santa,

I am so glad the city of Hazleton is standing up to you. I wish my hometown were just as xenophobic and backwards. Instead, we welcome the foreign born because of the silly notion that we are descended from foreigners ourselves. As though Christmas is the time of year to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. How un-American. Because of your magic powers (certainly un-Christian ones, I might add) you are able to do work that would take many Americans years to accomplish. You have taken away so many potential jobs. I know that many people think that foreigners like yourself take away only the jobs that Americans don't want, or can't do as well, but let's face it: it's not like you're breaking your back picking strawberries so your children can eat and get an education. You're just giving away gifts, and foreign-made ones at that! What's with the outsourcing to elves just because they're cheap labor? You should be ashamed of yourself. Thank you, Hazleton, for saying a resounding "No!" to Santa Claus and all other foreigners.

Sarcastically,

Ben Gorman

ESL teacher from Independence, OR

Airhead Outed

In one of my afternoon classes yesterday, a student who has established a solid reputation for being painfully gullible made a public confession. She told the whole class that, earlier in the day, she'd asked a classmate why a particular part of her head (pointing to her temples) felt softer than the rest. He'd explained that just inside that area, between her temples, the head is actually filled with air. She accepted this and was not tipped off by the fact that people kept asking her to explain her new theory throughout the rest of the morning.

Here's my favorite part: When this student shared this with the class another student, sitting in the front row, mumbled under his breath, "There's No Child Left Behind at its best."

Should I root for the Knicks?

Okay, stop laughing. Seriously. I've actually wondered about this.

Here's the thing: Did you see the Boston Red Sox fans when the Sox won the World Series? Did you see that kind of uninhibited joy? And did you hear what many of them said? They claimed that it was all worth it for that moment; all the suffering and agonizing for, in many cases, a lifetime were suddenly worth it. Assuming these people are not lieing, imagine you could pick a team that looks like they are beginning a long stretch of misery and then root for them until they right the ship. You'd get o have that moment. Doesn't this plan seem to make sense?

The Knicks are a team that looks to be starting such a stretch. Their players are old and highly overpaid, but the city refuses to enter a period of rebuilding so they keep paying out the nose for a team that is perpetually advertised as being better next year. Of course, it isn't. It just gets worse. Also, they went out and got a coach, Larry Brown, with a reputation for two things. He turns teams around, and he leaves dramatically and creates bitterness. NY made a bet that he'd do the former, and got only the latter. Then, to add insult to injury, they promote a guy who is developing a reputation for incompetence that's quickly dwarfing how impressive he was as a player. I was an Isaiah Thomas fan once upon a time. My folks raved about seeing him play for Indiana gainst the Fighting Illini, and I loved watching him play with the Pistons. Since then I've enjoyed him for the exact opposite reasons. As a player he was smart and effective. In management he's been stupid and worse than worthless. The worst guy in your fanatasy league could run a team more effectively. I've enjoyed reading all the one-liners about his bone-head moves, and I've made a handful myself. Now he's the coach. How could this possibly end well?

So here's my prediction: the Knicks won't get better. They may win a few more than last season, but not enough to satisfy New Yorkers. So they'll fire Thomas and keep the expensive, over-rated players. They'll bank on a coach turning the team around. That poor sap will fail, and they'll do it again. Maybe the team will eventually go through an active rebuilding preiod, but it will probably come about slowly, through attrition, and bad trades will make that process even longer. A rookie who could have real potential won't develop in a New York minute and they'll trade him for another old, overpaid guy. You'd think this would go one forever, but it won't. New York will overcome its imatience with it's greatest asset: Money. They'll finally get sick of losing teams a buy themselves a good one. Let's call it the Steinbrenner Solution. And it will work, and long suffering fans will get their championship. They'll say it was worth it all along. Shouldn't I consider taking part in that?

I'm half-tempted. Stephon Marbury helps, not because I think he's a great player, but because I appreciate his latest off-court move. Providing low cost sneakers is actually a big deal. I know the whole shoe-worshiping culture is silly, but kids really do kill each other for shoes. On a less dramatic scale many poor kids face mockery becase they can't drop two-hundred bucks on shoes they'll outgrow in a year. Cheaps kicks with street cred really are socially important, and I appreciate the fact that Marbury gets that.

But it not enough. Maybe I've already made too many cracks about Thomas' player moves to start rooting for him now. Maybe the sexual harassment suit against him has soured me further; a bumbling idiot can be lovable, but a fool who's a lech just isn't. Maybe it's the fact that too many of the over-paid, over-rated old guys still have egos that dwarf the number of wins they can actually pull off.

No, when it comes down to it, I'm just too much of a fair-whether fan to root for a team like New York. I'd root for 'em for a while, and then, the season before they get it together, I'd jump ship.
Instead, I'll stick with the only team that had a worse record than the Knicks last year. That'd be our local boys, the Portland Trailblazers. They offer the same alluring promise of a long spell without a championship, but they're even better. Why? Because, lacking the means to a Steinbrenner Solution, it's entirely possible that they will never win a championship for the rest of my life.

If they do, you can guess what I'll say. "It's all been worth it."

Yeah, right.

Thanks, Mom.

In my last post I shared an anxiety about my failing memory, and compared the dilemma of try to remember what is forgotten to proving a negative, like showing that one des not have WMD. My mom read the post (yea for moms!) and posted a comment... in my e-mail inbox. Mom is quite adept at e-mail, but apparently not so clear on the workings of blogs. Or maybe she was just protecting me from humiliation. Again, not so clear on the concept of blogs. These were practically designed to allow people to embarrass themselves, as far as I can tell.

In that vein, here was Mom's comment:
"Not being able to remember is not a sign of greatness or meanness or anything as eriudite [sic] as being in the same company as a head of state - it's age, Ben. You are now feeling the effects of fast approaching the age of 30! It's downhill all the way, baby! Welcome to the real world."

Yes, it's true. I am old. The last post centered around the beginning of the school year, and if having my mother call me old weren't enough to drive the point home the arrival of high school students LESS THAN HALF MY AGE certainly did the trick. More and more, pop culture references in my class are preambled with "This was probably before your time..." and produce a strained silence that shows I should have stopped there. I've often said that for my students anyone over the age of 21 is basically dead. For me, anyone over the age of 30 is essentially old. I am fast approaching that category myself, as Mom pointed out. Thanks, Mom.

When I was in college more than one person joked that I wouldn't live to see thirty. This was a consequence of my diet and sleep habits, which have only marginally imporved despite my wife's best efforts to force healthy food into me and tell me I'm an idiot when I come to bed as the sun comes up. Oh, and there's also my complete lack of muscle. I used to get exercise by playing video games, but we got rid of the game console and now even my thumbs are showing signs of atrophy. Back in college I probably weighed about 140 pounds. I thought of myself as "scrawny". When I wanted to flatter myself, I thought of this as "scrappy". Now I weigh 138 pounds. Apparently I was sporting a couple pounds of hair back then.

More than once since losing my hair I've been told I look like a cancer patient. I shave the remaining hair off. I like the cue-ball look, though I do miss my long hair when I hear a song that calls for head-banging. But a note to those who think I look like a cancer patient: Wrong! I look like a cancer patient with remarkably tenacious eyebrows. So there.

My declining memory hasn't been the most telling sign of my age. I have always wished I had a better memory. Or, at least, I think I've thought that before. To the best of my recollection.

My consummate un-hip-ness isn't even the best sign of my aging. I have never been in the least bit cool. When someone makes a clever movie reference I'm the one who waits for everyone to stop laughing and then says, "What's that from?" This is a guaranteed mood killer, as no explanation is ever as funny as the joke. If only I could remember this!

No, the best sign of my age is the growing detachment with which I observe the world around me, especially the world of high school politics. I always found them shallow, even in high school when I also considered them important, but I also detested the adults who seemed the respond to everything with an air of jaded experience that I couldn't compete with. I've made a point to refrain from responding to student concerns with sayings like, "You'll understand when you're older," or "This won't matter so much in ten years." When I started teaching I didn't say these things because I didn't like the people who said them to me. Now I don't say these things because I don't enjoy the fact that I am a person who thinks them.

When I was young I thought that experience was a highly overrated teacher. I still think so, but for different reasons. Back then it just seemed unfair to appeal to the authority of experience when someone else lacked the luxury of doing the same. Telling someone they'll understand later is just wrong. If experience is germane to any conversation, it is the obligation of the experienced party to explain the lesson of said experience. If they cannot convey the message to a younger person, the lesson really hasn't been learned. All those people who told me I'd understand later really should have tried to make me understand at the time. I would have been better off. If experience is a means to avoid inter-generational communication, what good is it?

Now I look at experience differently, though still distastefully. I see what I could do when I was young, what I was capable of and accomplished and what I failed to accomplish, and recognize that most of my vaulted experience is composed of lessons I could not learn now. Someone once said, "Time is a great teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all its pupils." I am now realizing that experience is not only the measure of what I've learned, but also the measure of what I cannot learn again. Unlike book knowledge these learning experiences are, by definition, things of the past. They are nostalgia, not authority. Certainly I have a lot more to learn, and a lot more to learn experientially (read: The Hard Way), but as soon as those lessons are filed away the experiences are gone, too. I cannot learn to tie my shoes again. I cannot learn how wonderful it feels to immerse myself in my first great book. I cannot learn what heartbreak feels like for the first time. My experience only allows me to begrudge my students one thing; I wish they were more grateful for the experiences they are having right now.

I finally am grateful. I can't learn to tie my shoes again, but I can watch my son learn, and I think that's pretty wonderful. I can't read my first great book, but I can keep looking for better ones, and maybe even someday write a halfway decent one (mine are terrible). I cannot re-experience the first time I prayed and didn't feel like I was talking to myself, but I can continue to be amazed by new examples of the other-ness of God. I cannot forget that first heartbreak, but I can keep learning that a heart can get more full as I love my wife and son more and more each passing day. I can barely remember the casual amusement I felt the first time I considered the possibility that I was living through the downfall of Western Civilization, but I can continue to be surprised by the growing dread I feel every time I see that opinion reinforced, now that I have a son who will face the consequences.

So I'm getting simultaneously more grateful and more cynical, happier and more crochety, more filled with both hope and despair. I guess that's what getting old is all about.

I still think the "real world" is highly overrated, and is due for an overhaul. I hope I never give up on my belief that "ought" is more important than "is". I hope I die first.

But I hope I don't die before I'm 30. Downhill, here I come.

Remembering What I Forgot

Students aren't the only ones anxious about the start of a new school year. My students will be arriving in my classroom in less than two days, and I can't fall asleep because I'm so anxious. I need to sleep in order to reorient my schedule to the early waking and sleeping required by the school day, but here I am, after midnight, waltzing aimlessly around the internet looking for something interesting to read because I know I can't accomplish the one thing that will help me sleep; I can't remember what I've forgotten to do.

Not that I have any sympathy for Saddam Hussein, but I think I'm starting to understand what it must have felt like for him during the run up to war in early 2003. Imagine the quandary he was in: He had to prove he didn't have weapons of mass destruction within his country while not giving up sovereignty. Weapons inspectors were on the ground but couldn't satisfy the Bush administration, largely because he'd prevented inspectors from having unlimited access in the past. At that point, suddenly giving them unlimited access wouldn't have satisfied anybody. It would have made him seem very weak and frightened, a position that would have lost him more of the country he already wasn't in full control over. Plus, the illusion of WMD was a deterrent to foreign rivals, and he may have even though it would dissuade the U.S. from attacking. Ultimately, he would have had to give up his position in order to maintain his position, and all because he couldn't prove a negative. No wonder he looked so awful when the finally found him. He probably hadn't slept well until he was in that hole in the ground, and when you have to bury yourself to get some peace you're in pretty bad shape.

I am not going to lose my position as despot of a middle-eastern country if I can't remember what I forgotten. I won't even lose my job. In all likelihood whatever I've forgotten will require a few more hours after school than I had planned on spending, and the crisis won't even appear for a few weeks. Unless, of course, I've forgotten something major. Which I may have. I can't be sure.

Maybe I haven't forgotten anything at all. All I have is a feeling, that feeling one has before locking the front door on the way out when leaving for a vacation; what am I forgetting? Maybe nothing, but in my experience it's always something that seems small but is a day-to-day necessity, like deodorant or socks, and I have to buy more when I arrive at my destination. But you can't buy personalized lesson plans at a 7-11 or Fred Meyer's.

I have racked my brains trying to discover what is not there. I've gone to my classroom, thinking maybe the setting would shake something loose. I've gone through my lessons plans, my syllabi, the loose papers piled on my desk. I've stared at the ceiling. I've tried to distract myself. Nothing works. Whatever "it" is, it isn't there.

I guess it all comes down to trust. No one would have trusted Saddam even if he had sworn he didn't have any WMD. I'd like to think I'm a bit more trustworthy. I've never gassed a bunch of people or shaken hands with Donald Rumsfeld, two pretty reliable signs that one is up to no good. So why can't I trust myself?

Are there any out-of-work U.N. weapons inspectors out there who could try to figure out what I have left to do before school starts? I promise I won't ignore your findings.

Lauren's Question for Educators

I know my posts have been too long to read, so I'll try to keep this brief, but I think this is worth discussing; as a comment (and probably not one looking for a lot of serious deliberation), Lauren asked, "Is it wrong that I have totally different standards for myself and my friends than I do for students?" Though I'm sure Lauren's standards for her own behavior and that of her students aren't nearly as disparate as she says, I think the question is a very important one, and I would love to hear how all of you (both friends and random readers) address this question.

Allow me to take the first whack at it: I think it's an issue tha has to be measured by two factors: what is role-modeling, and what is developmentally appropriate. First, the biggies: sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. When it comes to sex, I think my student should wait. This isn't a religious conviction, because I don't expect students who do not share my faith to feel compelled to base decisions on my religious views anyway. I just think fifteen and sixteen year olds would be better off waiting. And it's not just an issue of pregnancy or disease (though those are huge concerns because kids are far more likely to be unsafe about their sexual practices). I don't think they are emtionally ready to inject the power of sex (pardon the pun) into their fragile relationships. Also, I know that, for my students, relationships last weeks or months at most, and serial monogomy and sex don't mix well on any level. I don't think educators should have to hold themselves to this standard. We're all married or in serious, responsible adult relationships, so staying celibate in the name of role-modeling would be silly and unfair to our spouses/significant others. I think our obligation is to model decorum; we shouldn't talk about our sex lives with our students.

As to drugs, I think it's similarly important that we not talk about any illegal drug experimentation in our youth. While I don't think educators should be using illegal drugs while in the proffession, we also shouldn't get sucked into conversations about our childhood use because if we say we didn't use we put fellow educators on the spot, and if we say we did we provide kids with an excuse. Refusing to answer the question may make some kid assume you were a junkie, but it's better than giving a kid a reason to challenge another educator and make them a liar.

Regarding rock'n'roll, and all art, I'm very open about my tastes. I think this humanizes me and, if I've shown myself to be a role model in other ways, opens kids' eyes to the fact that responsible people can appreciate all kinds of art, music, films, entertainment that they may think of as taboo. Do I admit to reading Harry Potter? Absolutely. (When a student confides a frustration with those who think those books ar evil, I share my opinion that a person whose faith is threatened by a children's book doesn't have a literary problem but a weak faith, but I am very careful who I share that with). Do I admit that I love The Daily Show and The Colbert Report? Definately. If students want to make judgements about my politics as a consequence they can, but I haven't tried to inculcate any political beliefs by sharing a personal taste.

One last more frivolous example; I don't allow my students to eat or drink in my classroom. It's against the school rules. I do eat in class, though. I am unapologetic about this seeming hypocrisy, and I freely explain it to my students. I tell them from the first day that I have graduated from high school and continued with my education, and that earns me privalidges in the real world. I encourage them to come back to visit me when they are enrolled in some form of higher education and eat and drink in front of some future group of high school freshmen, to show them that privilidges are earned. Some of my students have promised to do so, and seem very excited about the prospect. Whether or not they remember in four years is irrelevant. Is this self-serving? Yep. But it's also a valuable lesson. I benefit from other valable lessons I teach with a monthly paycheck, and I don't hear anyone complaining that this makes my advocacy of learning for its own sake hypocritical.

Ultimately, I think it's good to hold adults, especially educators, to a different standard than kids. We are different, and expecting us to behave like kids is just as unfair as expecting them to behave like adults. But we, like Lauren, should have a standard, and it should be carefully considered and intentional. What do you folks think?