tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43509767587701644262024-03-23T03:14:07.873-07:00Jeffrey Benson's BlogJBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-50647453726808117032017-09-04T16:03:00.000-07:002017-09-04T16:03:01.530-07:00Book Review: "The Quest for Meaningful Special Education" by Amy Ballin<div class="MsoNormal">
Let me begin with unequivocal praise: Amy Ballin’s , “The
Quest for Meaningful Special Education” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) is well
written, robustly researched, as often heart-warming as it is heart-wrenching,
and laser focused on equity and excellence in our schools—equity and excellence
for <i>all</i> students. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The book is divided into three sections:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]-->1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->A deep dive into the history of special
education, and the attendant problems with definitions, exclusion, racism, and
access. We begin to follow nine families who, through luck and privilege, are
able to get their children into the Kelsey School (not the real name of a very
real school), a private special education program where these children thrive.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span><!--[endif]-->A description of the structure and culture of
the Kelsey School. We meet teachers, administrators, and counselors. We come to
understand how these nine children get their needs met, in ways that public
schools have not yet reliably provided for such students.<o:p></o:p></div>
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</span><!--[endif]-->A realistic set of goals and practices that all
schools can consider to provide a meaningful education for every child.<o:p></o:p></div>
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From the first pages, Ballin fearlessly jumps into the issue
that children who are labeled as having special needs can be excluded by that
label (sent from the room, sent to out-of-district placements, made to feel
“other”) and included by that label into caring, well-structured school communities
where they can find success. From
interviews with the nine children and their parents, Ballin extracts scores of
stories and quotes that make the simultaneous exclusion and inclusion
memorable. Among my favorites: Raya is in her first year at the Kelsey School,
with many emotional scars from her struggles in the public setting with
dyslexia. Her class is heading to the library at Kelsey, and she bursts into
tears. When asked why she is crying, she sobs, “I can’t read; why would I want
to go to the library.” A fellow student says to her, “What’s the problem? None
of us can read. Let’s go!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ballin challenges us with an optimistic, ethical, and
ultimately well-documented standard, one she richly describes, happening now at
the Kelsey School and in similar programs around the country: all children can
learn; all schools can include; all parents can be well informed and supported;
all teachers can work within settings that enable them to focus on the success
of every child. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Ballin is no fool—she knows that American schools have never
been funded, structured, resourced, or charged to be so inclusive and
successful. The Kelsey School exists because our public schools have
chronically neglected, if not harmed, atypical learners. There was no national Golden
Age of Education for us to look back upon, when everyone succeeded; as recently
as the 1960’s 40% of students did not complete high school , and still today 20%
of students do not earn a high school diploma, a disproportionate number of
them labeled with special needs. Ballin’s courageous nine families, her robust
research, and the Kelsey School tell us in no uncertain terms that we can do
better—her book emotionally and intellectually is unequivocal in making the
case for that expectation.<o:p></o:p></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com124tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-33622136502773879112015-10-05T11:12:00.000-07:002015-10-05T11:12:39.784-07:00Personalized LearningThis post first appeared in Larry Ferlazzo's Education Week Teacher column, as part of a series of responses to the concept of personalized learning.<br />
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<em><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">What does "personalized learning" mean, and what
can it look like in the classroom?</span></b></em><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Learning is an accomplishment of attention and
effort that can take place in an auditorium filled with 2,000 people, or at a
corner table in a library. It takes place with a teacher, or a coach, or with
peers, or when you are alone. Learning is always a personal experience for the
learner.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our factory model of schooling obscures the fact
that all learning is personal. We've been forcing too many children at the same
time to be presented with the same stimulation in hopes they develop the same
understanding. Because we are all evolutionary cousins, with similar brains
that are wired from birth to find patterns in the environment, the factory
approach sort of works-- if you like mediocrity, and if you think it is
inevitable that only a few students reach mastery in classes.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Enough of us did pass the tests through the years
for our schools to consider themselves hotbeds of learning. Schools have gotten
away with this mediocre assembly-line delivery of lessons for so long that we
find the notion of personalized learning to be innovative. But all each of us
ever did, even in the stultifying rigidity of our most boring class, was to
personally make sense of what was going on. Or we didn't learn. No one could do
it for us.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Personalized learning as an educational imperative
has at its root a very radical notion: almost all students can reach mastery in
almost every subject. If you don't believe that, you will have no drive to
change our factory system of education, which is as much about sorting students
into successes and failures as it is about educating them. If you do believe
that each student truly has the capacity for mastery in all subjects--in your
subject! in your school!-- personalized learning asks two fundamental
questions:</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">What
is this child ready to learn?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">How
do I best help this child learn?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Throw out your pacing guides. Do not chain yourself
to the end-of-the-chapter tests. Fill your classrooms--and I mean you in
secondary school--with stuff to build and model and draw and craft. Listen to
the students. Be a guide, a coach, a teacher, an inspirer, a challenger, a
fellow explorer. This is not an easy path, but it will be your special path
into the most interesting part of your career. Personalize your learning; no
one else can do it for you.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-8648491907065445842015-08-15T14:20:00.000-07:002015-08-15T14:29:30.830-07:00Be Special, Educator!<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am old
enough to have been there at the beginning of special education, and
fortunately, I completely missed the euphemism of “special.” I knew schools
were filled with students who were disengaged, abused, overwhelmed, scared, with
quirky learning difficulties that would
not go away simply by avoiding the required reading and writing and math
curricula. I was fooled by the person who compassionately thought to call these
kids “special.” I entered the field because I was sure that we teachers were
the ones who were supposed to be special—special <i>educators</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And we were.
My graduate courses were filled with energetic, passionate, and articulate
teachers. This was not a group of “regular” people. We didn’t know exactly how
we would take our often radical and experimental approaches into traditional schools—and
there was no doubt that my peers were intent on not only helping their own
students, but also on changing the rigid structures that had historically
excluded far too many children from being well-served. We were excited to have
a mission, both grand and rooted in a daily practice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So it
saddens me greatly to see the ways that special educators have been
constrained; we pushed against those rigid structures and those structures held.
In what seems to be a frenzy of mainstreaming—which as far as I can tell is
being driven more by economics than by the urge for social justice—resource
rooms and sub-separate programs that could robustly address the particular
needs of their students are being closed down. Special educators are being
reduced to glorified assistant teachers, rushing around the now over-crowded
regular education classes, hoping to re-explain to a handful of confused kids
exactly what “the teacher” wants them to do now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are
scant opportunities for the special educator, limited to supporting the
mainstream teacher, to do anything really special; e.g. to develop a hands-on multi-day
integrated unit designed especially for the idiosyncratic interests of the
neediest students, so that they can not
only hang in through the struggle to skill up, but find themselves in the world
as central players; to give the kids a break from the relentless pacing guides
and test preparation, when it is clear that the emotional overload of school
work has reached a critical threshold; to modify the daily schedule for a
particular student so that he gets an extra period with the physical education
teacher; to have the authority to stop the lesson because brain research shows
that we have to switch mental gears periodically.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The issue is
one of professional authority. Educators have the authority to be special when
they have their own classrooms, when they design the curriculum, and when they
lead lessons. They need that authority in order to take the best care of the
students who most need their unique skills of observation, task analysis, and
modification. The authority to be
special educators has not been transferred to the mainstream, only the
students.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I fully
support the notion that mainstreaming means we no longer banish kids from
having a rightful seat in the classroom—that’s the social justice perspective I
endorse, allowing the students to work with the non-disabled peers who can
model excellence. Remembering that the struggle for special education came on
the heels of the struggle for civil rights legislation, let’s also make sure
that the seat in the classroom for those students is not the seat at the back
of the bus, that the special educator is not ushering the special students to
those peripheral seats so that they won’t bother the other kids up front.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We are
fighting an uphill battle again. Parents, regular education teachers,
specialists, legislators and administrators have to speak up, demanding in
their own voices, and in coalitions of voices, that as many of the following
mainstreaming structures are in place so that this era of special education as civil
rights reflects the wisdom gained from the last 40 years:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--Give each
special educator no more than 2 mainstream teachers to have as partners; one
partner all day is immeasurably better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--Give
abundant common planning time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--Call the
classroom, in speaking and in writing and on every form, by both teachers’
names.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--Divide the
teacher responsibilities for calling parents, marking papers, seating charts,
and everything else that goes into each teacher feeling ownership. This is not
easy to do! We also have to take into account that the special educator will
carry the large burden of handling special education paperwork and meetings.
But if you don’t forcibly build joint ownership into mainstreaming, you will
not get mainstreaming other than in name, and there’s little special about a
teacher rushing around a class putting her finger in innumerable leaks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--In high
school, assign special educators to subjects that they know, or give them the
time and training to build their capacity to teach that subject.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--In lesson
planning forms, make explicit the different roles each teacher will handle—both
teachers having the responsibility to lead the full class, to work with small
groups, to pull students aside for one-to-one sessions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--Both
teachers refer to all the students as “ours.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">--Collect
data on important markers beyond standardized test scores: the number of
contributions students make to a class discussion; the different jobs students
take on in group work; the variety of students each child sits with and works
with. If we are mainstreaming to promote social inclusion and equity, demonstrate
that it is actually happening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am not
optimistic—except that I see enough frustrated special educators who are being
asked to do a fraction of what makes them special, frustrated because they know
the students could be better served. Perhaps what will make us special in this
coming era of education as a civil right will be our ability to speak up and
organize. That’s a task worthy of some very special educators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-20395768676012011792014-12-26T15:10:00.000-08:002014-12-26T15:10:54.809-08:00Teenage Boys: How to Support Your Moms, Sisters, and Girlfriends<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Teenage Boys: How to Support Your Moms, Sisters, and Girlfriends<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 14.7pt;">Introduction: Co-writing credit for this article belongs to Pamela Clark. I have never met her. I read her article, "35 Practical Tools for Men to Further Feminist Revolution." I wished for there to be a parallel article that would be accessible to teenagers. I found Pamela Clark's email and told her my intentions to re-work her </span><span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">original</span><span style="line-height: 14.7pt;"> text. She gave me an enthusiastic response. I did the rewrite and sent it to her. I didn't hear from her. In the ensuing months I sent her emails and tweets--with no communication or closure and agreement on moving forward with the article. If you are reading this introduction, I still haven't heard from her--but the article needed to climb out of my files and get some air. I look forward to hearing back from Pamela.</span></i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1. “Man up” on the house work</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You are
old enough now to clean up after yourself when you eat, shower, play, and
dress. Tell your buddies to pick up after themselves too, and not leave a mess
for the women folk. Same for your brothers. You’ll see that vacuum cleaners and
dishwashers and washing machines work just as well for a young man as they do
for a woman. If you are not sure what you can do to help out around the house,
ask. And remember, you can keep your house clean without being asked or told to
do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">2. Make the effort to put your feelings into words.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Women
are often pulling for us to say what we feel. When you were a little boy, you
had just a few words to say how you felt: mad, glad, sad. But now you probably
feel mixtures of feelings--you can be both excited and nervous at the same
time, or determined and caring. When the women in your life share their many
feelings, you can match them. Better yet: you can share your feelings first.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One of the most
difficult times you may face sharing your feelings respectfully with women is
when you are angry. Our culture is filled with images of men yelling, threatening,
and abusing women when they are angry. When you are angry with or hurt by a
woman, do not resort to sexist name calling.
If you are having a disagreement with a woman, don’t use insults aimed
at all women--disagree with her on the basis of her ideas. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">3. Keep an eye out for women who are making a difference in the
world</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A lot
of great and important women have been forcefully ignored throughout history,
but you can make the effort to check them out. They have things to say about
the world that a lot of guys have never heard. Some of the greatest writers in
the world are women, and they write books guys would like. Watch some
women’s’ sports. Listen closely when a woman politician or commentator is
speaking. Find out how women got the vote. Learn the history of birth control. Support
women who are working to make the world better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4. Give women space.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Many
women walk around -- especially at night or while alone -- feeling on edge and
unsafe, especially when there are men around whom they don’t know. If you think
about it, given how many of our moms and sisters and girlfriends have been
harassed or abused or bothered or intimidated by all sorts of guys, it makes
sense for them to be extra careful. And there’s no way for them to know what
sort of guy you are. So it’s important that you take the extra effort to help
all women feel safe in public.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Examples:
If a seat is available on a bus or train next to a man, take that seat rather
than one next to a woman. If you are walking outside in the dark, close to a
woman walking alone, cross the street so that she doesn’t have to worry someone
is following her. If a woman is standing alone on a subway platform, stand some
distance away from her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">5. … and step up when women are being targeted</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If one
of the women in your life is looking uncomfortable as a man is speaking to her,
say “hello” to her and join the conversation, so she can have a chance to get
out of the situation if she wants to do that. If you see a woman you don’t know
who seems upset while with a man, stand near enough that you make yourself a
physical presence, monitor the situation, and be in a position to call for help
if needed. Sometimes just standing in the area can make the situation safer for
a woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Things
like this can be super difficult, awkward, and complicated to know how to do,
but it’s worth trying anyway. Making yourself feel momentarily uncomfortable is
a fair tradeoff for making everyone’s moms, sisters, and girlfriends feel and
be safe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">6. When a woman tells you something is sexist, or is making her
uncomfortable, believe her.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Guys tell lots of jokes and stories that make fun of
women’s bodies, or their feelings, or their work. These jokes and stories can
be very insulting to the women in your life. So when your mom or sister or
female friends tell you something is sexist, stop for a moment and consider
things from her point of view. She may be also asking for your support. The
women in our lives have a lot to tell us about the sexist things we don’t even
notice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">7. When you want to be sexual, your partner has to completely
agree to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Every moment of physical contact has to be
voluntary. From putting your hand on a girl’s body, to kissing, to any type of
sexual activity, the women in our lives have the right to say “yes” and the
right to say “no”—as do you. At any point, she can say “no” and that has to be
as far as it goes. “Yes” to one thing does not mean yes to anything else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">8. …and you share the responsibility for birth control.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">First,
as noted in #7 above, all sex has to be voluntary. Once it is clear that you
both want to proceed, talk about birth control with her. It can take just one
sexual encounter for a woman to get pregnant, and the two of you have to
discuss this risk. If your woman friend does not want to take the risk of
getting pregnant, you have to have birth control in place. There are many types
of birth control that you can learn about with an on-line search. If your
partner prefers a particular method, let her be in charge of making that
decision without questioning or complaining about it. Don’t argue about using a
condom if that’s all you’ve got. You can be the one who buys them and has them
available, if that’s the method you’re using. If you and your partner are
using another form of birth control, share in the cost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">9. …and to get the HPV vaccine.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Georgia, serif;">HPV is short for Human Papillomavirus,
a common virus in both women and men. It is passed from person to person during
sexual activity. HPV can cause many cancers, most commonly cervical cancer in
women. Every year, there are also over 9,300 HPV-related cancers in men,
including rarely cancer of the penis. Many of these cancers could be prevented
by HPV vaccine. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you
are a young man, get it. Women are more at risk of developing cancer from HPV,
so be a responsible partner and get vaccinated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">10. Be an equal partner when women are doing all the work</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For
example, if you are at a big family dinner or party, the moms and sisters and
girlfriends may be doing all the cooking and cleaning, while men are
socializing and relaxing. Get up and join the work team. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">11. Respect and support women when they speak up and step up</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
your mom or sister or girlfriend has an opinion to share, make sure you and the
other guys are not drowning her out by speaking loudly and aggressively. You
can say, “I’m listening,” so she can take her rightful place in any
conversation. When one of the women wants to do something that is usually
considered a man’s job, like working on the car, or buying equipment, or
playing football, be the first to say, “That’s cool.” You might also have to
tell other guys to give her space. That’s cool, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">12. Take a stand when women are being treated badly</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Challenge
people who make, say, or post sexist things on the Internet, especially on
social media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">13. Don’t stare at women or make comments. (Keep your comments
to yourself.)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.85pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even though a woman may be
wearing a more revealing outfit than a man, don’t stare her down, or make cat
calls, or other sexualizing remarks, just because you want to and can. Though
you may find someone attractive, there’s a line between noticing, and being creepy
and disrespectful. Definitely </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">don't yell comments about a woman’s appearance to her from across
the street or while you're in your car. Doing that is just as likely to make a woman
feel unsafe as admired. Being respectful and quiet in those situations makes
the world a safer place for everyone’s moms, sisters, and girlfriends. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.85pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The time to tell a woman you think
she is attractive is when you can talk to her face-to-face as part of a normal
conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.85pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">14. …and don’t police women’s appearance.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In most communities, there’s a lot of pressure on
women to be attractive to men. A woman may choose to wear make-up and stylish clothing
one day, and other days she will choose not to do that; some women never want
to try to look a certain way. That’s their right. It’s not men’s job to judge
how a woman chooses to do her hair or clothing, or to tell her about it. Their
bodies, in all sorts of sizes and shapes, are their own to manage however they
choose to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of course, the movies and ads are filled with women
who are hired to be attractive—and almost always, those images have been
altered through software. Be on the </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">lookout for women in movies and TV and books who aren’t there only
as an object for the male characters.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The real women in your life don’t
have to look a certain way to be important and worthwhile.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">15. Give a shout-out to the women in your life.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Talk about
the importance and respect you feel for your mom, sisters, and girlfriends. Suggest
that they be considered for projects, jobs, and teams. Lots of guys may
overlook everything about the women except for how they look. You can start to change
that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">16. Speak to your friends when they are being disrespectful to
women</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When your
friend is doing or saying things that put down women (telling sexist jokes,
insulting women, staring at women, cheating on girlfriends) say something to
your friend. It’s not enough to think it’s wrong; let them know you think it’s
wrong. You can say, “That’s not cool. I wouldn’t want anyone talking like that
about my sister.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.85pt;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">17. Don’t call your mom a
nag when she is asking you to step up <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.85pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
same is true for your sister and girlfriend. Talk to them about what they need
from you. Calling a woman a nag has been a way that guys have ignored their own
responsibilities. Work it out with the women; don’t call them names.</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">18. Have female friends who are not your girlfriends</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You may
meet a girl in school or the neighborhood who shares an interest in movies or
basketball or music. Or who is just a good person to talk to sometimes. You can
ask her to spend time with you, “not as a date, just to hang out.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A girl
may also want to be your friend—and no more than that—for the same reasons. </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even if you are a great guy, a girl
might not like you romantically--she's allowed to make up her own mind about
that. If you have a great time (whether or not it is a date), and she doesn't
want to kiss you afterward, respect her choice. Do not force yourself on her in
any fashion. She may turn out to be a great friend, but not if she has to push
you away.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">19. Support women who are teachers, mentors, and leaders</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you
are seeking a mentor or teacher, or want to volunteer with an organization, go
with a woman, or woman-led organization. Guys can learn from women in positions
of authority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <b> </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">20. Offer to accompany female friends if they have to walk home
alone at night, or to places where they may feel unsafe.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Your
company on even a short walk can make a big difference in how your friend
feels, and how she is treated. If you offer and she says, “No thanks” you’ve
done your job for now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">21. Don’t excuse bad behavior towards women because someone’s
been drinking or under the influence of drugs.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Women are often the target of abuse and violence
from drunken men. If something you do or say is not okay when you are sober,
it’s not okay when you’ve been drinking or using. You might have to step in and help a woman get
safely away from a man acting poorly under the influence.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">22. Be a guy who women can feel comfortable being around.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Don’t
tower over a woman to show how much bigger you are—that’s scary. Don’t take up
a lot of space around women by sitting with your legs wide apart. Don’t
interrupt because your voice is louder. It’s not that women are weak—women have
had to be very strong and courageous to hold jobs and support families. It’s
just that men are usually bigger than women, and a lot of women have been
physically pushed around by men. By sitting down, by listening, by saying, “I
hear you,” you can be one of the guys who make the world a better place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">23. Be bold and call yourself a feminist.</span></b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Your
buddies may not know what you mean! You can say, “It means I support women
having equal rights. It means I don’t go around putting women down. It means I
want every woman to be treated as well as I want everyone to treat my mom and
my sister and my girlfriend.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Being a
guy who is a feminist also means that you want the right not to be a typically
macho guy. You’ll be looking at how the world encourages men to hold in their
real feelings, to be violent, and to dominate women—and you’ll be saying,
“That’s not me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-30459813627061967842014-11-01T12:42:00.000-07:002014-11-01T12:42:47.090-07:00Principals: Intentions and Questions at Staff Meetings<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Principals:
Intentions and Questions at Staff Meetings<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s an all too common scenario: a principal floats an
idea at a staff meeting, unleashing a barrage of questions and critical
comments. It’s an exhausting ritual. The principal may anticipate the usual
critics, and on any day be surprised by the other teachers who join in this
public gauntlet of analysis. Some principals shy away from sharing ideas,
retreating into silence. Some develop a small and trusted inner-circle of
supporters, and they hatch all the plans, further alienating the staff. Others
listen with increasing dismay to the staff’s reactions and stubbornly say, “I’m
doing it anyway.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is that the principal does not know if a comment
or question is because the teacher hates the idea and has every intention of
sabotaging it, likes the idea with some reservations, or has some very
thoughtful advice to offer. Without knowing
the intention behind the speaker, it can all sound like intransigence and obstruction. A wise principal will also understand that in
any hierarchical system, one way to slow down the person with power is to raise
questions and concerns. In schools, so highly dependent on language and intellectual
discourse, questioning is a tool, one made sharper when it is unsheathed in the
public forum of a staff meeting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here is one protocol to raise staff reactions to a higher
level of communication. When you open the floor up for commentary and questions
after airing a proposal, ask people to preface their remarks with one of these
4 options:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“<b><i>I love this idea, and…”</i></b> This opening
gives permission to those who may think silence is agreement. You might as well
garner the good feelings from those who appreciate your idea. As well, even
your most enthusiastic supporters may see a way to improve the proposal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]-->“<b><i>I am in favor of the idea, and I have a concern
about a detail.”</i></b> Many teachers have an attention to detail that is
astounding. Once they identify a small concern, they feel a responsibility to
pass it along—not as a criticism, but as a form of support. They want you to
get this right. By identifying their intention, these teachers will no longer
be swirled up in an undifferentiated wave of questioning. Their contributions
will be clear, and now welcome.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>“I like the idea, but I have a significant
concern, and if it is not addressed, I can’t back the proposal.</i></b>” What
might look like a great idea in the principal’s office can seem daunting to the
teachers in their daily labors. They truly may see a fatal flaw, perhaps an
implementation landmine, that needs to be attended to. These teachers too are
not asking you to abandon your idea, and by identifying their intention in
raising concerns, they are acting responsibly. The difficulty here is that you
may not be able to address their concern in the moment. You may need to say,
“Got it. I will look again at the plan to see what we can do about that.
Thanks.” Always thank teachers who able to identify their intentions in the
interest of a better plan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b><i>“I do not like this plan at all.</i></b>” In
a diverse and complex school culture, there are few plans that will meet
everyone’s expectations and demands. If you find a large portion of the staff
prefacing their remarks with this perspective, it is likely that you have
indeed presented a deeply problematic proposal. More likely, most of the
questions and comments belong to the three other categories above, and now the
truly small fraction of stubborn and resistant teachers will no longer look as
if they are leading the charge. They are outliers. Politically, you may still
need to address their concerns and fears, but not at the larger meeting. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All protocols take a little practice and adjustment to
become a norm in a given environment. Find the phrasing that works best for you
and your team. More importantly, use the power of your position as principal to
model, and remind staff to identify their intentions as they begin to speak.
When someone fails to do so, you can honestly say, “Wait a moment. I don’t know if you like this idea a lot, or
if you are identifying a small concern, or a potential fatal flaw, or whether
you truly just don’t like this plan at all. I’ll hear you better when I know
where you are coming from.” And be sure to give teachers the same level of transparent
intention when they come to you with proposals. The principal’s power to shape
a culture of clear intentions is a small key to unlocking a culture of robust initiation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-5652394158628590892014-09-26T10:31:00.001-07:002014-09-26T14:11:21.221-07:00Why Atheists Love the Common Core<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Why Atheists Love the Common Core”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i>and why we all must keep church and state separated</i></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Atheists
don’t have faith in a higher power that they cannot see. This lack of faith
marks them as historical relics from three hundred years ago, when handfuls of
Europeans began to want proof, proof of everything from how the planets move to
how snails find mates. These renaissance people weren’t going to believe things
that they couldn’t test. They risked their faith for a plunge into reason.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Common
Core is one more step along the road to a loss of faith, along the road to
atheism. The Common Core urges students to read a steady diet of non-fiction
texts, for the sole purpose of tearing them apart. Common Core advocates say
this trains students to question the wisdom in texts that are handed to them. Common
Core advocates say students should question what they read--no matter the power
and glory of the authority. This questioning, and searching for proof, is
advertised as a worthwhile improvement in how we teach students to think.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There is no
reason to believe the Bible won’t be subjected to this level of scrutiny. When
the Bible finds its way into the Common Core classroom, it will be questioned for
its lack of evidence. Students will be asking for scientific and verifiable
proof from reliable sources that the unbelievable, mythological, and completely
unscientifically verifiable things in the Bible actually happened. How are you
going to convince a student who wants direct observation and attestation that
all those animals got into an ark? That the sun stood still in the sky during
the Battle of Jericho? That burning bushes don’t consume the material that is
burning, and that the bush can talk? That wine can turn into blood?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To believe
any of that you have to have faith. You can’t come up with citations or reliable
research studies about the Bible; it has no reference pages in the back. Some
say, “Well, if it’s written in the Bible, that’s good enough.” That doesn’t cut
it in the Common Core. Students will be trained to wonder how quoting the Bible
can reliably prove anything in the Bible. They’ll compare such thinking to
doing an entire research paper using only Wikipedia or one encyclopedia. The Common Core demands the type of
well-developed ideas—what is sometimes called “rational thinking”--that is not
found in the scriptures. The irrational thinking that has held our religions
together for centuries is now not good enough; events are supposed to make
sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This is one
of the most important reasons we must keep religion out of the public schools,
why we must have a strict boundary between church and state. It is a critical way
to preserve religion. Right now advocates of the Common Core are not including
religious texts among their assigned readings—and if you care about faith and
religion and believing things that cannot ever be rationally explained, you
will want to keep it that way. Keep your bible out of the hands of school
children if you cherish magical thinking. The atheists have faith that it
can’t survive a close reading.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-89323738817256331372014-09-14T19:24:00.000-07:002014-09-14T19:24:49.352-07:00Radical Empathy<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Radical Empathy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%;">“I am standing by the
shore of a swiftly flowing river and hear the cry of a drowning man. I jump
into the cold waters. I fight against the strong current and force my way to
the struggling man. I hold on hard and gradually pull him to shore. I lay him out
on the bank and revive him with artificial respiration. Just when he begins to
breathe, I hear another cry for help. I jump into the cold waters. I fight
against the strong current, and swim forcefully to the struggling woman. I grab
hold and gradually pull her to shore. I lift her out onto the bank beside the
man and work to revive her with artificial respiration. Just when she begins to
breathe, I hear another cry for help. I jump into the cold waters. Fighting
again against the strong current, I force my way to the struggling man. I am
getting tired, so with great effort I eventually pull him to shore. I lay him
out on the bank and try to revive him with artificial respiration. Just when he
begins to breathe, I hear another cry for help. Near exhaustion, it occurs to
me that I'm so busy jumping in, pulling them to shore, applying artificial
respiration that I have no time to see who is upstream pushing them all in....”
(Adapted from a story told by Irving Zola as cited in McKinlay, John B. "A
case for refocusing upstream: The political economy of illness." In Conrad
and Kern, 2nd edition, 1986, The Sociology of Health and Illness: Critical
Perspectives. pp. 484-498.)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My friend is
a family therapist. She is intrigued by the ways all the people in a big family
work together, given the innumerable conflicts in such a group. She encourages
as many family members as possible to come to sessions, so she can see them in
action. The more family members in the room, the more likely that they will
behave in their typical fashions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She said to
me, “Each one of them wants to get through the day and safely back to bed for
the night. They don’t always help themselves by how they behave, but in the
end, everyone wants homeostasis, everyone wants the conflicts to end. On their
own terms, they just want peace. They want to make it back to bed safely.” In
that moment she experienced radical empathy, the capacity to connect with the most
basic universal feelings of being a human.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Schools
provide us with the opportunity every day to experience radical empathy. We
often speak of our schools as “one big family”—sometimes we mean that in the
good way, and sometimes in the dysfunctional way. We are interdependent in a
school building, and the quality of our days is greatly influenced by the
quality of our relationships. Everyone who walks into the school building in
the morning wants to emerge safe, and hopefully wiser, at the end of the day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are
many hurdles to safely clear from the morning until the school doors close behind
us in the afternoon. In most cases there are just too many people crowded into
the hallways, classrooms, and cafeterias. The pace is unnatural. The work load
is consistently over the limit of what is reasonable. The rewards are not consistently
robust, and often they lie at a distant horizon. The critical judgments of
peers, authorities, and society are omnipresent. It is no wonder we often push
open that school house door with unease.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Students,
teachers, staff, administrators, parents--we really are all in it together,
just like the family members squeezing into the chairs in my friend’s family
therapy sessions. I want us to recognize the shared frustrations, hopes and feelings
of every person in the school. I want us to practice radical empathy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I use the
term “radical” with great care. I am not talking about an enervating feeling
sorry for everyone (although I prefer that any day to anger or indifference). I
am not talking about saying, “I hear you, but…” because that word “but” negates
everything that came before it. “…but…”<i> </i>pushes
away the depth of empathy that can lead to change, which can lead to new
affiliations. Radical empathy means, “I hear you, <i>and</i>…” It means our fates are tied to one another, <i>and</i> we can join hands in taking action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Radical
empathy asks that you strive to see the best, and the potential best, in each
person in the school building, as you would wish they would see that in you. It
is a belief that each of us could do better if the conditions allowed for it. Radical empathy is a rejection of the Iron Age
mythology that there are inherently evil and bad people. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Having been
a student, teacher, parent, and administrator, I experienced moments when I was
sure I had it worst of all—none of the others could understand how tough it was
for my peers and me. To stoke the fires of radical empathy, here’s a reminder
of how hard it can be in each of these roles:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Students</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">: Does anyone have it worse than the
kids? They have no power. They have no organization. They have little to no say
in how their environment is shaped. They are subjected to continual judgment
and evaluation, and more and more subjected to compassionless high stakes
testing. When the system makes no sense to them they can resist, complain,
drop-out, or comply—but not effect change. The kids long for the teachers who
understand them and who care for them deeply, and if your teacher this year
isn’t a good match, you have to do all the compromising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Teachers</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">: Does anyone have it worse than the
teachers? We are called “professionals” and then treated as if we can’t be
trusted with kids, with curriculum, with evaluations. After years of hard work
we are paid significantly less than a college graduate heading into business. There
is never enough prep time, and even less time to plan with peers. The breadth
and depth of our work is astounding: we teach every social skill, voluminous
academic skills, and future employment skills, with groups of students whose ranges
of need and ability make it impossible to bring each to mastery. Then we are
blamed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Parent</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">: Does anyone have it worse than
parents? Each day we drop off the most precious part of us, our children, and
can only hope they are treated well—when we remember that we weren’t always
treated well when we were students. We have no say over school schedules,
rules, or evaluations. When we make inquiries or suggestions, we are often
treated as if we are getting in the way. When we are really concerned about
something important, we are often viewed as hostile. When our child is struggling,
“the home” is seen as the problem. When our child suffers, we will still and
always be the parent, the one who has to somehow make it work, year after year
after year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Administrators</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">: Does anyone have it worse than
administrators? Everyone knows it is an impossible job, caught between the
school department, federal and state regulations, teachers’ unions, and parent
associations. Our work is more and more judged by standardized tests, which barely
reflect the depth and breadth of our daily tasks. We work longer hours than
anyone, have shorter vacations (wasn’t that the big perk of being an
educator?), and always have more people to get back to than is humanly
possible. We have to mentor, support, and then, without compassion, evaluate
every educator in the building, putting all our relationships at risk—were
there even the time to do those evaluations well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">No one has
it easy, and everyone wants it to work. Radical empathy asks that we see
ourselves, or parts of ourselves, in every student, teacher, parent, and
administrator. No one is rejected. Radical empathy pushes us to cross the
boundaries between our roles and divisions, and say, “Me too.” More than that,
radical empathy recognizes that we may not have the power in this moment to
change the conditions of schools, <i>and</i>
we can help each other. We must help each other. Helping each other across
roles and divisions sets up the affiliations that lead to political and
economic changes. Schools can be far far better organizations for learning and
teaching. Practicing radical empathy gives us the taste of that reality, by
asking us to see the best possible person in every individual.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here are some
thoughts about how to practice radical empathy:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Recognize
the power you do have, especially the power over others</span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">— Radical empathy means that you
treat each person, in each interaction, with exquisite respect. I worked in a
school where the principal was buddy-buddy one day and then dictatorial the
next. His empathy was inconsistent at best, and few of us trusted him. Teachers
similarly wield their authority over students. Radical empathy demands that you
use your power to support each person, and that you say, “This is what I can
and can’t do to make a difference.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Share
power and authority when you can—</span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> At the beginning of each school year, I gave a message to my
students in the classroom when I was a teacher, and a similar one to the
teachers at a staff meeting when I was an administrator: “I sometimes will take
on a job because I think I can do it efficiently, but it is a job that I should
have left for you, because it was really yours to do. There will be other times
when I hand off a job to you and you’ll be thinking, ‘That’s not mine. Jeffrey
has the time and the power to do that task.’ I will do my best to get those
decisions right.” Everyone below you in the hierarchy believes you have vast
powers to do almost anything you want, but you don’t. Radical empathy
recognizes that we all want the school to function well, and that the
traditional lines of authority and control often impede our efforts. Be
transparent about what has to get done. Be inclusive up and down the hierarchy in
building strategies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Listen</span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—And listen for shared interests;
i.e. “I want that too.” Again, this is the critical difference between, “I hear
you, but…” versus “I hear you, <i>and</i>…” When
you practice radical empathy you listen for the strains of shared hope and
frustration, <i>and</i> seek a shared next
step. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Identify
short and long term needs</span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—When a student, teacher, or parent, is complaining, or shutting down, in
that moment each of them has lost access to other strategies. They want to make
it work somehow--when you practice radical empathy you remember that everyone
is trying to get through the day. You are not going to change someone’s entire
life. You can offer support to get through the moment, and be honest about the
long-term changes that you also wish for, long-term changes that are not now in
anyone’s ability to create. <i>And</i>
sharing your hope for a better future for everyone is one way we support each
other along the lengthy road to that better future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And</span></u></i><u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> leads to action</span></u><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—Radical empathy allows us to remember
what it felt like when we were the ones who were angry or helpless, when we
experienced our school as chaotic, irrational, under-resourced, and at times
brutal. After thoroughly listening, offer to brainstorm possible next steps,
everything from sitting together quietly to walking down the hall to convening
a meeting. What can you offer to someone with the power you have? What would
you have wanted someone to do for you? <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-61920067449047251392014-07-25T09:57:00.002-07:002014-07-25T09:58:51.009-07:00The General's Masseuse<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;">
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<b><span style="font-size: 30.0pt;">The
General's <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 30.0pt;">Masseur</span></b>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A</span></i></b> <b><i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt;">Short Story <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 13.0pt;">By Jeffrey Benson</span></i></b> <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 25.0pt;">*****</span>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica-Bold","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica-Bold;">"F</span></b><i>or the love of God,
of your children, and of the civilization to which <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>you belong, cease this madness. You have a duty not just
to the <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>generation of the present—you have a duty to
civilization's past, <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>which you threaten to render meaningless, and to its
future, which you <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>threaten to render nonexistent. You are mortal men. You
are capable of <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>error. You have no right to hold in your hands—there is
no one wise or <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>strong enough to hold in his hands—destructive powers
sufficient to put an <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>end to civilized life on a great portion of our planet.
No one should wish to <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>hold such powers. Thrust them from you. The risks you
might thereby assume<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>are not greater—could not be greater—than those which you
are now <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>incurring for all of us." <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>— George F. Kennan <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>(Garmisch, Germany, October 1,1980), <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>in</i><i><span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">Sketches from a Life,</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> </span>Pantheon,
1989.<span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I </span><span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">wake
up at nights, thinking about the General. I light a candle by my bed and watch
the shadows grow thick and fuzzy. The wind rattles my window. I pull myself
into a fetal position. My thoughts run like squirrels around a tree. Somehow I
might have been able to do more with the General, as much as anyone citizen. I
remember to breathe deeply, and to let my thoughts stream through the night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 45.0pt; margin-top: 0in;">
I gave the General his
first back massage at my studio. His secretary made the appointment. He arrived
on time, wearing his uniform. He was a large-boned man of perhaps 50, maybe a
young-looking 55. With a small smile his eyes searched my studio, the candles
and rugs, soft piano music, burning incense. He didn't say much. I watched him
unbutton his collar and his cuffs as he walked into the dressing room. I told
him to put on a clean robe, and to untie it when he lay down on the massage
table. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">He
seemed comfortable with the silence. I told him to talk only as much as he felt
during the massage, to tell me if there was pain, tenderness, or pleasure, to
use it as a time and place to relax, to let his muscles and his mind uncoil, to
float like a rowboat on a lake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">His
back was thickly muscled and tight, as most men's are. A woman's back often
feels like long pulls of taffy, a man's often like concrete just before it
hardens, barely flexible. I worked for a long time on the muscles of his
midback, which were wound like tight shoelaces. The muscular tension was
inhibiting his breathing. I ran my hands in long strokes up the ridges on
either side of his spine, pulled my hands across his shoulders, and then pulled
them down along his sides. His lungs expanded more fully. He made no sounds. I
thought he was concentrating completely on the movements of my hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">When
I was finished, I told him to get dressed again at his own pace and that I
would be in the reception room, drinking tea. He could join me there. He
arrived quickly, again working on the buttons of his collar and cuffs. The
General declined a drink, paid me in cash from a money clip in his pants
pocket. He told me that he enjoyed the massage greatly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"I
could swing some more business your way with the other officers," he said,
but turned away and added, ''I'd like to keep you to myself for now." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">I
didn't get up when he left, just waved from my chair. He wasn't going to keep
me for himself—I had plenty of other clients. Don't worry, General, I won't ask
you to hand out my business cards at the Pentagon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">The
General came for a massage once a week. He seemed comfortable and coolly
controlled, and he never said anything beyond simple hellos and good-byes. I
like to know more about my clients, their jobs, their families, their hobbies.
It helps my work. A receptionist, working under a continual barrage on
interruptions, was fond of long, seemingly endless massage strokes that began
at her coccyx and many luxurious moments later finished at the base of her
skull with my thumbs rotating in small circles. I have a bus driver who uses
his hands to grip all day, and I gently pull on his fingers and knead his
palms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">The
General offered no inspirational morsels on which to nourish the massage.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> I </span><span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">began
to slyly question his secretary when she called to confirm his appointments:
Was the General squeezing me in between meetings? Was he at the parade grounds?
Did he seem particularly anxious about the movement of troops in Central
America? She didn't know, I should ask him, and she wasn't really sure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">Left
to my own intuition, I imagined his back to be a battlefield. Barbed wire
circled his shoulder blades. Deep trenches were dug on the borders of his
spine, an airstrip was being built in the small of his back. I sought to bring
harmony to the conflicts among his nerves, muscles, and bones. My hands were a
peacekeeping battalion, they were a USO show with Bob Hope featuring Miss
America, my hands were a cease-fire. Over time I never succeeded in
establishing a lasting peace, only in reducing the casualties. He was breathing
from deeper in his abdomen, and the range of motion with his right arm had
increased. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">Then
one day he was pictured in the newspaper, standing next to the president,
discussing military strategy. The situation in Central America was unstable,
the president said. The General was in charge of many soldiers. The president
would not stand by idly while another small country flexed its muscles. Troops
were being armed. Everyone was holding their breath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">I
worked aggressively on the General's back. I rolled muscles like tanks over the
edge of his waist, sabotaged the fortresses in his shoulders. I would level all
resistance. If it were possible to delay the war by making the General too
relaxed to command, it would be done here. For the first time the General
moaned during the massage, and then he asked me to please be more gentle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">I
felt stupid. My work was massage, and I was doing it poorly, ignoring the
sensitivity my hands had developed. My hands could liberate his energy, but
that was all. If I wanted to stop him from going back to work, I should stab
him in the back. I considered stopping the massage. My hands were resting on
his midback. They rose and fell with his tight breaths. His eyes were closed.
The beating of his heart gently rumbled. He was nearly as inflexible and rigid
as he had been on his first visit. I finished the massage with firm strokes
that would loosen his diaphragm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">He
came more often the next weeks. He was busy with war preparations. The best I
could do for his back now was to maintain whatever flexibility I could. He made
no significant improvements. He stored the pressure of his decisions in his
back the way dogs bury bones and then forget where they are. On television his
movements were rapid and disjointed. The president looked as if he had on a
corset as he explained the circumstances surrounding the bombing of a school.
We were a reflex action away from war. The entire population of the Western
Hemisphere was in need of a massage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">A
good massage was supposed to open the heart. I was up during the night. I had
my hands on one of the most crucial backs during a world crisis, and the more I
worked the closer we stepped toward war. The General was only breathing
shallowly from his upper chest, and he had sharp pains in his shoulders. I felt
incompetent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">In
the morning I found out that the United States had launched an invasion. The
General canceled his appointment. His secretary did not want to schedule
another time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"Not
until there's more stability," she said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">I
spent the afternoon with friends and family. We watched the news and drank
wine. Phone calls were made to join a group of people gathering by the White
House, quietly protesting the invasion. I stayed home alone, hoping for a phone
call from the General that didn't come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">He
had his next massage three days later. By then, more than 8,000 people had been
killed, 50,000 driven from their homes, the number of wounded unknown. It was
not going to be a quick war. The little country had secretly mined its harbor,
and at the height of the invasion, four United States ships blew up. The
backbone of our military presence was snapped. The president asked for more
troops. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">As
always, the General was punctual. His back was as tight as any back I had ever
seen, as if his muscles were the cables to a bridge, and life was a column of
tanks rolling up the roadway. His shoulders heaved with every breath—I worked
on opening the bottom of his torso, but it was heavily barricaded and my hands
tired. I concentrated on being gentler. There was a spot at the base of his
neck that was flexible, and I rotated his head slowly in my hands, stretching
the muscles down into his shoulders. The General was momentarily more relaxed.
I couldn't infiltrate the tension in any area below his collarbone, so</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> I </span><span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">worked
on his neck, his jaw, and forehead. I could see the muscles at the junction of
his two lips yield, and his mouth lightly opened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">I
looked at the clock—we were 30 minutes beyond the end of the appointment. I
roused the General and apologized. He would be late for a meeting; perhaps I
had delayed the war effort for a half hour. He thanked me for the massage, and
I continued to apologize for delaying him. He shook his head, told me that he
appreciated my work. His body was so stiff that when he shook his head I
thought it might snap off. He was working hard to breathe as he put on his coat
and scarf. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">The
United States launched a second invasion the next day. Planes, parachutes, PT
boats, missiles. I sat at my kitchen table, listening to the radio. Reporters
were not allowed to accompany the invading forces. The announcer filled the
time with background information on the decision-makers in the military. Then
he interrupted with a bulletin that the General had collapsed at the Pentagon
late yesterday—word was just in that he had died. His lungs had become too weak
to breathe, as if they had been strangled by the neighboring muscles. The
announcer said he was 63 years old. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">I
felt numb, sad and empty. I would never massage that back again. He must have
left my studio, had his meeting to launch the invasion, and then stopped
breathing. I called his secretary and found out the time of the funeral. I
wanted to be there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;"> Except for the women dressed in black, the
preacher and the gravediggers, I was the only person not in military uniform. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">The
General's wife cried as she was given the United States flag from the coffin.
The vice president was supposed to arrive, but I never saw him. I wondered if
the other generals knew about his weak lungs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">One
of the women approached me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"You
must be the massage therapist. I'm the General's secretary." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">We
stood silently together as the coffin was lowered and prayers said. The prayers
were caught in the wind and shredded on the trees above. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"He
depended on your massages," the secretary told me as we walked toward our
cars. "He said they made him feel peaceful. Pretty funny, huh?" she
smiled but did not laugh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"I
think I gave him a massage just before he died," I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"He
probably would have died sooner if not for you. He wasn't healthy enough to be
in charge of this war. He was trying to convince the others to hold off on the
invasion, but the plans were inflexible, set in concrete. You know, he tried to
get some of them to go to you for massages." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"No,"
I said. "He said he didn't want to do that." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"Well,
some of them sure could use one. That's what the General used to say. Look at
them." She nodded her head at the other generals. "So stiff." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 45.0pt; margin-top: 0in;">
I watched them climb down into their
limousines as if the cars were bomb shelters and the road paved with
terrorists. They roared off to the war room. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">"Do
me a favor, please" I said, pulling some dog-eared business cards from my
coat pocket. "Could you hand these out to them?" <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 45.0pt; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times-Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times-Roman;">She
took the cards from my hand. The war was escalating.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-61276248572839436932014-06-16T05:51:00.001-07:002014-06-16T05:51:58.895-07:00Tenure is a Management Issue<div class="MsoNormal">
Picture a school system with
hundreds of teachers. Some of the teachers have been with the system long
enough to be eligible for a special benefit: job security (tenure), upon
completing 24-60 months of high quality work. It’s a critical threshold to
achieve, because teachers who cannot demonstrate in all those months that they
are quality workers are immediately fired.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One year a new school
administrator comes on board, and one of his first tasks is to hire a teacher
to fill a vacancy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The school administrator is
overwhelmed-- he has to make the hiring decision, and he knows it is among the
most important decisions he will make. He rifles through the resumes at his
desk. There are many resumes. He conducts interviews, and calls references, and
makes his decision—he hires Sandy. But he is terror stricken that he has made a
mistake. What if Sandy is a bad hire, and somehow is able to slip through the
system and ends up with job security? Rather than own up to the uncertainty of the hiring process, he makes a suggestion to the state department of education: let’s eliminate everyone’s job security, just
in case I have made a mistake by hiring Sandy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The department of education
assures him that there are safe guards in place; everyone doesn't have to be
punished because his hire may be a poor one. For months and months and months
you can fire Sandy immediately if Sandy seems to be a bad hire.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The school administrator is in
charge of orienting, training, supervising, and evaluating Sandy. Months and
months go by. The school administrator is busy with many tasks. Sandy
approaches the time of being eligible for job security, and the school
administrator doesn't know for sure if Sandy is worthy of a long-term place in
the school. In the dozens of months Sandy has been working, the school
administrator has accumulated a fragmented set of evidence about Sandy’s
performance, even though they have been working in the same building the entire
time. The school administrator is terror-stricken again. He has no reason to
deny Sandy the job security. But what if
that would be a mistake?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The school administrator becomes
angry at Sandy. “If Sandy were really a good employee, after all these months I’d
not have any trouble knowing the quality of Sandy’s performance.” The school
administrator also becomes angry at his bosses: “If they’d only give me the
resources to really supervise and evaluate Sandy, I’d be confident in making my
decision.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The school administrator again makes a suggestion
to the state department of education: let’s eliminate everyone’s job security,
because we can’t be sure if Sandy really deserves it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The department of education again
assures him that there are safe guards in place; everyone doesn't have to be
punished if the school administrator made a mistake giving job security to Sandy.
He can still dismiss Sandy. Collecting
evidence about Sandy’s performance will remain the job of the school
administrator. Sandy is granted job security. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The school administrator wants to
be prepared to fire Sandy should he finally have a chance to do so, even though
he was the one who recommended Sandy to have job security. He reads the
language in the contract and he is stunned. The evidence he must collect now is
what he needed to do all along. He is terror stricken again that the
organization is stuck with Sandy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was supposed to have made a
good decision hiring Sandy in the first place, and he was supposed to have made
a good decision in recommending Sandy for job security after all their months
working together. The school
administrator can still evaluate Sandy, but he doesn't see how he can know
anything for sure. Rather than acknowledging his difficulty working with the
inadequate resources at his disposal, the school administrator again makes one
last suggestion to the state’s department of education: let’s eliminate
everyone’s job security, because I still can’t effectively evaluate Sandy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The state’s department of
education considers three options: 1) get rid of the school administrator for
being unable to do his job; 2) provide the school administrator with the
resources he needs to do his job; 3) punish all the teachers by eliminating job
security for everyone so they won’t have to provide resources for the school
administrator.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The chair of the state’s
department of education says, “Let’s eliminate job security and we’ll blame it
on the teachers. “<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 363.75pt; text-align: center;">
**************<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The issue of tenure is one of
under-resourced administrators in our schools. Why can’t
they be supported to do this critical job better? Administrators hire teachers
into the system; during the many months before teachers are eligible for tenure,
they can be fired almost instantly with minimal evidence; teachers can be
released when they are not recommended for tenure, and <i>any time</i> after tenure has been granted, when a teacher shows
reliable evidence of incompetence. Every collective bargaining agreement
between teachers and administration has a mechanism for releasing a tenured
teacher. Let’s not eliminate tenure and blame it on the teachers. Let’s tell
our departments of education to support their administrators in developing the
tools, the time, the skills, and the relationships that make their evaluations
robust, and their hard-working teachers secure.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-55290141501360679952014-05-22T18:23:00.000-07:002014-05-22T18:23:10.422-07:00Math Through the Looking Glass<div class="MsoNormal">
All too often, math teachers sit in silent complicity when
it is said that math is exact and linear—humanities are not. Math is about
answers that are right and wrong—humanities are not. If math teachers don’t
interrupt the status quo, who will? Consider sharing this narrative from an
alternate universe:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In my humanities class,
I learn that there is only one correct way to spell a word—my teacher says that
spelling is not a matter of opinion. My teacher tells me to identify the word
in a sentence that is a pronoun—apparently there are words that are pronouns
and ones that aren’t. I am told that there are fragments and there are complete
sentences, and the difference is clear. If I am talking about a novel we have
read, I have to tell the facts in the exact order they happened. There are
rules for how you are supposed to use commas and apostrophes. I have to
capitalize some words and not others—as if that really makes a difference in being
Understood most of the Tiime. Those are the rules, I am told. People seem to
care that I know what capital city belongs to what country, and you can’t mix
those up! My teacher says that some books are too hard for us to read, and some
books are too easy for us, because you are supposed to read certain books at a
certain age—it’s developmental.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My math class is where
I really get to think. Here’s some of the stuff I have done;<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
--I made a poster explaining when it would
be best to say something was “one third” and when it would be best to say it
was 33%. It isn’t always clear when you should use decimals or fractions or
percents to describe a portion of something. My teacher says understanding how
to communicate a mathematical idea is so much about your audience and your
intentions.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
--I had to look at baseball statistics about
shortstops and defend my reason why one of them was the best choice to get a 5
year contract. Wow, that was hard! My best friend and I had very different
opinions. My teacher gave us good grades for how well we prioritized the
different data. He said there was no one right answer, of course—just like real
life!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
--My teacher put an equation on the board
and said there were a few ways to solve it. He wanted us to pick a way to solve
it that would be best if our life depended on getting it right, a method if we
wanted to have the most fun trying a wacky way, and a method that was the
quickest, even if it might sometimes cause you to make a careless error.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
--He showed us a shape we had never seen
before. We had to experiment with rulers and protractors and calculators and
come up with the area—and then we had to come up with a formula we could
remember. I love when he says, “Try more experiments. That’s what math is
about.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
--My small group was given a big jar of
pennies. We had to come up with 5 different ways we could estimate the number
of pennies in the jar. He is giving the same problem to the kids in a class two
grades below mine and two grades above mine. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 27.0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My math teacher says
humanities classes could be fun too, but mostly they are taught like math classes
that did only number-crunching right-and-wrong drills. He says humanities classes
could be filled with opinions, creative writing, lots of discussions, and using
evidence to back up our own theories. He even says there are people who have a love of literature the way we have a love of numeracy. Yeah, right.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-32287269548330699332014-05-07T12:11:00.000-07:002014-05-07T13:15:42.935-07:00Don't Be Bored...Or Boring<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is an exhortation, a plea, a pat on the back and a push
up the hill. It is meant to inspire and unsettle, and to help you find your
passion and determination. It comes as a request and a challenge: Don’t plan to
go into class and tell your students, “This is the boring part.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Haven’t you and the kids been bored enough already!? When we
were students in school, when our minds were striving to explore and
understand, how often we ourselves were bored, and our teachers looked and
sounded so bored themselves. I thought they should say to us, “Learning to be
bored in school is preparing you to be bored as an adult. Get used to it. This day
will be another exercise in learning to be bored.” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is not a version of grit to passively accept boredom. It
is not a version of grit to be passive. For teachers or for students. It’s a
version of submission. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is good to know how to manage one’s boredom in life
without losing one’s mind. It is good to learn to cope with disappointment and
failure, and to find inner resolve. And there’s enough boredom and
disappointment and failure in the commerce of life to learn those lessons
without my actually building it into a task that my students have no choice
about and saying, “Here’s something else you’ll find boring.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We and our students never get back the minutes that
accumulate into hours of boredom in a school year. You read the directions to standardized tests
and the students spend that much time listening to you. On the first day of
staff orientation in the fall, the superintendent, with all good intentions,
reads through the myriad new regulations, and you can’t wait for it to be over
so you can get to your class room. It’s in school and out of school: waiting
for the bus to arrive because the funding for adequate public transportation
was cut; being on hold to a call center half-way around the world where labor
was cheaper. There’s a lot of boredom for citizens that is the result of intentional
planning. All of that is not inevitable boredom, and it wears us down.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s time to rebel against the forces that conspire to make
us passive. We are teachers! When we stand in the class, we are the most
influential force in the lives of our students. In that time and place we are
potentially their hero, their role model, their hope. And because we are
teachers, we know something very important, almost mysterious in its power: all
information is potentially interesting, every skill acquired broadens our
potentials, and all impassioned activity leads to learning. Our best teachers
showed us over and over that life is not a struggle against boredom—it is a
wonder to be apprehended.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t have control over many boring and draining things in
school I wish I had control over: I have to proctor standardized tests; I have
to cajole and demand that students wait quietly when it is so hard for them to
do that at their age; I have to stop mid-sentence for announcements and bells.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I don’t have to walk into class and tell them that “This
is the boring part.” That’s in my control.
In my work with teachers for over 35 years, I have heard almost all of
them share promises they made to themselves: I will never hit a kid; I will never
ask a student to sit in the corner as punishment; I will never tell a student
that she is bad. Yes, yes, yes. That’s how it should be. And I ask and
challenge you to consider, “I will not bore myself today because I will not
plan to bore the kids.” Let’s not watch more of the sands of our own professional
lives slip away in boredom that we can avoid.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As much as I have had that as my intention (and not only in
the classroom, but in faculty meetings as well, and wouldn’t you like your
principal to have the intention not to bore you at meetings?), I know I have
sometimes bored students. It wasn’t in my plans, but a class would end and I
knew Edgar over there was missing in action. But I didn’t plan it. I’d have to
check in with Edgar and find out what didn’t work for him, because I didn’t see
a boring part in my lesson plan. Edgar might have something to teach me about
my planning. And because so much of my career has been spent with challenging
students, who are often barely holding on to their motivation, if I didn’t
communicate the worth of the lesson, they were unlikely to find whatever little
motivation was left in their tank.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Perhaps we could translate our phrase, “This is the boring
part,” into “I have no idea how to make this interesting,” or “I can’t figure
out why this is in the curriculum guide,” or “I know this is truly worthless to
you,” or “I too am but a fallible person trapped in a system that is slowly
killing my passion and I am so sorry that you have to bear any of the burden of
that.” Since we won’t be declaring those things, here are some preventative
steps to take when you look at your lesson plan and say, “This is the boring
part”:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Seek the
links</b>—When the information in the required curriculum seems so far from
their lives that you assume it will be boring (why else would information be
boring?), offer them the challenge to make the connections. Don’t do the
hypothetical, “You never know when you will be building a shed and need to use
the Pythagorean Theorem” if you yourself have never used the Pythagorean
Theorem. Tell them how the information truly impacts you as an adult. Consider how the information may impact the
lives of their families, or their community. Have them survey members of their
community: “Tell me why you think I should learn about the three branches of
government?” The class can send emails to professional organizations that are
impacted by that information. Invite in a local professional.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Develop
cognitive challenges using Blooms Taxonomy—</b>Thinking is inherently
interesting, even if the facts may seem irrelevant. Throughout the year
underscore the types of thinking you are asking of students: “You have to do
some powerful analyzing today to see what are the most important pieces to this
information;” “As we do this, let’s evaluate whether we should add this to the
list of essential information;” “The challenge today is to find a way to
translate this information so that your younger brother or sister would
understand it.” One of the benefits of applying higher-order thinking to
information is that it is far better remembered.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>3)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Time it—</b>“Class, I am not sure if any of
you will find this interesting, so let’s set the timer for five minutes, and
then stop and talk about what you think of this.” <b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Look at
the task through multiple intelligences</b>—Graphs and pictograms offer various
perspectives on what may at first seem dry data. Giving a dramatic reading to a
list of historical names and dates is not boring to either try or to watch.
Asking students to verbally free associate with rules of grammar is hilarious.
Chanting as a class the chemical symbols on the Periodic Table of the Elements
is sublime.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>5)<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Encourage and allow for creative
note-taking. </b>–Teachers often identify note-taking as a boring part of the
class. Of course it is, if the students have little inherent interest in the
material and note-taking is condemned to be only for the test coming up. Start
making note taking interesting with two column notes, which offer students a
space to make their own connections and rhymes, drawings and stick figures.
Have students share with the class their most interesting note-taking
creations. Try it yourself, watching or listening to the news at home one
evening, and see how idiosyncratic and engaged you can make note-taking. Celebrating how students employ arrows and
underlines and boxes and shadowing and parenthetical commentary can make
note-taking a collectively enriching opportunity, dare I say one of the <i>best</i> times you’ll offer students in
class. <b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->6)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Offer to
summarize essential ideas</b>—If the next two pages of the textbook are deadly
and likely to destroy momentum, tell the students your summary, ask them to
summarize what you said in their own words, and move on. You can do the same
for sections of movies. Let’s not confuse what takes effort with what is worth
the effort; e.g. digging a deep hole in the ground and immediately filling it
up again takes effort, but it’s not worthwhile. Laboriously reading boring
textbooks should be kept to a minimum, and identified for what it is— a
challenge, if you have no alternative (you probably do). Don’t undermine your
relationship with your students by using your teacher power to coerce them to do
really boring tasks because it will be “good for them.” It’s not good for any
of you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]-->7)<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Don’t
teach it</b>—Integrate a few of the main ideas into another lesson. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The last item above might put many of our colleagues into
risk with their school administration. We are in an era of imposed curriculum,
in which our wisdom as teachers to make decisions about how to bring our very
real students to mastery is not being honored and trusted. Too many of our
colleagues are trapped in systems in which they must rigidly check off that
they have “covered” items on a predetermined (and not critically assessed)
pacing guide. The standardized test demands that students be exposed to
information at such a rate that meaning and depth are often false advertising. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So do what you can. One of the seven items above can usually
help you avoid, “This is the boring part.” And then consider digging into your
own professional soul for some grit to join committees, professional
associations, political campaigns, contract negotiating teams, letter writing
efforts, and public hearings, adding your voice to the others who are exhorting
us, on behalf of our students and ourselves, not to passively allow the work of
schools to be boring. Your students will love you for it.<sub><o:p></o:p></sub><br />
<br />
PS--if you have a lesson that you can''t get around being boring, write about it in the comment section and I'll brainstorm with you ideas.</div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-90214257944723274092014-03-27T16:18:00.001-07:002014-03-27T16:18:15.123-07:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lines
of Thinking From the 2014 ASCD Conference<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The ASCD annual conference took place in Los Angeles from
March 14-17. It was consistently thrilling to be among a diverse group of
12,000 educators. Everyone had stories to tell, aspirations to share, and good
work to do. You just had to sit down next to anyone and say, “Where are you
from? What do you do?” and an hour later you had another colleague.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I heard competing narratives about our students and the
schools they need. One narrative concerns poor kids of color who come to school
from the earliest elementary years already behind in basic skills. They need
schools structures and teachers who are strong enough and sensitive enough to
stand with the kids, and who have a pedagogical skill set attuned to their
students’ particular needs—especially in reading, writing and the traumas of
poverty. If we don’t provide a more rigorous and high-end curriculum of health
care and basic skills for these kids, they’ll never catch up; the lack of
resources to more predictably turn these communities around is further proof of
the institutional racism we still must fight. There is much call from these communities
for longer school days and longer school years to bridge all the gaps.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another narrative is that our schools are overwhelmed
with mind-numbing standardized curricula tied to standardized tests, and kids
need to be freed up to be creative, to follow their interests, and to make
mistakes as they are preparing to take democracy into another generation. We
don’t need longer school days or longer school years to just do more of the
enervating sameness—we need a grander notion of what education means.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One more narrative: schools alone cannot heal all the
wounds of poverty and racism, no matter how long the school day, because there
is a limit to how much remediation of basic skills you can ask a kid to
tolerate in a given day. All students need recess, the arts, advisory, vocational
exposure—not just the prosperous kids whose basic skills are secure. At our
best we’ll still have to prioritize the options. As a mentor of mine said to me
once when I was struggling with all the needs of my school: “You can do
anything, but you can’t do everything.” Schools operate in a world of infinite
need and finite resources, and you make hard decisions about what you can do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The synthesis of these narratives compels much thought.
Is it as simple and ultimately complex that different communities of children
need what may look like significantly different schools?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.95pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">These overlapping and at times
competing narratives contribute to a shared dilemma: we are fragmented in our
struggle against the forces most of us identify as a threat to democratic
schooling: privatization that diverts the limited funding already available to
the most needy school systems; undermining of the teacher as a professional;
over-reliance on standardized testing. <span class="apple-converted-space">It’s a
sad fact that thousands of parents in the Boston schools are trying to get their
children into charters--the love of their kids understandably trumps long-term political
theory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.95pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At
one point in L.A. </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I
am in the audience for a panel discussing the whole child initiative. The members
of the panel are articulate and deeply critical of the status quo of schooling,
and the audience members are the choir, and everyone who speaks says, “WE should…”
or “THEY should…” or “THEY shouldn’t…” I started getting antsy. I remembered
back to an organizing meeting of my youth when my buddy and I realized that as
long as people spoke in “We” and “They” terms, nothing was about to happen. We
decided to say, “Here’s what I am going to do, and if you want to do that too,
come see me.” Not sure what I am going to do now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ecxmsonormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 15.95pt; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I am thinking of the notion of working
upstream and downstream: those of us in human services are working at a river,
pulling drowning people out to safety as much as we can; we need some of us
heading upstream to find out who and what is pushing all these people into the
river. How do I find other hands to link with up and down the river?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="ecxmsonormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.95pt; margin-bottom: 16.2pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">My most hopeful notion is that the
work of the 12,000 passionate educators surrounding me in L.A. was but a
fraction of our larger community. We are a huge reservoir of potential and kinetic energy—for now keeping
the educational system functioning as well as it can, perhaps just a decisive
moment or two away from cleaning up the river.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-64155770309317987542014-02-22T14:15:00.001-08:002014-02-22T14:15:30.267-08:00from the introduction to "Hanging In"<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is never one thing
that defines a challenging student, never one cause, never one life event,
never one disability. If it were one thing, the solutions would be simple. One
of my own teachers confronted me with this important and demanding advice:
“Keep the complexity as long as you can.” My stories in this book invite you to hang in with
the complexities of our challenging students and to take action with no
guarantees of immediately observable success. The only guarantee is more evidence
that you can use with the next challenging student—because I can guarantee you,
there will be another one who challenges your capacity to hang in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Once, in a meeting
convened to develop an intervention with a particularly idiosyncratic student,
I said, “This is a lot like our work with Harry a few years back.” No sooner
did I offer that bit of wisdom then hands shot up around the room with a chorus
of, “No, this is not like Harry at all.” We had never shared our various conclusions
about what had caused Harry to be so challenging; with the passage of time, the
team was unable to reconstruct the events in Harry’s story in order to craft a
shared understanding. Our stories are valuable only in as much as we
collectively construct their meaning and articulate a shared wisdom. Set time
aside to tell stories. The learning must be made explicit; we hang in
collectively. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have learned so much
from working with our traumatized, neglected, and remarkably alive students and
with their teachers. What I learn, the gift to me, is how </span><i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-BookItalic, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">this </span></i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">student and </span><i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-BookItalic, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">this </span></i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">student and </span><i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-BookItalic, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">this </span></i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">student are coming to
understand </span><i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-BookItalic, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">this </span></i><span style="font-family: CheltenhamStd-Book, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">lesson in the varied and unpredictable ways the human mind can
work. To be fascinated with the thinking and growth of each student is a formula
for lifelong learning as an educator. Small classes are prime real estate for
such adult education. The teachers in our schools who embody this accumulated education
should be treasured and exalted, but too often they work without the resources
and support their challenges demand. The admiration they get is often in the
form of “I don’t know how you do your work,” but rarely are these teachers
asked to say how they actually do their work, as if the teachers of our most
challenging students are in a different profession or possess superhuman
qualities. This is a loss for us all, because the accumulated stories of
hanging in with our most challenging students are vital to maintaining a
diverse and just society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-52895988902620266652014-02-22T14:14:00.000-08:002014-02-22T14:14:03.606-08:00Schools That Work and Work and Work<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s agree that we are not pouring money into public education
without wanting a return for our investment. We need our kids to grow up to pay
taxes, enough taxes to pay the government back for their schooling, or what’s
the point? To pay taxes you need a
job—the purpose of schools is to make sure our students are employable. We need
to teach them to behave like good employees. And that’s where we can really
start savings some big bucks on educating these kids, and get an even bigger
return on our tax dollars.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To make them good employees, schools need to reflect the
world of work. We live in a capitalist economy and the kids need to learn right
up front that we are all about competition. They can start learning this by
competing for their teacher’s attention and competing for grades. This is why
we keep class sizes big—but they could be even bigger and save us more money.
We could probably reduce the number of teachers if we hiked class sizes up to
about 50 kids in a class—or maybe even 75, or 100. It’s said a lot that class
size doesn’t matter; it’s the teacher that matters, so we can cull from the
ranks of teachers the very best ones, put the best ones in the cafeteria with a
lot of kids and let them go at it. Once we get class sizes over 20, we might as
well face the facts that we could jack the numbers way up. Big savings right
off the bat!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is why standardized tests are so important! Once you
have enough kids in a class that competing for grades and the teacher’s
attention is an important skill (which is happening already in most schools),
you have to use tests—you can’t expect a teacher to know what every kid can do
and then evaluate that in a personal way—that’s far too costly! The tests
quickly divide up the class into those who are special and those who are just
going to be your run-of-the-mill employees—and we need a lot more of those
types of employees than we need bosses. With standardized tests you can safely
measure only what is important for most kids to be good employees, and really
put an end to the illusion that many of them and their parents have that they
are special. For years schools have been implicitly giving kids the message
that we don’t need them all to be special, so let’s just be explicit it about
it, because we don’t have the time or the money to play around. Keep it simple;
keep it as big as we can; keep it uniform.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The special ones can come from the expensive private
schools, which seems like great models of education—so many of their graduates
go on to college and leadership roles! But those schools cost way too much to
consider for every public school kid, and we don’t need every kid to be a
leader. The private schools can keep churning out our leaders; we’ll save our
bucks on the public schools, where we really need to stock pile our next
generation of employees. It’s a good differentiated system of education—let’s
keep it that way, as differentiated as we can.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Also, employees don’t read books on the job, so we can save
a bunch of bucks by stopping the buying and reading of novels; the kids can do
that on their own time. They should be reading manuals and instructions and
guidelines, which exist by the thousands on the Internet already. This is where
technology is going to really help us. With our electronic whiteboards, we can
project the owner’s manual of a toaster oven for all the students to see, and
save on paper and shipping costs and deterioration of the books. Along similar
lines we can save money by cutting out most literature, and certainly any poetry,
because poets don’t make enough money to pay taxes. And what are you going to
test? Same for most of the arts, right?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The move to the Common Core presents some risks to our hopes
of developing good employees. The Common Core may actually lead to a bit of
analytical thinking, but luckily not critical thinking, in which students might
actually be supported to be critical of their schooling. We are not going to
have a stable workforce if kids learn to be critical of their conditions.
Luckily, we are not letting students or teachers have any say in what is in the
Common Core, and we’ll keep them all in check by tying any curriculum to our
standardized tests. Don’t worry—no thinking, and certainly no acting, outside
the box. Teachers will still be doing what they are told.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
So this is where teachers’ unions are a big problem for
getting our kids ready to compete in a global economy. The type of
manufacturing jobs good employees get have gone overseas, and not to Finland,
by the way—a place many people are touting as a good example for our schools,
but it’s not where the jobs are going. They’re going to China, where there are
no independent unions!!! That’s why the Chinese work-to-school model is so
effective: their kids don’t have any illusions about organizing for their
rights, because that would cost them their jobs! If we are going to compete
with the Chinese for jobs, unions are a problem; our students don’t need role
models of adults thinking they know better than the bosses above them—that’s
not the mark of a good employee. My proposals here don’t give kids any
opportunities from day one to think they should do more than follow directions.
The teachers should be following the direction handed down by the companies
that make the text books and standardized tests, and the kids should be
following their teacher’s directions, and then we’ll have the good employees we
deserve. And it will all be so much cheaper.<o:p></o:p></div>
JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4350976758770164426.post-10578153167326480622014-02-21T06:32:00.001-08:002014-02-21T07:14:04.747-08:00I Still Love Being In SchoolsI love to watch Tucker when he is learning. His eyes widen, his face lights up, and he cannot contain himself, shouting out answers—no, not answers but ideas and concepts and “ah hah”s—and he often gets in trouble for being insensitive to his peers who are still struggling to do their work, for being self-centered, and there are times he is frustrated by the trouble he gets into, and other times he seems to accept it as the price he is paying for his education. He grimaces for a moment and then reinvests his energies into his school work. He is eleven years old.<br />
<br />
One of my first mentors believed, and so have I, that education is healing.<br />
<br />
When I have expressed frustration to my friend Adam that life for so many seems mean and filled with pain, when it could be filled with so much more joy and kinship, he says he admires my idealism. He is a doctor who works with the elderly poor. He says that life is that mean and painful—not that it seems so—but that it is so, which is why he marvels and takes solace that humans can achieve great moments of transcendence in the midst of our suffering as a species. He and I share the exuberant sweat-filled passion of basketball, the rock band that hits a groove and sends an entire bar into a pulsing mass, the books we are reading that are keeping us up late. My friends and I are junkies for transcendence.<br />
<br />
Adam is a member of a very liberal synagogue. My only religion is education. Tucker is my proof.<br />
<br />
I practice my religion, education, in schools. I don’t care about prescribed academic content, and I abhor standardized tests. I abhor the industrialization of education, the ridiculous over-crowding of young people into narrow hallways, the regimentation of bells ringing, the hyper force-feeding of irrelevant textbook tasks that leads to cognitive indigestion and shut-down. Most kids shout for joy when they are released from the building.<br />
<br />
I’ve observed affluent suburban high schools. The students go through their paces. They seem less distracted than kids in the city. As rarely as all students, few of them ask interesting questions and a decided minority show passion—some for art, some for physics, some for writing. Their teachers are more relaxed than their urban counter-parts. The pain of the world is less palpable. Here education evokes not religious fervor but a ritualized ennui.<br />
<br />
Despite the boredom and enforced pass-fail monomania of schools, I still love being in them. I see when students experience, despite all the barriers, the moments of joy for having their minds opened and their neurons firing in unexpected patterns and, in those moments, transcendence. I fear my friend Adam is right that those moments are exceptions to our suffering. And I hope my friend Adam is wrong that such moments are the exceptions to our suffering; I am an idealist: schools can provoke less pain; they can inspire more transcendence.JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09925472241543567360noreply@blogger.com2