tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913657941628752485.post2244398911905708721..comments2023-12-27T10:09:56.358-08:00Comments on Prepare Yourselves For A Settlement: The day after Super Tuesday in Kansas... A letter to Senator Barack Obama...John Brown of Kansashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18002786990196430306noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7913657941628752485.post-79690612580827617112008-02-06T19:20:00.000-08:002008-02-06T19:20:00.000-08:00True dat. It's totally true, too, dude. Even if Ba...True dat. It's totally true, too, dude. Even if Barack loses the nomination, he needs to use this opportunity to do something real for the process. He'd be a great spokesman for all of the million citizen engagement projects all over the country and talking them up. He'd be in a better position as President. But he should do something with what he's started here in this primary.<BR/><BR/>I'm learning that with my kids, actually, right now, John.<BR/><BR/>I've been talking openly with kids about quitting (I've actually talked about it openly since about the first day I started, because this job has so been so fuckin' tough, I can't tell you; it has easily been the toughest fuckin' job I have ever had in my entire life). But this last week, I was sounding and feeling more like that might be real because I had a couple of students, one in particular, who kept articulating loudly, openly, mean-spiritedly, and often all of the cynicism that people have about teachers. <BR/><BR/>"You must be pretty fuckin' stupid to do this job if you think you could go do something else (with the implication, of course, that I couldn't and that I was just a loser who had fallen into this job)" or "Why do you work so fuckin' hard for us when it should be totally clear to you that I could give two fuckin' shits about school" or some variation on those themes daily for long enough that I had finally decided that he was right and that this job was a waste of my fucking time.<BR/><BR/>I've never had students articulate that kind of cynicism so openly and clearly meant to be hurtful and mocking my every commitment to their welfare. And then have to go listen to some well-meaning liberal colleague tell me that it's because s/he has aspergers or a learning disability or some other excuse-of-the-week for why this shithead is being such a shithead to me and it's not this poor little baby's fault that he's such a shithead.<BR/><BR/>The incredible and overwhelming bullshit of the whole thing was just getting too much for me and I had decided that if I couldn't persuade people that they were looking at the situation wrong or persuade the kids that school mattered or persuade anyone anything beyond their commitments to dysfunctional principles that just made my job harder, constantly, and then - in the case of NCLB - blaming me and other teachers for why their fucked up approach to the matter didn't work rather than taking responsibility for it themselves, that I had to fuckin' leave the profession. I just couldn't take it anymore.<BR/>I was learning how I could invest and make a shitload of money and have minimal dealings with arrogant lawmakers and bureaucrats and live quietly underneath the radar and I wanted to take it.<BR/><BR/>But, somehow, this week, I got figured out several things. One, I really like my job. For all of the bullshit of NCLB, I work with some of the most dedicated teachers and decent folks that I've ever worked with in my life and they all have the same "Fuck this shit" attitude about that stupid law no matter what Teddy Kennedy or George W. say about their signature and foolish education policy. And, as Dr. Wirtz has said a million times, what the fuck are they going to do? If they fired Tim Wirtz, my principal, who is one of the most decent people I have ever worked for in my entire life, because our kids, who resist school like it was a invading army, there would be an outcry the size of Indianapolis in our tinier town of Topeka and most certainly in our school that, if it didn't doom that terrible law, would certainly figure as one of its greater and most unnecessary tragedies (firing of Administration is one of the consequences after a certain number of years - I think 4 - that a school is on an improvement plan; we're on one, right now, but the inanity of firing any of our fine administrators would so boggle the mind, given that they are the best administrators I've ever worked with in my entire life, that I would, personally, make it my mission in life to make sure that someone knew in no uncertain terms what a jackass they were for such an incomparably arrogant and stupid decision).<BR/><BR/>I was tired of all of this, was the truth, John. All of the pressure that our faculty has just done amazing things to deal with effectively while dealing with some pretty extraordinarily difficult situations with kids - I could not name a Senator or Representative or member of the Executive or Judiciary who I could say, with confidence, could teach at my school; though Dick Lugar and Bill Bradley I would give a shot, though they would probably have a lot to learn to do an effective job, as well - and I wanted out. I saw a investment path that looked both lucrative, relatively simple, given my abilities, and one that finally gave me a way out of this mess of political commitment that I felt I had made of my life, given just how stubbornly people clung to their thinking, no matter how dysfunctional or counterproductive.<BR/><BR/>But word got around among the kids that I was talking about quitting and that I was sounding more serious, these days. A mom told me in a conversation that her son was concerned and was perhaps, she thought, reticent to invest emotionally because he didn't know if I was going to be around next year (a half truth; this kid, like most of my kids, was also just kind of shitty, often, and self-centered enough that he was a pain in my ass as much as being a kid I cared about who I wanted to learn to be nicer to everyone, including me, so I could do my job and teach him something). Anyway, strange stuff started happening. Kids are behaving better, this semester. They're getting work done. Even my colleagues, who are cautious about giving me credit, both because I have kids saying outrageous things to me and doing outrageous things like threatening to fight me and with some concern that, when things are going well, as they have been this week, that they might have to acknowledge that perhaps it might be better to nicely and with higher expectations than with low expectations so that noone has to feel disappointed when things don't work out, and they don't have to deal with the heartache of wanting more for the kids but having it all go to shit because the kids, and their parents, and even the teachers, can be real shitheads in combination with one another in such a combination that life turns out just as fucked up as you might predict it would. <BR/><BR/>I don't know all the dynamics. All I know is that kids started working. They started taking discussions seriously. I had some kid write that he appreciated folks like Voltaire standing up for free speech and free thought, even as he was imprisoned and exiled from France for doing so. And he wrote a half-decent essay saying that very thing, as well as referencing the world of Baron von Montesquieu and his ideas for separation of powers that we take for granted today.<BR/><BR/>And I realized, I really care about this job and these kids. I just don't like having people mock me to my face because they want to prove that they can, that there's nothing I can do about it, that they're going to make more money than me with far less education, that I'm a sucker for doing this godforesaken job, that I'm sweet and naive but I don't get as much pussy as they do at 15 or 16 and I just don't really understand the value of money and fast cars and fast women. You know what I mean. All of the arguments that every fucking half-witted hedge fund manager makes implicitly with his lavish lifestyle right before he fucks it all away in the tech bubble or whatever stupid fuckin' enormous gamble he takes with his and other peoples' money.<BR/><BR/>I wanted to give up this job in a bad way, until I realized that this kid was wrong. And the teachers are too. The kids can be taught to care about the work, if they have an example from someone who gives enough of a shit sitting in front of them. And that if I care more than they do, by long strides, they'll start to care too. And, eventually, things kind of open up where cynicism filled a vaccum that real hope can only fill.<BR/><BR/>People hunger for it. I had no clue because I it's so ingrained in who I am. But many people just don't feel it the same way. I try to share it with them, but noone seems to be a taker.<BR/><BR/>But I have to say, John, that this election is teaching me that people really do yearn for it. They may swat it away as they did with Bill Bradley before Obama in 2000 - who was the last great Presidential candidate, as far as I am concerned. But even if they do, there's a role for Obama to play in opening up some genuine space for honest discussion and honest concern for others than themselves that none of the other candidates offer as well, right now, and few enough people do in the public space, generally.<BR/><BR/>Genuine hope comes when people figure out what they need to figure out to live their own dreams for themselves and not necessarily have to turn to an Obama to offer them hope. We need hope in the political process. But it's one of the darker corners of American life to be looking for hope. That's a longer term commitment to clean that process up and offer some more honest debate and discussion. Your commitments on this blog seemed oriented in that direction, John. Doing that will mean putting the honest discussion first and the winning second. But we can work on that, over time.<BR/><BR/>What Obama offers, I think, is a shot at some of that in the short term. It's not really because I agree with him on every issue. I very much disagree with him on many issues, the war, first and foremost.<BR/><BR/>But what I like about Obama is that he seems to offer a better shot to have more genuine discussions about the things we agree or disagree about without all the cynicism that power so often engenders. I'm sure there will still be some of that. But not nearly as much as with the Clinton machine. I still give the edge the John McCain over Hillary Clinton in this regard. But there is no doubt that Obama offers something endearing in terms of genuine commitment to something bigger than just a Presidential campaign.<BR/><BR/>And that is something that I agree I hope extends far past the 2008 election. <BR/><BR/>I better get to bed. I always have something more to say, John, and limited time to say everything I would love to say.Ben Sutherlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14193389264010365448noreply@blogger.com