Years later, when I look back at my time here in Cambridge, I'll remember it as one that was filled with poetry. I think I always wanted to be a poet. I remember a couple of poems I wrote as a kid called "Goat Coat" and "Price-Tag Bag" (see how clever? Those words rhyme!). And then I cranked out a lot of lyrics for punk/folk songs over the years, and finally threw in a couple of week-long summer workshops at the University of Iowa. But it's sort of like I've been circling around poetry without ever taking the full plunge. But I did this year. One of my four classes this semester was a poetry workshop, but psychologically it often felt like it was well over half of my entire workload--probably because I enjoyed it the most.
So what is it about poetry?
Well, for one, it's nice to birth new things into the world. That's what my poetry professor said one day when we were sitting in front of some of our new poems--that these were brand new to the world.
I like that. Maybe it's only marks on a sheet of paper, maybe no one but a few people will ever read it, but you've just added something to the world that didn't exist before. Reading literature is great, taking a philosophy course is fine, but in those endeavors you fill up your mind with someone else's stuff. When you write poetry, your only task to bring something new into the world. Not a bad thing at all.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
I Loves Me Some Grade Inflation
Well, I got my first official grade for an assignment. It was a philosophy paper. I got an A-.
Grades really recede into the background here, as they should. My Arts in Education class is pass/fail, so I never think about it. My philosophy class has two papers and two grades, and I'm waiting for the second. Grades haven't come up once in my poetry workshop, and you get your grade after your final project in neuroscience.
I almost never think about grades. Most folks in the program don't.
As it should be.
In that pass/fail class, we recently turned in a big paper. No one would ever fail the course--unless you never turn anything in. So passing is a foregone conclusion. But when I wrote the big paper, I put in the same effort as I would a graded paper. I thought about it, organized it, outlined it, researched it, wrote it, rewrote it, edited it, and had other people proofread it.
In neuroscience you're not really accountable anything specific. They don't take attendance since it's a big lecture, you're never given a recall exam over the information, and you're never quizzed on the readings. No tests either. And yet, you go to all the lectures, you take notes, you do all the readings. Why wouldn't you? Would you pay thousands in tuition, blow off the work, and then "trick" a professor into giving you a good grade? What kind of sense would that make?
So back to my A-. Probably a classic example of grade inflation. Grade inflation is simply that: no one gets a C (unless you do nothing), and your poorest effort garners you at least a B-. It's not like high school or undergrad.
People who went to school before grade inflation like to complain about the current phenomenon. But really, who cares? Grade inflation is another way to forget about grades altogether, to the student's benefit. It's done me well.
Here's how grade inflation works, as far as I can tell: What used to be an A- is now an A. And what used to be a B+ or B is now an A-. And what used to be a B- or C+ is now a B+. What used to be a C is now a B, and a C- or D+ is now a B-.
By that scale, my A- philosophy paper was basically a B. Just like my grades in high school and college. Some things never change.
Grades really recede into the background here, as they should. My Arts in Education class is pass/fail, so I never think about it. My philosophy class has two papers and two grades, and I'm waiting for the second. Grades haven't come up once in my poetry workshop, and you get your grade after your final project in neuroscience.
I almost never think about grades. Most folks in the program don't.
As it should be.
In that pass/fail class, we recently turned in a big paper. No one would ever fail the course--unless you never turn anything in. So passing is a foregone conclusion. But when I wrote the big paper, I put in the same effort as I would a graded paper. I thought about it, organized it, outlined it, researched it, wrote it, rewrote it, edited it, and had other people proofread it.
In neuroscience you're not really accountable anything specific. They don't take attendance since it's a big lecture, you're never given a recall exam over the information, and you're never quizzed on the readings. No tests either. And yet, you go to all the lectures, you take notes, you do all the readings. Why wouldn't you? Would you pay thousands in tuition, blow off the work, and then "trick" a professor into giving you a good grade? What kind of sense would that make?
So back to my A-. Probably a classic example of grade inflation. Grade inflation is simply that: no one gets a C (unless you do nothing), and your poorest effort garners you at least a B-. It's not like high school or undergrad.
People who went to school before grade inflation like to complain about the current phenomenon. But really, who cares? Grade inflation is another way to forget about grades altogether, to the student's benefit. It's done me well.
Here's how grade inflation works, as far as I can tell: What used to be an A- is now an A. And what used to be a B+ or B is now an A-. And what used to be a B- or C+ is now a B+. What used to be a C is now a B, and a C- or D+ is now a B-.
By that scale, my A- philosophy paper was basically a B. Just like my grades in high school and college. Some things never change.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Luddite Postscript
Are you around my age? In your late thirties? Know anyone in their mid twenties? Here's how you can blow their mind: tell them that when you were in college, cell phones and the internet didn't exist. You wrote letters by hand on paper and mailed them to your friends. You talked on phones with chords in your dorm rooms. If you were out and needed to reach somebody, you found a quarter and a pay phone and made a call. When you did research, you went to the library, talked to librarians, and found sources by actually touching card catalogs and books and magazines.
I haven't been a full-time college student for fifteen years. Now I am. One big difference is that people can bring laptops into class. I don't think laptops even existed when I was in undergrad, so in the early 90s there was nothing but people, notebooks, and pens and pencils in a classroom. Now you can come to class with a laptop. As the professor talks and the discussion ensues, you hear the low rumbling of fingers on keyboards.
And I don't really like it. In my Arts in Education class about 10 of the 50 students bring their laptops. As the class proceeds, if you glance at them you see the glow of their computers on their faces. And if I think of those 10 students in particular, it seems like they are never really in the class. When they raise their hand to ask a question, I always think "oh, right, you're in here." Or when they speak it seems like they just stepped in the door. Somehow those with pens and notebooks are more present, have been more on task, have been more connected to the room. Us computerless folks haven't thrown up a barrier between ourselves and the goings on.
Sometimes I sit behind the students who bring their laptops, and I always see what I thought I'd see. They have three or four windows open, they check facebook, play games, and sometimes take some notes. Exactly what I would do if I'd brought my laptop. Which is why I don't.
I haven't been a full-time college student for fifteen years. Now I am. One big difference is that people can bring laptops into class. I don't think laptops even existed when I was in undergrad, so in the early 90s there was nothing but people, notebooks, and pens and pencils in a classroom. Now you can come to class with a laptop. As the professor talks and the discussion ensues, you hear the low rumbling of fingers on keyboards.
And I don't really like it. In my Arts in Education class about 10 of the 50 students bring their laptops. As the class proceeds, if you glance at them you see the glow of their computers on their faces. And if I think of those 10 students in particular, it seems like they are never really in the class. When they raise their hand to ask a question, I always think "oh, right, you're in here." Or when they speak it seems like they just stepped in the door. Somehow those with pens and notebooks are more present, have been more on task, have been more connected to the room. Us computerless folks haven't thrown up a barrier between ourselves and the goings on.
Sometimes I sit behind the students who bring their laptops, and I always see what I thought I'd see. They have three or four windows open, they check facebook, play games, and sometimes take some notes. Exactly what I would do if I'd brought my laptop. Which is why I don't.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Still a Luddite, Maybe More So
My life here at this Ivy League school of some repute includes a LOT more technology than my previous years. When I was teaching high school, I did have computers around, but the bulk of my days included students, books, and lots of conversation. Old school. But now I've got to do research on the computer systems, my assignments are due through the internet, I (sadly) bought my first cell phone, technology in education inevitably comes up a lot . . . on and on.
But I'm still not convinced. Here's an example.
At first blush, it seems like it's a lot easier to write a paper with modern technology. I've got a computer, I can spell check, grammar check, find a quote online in seconds, juggle paragraphs and phrases with the click of a mouse, cut and paste to my heart's content. But I said things are easier with technology, and easier isn't the same as better. Like Wendell Berry says, he'll buy a computer for his own writing once someone surpasses Dante. Shakespeare wrote with a pen (or a quill and scroll or something). Some noticed that Nietzsche's writing declined once he put his pencil down and started to use a typewriter. Socrates was even worried about what would happen to our thinking once we shifted away from oral language and started to write things down in the first place.
So is my writing any better with all this technology? When you have to write with a pen, and it's a lot harder to go clean up a sentence (much less a paragraph) that you just wrote, does that mean you write more slowly, and craft your prose with more care? Does that have an overall effect?
Here's what I'm SURE used to happen when people wrote with pens and pencils: the used to sit for an extended period of time and get lost in their work. Now when I type a paper on my laptop, I type for 5 or 10 minutes, then I check my e-mail, then I write for another 5 minutes, then I check the score of the Bears game, then I write a little more, then I check out something on YouTube, etc., etc. I've asked other people if they do the same, including my whole philosophy class, and most everyone says yes. There's no doubt this is diminished thinking and diminished writing. On the rare occasion that I do attend to one topic for a protracted period of time, my brain begins to piece things together, my thoughts reach a much deeper and richer place, and I have a chance at getting somewhere original. No chance when I keep fracturing my thinking and writing with little detours to the internet.
But I'm still not convinced. Here's an example.
At first blush, it seems like it's a lot easier to write a paper with modern technology. I've got a computer, I can spell check, grammar check, find a quote online in seconds, juggle paragraphs and phrases with the click of a mouse, cut and paste to my heart's content. But I said things are easier with technology, and easier isn't the same as better. Like Wendell Berry says, he'll buy a computer for his own writing once someone surpasses Dante. Shakespeare wrote with a pen (or a quill and scroll or something). Some noticed that Nietzsche's writing declined once he put his pencil down and started to use a typewriter. Socrates was even worried about what would happen to our thinking once we shifted away from oral language and started to write things down in the first place.
So is my writing any better with all this technology? When you have to write with a pen, and it's a lot harder to go clean up a sentence (much less a paragraph) that you just wrote, does that mean you write more slowly, and craft your prose with more care? Does that have an overall effect?
Here's what I'm SURE used to happen when people wrote with pens and pencils: the used to sit for an extended period of time and get lost in their work. Now when I type a paper on my laptop, I type for 5 or 10 minutes, then I check my e-mail, then I write for another 5 minutes, then I check the score of the Bears game, then I write a little more, then I check out something on YouTube, etc., etc. I've asked other people if they do the same, including my whole philosophy class, and most everyone says yes. There's no doubt this is diminished thinking and diminished writing. On the rare occasion that I do attend to one topic for a protracted period of time, my brain begins to piece things together, my thoughts reach a much deeper and richer place, and I have a chance at getting somewhere original. No chance when I keep fracturing my thinking and writing with little detours to the internet.
Friday, November 20, 2009
It's Going to Get Sentimental
My sister Sandy and my 5 year-old niece Ally came to visit a couple weekends ago. I've missed them dearly, and it was great to spend 48+ hours with them. We went to restaurants, parks, the children's museum, walked Harvard yard, went to Boston Commons, read 14 children's books, and I hugged Ally so hard I may have broken some of her young ribs. She even spelled out "I Love Uncle Stevie" in Jenga pieces.
But then they had to leave, and there was a gaping hole in my east coast life. The gaping hole had always been there, but when they came and went it became very visible. I was bummed for a long time. I realized that having a "heavy heart" isn't really a metaphor, it's a physical descriptor. That's how it actually feels.
But then they had to leave, and there was a gaping hole in my east coast life. The gaping hole had always been there, but when they came and went it became very visible. I was bummed for a long time. I realized that having a "heavy heart" isn't really a metaphor, it's a physical descriptor. That's how it actually feels.
Stretching My Brain Like Taffy
I hadn't realized, when choosing my schedule in September, that two of my classes would split my brain in two different directions: Philosophy and Poetry. In my poetry class your encouraged to never state anything outright, which does make some sense. We turn to art forms for when our regular language fails us. If you can state something outright, you'd put it in a newspaper article or an encyclopedia. But when you've got a mood, an emotion, an impression, an inkling, a question, or a curiosity, and it's difficult to "get there" and describe it, then you've got to use some kind of artistic language. Poetry still uses words of course, but it uses them in unexpected and inexplicable ways, as the only way to communicate what you're trying to communicate. Which means your language has to be fracture and fragmented, or as Emily Dickinson would say, you have to "tell it slant." You need to be roundabout, weird, metaphorical, unpredictable. It's probably been a good exercise for me to learn to write this way.
But then I had a philosophy paper to write, which is the exact opposite. Nothing should be muddled, nothing should be poetic. Not only should you not use metaphors, my professor said philosophers even avoid synonyms because it can confuse meanings and argumentation.
And with these two classes running concurrently, it was very, very hard on my little brain. It was like when I flew from Tanzania, where I had been immersed in Swahili for a year, and landed in Spain. I walked up to the information table at the airport, meaning to speak Spanish (which I could at one time), though still stuck in Swahili land in my head. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came it. It was a language bottleneck, a glut that rendered me mute. I hadn't learned two languages, I learned two languages which canceled each other out.
And now I can't quite write a good poem OR a good philosophy paper.
Maybe I'll just go watch T.V. Those reality shows include lots of dialogue that is neither poetic nor philosophical. Which might be what T.V. is for.
But then I had a philosophy paper to write, which is the exact opposite. Nothing should be muddled, nothing should be poetic. Not only should you not use metaphors, my professor said philosophers even avoid synonyms because it can confuse meanings and argumentation.
And with these two classes running concurrently, it was very, very hard on my little brain. It was like when I flew from Tanzania, where I had been immersed in Swahili for a year, and landed in Spain. I walked up to the information table at the airport, meaning to speak Spanish (which I could at one time), though still stuck in Swahili land in my head. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came it. It was a language bottleneck, a glut that rendered me mute. I hadn't learned two languages, I learned two languages which canceled each other out.
And now I can't quite write a good poem OR a good philosophy paper.
Maybe I'll just go watch T.V. Those reality shows include lots of dialogue that is neither poetic nor philosophical. Which might be what T.V. is for.
Plato Made Me Miss My Train Stop
Early in the year I was reading Plato on the train back to my home. I was trying to sneak in some extra homework because time is always short in these parts. And the reading was so absorbing, I completely missed my stop. I took it all the way to the end, and then had to hop a train back. No mind though, I was enjoying that old greek and what he had to say. In fact, if you love reading, have you ever noticed that it's never a problem to have to wait for something? Is your plane delayed? Great, more time to sit down and read your novel. Got to the doctor's office early? No problem, more time to read. Imprisoned for the next 10 years? Good, you can finally catch up on that stack of books.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Fiddler Jones
Sometimes it's hard for me to get my work done because I've got too much else to do. Too much FUN stuff to do. I'll sit down to do some work, and then a friend will call to meet for a drink at The Burren, or a classmate will want a slice of pizza at The Upper Crust, or a neighbor wants to go for coffee at the Diesel. Or my roommates will want to carve pumpkins, or the New England leaves are changing colors, or I haven't played my guitar in awhile, or I want to call a friend in Chicago, or a comedian or a band or a play is in Boston that I want to see. What to do? It's easy: always choose them over the studying. Yes I'll study, yes I'll do well enough, but should I ALWAYS choose sitting inside a library and hovering over books, when something is calling right outside the window, just a block away?
Which is why "Fiddler Jones" by Edgar Lee Master's is one of my favorite poems. It's in his book Spoon River Anthology, where every person/character in town gets a page to talk about themselves. Most are petty, greedy, transgressive, or dishonest in some way, but a few tell us how to live. And Fiddler Jones is one (and for my money, the center of the book). He's a farmer who makes enough money to get by, but never gets ahead because, dammit, there's too much fun to be had. And he dies without "a single regret." Here's the end of the poem:
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill--only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle--
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.
Which is why "Fiddler Jones" by Edgar Lee Master's is one of my favorite poems. It's in his book Spoon River Anthology, where every person/character in town gets a page to talk about themselves. Most are petty, greedy, transgressive, or dishonest in some way, but a few tell us how to live. And Fiddler Jones is one (and for my money, the center of the book). He's a farmer who makes enough money to get by, but never gets ahead because, dammit, there's too much fun to be had. And he dies without "a single regret." Here's the end of the poem:
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill--only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle--
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Some Quotes About Art
"There are only three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham
"If I could say it, I wouldn't have to dance it." - Isadora Duncan
"I used to draw like Raphael, but it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like a child." - Pablo Picasso
"If I could say it, I wouldn't have to dance it." - Isadora Duncan
"I used to draw like Raphael, but it has taken me a whole lifetime to learn to draw like a child." - Pablo Picasso
Thursday, October 22, 2009
From Tonight's Neuroscience Lecture
"One digital day for teens contains more data than one 19th-century lifetime."
Of course the question is, are we better off?
My opinion? No. No way. All that data swirling around and bumping into everything begins to neutralize itself . . . nothing is particular anymore, deep meanings have a tougher time emerging. Too much data leaves us depleted and exhausted, swimming in white noise and we can’t break the surface to just breathe. We need more time, we need to slow down, to have fewer choices, take things in, fully enter them and be present, deeply.
Of course the question is, are we better off?
My opinion? No. No way. All that data swirling around and bumping into everything begins to neutralize itself . . . nothing is particular anymore, deep meanings have a tougher time emerging. Too much data leaves us depleted and exhausted, swimming in white noise and we can’t break the surface to just breathe. We need more time, we need to slow down, to have fewer choices, take things in, fully enter them and be present, deeply.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Stand, and Unfold Yourself
I love this line from Shakespeare, which seems like it would be a good quote to have up on a wall in an English class, or to read to students before you ask them to do some good, thoughtful, exploratory writing. It's a short quote that comes at the very beginning of Hamlet. Francisco enters and says to Bernardo, "Stand, and unfold yourself."
Isn't that a cool quote? Maybe a teacher could ask the students to stand and unfold themselves in their writing, throughout the year.
Or, as my professor wrote: "It is about moving away from a sleepy, protective posture of being folded up, or folded into oneself, and moving toward a tall, open, awake, graceful stance."
Isn't that a cool quote? Maybe a teacher could ask the students to stand and unfold themselves in their writing, throughout the year.
Or, as my professor wrote: "It is about moving away from a sleepy, protective posture of being folded up, or folded into oneself, and moving toward a tall, open, awake, graceful stance."
Mary Wollstonecraft Is the Bomb
That Mary Wollstonecraft had got it going on. Of course she was instrumental in the fight for women's rights, but I just read some of her work on education and it's not only wise beyond her years, it's still wise beyond OUR years. She called for nationally financed public education, which would help correct the gross inequity in our current methods of funding education. She wrote of the importance of a good home as a precondition for good education. She warned of the dangers of schools trying to sell themselves, of being nothing more than a PR machine, instead of actually educating the students. She warned of the superficiality of busying your mind without ever thinking deeply (internet anyone? video games anyone? YouTube anyone? multitasking anyone?). Heck, she even throws in a bit out having a moral relationship with animals.
And all this was very, very radical for its time. For the late 1700's.
Too radical for her society. Still too radical (or makes too much sense) for our society. We don't suffer innovation very well, to which Ms. Mary W. would say:
"But the fear of innovation, in this country, extends to every thing.--This is only a covert fear, the apprehensive timidity of indolent slugs, who guard, by sliming it over, the snug place."
And all this was very, very radical for its time. For the late 1700's.
Too radical for her society. Still too radical (or makes too much sense) for our society. We don't suffer innovation very well, to which Ms. Mary W. would say:
"But the fear of innovation, in this country, extends to every thing.--This is only a covert fear, the apprehensive timidity of indolent slugs, who guard, by sliming it over, the snug place."
Yo-Yo Ma Comes to Town
Yo-Yo Ma is here at Harvard for the week. Everyone is going crazy about it.
I don't really know anything about Yo-Yo Ma. I didn't even know he was a cellist--but I think I knew he played classical music. And I suppose I knew he wasn't a white guy, though I might not have guessed Chinese.
Since I'm in the Arts in Education program, a lot of my musician friends can't wait to see him. I don't know. I just can't get up for it. It's not like Chuck D is here or anything.
But my professor/program director knows him personally, so it's kind of funny when he refers Yo-Yo Ma by his first name, as in "I just spoke to Yo-Yo today on the phone . . . ."
I don't really know anything about Yo-Yo Ma. I didn't even know he was a cellist--but I think I knew he played classical music. And I suppose I knew he wasn't a white guy, though I might not have guessed Chinese.
Since I'm in the Arts in Education program, a lot of my musician friends can't wait to see him. I don't know. I just can't get up for it. It's not like Chuck D is here or anything.
But my professor/program director knows him personally, so it's kind of funny when he refers Yo-Yo Ma by his first name, as in "I just spoke to Yo-Yo today on the phone . . . ."
Friday, October 16, 2009
It's Really, Really Hard
Writing is really, really, really hard. It's hard to do well. It takes hours and hours to revise. It's frustrating. The vision you have in your mind never quite gets down on paper, though you claw and scratch to get it just a little closer. And even though it took two hours to get it "just a little closer," you'll spend another 3 or 4 or 5 hours on it. And that's just for today. Then you'll return to it tomorrow.
That must be why most people say they don't like to write. It's not that they are opposed to the actual activity . . . in fact, it seems pretty integral to being a human. People don't like that it's so hard. So they avoid it. As I often do, to my own diminishment.
That must be why most people say they don't like to write. It's not that they are opposed to the actual activity . . . in fact, it seems pretty integral to being a human. People don't like that it's so hard. So they avoid it. As I often do, to my own diminishment.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Wisdom of Johnny Unitas
Since I've been at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I've thought about Johnny Unitas a lot. Well, I've thought about something he said.
As the story goes, the Baltimore Colts were in the locker room before a big game. Various coaches and players were standing up one by one, giving their best rousing speeches--pumping up the team, helping them get their game faces on, etc. After the speeches, someone turned to Johnny U. who was leaning by the door and asked "Anything to say John?" To which he replied "Talk is cheap. Let's go play."
Sometimes that's what the Harvard Ed school is like. There's lots of people standing up and talking: what research they've done, what articles they've written, what programs they've studied, what curriculum should be used, what should be happening in classrooms, etc. Big name people in the field with big name reputations, making a good chunk of change doing it. And yet, it sometimes feels like it's a whole lot of swirling rhetoric that can keep everyone occupied, because doing the real work of education, actually stepping into a classroom, is HARD. So it's a nice enclosed system; keep talking about education, do it under a school's famous pedigree, build up your prestige so no one expects you to ever leave, and you can avoid true work--teaching students.
About once a day I imagine Johnny Unitas leaning against the wall of the classroom or lecture hall, and after listening to some expansive, eloquent speech on education, he says "Talk is cheap. Let's go teach."
(And this Johnny Unitas metaphor can be extended even further. Johnny lived what he said; he didn’t talk a lot, and he played a lot of football and played it HARD. He wore his body out doing it. In old age he couldn't even grip a pen regularly to sign his autograph--he had to stick it between his fingers that were locked in a claw shape to write at all. Which means when you do the real work of football, or teaching, and you try to do it well, it could break you down. I figure I did the real work for the past 15 years, and here I am at Harvard just to take a break, to recover a bit of myself and my interests and my energy. Yes, teaching wore me down. I'm not complaining or apologizing or regretting, I'm just explaining.
I suppose that could be the story of some of the professors, here . . . they put in their classroom time, spent themselves, and then shifted to the university to at least stay in the field. So I don’t begrudge them if that’s their story. I may even do it myself.)
As the story goes, the Baltimore Colts were in the locker room before a big game. Various coaches and players were standing up one by one, giving their best rousing speeches--pumping up the team, helping them get their game faces on, etc. After the speeches, someone turned to Johnny U. who was leaning by the door and asked "Anything to say John?" To which he replied "Talk is cheap. Let's go play."
Sometimes that's what the Harvard Ed school is like. There's lots of people standing up and talking: what research they've done, what articles they've written, what programs they've studied, what curriculum should be used, what should be happening in classrooms, etc. Big name people in the field with big name reputations, making a good chunk of change doing it. And yet, it sometimes feels like it's a whole lot of swirling rhetoric that can keep everyone occupied, because doing the real work of education, actually stepping into a classroom, is HARD. So it's a nice enclosed system; keep talking about education, do it under a school's famous pedigree, build up your prestige so no one expects you to ever leave, and you can avoid true work--teaching students.
About once a day I imagine Johnny Unitas leaning against the wall of the classroom or lecture hall, and after listening to some expansive, eloquent speech on education, he says "Talk is cheap. Let's go teach."
(And this Johnny Unitas metaphor can be extended even further. Johnny lived what he said; he didn’t talk a lot, and he played a lot of football and played it HARD. He wore his body out doing it. In old age he couldn't even grip a pen regularly to sign his autograph--he had to stick it between his fingers that were locked in a claw shape to write at all. Which means when you do the real work of football, or teaching, and you try to do it well, it could break you down. I figure I did the real work for the past 15 years, and here I am at Harvard just to take a break, to recover a bit of myself and my interests and my energy. Yes, teaching wore me down. I'm not complaining or apologizing or regretting, I'm just explaining.
I suppose that could be the story of some of the professors, here . . . they put in their classroom time, spent themselves, and then shifted to the university to at least stay in the field. So I don’t begrudge them if that’s their story. I may even do it myself.)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
King of Office Hours
I would like to think that I'm the king of office hours. I believe I've gone more than anyone else on campus. Really.
I have a notebook. And in that notebook I write down any question that ever comes to me that relates to my four classes. And those four classes comprise some pretty broad topics: arts, education, philosophy, the brain, and poetry. Once I get four or five questions in one class, I schedule some office hours with the professor, I sit down, and we talk. And talk. And I keep them for far too long. I refuse to leave. I let them force me out the door with a swift kick in the pants.
I figure that I'm paying a LOT of money for this year, and I've only got nine months, and this is one of the best education institutions in the world (or so I hear). And I've got four professors that are amongst the very, very best in their fields. Think of the opportunity. How could I pass it up?
So I GET to sit with an expert and make them talk to me. And these office hours are even better than class, because I am asking the questions, I am choosing the topics, I am following my bliss, I am keeping us focused on what interests me the most. Not what I think I should know, not what might get me a job next year, simply what interests me in the moment. For no other reason. I'm a kid in a candy store. I've awakened on Christmas morning.
I have a notebook. And in that notebook I write down any question that ever comes to me that relates to my four classes. And those four classes comprise some pretty broad topics: arts, education, philosophy, the brain, and poetry. Once I get four or five questions in one class, I schedule some office hours with the professor, I sit down, and we talk. And talk. And I keep them for far too long. I refuse to leave. I let them force me out the door with a swift kick in the pants.
I figure that I'm paying a LOT of money for this year, and I've only got nine months, and this is one of the best education institutions in the world (or so I hear). And I've got four professors that are amongst the very, very best in their fields. Think of the opportunity. How could I pass it up?
So I GET to sit with an expert and make them talk to me. And these office hours are even better than class, because I am asking the questions, I am choosing the topics, I am following my bliss, I am keeping us focused on what interests me the most. Not what I think I should know, not what might get me a job next year, simply what interests me in the moment. For no other reason. I'm a kid in a candy store. I've awakened on Christmas morning.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Now That I Have A Cell Phone
Now that I've had my first cell phone for about 3 weeks, I've realized that it prevents one from getting lost. GPS, calling a friend, calling 411--they'll all help you get found.
And that's too bad. Sometimes it's good to get lost.
And that's too bad. Sometimes it's good to get lost.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
One Reason Why We Need To Dismantle Capitalism
The grounds budget of the Harvard Business School is larger than the entire budget of the Harvard Education School.
Living Up To Its Name
In a past journal I wrote about those wicked smart undergraduates in my poetry workshop.
They're even smarter than I'd realized.
In that class, Harvard truly lives up to its name.
In my years as a teacher, a student comes along every five years or so that’s a genius. They’re beyond the smartest in the class, beyond honors and AP, beyond the valedictorians (interestingly, they are never the valedictorian). In another orbit; playing a game with which we are not familiar.
Again, once very five years. Here are mine: Kate Guarna, Sam Cocar, Katie Williams. Three in fifteen years.
In my poetry class, all thirteen kids are of that ilk. All of them.
It's kind of amazing to watch. We'll be working on our poems, and one of them will raise their hand and say something perfect, articulate, penetrating, insightful. I'll be struggling with the vagaries of my own mind, trying to figure out what is happening in the poem and what needs to be done, unable to put it into words, and then this 19 year old will raise her hand and cut right to the heart of the matter, and speak improved sentences that sound like they were written by Obama.
It's pretty amazing. I guess I should be a little intimidated and embarrassed by all this. These kids are half my age and they routinely kick my intellectual ass. And my insecure past would predict that I should just shrink and cower in such an environment.
But it's actually pretty cool. Once you accept that you're NOT like them, and you'll NEVER be like them, then all that's left is to enjoy and appreciate. It's exciting to walk into class and know that every single comment is going to expand your mind in some way (and even more so with my professor). We've all been in classes where someone will begin to speak, we'll register their relative ignorance, and then think to ourselves "well, my mind won't be going anywhere for a little while, I'll just have to wait this person out before we get moving again." That never happens in my poetry workshop.
When I was studying for the GRE, I needed a little extra tutoring, but I made the mistake of going to a cheap company and a low-priced tutor. Within minutes of sitting down with her, I realized that I knew much more than she did, even in math. I felt like the four walls of her tiny office were closing in on me, and I knew for the next 89 minutes or so, my brain wouldn't be going anywhere. It was a real claustrophobia. (I'm making a case FOR tracking in schools here, since honors kids who are in low-level classes might feel this way. And it doesn't feel good).
But when I'm in the poetry workshop class, the walls fall away immediately. My brain has too many places to go, and it's trying to get there too fast. Not only do the walls fall away, but the student comments blow the roof right off the building too. And it's a big, heavy building.
They're even smarter than I'd realized.
In that class, Harvard truly lives up to its name.
In my years as a teacher, a student comes along every five years or so that’s a genius. They’re beyond the smartest in the class, beyond honors and AP, beyond the valedictorians (interestingly, they are never the valedictorian). In another orbit; playing a game with which we are not familiar.
Again, once very five years. Here are mine: Kate Guarna, Sam Cocar, Katie Williams. Three in fifteen years.
In my poetry class, all thirteen kids are of that ilk. All of them.
It's kind of amazing to watch. We'll be working on our poems, and one of them will raise their hand and say something perfect, articulate, penetrating, insightful. I'll be struggling with the vagaries of my own mind, trying to figure out what is happening in the poem and what needs to be done, unable to put it into words, and then this 19 year old will raise her hand and cut right to the heart of the matter, and speak improved sentences that sound like they were written by Obama.
It's pretty amazing. I guess I should be a little intimidated and embarrassed by all this. These kids are half my age and they routinely kick my intellectual ass. And my insecure past would predict that I should just shrink and cower in such an environment.
But it's actually pretty cool. Once you accept that you're NOT like them, and you'll NEVER be like them, then all that's left is to enjoy and appreciate. It's exciting to walk into class and know that every single comment is going to expand your mind in some way (and even more so with my professor). We've all been in classes where someone will begin to speak, we'll register their relative ignorance, and then think to ourselves "well, my mind won't be going anywhere for a little while, I'll just have to wait this person out before we get moving again." That never happens in my poetry workshop.
When I was studying for the GRE, I needed a little extra tutoring, but I made the mistake of going to a cheap company and a low-priced tutor. Within minutes of sitting down with her, I realized that I knew much more than she did, even in math. I felt like the four walls of her tiny office were closing in on me, and I knew for the next 89 minutes or so, my brain wouldn't be going anywhere. It was a real claustrophobia. (I'm making a case FOR tracking in schools here, since honors kids who are in low-level classes might feel this way. And it doesn't feel good).
But when I'm in the poetry workshop class, the walls fall away immediately. My brain has too many places to go, and it's trying to get there too fast. Not only do the walls fall away, but the student comments blow the roof right off the building too. And it's a big, heavy building.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
How To Write A Good Philosophy Paper: Write It The Way My Dad Eats A Pear
Well, my first philosophy paper is due in a couple of weeks. It's a critique of Plato's banishment of the poets in The Republic. It's gonna be hard.
After talking over the paper with my philosophy professor, I realized how philosophy is done. You start with an argument. Then you interrogate it. You break it down into all its parts. You think there are ten parts to it? Try again. There's probably thirty. Then you take each part and start hammering away it. See if it holds up. Ask all of the counter arguments. Wring it dry, exhaust it. And that’s only one part. You have twenty-nine to go. And you have to make sure parts one and two work together. Then one, two, and three. Then look at three and one. Then on to four. And so on.
When you're done you should have taken your argument and squeezed it for all it's worth. Made sure it stands up to anything and everything. When you think you've pursued and defended one line of thinking, think again. It can go further. And further.
Which is a lot like how my Dad eats a pear. Most of us just take that pear, start with one big bite, work our way around, head towards the tops and the bottoms, get most of the fleshy deliciousness out, look at the remaining in-tact core, then throw it way.
Not my Dad. He's from the old country. He fled World War II, came here as an immigrant 60 years ago. And for folks like him, you bring your hunger with you from the motherland.
So when my dad eats a pear, he eats EVERYTHING. Everything. You'll be at the dinner table with him, you'll glance up and the back of your brain will register that he's eating a pear, and then the next time you look over at him, the pear will be gone. On the plate will only the brown stem, and that little prickly start shaped bark from the bottom. That's it. All the rest has been eaten: the tough inner core, the seeds, the bitterest parts. Hey, those are good calories in there, how dare you let them go to waste.
So I've got to write this philosophy paper and take on Plato, and when I'm done, I better have left nothing but the stem and the tiny star-shaped bark from the bottom. On my plate. On the page. In my brain.
After talking over the paper with my philosophy professor, I realized how philosophy is done. You start with an argument. Then you interrogate it. You break it down into all its parts. You think there are ten parts to it? Try again. There's probably thirty. Then you take each part and start hammering away it. See if it holds up. Ask all of the counter arguments. Wring it dry, exhaust it. And that’s only one part. You have twenty-nine to go. And you have to make sure parts one and two work together. Then one, two, and three. Then look at three and one. Then on to four. And so on.
When you're done you should have taken your argument and squeezed it for all it's worth. Made sure it stands up to anything and everything. When you think you've pursued and defended one line of thinking, think again. It can go further. And further.
Which is a lot like how my Dad eats a pear. Most of us just take that pear, start with one big bite, work our way around, head towards the tops and the bottoms, get most of the fleshy deliciousness out, look at the remaining in-tact core, then throw it way.
Not my Dad. He's from the old country. He fled World War II, came here as an immigrant 60 years ago. And for folks like him, you bring your hunger with you from the motherland.
So when my dad eats a pear, he eats EVERYTHING. Everything. You'll be at the dinner table with him, you'll glance up and the back of your brain will register that he's eating a pear, and then the next time you look over at him, the pear will be gone. On the plate will only the brown stem, and that little prickly start shaped bark from the bottom. That's it. All the rest has been eaten: the tough inner core, the seeds, the bitterest parts. Hey, those are good calories in there, how dare you let them go to waste.
So I've got to write this philosophy paper and take on Plato, and when I'm done, I better have left nothing but the stem and the tiny star-shaped bark from the bottom. On my plate. On the page. In my brain.
Education Quotes (Thus Far) For My Colleagues Jim, Lori, Jen, and Diane
"[T]he most immoral thing one can do is have ambitions for someone else's mind." - Robert Irwin
"Keats speaks of 'negative capability' as the rare gift of being able to hold several contradictory possibilities in mind without jumping to a conclusion. Schools, with their encouragement of the first student with the right answer, do little to build up a tolerance for this sort of creative tension." - Phillip Lopate
"Whatever organizational principles hold together the poems of Rilke, Pound, Garcia Lorca, Vallejo, Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Apollinaire, Roethke, Mayakovsky, and so many others, the wonderful poets of this century, they are of a subtler and less mechanical nature than those we were teaching children to follow." - Phillip Lopate
"I remember . . . looking at them, touching them, feeling them from the outside and from the inside, wondering about them because there was wondering to be done, not because there were answers to be found." - Jane Smiley
"[I]t is relatively easy to observe technical proficiency according to objectively established criteria. Unfortunately, the development of technical proficiency is often taken as a proxy for other forms of development, and, following the educational truism that what's assessed usually ends up what's being taught." - Resnick and Wirt, 1996
"[I]n the case of the mind, no study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory." - Plato
"Keats speaks of 'negative capability' as the rare gift of being able to hold several contradictory possibilities in mind without jumping to a conclusion. Schools, with their encouragement of the first student with the right answer, do little to build up a tolerance for this sort of creative tension." - Phillip Lopate
"Whatever organizational principles hold together the poems of Rilke, Pound, Garcia Lorca, Vallejo, Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Apollinaire, Roethke, Mayakovsky, and so many others, the wonderful poets of this century, they are of a subtler and less mechanical nature than those we were teaching children to follow." - Phillip Lopate
"I remember . . . looking at them, touching them, feeling them from the outside and from the inside, wondering about them because there was wondering to be done, not because there were answers to be found." - Jane Smiley
"[I]t is relatively easy to observe technical proficiency according to objectively established criteria. Unfortunately, the development of technical proficiency is often taken as a proxy for other forms of development, and, following the educational truism that what's assessed usually ends up what's being taught." - Resnick and Wirt, 1996
"[I]n the case of the mind, no study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory." - Plato
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Dear Chicago: One Good Thing, One Bad Thing
Well, the bad thing first.
I have an awful confession to make. Even though I'm a Chicagoan, I like Boston/New York pizza better.
I know, how dare I. Sacrilege. If Chicago is identified by any food, it's hot dogs without ketchup, and deep dish pizza. And I like the paper-thin crust pizza of the east coast far better.
I buy slices. I eat them. I enjoy them. I fold them just like an east coast person would.
I mean, do we need that much cheese Chicago? I accuse you of a reductio ad absurdum--of taking a shred of the truth and manipulating it to absurdity.
Yes cheese tastes good. Yes it's even better melted. But it's good in small amounts: a little bit of cheddar on your chili, a slice with your sandwich, a bit mixed in with your omelet. But inches of it? Overkill.
So I apologize for my love of east coast pizza. But I made it up to Chicago yesterday.
I was in Arts in Education class, and we were talking about access to the arts in urban areas. One of the teaching fellows had worked in Chicago, so he was talking about the circumstances in south side neighborhoods. Then a few other students who had lived in Chicago piped up, and then a few more. Pretty soon anyone who had ever spent some time in the Windy City was chiming in with what they knew--Chicago this and Chicago that, Chicago lost funding, Chicago has strong community centers, Chicago has well-defined ethnic neighborhoods, on and on. So then a woman from Tennessee spoke up and joked (in her southern drawl), "Wait a minute, is everyone from Chicago?"
The whole room laughed. The Chicagoans had taken over. It was funny.
And as the laughter subsided, and a little space opened up for the next comment, I jumped in:
"Well, you're either from Chicago, or you wish you were."
I have an awful confession to make. Even though I'm a Chicagoan, I like Boston/New York pizza better.
I know, how dare I. Sacrilege. If Chicago is identified by any food, it's hot dogs without ketchup, and deep dish pizza. And I like the paper-thin crust pizza of the east coast far better.
I buy slices. I eat them. I enjoy them. I fold them just like an east coast person would.
I mean, do we need that much cheese Chicago? I accuse you of a reductio ad absurdum--of taking a shred of the truth and manipulating it to absurdity.
Yes cheese tastes good. Yes it's even better melted. But it's good in small amounts: a little bit of cheddar on your chili, a slice with your sandwich, a bit mixed in with your omelet. But inches of it? Overkill.
So I apologize for my love of east coast pizza. But I made it up to Chicago yesterday.
I was in Arts in Education class, and we were talking about access to the arts in urban areas. One of the teaching fellows had worked in Chicago, so he was talking about the circumstances in south side neighborhoods. Then a few other students who had lived in Chicago piped up, and then a few more. Pretty soon anyone who had ever spent some time in the Windy City was chiming in with what they knew--Chicago this and Chicago that, Chicago lost funding, Chicago has strong community centers, Chicago has well-defined ethnic neighborhoods, on and on. So then a woman from Tennessee spoke up and joked (in her southern drawl), "Wait a minute, is everyone from Chicago?"
The whole room laughed. The Chicagoans had taken over. It was funny.
And as the laughter subsided, and a little space opened up for the next comment, I jumped in:
"Well, you're either from Chicago, or you wish you were."
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The First Poem: "Praise" (x)
You can find it here:
http://web.me.com/thelastpintaturtle/Poems/Praise.html
http://web.me.com/thelastpintaturtle/Poems/Praise.html
Working With My Priorities (x)
Do you know what the problem is with Harvard and Cambridge? There's too much you want to do. It's like a buffet, and you've stuffed yourself for a couple of hours, and you can't possibly eat another thing, but there still all that food sitting there.
Tonight for example there were three speakers I wanted to see giving talks AT THE SAME TIME. One was a poet, the other was talking about the future of energy, and the third was author Orhan Pamuk. And that was after I went to a lecture last night. How do you fit it all in?
You don't. You end up doing about 5% of all you want to do. Like Townes Van Zandt said, "Everything is not enough / Nothing's too much to bear, / Where you've been is good and gone / All you keep is the gettin' there."
And it's especially hard to fit it all in with the priorities I've set for myself. What are those priorities you ask? They're as follows:
1. Having fun.
2. Hitting on women
3. Working out
4. Classes
That's right, classes are #4. At Harvard mind you. I've been a workaholic for the past 15 years, so I'm long overdue for #1-#3. And I won't fail my classes. Maybe I won't get all A's, but I won't fail. And do you know what they call the person who finishes last in his class at Harvard? A Harvard graduate.
So I always pick socializing over homework. I'll go swimming in lieu of rereading an article. And I'll let a pretty girl keep me up until 1 am even if I have an early class the next day.
It's my money, it's my year, it's my plan.
Tonight for example there were three speakers I wanted to see giving talks AT THE SAME TIME. One was a poet, the other was talking about the future of energy, and the third was author Orhan Pamuk. And that was after I went to a lecture last night. How do you fit it all in?
You don't. You end up doing about 5% of all you want to do. Like Townes Van Zandt said, "Everything is not enough / Nothing's too much to bear, / Where you've been is good and gone / All you keep is the gettin' there."
And it's especially hard to fit it all in with the priorities I've set for myself. What are those priorities you ask? They're as follows:
1. Having fun.
2. Hitting on women
3. Working out
4. Classes
That's right, classes are #4. At Harvard mind you. I've been a workaholic for the past 15 years, so I'm long overdue for #1-#3. And I won't fail my classes. Maybe I won't get all A's, but I won't fail. And do you know what they call the person who finishes last in his class at Harvard? A Harvard graduate.
So I always pick socializing over homework. I'll go swimming in lieu of rereading an article. And I'll let a pretty girl keep me up until 1 am even if I have an early class the next day.
It's my money, it's my year, it's my plan.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Artist and Teacher, Teacher and Artist (x)
My program is Arts in Education, populated by lots of artist and teachers, some more one than the other. So it makes sense that our first assignment would have us grapple with these two identities. Here's my essay:
I proudly identify myself as a teacher. But I never identify myself outwardly, and rarely inwardly, as an artist.
I remember the first time I felt like I was a teacher. I was a few weeks into my student teaching in Danville, Illinois, and I had just begun to run the classes on my own. I had my first taste of the complexity, agony, and thrill of being a teacher. That night my punk rock band was playing at a local club, and as we were setting up our equipment, I looked up our drummer with a big, silly grin on my face, and I said “Jason, I’m a teacher.” I love meeting a new group of people, because the conversation inevitably turns to what you do for a living, and I’ll get to say “I’m a high school English teacher.” My match.com username is EnglishTeacher33, half of my conversations start with “I taught this one student who . . .”, and my five-year-old niece draws pictures of me in a classroom.
Teaching is the only thing I’ve ever done with full, conscientious effort. I’ve taken some good stabs at being a guitar player, a boyfriend, a student, and a swimmer. But only with teaching did I ever give everything I have. I don’t know why and I don’t recall ever planning it that way, but I’ve overworked myself as an educator for the past 15 years. It’s my most obvious identification.
But I never call myself an artist. I sometimes worry I bluffed my way into the Arts in Education cohort. I love the arts, I teach them obsessively, I find them essential, and I think they’re woefully undervalued and underrepresented in public schools. But I feel like I rarely engage in my own artistic production. My classmates in the AIE program seem to be fully-fledged artists; they love their art, they practice it regularly, and they have long resumes and dense portfolios. I love all of their varied art forms, and that’s why the cohort is endlessly engaging. But I’m not sure I’m one of them.
Of course being a good teacher is truly an art; it takes skill, flexibility, nuance, and intuition. Standing in front of a class of 30 high school students, I often feel like the conductor of a grand symphony. I register individual moods and classroom vibes, I play student comments off of each other, I adjust the pace of the class, I interject or stay silent depending on what the moment dictates. Or maybe I’m like a jazz musician, who has no set notes to play, but simply builds and improvises on what the drums and bass lay down. I use my here-and-now reactions to both follow and shape what is in the air that day. If I stayed with rigidly fixed templates things would seem mechanistic and bloodless, and no one ever described John Coltrane as mechanistic and bloodless.
So I think my teaching makes me an artist, but not my writing. And why not? For some reason I think you’ve got to put in the time before you can claim something as your identity. During the school year I work far more than 60 hours a week, so how could I not identify myself as a teacher? Whatever is consuming my life is worthy of being my label. If I was a writer, wouldn’t I be doing it all day?
But that doesn’t make much sense. I have put in my time as a writer—I have a creative writing degree from Northwestern. How many countless pages did I craft and revise for that master’s? What about all the lyrics I’ve written? My summer poetry workshops? And since when does calling yourself an artist have a minimal time requirement? If I was only teaching part-time, I would still call myself a teacher. Why won’t I do the same as a writer?
I can think of other moments that tell me I’m an artist. I never wrote of my own volition until I lived in Tanzania when I was 33. Because that year was such an intense and transformative experience, I found myself heading to the local internet café to send long e-mails to my family. When I got home to the states my mother gave me two large three-ring binders filled with print-outs of every e-mail, which would later become the raw material of my master’s thesis. I always say that I accidentally discovered writing when I was in Tanzania. I had no plans to write that much, and no plans at all to become a writer or get a writing degree. But I had stumbled upon a craft that felt like it was meant for me. Why hadn’t I discovered it before? Do I blame my education? If writing was a magnificent, transcendent art form, why didn’t someone show me when I was younger? Would it have been that hard? What were my schools making me do with writing that steered me away from all of its glory? Shouldn’t schools make the potential love for a topic the first order of business?
But Tanzania isn’t the only time that I felt like a real artist. When I was getting my degree at Northwestern, I recall working on a poem about Andrew Jackson’s treatment of Native Americans. I babysat for my sister one evening, and after I put her daughter to bed, I sat at her computer and pleasurably agonized over the poem; I adjusted a comma here, rearranged a rhyme scheme there, wrapped myself up in the lines of the poem. I felt the rush of being in the moment of creation. I understood for the first time the meaning of “starving artist,” since I would have gladly given up food if I could feel that way all the time. Or maybe I wouldn’t starve, because making art felt like nourishment itself.
I recall another assignment from my master’s degree that made me feel like an artist. I was writing a science fiction piece about three white men in a high rise that perpetrated all of the evil in the world. It was my summer vacation and I wasn’t teaching, so I had time to luxuriate in the dialogue and scenes I was crafting. One morning I woke up with nothing on my schedule except to revise, and I was struck by my feeling of anticipation. It reminded me of Christmas mornings as a child, when I would wake up excited, because a new toy was waiting downstairs. Writing my science fiction story was playtime, an activity done for its sheer intrinsic joy. Which is something an artist would say.
So what is going on here? I have every reason to call myself an artist. I’ve put in the time, I’ve written a lot, and I’ve felt the artist’s rush. So why don’t I call myself an artist? What am I avoiding?
Maybe the answer is this simple: I don’t think I’m very good. Sure I hopped on stage to scream my lyrics with my punk band, but it’s easy to hide your insecurities behind walls distortion and eardrum-tearing volume. But to this day I’m still insecure about my writing. Recently I had my first poetry workshop class, which is mostly filled with brilliant undergraduate writers. I spent the entire three hours wondering anxiously whether I was good enough to be there. Why am I like this? Is it because Mr. Janke cut me from chorus in 5th grade since I couldn’t sing on tune? Is it because no one showed me I loved to write when I was young, and I didn’t have sufficient time to settle into the term “artist”? Is it from long-standing insecurities that only a qualified psychoanalyst could untangle? Well, whatever the reason, I don’t have a good reason to not call myself an artist. In fact, it shouldn’t have anything to do with how good I am; what’s more important is for me to get back that feeling that comes in the throes of creation. Since when do you have to be good at something to do it? I should take Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice and “follow my inclination rather than consult my ability.” That way I’d get to do what is fun all the time, accolades and criticisms be damned. Better yet, I should take my cue from Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. When someone told him he couldn’t be the lead singer of a band since he can’t stay on tune, he responded, “Who made those rules?”
I proudly identify myself as a teacher. But I never identify myself outwardly, and rarely inwardly, as an artist.
I remember the first time I felt like I was a teacher. I was a few weeks into my student teaching in Danville, Illinois, and I had just begun to run the classes on my own. I had my first taste of the complexity, agony, and thrill of being a teacher. That night my punk rock band was playing at a local club, and as we were setting up our equipment, I looked up our drummer with a big, silly grin on my face, and I said “Jason, I’m a teacher.” I love meeting a new group of people, because the conversation inevitably turns to what you do for a living, and I’ll get to say “I’m a high school English teacher.” My match.com username is EnglishTeacher33, half of my conversations start with “I taught this one student who . . .”, and my five-year-old niece draws pictures of me in a classroom.
Teaching is the only thing I’ve ever done with full, conscientious effort. I’ve taken some good stabs at being a guitar player, a boyfriend, a student, and a swimmer. But only with teaching did I ever give everything I have. I don’t know why and I don’t recall ever planning it that way, but I’ve overworked myself as an educator for the past 15 years. It’s my most obvious identification.
But I never call myself an artist. I sometimes worry I bluffed my way into the Arts in Education cohort. I love the arts, I teach them obsessively, I find them essential, and I think they’re woefully undervalued and underrepresented in public schools. But I feel like I rarely engage in my own artistic production. My classmates in the AIE program seem to be fully-fledged artists; they love their art, they practice it regularly, and they have long resumes and dense portfolios. I love all of their varied art forms, and that’s why the cohort is endlessly engaging. But I’m not sure I’m one of them.
Of course being a good teacher is truly an art; it takes skill, flexibility, nuance, and intuition. Standing in front of a class of 30 high school students, I often feel like the conductor of a grand symphony. I register individual moods and classroom vibes, I play student comments off of each other, I adjust the pace of the class, I interject or stay silent depending on what the moment dictates. Or maybe I’m like a jazz musician, who has no set notes to play, but simply builds and improvises on what the drums and bass lay down. I use my here-and-now reactions to both follow and shape what is in the air that day. If I stayed with rigidly fixed templates things would seem mechanistic and bloodless, and no one ever described John Coltrane as mechanistic and bloodless.
So I think my teaching makes me an artist, but not my writing. And why not? For some reason I think you’ve got to put in the time before you can claim something as your identity. During the school year I work far more than 60 hours a week, so how could I not identify myself as a teacher? Whatever is consuming my life is worthy of being my label. If I was a writer, wouldn’t I be doing it all day?
But that doesn’t make much sense. I have put in my time as a writer—I have a creative writing degree from Northwestern. How many countless pages did I craft and revise for that master’s? What about all the lyrics I’ve written? My summer poetry workshops? And since when does calling yourself an artist have a minimal time requirement? If I was only teaching part-time, I would still call myself a teacher. Why won’t I do the same as a writer?
I can think of other moments that tell me I’m an artist. I never wrote of my own volition until I lived in Tanzania when I was 33. Because that year was such an intense and transformative experience, I found myself heading to the local internet café to send long e-mails to my family. When I got home to the states my mother gave me two large three-ring binders filled with print-outs of every e-mail, which would later become the raw material of my master’s thesis. I always say that I accidentally discovered writing when I was in Tanzania. I had no plans to write that much, and no plans at all to become a writer or get a writing degree. But I had stumbled upon a craft that felt like it was meant for me. Why hadn’t I discovered it before? Do I blame my education? If writing was a magnificent, transcendent art form, why didn’t someone show me when I was younger? Would it have been that hard? What were my schools making me do with writing that steered me away from all of its glory? Shouldn’t schools make the potential love for a topic the first order of business?
But Tanzania isn’t the only time that I felt like a real artist. When I was getting my degree at Northwestern, I recall working on a poem about Andrew Jackson’s treatment of Native Americans. I babysat for my sister one evening, and after I put her daughter to bed, I sat at her computer and pleasurably agonized over the poem; I adjusted a comma here, rearranged a rhyme scheme there, wrapped myself up in the lines of the poem. I felt the rush of being in the moment of creation. I understood for the first time the meaning of “starving artist,” since I would have gladly given up food if I could feel that way all the time. Or maybe I wouldn’t starve, because making art felt like nourishment itself.
I recall another assignment from my master’s degree that made me feel like an artist. I was writing a science fiction piece about three white men in a high rise that perpetrated all of the evil in the world. It was my summer vacation and I wasn’t teaching, so I had time to luxuriate in the dialogue and scenes I was crafting. One morning I woke up with nothing on my schedule except to revise, and I was struck by my feeling of anticipation. It reminded me of Christmas mornings as a child, when I would wake up excited, because a new toy was waiting downstairs. Writing my science fiction story was playtime, an activity done for its sheer intrinsic joy. Which is something an artist would say.
So what is going on here? I have every reason to call myself an artist. I’ve put in the time, I’ve written a lot, and I’ve felt the artist’s rush. So why don’t I call myself an artist? What am I avoiding?
Maybe the answer is this simple: I don’t think I’m very good. Sure I hopped on stage to scream my lyrics with my punk band, but it’s easy to hide your insecurities behind walls distortion and eardrum-tearing volume. But to this day I’m still insecure about my writing. Recently I had my first poetry workshop class, which is mostly filled with brilliant undergraduate writers. I spent the entire three hours wondering anxiously whether I was good enough to be there. Why am I like this? Is it because Mr. Janke cut me from chorus in 5th grade since I couldn’t sing on tune? Is it because no one showed me I loved to write when I was young, and I didn’t have sufficient time to settle into the term “artist”? Is it from long-standing insecurities that only a qualified psychoanalyst could untangle? Well, whatever the reason, I don’t have a good reason to not call myself an artist. In fact, it shouldn’t have anything to do with how good I am; what’s more important is for me to get back that feeling that comes in the throes of creation. Since when do you have to be good at something to do it? I should take Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice and “follow my inclination rather than consult my ability.” That way I’d get to do what is fun all the time, accolades and criticisms be damned. Better yet, I should take my cue from Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. When someone told him he couldn’t be the lead singer of a band since he can’t stay on tune, he responded, “Who made those rules?”
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
O.K., So I'm Not As Smart (x)
One of my four classes is a poetry workshop. I cross registered in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The class is kind of intimidating.
I feel pretty comfortable in the Graduate School of Education. Yeah, it's Harvard and all, but it's education. The only think I've really done with my life is teach. I've been on the front lines in one way or another for the last 15 years. The average amount of teaching experience for those in my master's is 4 years. I've taught longer in public high schools than any of my professors. They may be smart, they may have published books, but I still have the moxie to listen to what the say, and if I have to, respond (in my head) "nice theory Cambridge boy, but it wouldn't play out that way in the trenches."
But the Graduate School of Arts and Science is a different story. I'm not an academic, and I certainly never was Harvard material. I sort of backed in to the education program because of my wealth of experience, not my neurological makeup. So when you get out to the arts and sciences schools, you're amongst geniuses.
My poetry workshop is populated with undergraduates. And me. 15-20 years their senior. And they're all smarter than me. Sharp, articulate, their comments about poetry are the best I've ever heard. I'm outclassed. Think about it, you're some smart kid in high school, the very best in your class, and your writing/analyzing abilities are in another orbit. You won the genetic lottery on this one. Where would you go to school? Harvard.
So they're all already better than me. In fact, I originally didn't make the cut to get into the class. The only way in was to submit 5 poems, and then a cadre of professors read them all and select the best 15. Not me. Then at the last second someone dropped, so a spot opened up, and I was at the top of the waiting list. Which means, in the eyes of the professor, I am officially the worst poet in the class.
So I had to assert myself in some way, I had to get some kind of upper hand in some other arena. I started by wearing a t-shirt from the electrical worker's union (my cousin's). That way they would know I'd been in contact with the real world, with the workers, with the day to day grit and grime where reality happens. And then when we were going around the room introducing ourselves I emphasized my Chicago roots (they didn't need to know I grew up in a milquetoast white suburb), because all Chicagoans have a flinty toughness. As they went around the room, the undergrads would introduce themselves, and then say what dorm the lived in . . . because at Harvard you stay in your dorm "house" all four years. When I found this out I pounced. I said "What? You don't live in a house or an apartment at all? Not your junior and senior year? When I was an undergrad at the University of Illinois, when you were a junior you got a house with your friends, ran your own affairs, had parties, etc. It's an important part of your development." So I pulled rank, I let them know that they may still have their youth, and they undoubtedly have their brains and prestige, but I have hard-earned experience, and coolness. Boo ya.
And that, basically, is what the Robin Williams character says to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. You end up thinking a lot about that movie when you go here. In that scene Robin Williams concedes that Matt Damon has an unmatched brain, but he hasn't yet lived. And there's no substitute for that. In fact, I want to read it again. It will make me feel better about myself. It's a little embarrassing to like something that Ben Affleck had a part in, but Matt Damon is still cool isn't he? Anyway, here it is:
I feel pretty comfortable in the Graduate School of Education. Yeah, it's Harvard and all, but it's education. The only think I've really done with my life is teach. I've been on the front lines in one way or another for the last 15 years. The average amount of teaching experience for those in my master's is 4 years. I've taught longer in public high schools than any of my professors. They may be smart, they may have published books, but I still have the moxie to listen to what the say, and if I have to, respond (in my head) "nice theory Cambridge boy, but it wouldn't play out that way in the trenches."
But the Graduate School of Arts and Science is a different story. I'm not an academic, and I certainly never was Harvard material. I sort of backed in to the education program because of my wealth of experience, not my neurological makeup. So when you get out to the arts and sciences schools, you're amongst geniuses.
My poetry workshop is populated with undergraduates. And me. 15-20 years their senior. And they're all smarter than me. Sharp, articulate, their comments about poetry are the best I've ever heard. I'm outclassed. Think about it, you're some smart kid in high school, the very best in your class, and your writing/analyzing abilities are in another orbit. You won the genetic lottery on this one. Where would you go to school? Harvard.
So they're all already better than me. In fact, I originally didn't make the cut to get into the class. The only way in was to submit 5 poems, and then a cadre of professors read them all and select the best 15. Not me. Then at the last second someone dropped, so a spot opened up, and I was at the top of the waiting list. Which means, in the eyes of the professor, I am officially the worst poet in the class.
So I had to assert myself in some way, I had to get some kind of upper hand in some other arena. I started by wearing a t-shirt from the electrical worker's union (my cousin's). That way they would know I'd been in contact with the real world, with the workers, with the day to day grit and grime where reality happens. And then when we were going around the room introducing ourselves I emphasized my Chicago roots (they didn't need to know I grew up in a milquetoast white suburb), because all Chicagoans have a flinty toughness. As they went around the room, the undergrads would introduce themselves, and then say what dorm the lived in . . . because at Harvard you stay in your dorm "house" all four years. When I found this out I pounced. I said "What? You don't live in a house or an apartment at all? Not your junior and senior year? When I was an undergrad at the University of Illinois, when you were a junior you got a house with your friends, ran your own affairs, had parties, etc. It's an important part of your development." So I pulled rank, I let them know that they may still have their youth, and they undoubtedly have their brains and prestige, but I have hard-earned experience, and coolness. Boo ya.
And that, basically, is what the Robin Williams character says to Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. You end up thinking a lot about that movie when you go here. In that scene Robin Williams concedes that Matt Damon has an unmatched brain, but he hasn't yet lived. And there's no substitute for that. In fact, I want to read it again. It will make me feel better about myself. It's a little embarrassing to like something that Ben Affleck had a part in, but Matt Damon is still cool isn't he? Anyway, here it is:
"So if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written . . . Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life's work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked you about women I'm sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and maybe you've been laid a few times too. But you couldn't tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy. If I asked you about war you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material, but you've never been in one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love I'd get a sonnet, but you've never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable. Known that someone could kill you with a look. That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you. And you wouldn't know how it felt to be her angel. To have the love be there for her forever. Through anything, through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term 'visiting hours' didn't apply to you. And you wouldn't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you've never dared to love anything that much. I look at you and I don't see an intelligent confident man, I don't see a peer, and I don't see my equal. I see a boy."
So Are They Really That Smart at Harvard? (x)
When you get to Harvard, you expect people to be smart. Really smart. Especially the professors. So are they?
Not really. They're pretty much like the professors I've known at the University of Illinois and Northwestern. Some good, some not so good, some engaging, some boring, some that love teaching, some that seem to be doing it out of obligation. They drink coffee, they're not always that good at running a class discussion, they write comments on your paper in pencil.
Most of my professors are in the Graduate School of Education. But Mr. Harber was smarter than all of them.
Who is Mr. Harber? My first year of teaching was at Paxton-Buckley-Loda High School back in 1994. It was a rural town in central Illinois where the parking lots were filled with pick-up trucks and the stands were filled with Carhartts. Mr. Harber was the librarian across the hall from my classroom. If I believed in God, I would say God placed him there to help me through my first year. He had taught for 15 years before becoming the librarian, and he was articulate, open minded, thoughtful, sharp as a tack, had an answer for all things educational, and sported a beard that extended down past his collar. What would have taken me 10 years to learn as a teacher, I did in only 2 thanks to him. Even here at Harvard, 14 years later, I still hear myself repeating something he had said to me way back in the mid-nineties.
He was the smartest man I had ever met. He is smarter than any professor I have met here. Not that folks aren't smart around here, they're just not Mr. Harber.
What does this mean? The smartest man and smartest educational scholar I ever met is librarian in a small rural town in central Illinois without publicity and a modest salary. The professors at Harvard are big names--leaders in the field, published authors, on the radio, the young ones are "rising stars" and the veterans are "esteemed author-educators". But why? Why do they get all the press clippings? Why are they assumed to be the best in the business? What did they do to get that title? Do they deserve it? How egregious is the salary difference between a Harvard professor and a rural Illinois teacher? Should we bring Mr. Harber to Harvard? Would he want to come? Would he even be Mr. Harber then? Do the Harvard professors know that they can be matched and surpassed by modest educators like him? Does that ever make them nervous?
Not really. They're pretty much like the professors I've known at the University of Illinois and Northwestern. Some good, some not so good, some engaging, some boring, some that love teaching, some that seem to be doing it out of obligation. They drink coffee, they're not always that good at running a class discussion, they write comments on your paper in pencil.
Most of my professors are in the Graduate School of Education. But Mr. Harber was smarter than all of them.
Who is Mr. Harber? My first year of teaching was at Paxton-Buckley-Loda High School back in 1994. It was a rural town in central Illinois where the parking lots were filled with pick-up trucks and the stands were filled with Carhartts. Mr. Harber was the librarian across the hall from my classroom. If I believed in God, I would say God placed him there to help me through my first year. He had taught for 15 years before becoming the librarian, and he was articulate, open minded, thoughtful, sharp as a tack, had an answer for all things educational, and sported a beard that extended down past his collar. What would have taken me 10 years to learn as a teacher, I did in only 2 thanks to him. Even here at Harvard, 14 years later, I still hear myself repeating something he had said to me way back in the mid-nineties.
He was the smartest man I had ever met. He is smarter than any professor I have met here. Not that folks aren't smart around here, they're just not Mr. Harber.
What does this mean? The smartest man and smartest educational scholar I ever met is librarian in a small rural town in central Illinois without publicity and a modest salary. The professors at Harvard are big names--leaders in the field, published authors, on the radio, the young ones are "rising stars" and the veterans are "esteemed author-educators". But why? Why do they get all the press clippings? Why are they assumed to be the best in the business? What did they do to get that title? Do they deserve it? How egregious is the salary difference between a Harvard professor and a rural Illinois teacher? Should we bring Mr. Harber to Harvard? Would he want to come? Would he even be Mr. Harber then? Do the Harvard professors know that they can be matched and surpassed by modest educators like him? Does that ever make them nervous?
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