Arts Education Advocacy 2.0

A lot of the work I do could probably fall under the broad head of “Advocacy.”  Anyone who does that type of work can tell you, you rarely meet individuals who are opposed to arts education.  The school board member who voted to eliminate all of the elementary art jobs in the county or the principal who has not attended a school concert in the 25 years he has worked in the building will both tell you they support arts education.  So what’s going on here?  Why are those who are actively working against a comprehensive arts education for our students giving us lip service?  And how are they getting away with it?

There may be a lot of answers to that question, but let me suggest one: it’s our fault.  Or to put it more precisely, it’s the fault of the type of advocacy we have been doing.  The model of advocacy we use was really pioneered in the early and mid-twentieth century, and I would suggest that it is time we rethink its usefulness to us.  For one thing, we have learned that some modes of advocacy are harmful.  Earlier arts education advocacy, for example, did not place the arts at the center of the curriculum with math and language.  As a consequence, even most arts teachers do not consider these subjects part of the core curriculum.  For another thing, the world has changed.  The children we teach today are different than those from a century past, and our message must keep pace with their needs.

Although it is beyond the scope of this short message to propose what “Arts Education Advocacy 2.0” might look like, I would like to suggest a few key principles.  Some of them aren’t new, but perhaps the emphasis is.

1. Competency is our best advocacy tool.  We often treat our instruction separately from our advocacy, but they are closely related.  A poor arts classroom experience can undo our advocacy work in a matter of days.  When we seek to build our understanding of both our discipline and our pedagogy, we are serving the message and building our best advocates: our students.
2. Be passionate about the message.  Many of us came away from college brimming with figures about test scores and the arts, ready to quote away at anyone who challenged the value of what we taught.  While it is still important to know that children who study the arts outperform their peers on virtually every measure of academic achievement, that’s not why we teach.  What’s more, it’s not why our students take arts classes.  Learn to speak from the heart about why the arts really matter, why they are essential to our culture and to the human spirit.
3. Join the larger arts education community.  Especially in smaller communities, we cannot interact only with others in our own discipline, and we certainly can’t afford to bicker over time and resources.  All of us need to passionately defend dance, theatre, visual art, and music, and see all of these as connected.  We need the regular certified teachers and the teaching artists and the community arts organizations.  We are stronger as a community for it and we are more likely to see fruit from our advocacy efforts.
4. Target your efforts.  Find out who the policy makers and funders really are.  This requires becoming educated about how decisions are made.  Lobbying the Governor's office may be wasted effort if the issue is a Board of Education policy.  Calling the Department of Education may not be helpful if the problem is related to legislative funding.  More than anything, stop bitching and moaning.  Complaining in the teacher's lounge and at the conference accomplishes nothing.
5. It's not about you.  You're important.  We get it, really we do.  We all have insecurities and we all need validation.  But the simple fact is that our task is too big for us to worry about offending you.  Arts education is not about what you studied in college or what you would like to be doing or what kind of students you wish attended your school.  Stop complaining about how kids today are apathetic.  Stop complaining that they use your class for a "dumping ground."  Our task is about the children that we teach - all of them, no matter where they come from or who they are.
6. The medium is the message.  We sometimes forget how powerful our art is, especially for those who are not artists themselves.  While advocates of many causes use their words, which can be quite powerful, we also have art.  A gallery show or a concert in a public space might be enough to spark public interest.  Maybe we should even think about using our art to speak more directly to the message. 
7. Demand more art.  A very old book says, “Ye have not because ye ask not.”  Every week teachers ask me why things are the way they are in their school and are surprised to hear me ask in return, “Have you asked them to change?”  In some instances, school administrators do not know how to help arts programs flourish.  In other instances, there may be those who are resistant to building comprehensive arts programs.  In either case, the arts educator must become the person who says, “We must have more of what is good for our students.”  S/he must also be the person who encourages parents and community members to make the same demands.  If our high schools stopped their football teams, there would be broad community outrage.  It is appropriate that our parents and community expect schools to teach dance, theatre, visual art, and music.

All of us are expected to act as advocates for arts education in our various roles.  If we are not prepared to express the value of the work we do, we cannot expect others to do it for us.

Demand More Art

I have a remarkable group of close friends who began a journey with me about six years ago.  They are something of a second family and it is incredible to me to think that I might have gone my whole life without knowing them.  There are five besides me and we began a group called the West Virginia Coalition for Arts Education.  I rarely see them and can go weeks without talking to them, but I am closer to them professionally than anyone else I know.

Let me tell you how we met.  I'll keep this part brief.

Most of us began as trainers for a project with the West Virginia Department of Education called the West Virginia Arts Teams.  This was the brainchild of my predecessor Julia Lee and was grant funded.  We worked with regional teams who were to provide professional development and advocate for the arts in our schools.  After working with the project for three years we realized we were always asking to be taken seriously and have our voices heard.  It's like when you are seated with the younger members of the family at a holiday dinner so the grown-ups can enjoy their meal undisturbed.  Hence the first name of our group: The Kids' Table.

I would describe the Kids' Table as a "guerrilla advocacy" group.  We are unincorporated, without funding or official association status, not a registered lobbying organization, or anything you might associate with a successful advocacy group.  We had (or have) different assets.  Our small size means we have a truly singular vision.  That's not to say we never disagree, but there has never been any question about what we are asking for.  We also have a track record of competence.  I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but this is a group who can evidence student learning and whose members are routinely asked to provide professional development to other arts educators.  More than anything though, we have passion.  It is usually infectious, though some find it a bit overwhelming if they encounter us all at once.  Our motto reflects that passion: "Demand More Art."

Three years ago this week we came to the West Virginia State Board of Education and the then Superintendent of Schools asking them to make five important changes.  I won't detail those here, but I can tell you that substantial progress has been made on all five.  Two of them have essentially been accomplished, one is close to being a reality, and the last two are our biggest challenges.

We have learned so much along the way and have each grown professionally quite a bit.  Our membership has changed slightly, too.  Current members Michelle Legg, Thisbe Cooper, and Steve Glendenning continue to work in the classroom and hold leadership positions in state-level arts education professional organizations.  Phil Wyatt, our "grumpy old man" <grin> and voice of experience in the group has "retired" to teaching in another position.  Stephanie Lorenze is now a professor at WVU.  And I have my gig.

Why am I writing all of this?

I'm not sure, except that I am reflecting on my professional life and hoping I've accomplished something.  I also want to pass on some things I have learned.  None of this is original, but I think its important for arts education advocates to reflect on some of these points.  I've listened to groups of arts teachers just piss and moan about circumstances with absolutely no plan to change them.  Perhaps there is some sort of catharsis there, but I find those sessions demoralizing and pointless.  So, here are a few of my thoughts.

1. Competence is your best advocacy tool.  I won't speak about myself, but I can tell you that the other five members of the Coalition are complete rock stars.  You can walk into their classrooms anytime of day, any day of the week and see exemplary arts teaching happening.  People listen more when it's obvious you know what the hell you're talking about.  Complaints from incompetent arts teachers fall on deaf ears.  Sometimes the biggest obstacle is the teacher himself.
2. Ask.  "Ye have not because ye ask not."  It never ceases to amaze me the number of teachers who will invest enormous energy into complaining but will not take the simple step of asking for what s/he needs.  Ask politely at first.  Be friendly.  If the result is not forthcoming, then ask more vehemently.  Enlist parents and community members.  If you are refused, make it a demand.  Arts education is not some frill benefit for the chosen few.  Demanding the right of all students to a comprehensive arts education is important work.  Your principal or superintendent may not like you.  So what.  Why do you want to be friends with someone who devalues your work anyway?
3. Knowledge is power.  Everyone has heard this a thousand times but no one seems to believe it.  This is probably more true in education than any other field.  I see the looks of disinterest on the faces of arts educators when they are listening to presentations on NCLB waivers, the teacher evaluation system, the Common Core, or changes in our summative assessment.  I feel your pain, I really do.  Some of that stuff is boring as shit and God knows it's rarely presented in a dynamic fashion.  Yet all of those issues (among many others) can have a direct impact on the arts classroom, especially if you understand how to leverage the information to your advantage.  This goes beyond mere "talking points," and it's true that most of us don't have the time to become experts on all of these topics.  I can tell you from experience, however, that the more you know the more power you have in any given struggle.  There is a shocking amount of disinformation in the field and the kid with the right answers holds the advantage, especially if he can cite chapter and verse.  The converse is true as well.  The ignorant are dismissed out of hand and sent from the room with a flurry of acronyms and policy numbers.
4. Be there.  Never miss an opportunity to eat lunch with, drive to the airport, or sit next to someone who can promote arts education.  Sometimes your simple presence is enough to cause them to begin thinking about how to include your issue.  Occasionally, they're going to spend some money and it helps if you're in the room when they do.
5. Yes, you really do need a "two minute elevator speech."  The problem with having a depth of understanding on a given topic is one's desire to communicate the intricacies of the issue with someone who engages in a rather casual conversation.   (I have lost many friends this way.)  Give this one a lot of thought.  Many of us are tempted to resort to just some generic statement about student achievement and the arts.  I am convinced this is a mistake.  It is possible to communicate something with a little more depth is a succinct fashion.  Need some suggestions?  "The arts are core academic subjects because they are at the heart of what it means to be an educated person.  They've also been defined as core subjects by federal law since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001."  "Short-term arts experiences are very valuable for students, but sequential (standards-based) instruction from certified arts educators forms the foundation.  That's what we expect in math and reading, isn't it?"  "There is a significant gap in access to the arts between students in affluent schools and their poorer counterparts.  This is really a civil rights issue."
6. Passion matters more than anything.  True believers can change minds.  Much of our work in arts education advocacy is the work of evangelist.  You must believe that what you are working toward is of utmost importance and your will to accomplish it must be greater than the will of others to see you fail. 

Margaret Mead may have said: "Never doubt the ability of a small group of thoughtful, committed people to change the world.  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  Thank you to that small, committed group from the Kids' Table.  I'm thankful I know you.

Form, Function, and Frank, Part 2

Today was frustrating.  I didn't exactly have a "bad day."  It was just the sort of day as an educator that makes you wonder how many people truly understand schools and learning.  In fairness to the day, I think I may have a sinus infection, which meant I woke up at 3:30 and was at work at 7:00.  I left sometime after 5:30.  So maybe the day isn't wholly to blame.  Nevertheless I find myself at my computer with an old fashioned chilling on the desk and Beethoven sonatas playing on iTunes, trying not to be pissed off at a large number of people.

My bad day really started on Wednesday.  I discovered on Wednesday night that I would be "presenting" at a school this coming Monday afternoon for a few hours.  Lest anyone think that I'm just grumbling because I'm being asked to work on what was to be a holiday (President's Day for state employees), I really don't mind going to schools to talk to teachers.  Apart from teaching music to students, it's my favorite thing to do.  One would expect more advance notice than these few days, however.  (Actually, our office was asked to put the date on our calendar weeks ago, but having heard nothing more, most of us believed our services were no longer required.)  

No further instructions were given.  We are to present three hours of "professional development" to teachers from three schools.  Our boss is to present the first hour or so, with two hours set aside for content specialists.  The "event" is being "coordinated" (if one can call it that) by something called a "School Intervention Specialist."  I suppose this individual is charged with providing help for struggling schools.  If there were any individual who was aware of what sorts of development were needed by the professionals in these schools, it should be this person.  Yet we were given carte blanche.  I might be presenting on executing the perfect arabesque or re-stringing horns, it would be all the same, I suppose.  As it happens, I'm presenting on student engagement through creativity, and authentic assessment through performance, especially the use of performance descriptors.

You get that a lot if you are an education bureaucrat.  You may get it more if you are one working in the arts.  I don't know.  "Come present something.  Anything.  We've got a few hours to fill and we have to make these teachers do something.  You do arts?  Great!  We never plan anything for them."  It's a babysitting gig.

Only it's not.  At least to me it's not.

The assignment feels like the first general music class I taught.  I was charged with watching 20-odd 7th graders and no one else cared what they learned from me.  My administrators were unfamiliar with my standards and ignorant of any music curriculum.  Brahms or The Beatles, dulcimers or digeridoos, I could have done anything I wanted.  I could have shown the Stomp! video each and every day and no one would have cared, as long as students weren't sent to the office and parents didn't call.  The message was clear: my subject did not matter, my professional skills did not matter, and as far as my class was concerned, my students didn't matter.

The thing was, I cared.  I cared a lot.  One of the first evaluations I received said, "Mr. Deskins is an excellent teacher.  His biggest fault is that he expects others to care about music class as much as he does."  Effin' right, that.  The rest of you have your #2 pencils and your scantron tests, your  team meetings and your curriculum maps and all the rest.  My students and I have the language of angels, glimmering forms that make time audible and make our souls quiver.  We have the giants of this Earth.  We have Bach and Mozart and Bird and Monk.  We have Moonlight Sonata and "Moonlight in Vermont."  We have rock and roll.  The rest of you can go screw.  What happens in this room matters.  

So here I am again.  "Come present.  We have some teachers who need watching for a few hours."  I'm going, but I'm not just watching them.  I'm going to try to engage them, to excite them again about the joys of teaching and the joys of the arts.  I'm going to try to help them see their students for who they are and see themselves for the rock stars I know they can be.  What we do will matter.

I had another large project that took the day yesterday, so I began my task today.  I spent a large part of my morning on the what.  I'd visited one of the schools in attendance one time for about an hour.  Based on that one visit, what could I bring to them that might aid their development as teachers?  I had a few ideas, but I didn't trust myself.  I wandered down the hall for inspiration.

I wandered into the office of my math colleague, Lou Maynus.  Lou is the math teacher I wish I'd had but never did.  I casually asked her what she was presenting on Monday.  Instead of a casual answer, Lou began talking of math practices.  She was excited.  Math matters to Lou.  It's hard to be around her and not think that math matters, too.  And not because of some damned test in the spring.  One senses that evangelical zeal as Lou begins expounding on algebra.  It's exciting to hear.

As we began to talk, Lou remembered that the aforementioned "intervention specialist" had not yet told us how many teachers we would each have in our sessions.  As I left Lou said she would give this person a call.

A few minutes later, Lou was in my office.  "You better come down and listen to this."

We walked to her cubicle.  She had the lady on the phone.

"I have Jack Deskins, the arts coordinator, here with me.  Tell him how many teachers will be in his session."

"Jack, we'll have 50 teachers there."

Now, I've presented to much larger groups than that, but I was mildly confused.  I understood that three schools would be in attendance and I knew that none had a dance teacher and only one had a theatre teacher.

"You have 50 arts teachers?!"

"Well . . . "

I know this pause.

"What are you calling 'arts teachers'?"

Breathe.

"Well, Ms. X, I'm calling arts teachers 'arts teachers': dance, theatre, visual art, and music."

"Oh.  See, I was including all of the related arts."

Now, for those of you not familiar with the double speak that is common in education, an explanation is in order.  The term "related arts" refers to courses that are not (in any special sense at least) "related," nor are many of them "arts."  In addition to actual arts courses, "related arts" can refer to any number of disciplines.  The interventionist went on to explain just which she meant.

"I was including foreign language, business, consumer science, health, physical education, drivers ed, and all of those teachers."

The message was becoming clearer.  None of these content areas matter.  None of these teachers matter.  Professional development doesn't matter.  

This is the message that was becoming clear to me from this "intervention specialist," an individual charged with transforming struggling schools.

"See, I was thinking of it like a principal," she went on to explain.  "I need some place for these teachers to go."

I explained to Ms. X that I would be unable to help her, that my area was the arts and that I was unfamiliar with the other content areas.  I told her that I would be happy to present to non-arts teachers if she knew of particular needs they had and I had some expertise in those topics, but of course, she didn't know.  I told her that my presentation, such as it was at this point, was geared toward those in the arts, which are special disciplines in themselves.

I know some of you will grin at my ire.  So be it.  Screw you.  This shit matters.

Why can't we change schools?  Because we go through motions.  We have a structure called "professional development" and we check our boxes and say that it has happened.  We have a template called "standards" and we agree that they are important and check another box.  We have a form called "assessment" or "faculty senate" or "intervention" or whatever, and we never get to the essence of the thing itself.  

We can't change schools because we believe that learning is just something that happens.  We don't cultivate a culture where real learning, the kind that makes students care about polynomials and gerunds, is fostered.  We don't move with intentionality through the process.  Our understanding of education is superficial because we view it as an ends to something else: a grade, a test score, a job.

We can't change schools because we have confused image and essence.  We have mistaken a few discreet indicators of student achievement for the achievement itself.  We've linked massive amounts of money and regulation to the indicators.  We have exchanged the glory of learning for an inglorious corruptible image.

In the arts you will occasionally hear the mantra, "Form follows function."  Popularized by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the proverb reminds artists that we must not elevate our structures, our templates, above the essence of the art.  For the architect it is a reminder that how ever glorious the façade, the house is pointless where one cannot sleep.  To the musician it is a warning that no matter how exact the sonata-allegro form (or the rondo or the twelve-bar blues), all is lost if audible time does not touch the heart.  Those who forget these lessons are called "mere formalists" and their work is branded "inorganic."  Theory be damned, it all comes to that Platonic question: what is the essence of the thing itself?

In education we have elevated form for such a long while that we have forgotten function.  What is the function of education, after all?  It is, as Robert Hutchins said, to "unsettle [students'] minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects."  It is to cause students to engage the world around them through language and figures and law and custom and observation and pitch and rhythm and motion and color.  It is to prepare them for lives of productivity, certainly, but not only as the world judges productivity.  It is to make them question and reason and care.

Students be warned, though: caring has a price.  Sometimes it leads to anger.  And sometimes it causes frustrating days.

The Dilemma of the Good Teacher

When you work in education, it's easy to become discouraged about national education reports.  Most of them are written by those with little understanding of education.  Nearly everyone believes they are experts in education, because everyone attended school.  As I have pointed out before, this would be like believing you understand surgery because you had an appendectomy.  Teachers cringe as state and federal legislators opine on the ills of public education.  "Yes, yes, senator.  Would that our schools were run as efficiently and as productively as you run our government."

Most national reports tie school success to achievement on a state standardized test designed to measure a narrow range of skills in literacy and numeracy.  There are many of us who question the validity of these tests.  There are many more who believe that too many of our schools have become dismal testing centers, largely due to the federal pressures of No Child Left Behind.  

One of these reports came out last week, and it has several of my friends and colleagues talking.  It is a report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.  The Council gave letter grades for teacher quality to each of the states and ranked them according to several factors.  West Virginia received an overall grade of D+, ranking it 41st in the nation.

If you are a good teacher, it is very difficult to not become angry and hurt when you read these reports.  You know that you've spent as many hours learning your profession as your friends in law, accounting, or medicine, only to be paid a fraction of what they earn.  You know that you work in one of the only fields where the practitioner is held entirely accountable for the performance of her client.  (We do not hold the doctor accountable for the health of an overweight smoker, nor a lawyer for the deeds of the murderer he represents.)  You know the hours you spent before and after school, offering extra help to students, assessing student work, talking to parents.  You remember the sleepless nights you spent worried about the student who lives in a tent in a cousin's back yard, or the one who asked for extra food in the lunch line because she wouldn't get dinner that night.  And you already beat up on yourself this week because you've tried everything you know to engage that one student, and he still stared at you blankly, looking at the clock above your head.

If you are a good teacher, here is what angers and hurts the most: you know that some of the things they say about teachers are true.  You work with a teacher who knows less about his subject than some of the students in his class.  You know the colleague who actually became a teacher because she didn't want to work in the summer.  (And for those of you not in education, teachers don't have a "summer vacation."  They are unemployed and unpaid for those weeks in June, July, and August.)  You remember the words of the co-worker who belittled a weak student or bad-mouthed him in the teacher's lounge.  You work across the hall from the one who cannot manage even the mildest group or whose students sit glassy-eyed through hour after hour of mind-numbing lecture.  Every day you see the teacher who arrives at school seconds before the kids come to his class and runs to "beat the buses" out of the parking lot.

If you are a good teacher, it's sometimes difficult to know where to focus your anger and frustration.  You became a teacher to change lives.  Instead you find yourself saddled with absurd district and state policies, hounded by inept administrators, and crippled by a lack of resources.  You spend hours planning creative, engaging lessons, only to be told that you must focus on a few narrow measures of student achievement - or that the subject you teach is unimportant.  You're sometimes given directives by janitors with an 8th grade education who refuse to empty your trash daily or by cafeteria workers who seem angry at you for no discernible reason.  You find yourself swimming in a sea of mystifying acronyms and submitting your lesson plans to the athletic director, yet no one comes to your class to see the joy of your students when they walk through the door.  You sit through hours of something called "professional development" where your principal spends most of the time discussing the cell phone policy and reminding you where you can't park, yet you're denied leave to attend a day at a conference featuring a nationally-known speaker that you are sure will give you a renewed sense of excitement about the classroom.

Then you open up the paper and there is another one of these damn reports.  You read it and you have a  familiar feeling well up inside of you.  You're angry at the multi-billion dollar foundation that sits around generating these reports.  You're angry at the journalists and politicians who will use it to justify not paying you a decent salary.  You're angry at the mindless bureaucracy that is at the root of so many of the problems.  And you have a special anger for those teachers who provide so much of the warrant for reports like this.

Many of the best educators I know here in West Virginia would agree with most of the following:

• It's much too hard to fire bad teachers simply for being bad teachers.
• It has become increasingly difficult to attract and retain good teachers.
• There are large groups of teachers entering the field who are under-prepared.

My opinion on this has not changed since I was in the classroom.  Far too many teachers lack the content knowledge and skills to be successful in the classroom.  I won't begin to speculate on a number or percentage or anything like that, but it's more than it should be.

In my career as an arts teacher and in my current gig I have met a large number of teachers who do not have a basic grasp of the art form they teach.  They have not mastered the rudiments of their craft and cannot begin to understand the nature of art and its role in human culture.  Because of this, they cannot, of course, help students master these skills themselves or gain deep understandings.  

As a music teacher, I looked at our West Virginia standards and saw some rigorous content.  I was expected to help my students learn to improvise, compose, and arrange music.  Yet many of my colleagues lack these basic abilities themselves.  How is it possible for a music teacher to guide a student through the compositional process if she has never composed herself?  How can he create an environment where students are comfortable improvising if he cannot improvise?  Too many of my peers could not even be bothered to master their primary instruments.  

My own professional preparation was fairly extensive.  I was a reasonably good music student in high school and entered as a double major in performance and education at WVU.  Because of this (and because I just really liked class), I completed 190 undergraduate hours.  I then went on to complete a masters degree in applied music, and have taken many, many hours since that time.  I can honestly tell you that in my entire academic career I have not taken one class that did not prove valuable to my work as a teacher.  That isn't to say that they were all stellar classes.  But none of them were fluff.  When I entered the music classroom I realized that there were still additional skills that I would have to master.

At least in the arts, I can honestly say that many teacher preparation programs are far from rigorous.  In most instances, this reflects the economic nature of our institutions of higher learning, not the abilities of the faculty in those colleges and universities.  These schools are forced to compete for student dollars, and schools that are extremely rigorous only attract students who are already motivated to perform.  The problem is that graduating high school seniors who are looking for a place to coast for four years can be sure they will find someone who'll take their money.

In West Virginia we're now faced with a Higher Education Policy Commission that wants to reduce the number of required hours for teacher preparation programs to 120.  (This will not apply to our state's two largest institutions, Marshall and WVU.)  The reason is simple economics: if a student cannot be guaranteed that he can complete college in four years, he'll spend his money elsewhere.  I firmly believe that you cannot get the skills necessary to become a successful teacher (or at least a successful arts teacher) in 120 credit hours.  I find this alarming and I'm surprised that more people don't.

The issue of teacher accountability is a thornier problem.  I honestly don't know of a single good educator who believes that teachers shouldn't be held accountable.  But it begs the question, "Accountable for what?"  Our federal government now requires that all teacher accountability be tied in some measure to tests that assess a narrow set of skills in literacy and numeracy.  If I am a teacher of dance, why would I be held accountable for student math scores?  And how can we hold teachers accountable for scores on a single test when we cannot demonstrate that students themselves have made a reasonable effort to perform well?

West Virginia's new proposed teacher evaluation system tries to minimize that requirement to 5% of the teacher accountability picture.  Having spent part of the last two weeks looking at it, I can honestly say that I think it's a relatively good system and that good teachers will welcome it.  The bulk of it is tied to our Professional Teaching Standards, which describe the skills a teacher must have to be successful in the classroom.

My friend Dave believes that teaching is an innate human skill that everyone possesses.  Dave's a smart guy and I love him to death, but he is completely wrong, of course.  If teaching were something that anyone could do, we wouldn't be having national conversations about teacher quality.  You could simply hire anyone and let him do the job.  Teaching is a difficult profession that requires a unique set of skills and a great deal of professional preparation.  In addition, it requires individual commitment to the field, to the subject, and to the students one teaches.

I firmly believe we need to raise the bar for teachers in our state, but we need to make sure it is a meaningful bar tied to the skills and dispositions that embody great teaching.  While we are raising that bar, we also need to raise their salaries and provide the resources they need to be successful.  Paying a bad teacher more will not make him better.  No one believes that raising someone's salary will result in additional skills, which is why meaningful teacher evaluation is important.  What we do know is that we are having increasing difficulty in attracting and retaining great teachers, as many of them leave our state or seek work in another field.  More importantly, we know that it's the right thing to do.

Sirius Black and the Brothers Johnson

I'm sure you remember the early days of Facebook, yes?  Those halycon days, some two years past, before "unfriending" became common and before our parents were familiar with social media?  Do you remember all those quizzes?  I loved the "Which ______ Character Are You?" quizzes.  Thanks to Facebook, I learned that I shared much in common with Darth Vader, Dylan Thomas, and Dr. Frank-n-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I remember one for Harry Potter characters, and I've found that this makes interesting conversation with others.  I was working in Morgantown this summer and having lunch with a group of friends.  The last movie had just been released and conversation drifted to that all-important question: which Harry Potter character are you?

There was unanimous agreement about me and interestingly, it was the same character Facebook told me I was: Sirius Black.  Sirius, for those of you who have been living under a rock since the mid-nineties, was Harry Potter's godfather.  He was wrongfully accused of murder and sentenced to Azkaban prison, where he escaped after 12 years to join Harry in the fight against Voldemort.  He was killed in a battle with the Death Eaters by his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange.

So how, you may ask, do I resemble this wizarding hero?

I would like to be able to tell you that it has something to do with the dark good looks of Gary Oldman in the movie portrayals.  Alas, that is not the case.

The thing about Sirius is that he's not easy to understand.  None of the HP characters are, really.  He has two sides.  Actually, this is almost literally true.  You see, Sirius is an animagus, a shape-shifter who takes the form of an animal.  In this instance, Sirius can change into a large, black dog.  What are the chances?!  "Sirius Black" means "black dog" and he is a black dog.  He became an animagus so that he could accompany his friend, Remus Lupin, when the latter became a werewolf during the full moon.  (And again - how fortuitous: "Remus" being one of the co-founders of Rome, who was suckled by a she-wolf, and "Lupin" being Latin for "wolf.")

Many of the primary characters in the story have this sort of dualism: Harry, Remus, James, Severus Snape.  Even Voldemort.  In Sirius' case, he is unstable at times, having been driven to the brink of madness by his years in prison with the dementors.  He is sometimes immature and irresponsible, and often demonstrates poor judgment.

I was thinking about this recently because my friend Rachel H. was telling me about Churchill's "black dog."

I mentioned to her that my head gets weird sometimes.  I've been reading a lot about issues surrounding mental illness and creativity.  For those of us in the arts, it comes as no surprise that large numbers of "creatives" might be identified (formally or otherwise), as manic-depressives.  There is a fantastic book about the topic by Kay Jamison called Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.  I think it also explains, to a degree, why those in the arts seem more susceptible to substance abuse than others.

Rachel told me it reminded her of Winston Churchill's black dog.  I'd never heard about this, but a little research (i.e., I Googled it) revealed a familiar pattern: long periods of dark depression, alternating with manic episodes characterized by great productivity.  He slept little during those times, wrote prolifically, lost normal inhibitions, was belligerent, and was singularly opinionated.  And he "self medicated," which is doctor code for drinking scotch and water.

When those periods of depression would come, Churchill called them his "black dog." I learned that there is a long mythology around black dogs in the U.K. There are a few dozen stories about various dusky canines on the island, but they have some common characteristics: menacing growls, glowing eyes, portents of death, servants of the Devil, hanging around church graveyards or crossroads.

My mind naturally went to Robert Johnson.

     I got to keep movin' . . . blues fallin' down like hail,

     Ummmm . . . blues fallin' down like hail,

     And the days keeps on worryin' me, there's a hellhound on my trail . . .

Johnson had his own black dog. Story goes that he sold his soul to the Devil to learn to play the guitar, at the crossroads of highways 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, MS. He was haunted by something for the next several years, until he was poisoned to death at age 27.

The story is told about other blues men, too, including Tommy Johnson. And not just blues men. Everyone from Niccolò Paganini to Nikki Sixx is supposed to have made that Faustian deal. West African griots and West Virginia fiddlers all have stories about trading their souls with Mr. Scratch in exchange for talent, fame, riches, etc.

Let me get one thing out of the way.  I do not suppose to compare myself to Winston Churchill or Robert Johnson in terms of talents or accomplishments.  You don't need to point out that I haven't changed the course of music history or won any world wars lately.  But in some sense I do relate to the connection between this personal disposition and feeling creative.

I'm certain there are those who are very creative who lead balanced, normal lives.  In fact, because this is often the case, it is hard to explain sometimes why one isn't willing to give up the "abnormal" life.  I mean all of it.  It's easy for others to see the up side to mania.  You feel energetic, ideas come quickly, sleep is unnecessary, nothing gets you down.  It's more difficult to explain why you wouldn't trade the depression for "normalcy."

The thing is, when I feel most creative, I'm usually tapping into an emotional well that goes pretty deep.  I don't mean to suggest that I am particularly profound, but something of my understanding of art comes from knowing my shadow side well.  Jung opined that our shadow is the seat of both the things we wish were not true about ourselves and our creative impulses, and that we explored these most often in dreams.  

I realize this view may fly in the face of contemporary opinions regarding psychiatry, psychology, and pharmacology.  I've also been told by people who've gone to school more years than I have that my opinion is a dangerous one.  I get that, too.

To me the choice is between living an aesthetic life or an anesthetized existence.  The choice is not always an enjoyable one.  It's not always easy for those around me, and I'm sorry for that.  And it's not easy to understand why, like the "creature" in Crane's poem:

     In the desert,

     I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

     who, squatting upon the ground,

     Held his heart in his hands,

     And ate of it.

     I said, "Is it good, friend?"

     "It is bitter - bitter," he answered;

     "But I like it

     Because it is bitter,

     And because it is my heart." 

Like that other archetypal canine, the werewolf, changes may seize one in ways that seem outside of one's control.  (Little wonder the werewolf changes with the lunar cycle, tied as it is to mental illness, e.g., loony, lunatic, lunacy, and even Luna Lovegood.)

On the whole, I know I have little external reason for these cycles.  I've had my share of disappointments, but no more than the next person, and I have much to be thankful for.  It's when one turns inward and reflects on what is there, there where others do not see, that the black dog comes trotting down the road.

He may not be much of a pet, but he is my dog.

By the Time I Post This, You May Not Be Able To Read It in Your Classroom

Sir Ken Robinson has quoted the philosopher Jeremy Bentham as saying, "There are two types of people in this world: those who divide the world into two types and those who do not."  While I try not to be one who makes those divisions, I think it must be human nature.  I've often thought that there are two types of educators.

The first is the one who sees the world as remarkable place, full of wonder and opportunity.  She believes the role of the teacher is akin to a tour guide or even an artist - someone who helps others see things with new eyes.  She values openness, creativity, and liberty.  She thinks that all of her students have enormous capacities and she is heartbroken when students fail to realize their potential.

The second is the one who sees the world as a menacing place, full of hazards and danger.  He believes the role of the teacher is akin to a parent, a policeman, or a doctor - someone who protects others and repairs damage that may have been done.  He values simplicity, reason, and order.  He thinks that all of his students face incredible challenges and is heartbroken when they are hurt.

The truth, I realize, is that most of us in education are a blend of these dispositions.  There are few of us who do not try to protect students whenever we can.  Likewise, most of us earnestly wish that our students could realize their full potential.  Yet certain issues tend to highlight which camp we might choose, were we faced with that choice.

I became a teacher at the dawn of the World Wide Web.  It was immediately apparent when discussing things "out there" that some teachers were frightened by what they saw.  Sensationalist news stories highlighted the worst of the worst: online predators, pornography, neo-Nazi message boards, and all the other things that go bump in the night.  These were real threats and real children who were damaged.  In those hazy first years before filtering software, lots of teachers were frightened.  They were frightened of the thing that always frightens us: the unknown.

There were other teachers who daydreamed through staff development meetings.  If we can talk to anyone in the world at anytime, what could students do?  If information is democratized, what opportunities would it provide for our "have-not" students?

Then everything exploded.  Amazon.  Ebay.  Instant Messenger.  Napster.  Blogger.  PayPal.  Wikipedia.  MySpace.  YouTube.  Facebook.  WebEx.  Twitter.  Pandora.  Netflix.  You know the players.

With each chapter came new concerns.  There were all the concerns about plagiarism.  Then it was copyright violations.  I remember a vehement argument about Wikipedia reliability with West Virginia Department of Education staff when I was a teacher.  In each instance valid concerns were raised, but recent history has shown favor to early adopters.

Yet the truth remains that most of our classrooms remain rooted firmly in the 20th century.  Many, perhaps most, of our teachers do not use 21st century tools.  There are various reasons for this.  They may lack the necessary training.  They may not see how they are relevant.  But I think it comes back to their fundamental world view.

For another group of teachers, the situation is a little trickier.  They have gotten the Macedonian text message and are prepared to share the digital gospel.  They are eager.  They attend hours - days even - of professional development to prepare themselves for the new educational paradigm.  Then they try to use those tools in their classroom.

YouTube: blocked.  Facebook: blocked.  Playlist.com: blocked.  Netflix: blocked.  Pandora: blocked.  Twitter: blocked.  The list grows each day.

The concerns of those who block those sites are legitimate.  First, there are the millions of federal dollars provided through E-Rate (the Universal Service Fund), administered by the FCC.  In order to have access to those millions of dollars, states must comply with E-Rate directives, including those related to protecting children.  The easiest way to do that is to start blocking Internet content.

The second issue is related to bandwidth.  At least in West Virginia, bandwidth is at a premium, and many of our rural locations simply do not have the access necessary for streaming media.  Again, the simple solution is to block streaming sites.

While I believe the arguments made for blocking content are legitimate, let me hasten to add that I do not find them persuasive.  

There have been those who have sought to protect children from other content historically, mostly in the form of an older technology: the book.  The Great Gatsby.  The Catcher in the Rye.  To Kill a Mockingbird.  Huckleberry Finn. The Lord of the Flies.  Slaughterhouse Five.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Then there were those who rallied against the ill effects of the popular music of the day.  Louis Armstrong.  Bessie Smith.  Elvis Presley.  The Beatles.  Led Zeppelin.

What were those youth being protected from?  Vulgarity.  Drug use.  Violence.  Deviant sexuality.  Satanism.  Using the "N" word.  Sound familiar?

In every case, the would-be protectors of youth have looked foolish and, more importantly, have been proven irrelevant.  In every instance history (and technology) marched forward and our educational system came dragging up the rear.  The issue has never been, "Will students have access to this content?"  It has been, and will continue to be, "When will our education system acknowledge the culture in which its students live?"

We live in a republic with democratically-elected representatives.  Teachers and parents have a right to hold federal and state agencies accountable - including the FCC, the Universal Service Administrative Company, and yes, the West Virginia Department of Education.

And when it comes to bandwidth issues in schools in West Virginia, teachers and parents need to be asking what happened to the promises made by the legislature and the former governor four years ago when they entered into an agreement with Verizon to expand broadband access throughout the state.

The problems are complex, but those who believe they can't be solved simply do not understand the enormous creative capacities of human beings.  While the core issues surrounding these problems are the same as they have been for years, the circumstances are radically different.  We must accelerate the rate in which we solve these problems in the 21st century, simply because of the explosion in information and information technology.  Failure to do so will only result in our own irrelevance.

P.S.  I have written about some of these issues previously, including Twitter and the changing education paradigm.  You can read those posts here and here.

Christmas Time is Here

The Oxen by Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

"Now they are all on their knees,"

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

"Come; see the oxen kneel,

"In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,"

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

(This is going to be hard to write.)

I used to love Christmas.

I realize that I am not exceptional in this. I know others. It is a special kind of disease to love Christmas, I mean to really love Christmas. You may wonder what the symptoms are, in case you or someone you love has this disease.

Ask yourself a few questions. Have you ever made goose or plum pudding for Christmas dinner - even if you're an American? Do you have an Advent wreath in your home, which you light faithfully and appropriately? Is there a poem you simply must read every Christmas Eve? Do you know all the verses to "The First Noel"?

If you answered yes to any of the questions I've just asked, you may be infected. You may also be infected if you understand the allusions in the poem above by Thomas Hardy without having them explained to you.

The poem refers to a folk tale, still told among some, that on Christmas Eve the beasts of the farm, like those who attended the birth of Christ in the stable, kneel down at midnight to honor the newborn king. Some even say that they speak with voices like men.

Like almost every poem that I know well, I learned this one set to music. I forget the composer, but it was a really lovely setting, one that helped you understand the import of the text. We sang it in high school chorus. It's really a marvel in terms of craft, isn't it? "So fair a fancy few would weave . . . " Let that roll from your tongue a dozen times.

The story about the oxen is not in the Bible. It would hardly be out of place, though. The birth of Jesus is extraordinary, as recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Divine messengers. The virgin conception. The prophetic utterances of so many characters. The birth in a stable. The appearance of the hosts of heaven to shepherds. The search for the baby by mystics from Persia. The bad king's murder of children. The flight into Egypt.

Of course, all of that pales in comparison to the central fact of the story: the infinite power and majesty of God, incarnate in a small child, to redeem a wicked people. The Word made flesh. Even as I type those words, they bring chills to my flesh and tears to my eyes.

There are stories like that all through the book. Fish swallow men whole. A nation is fed from bread that falls from the sky for forty years. Sticks turn into snakes. Rivers become blood. A shepherd boys kills a giant with a slingshot. Men are cast into a furnace and are unharmed. The dead come to life. And a prophet named Balaam does, in fact, have a donkey who speaks.

For those of you who have never truly believed these stories (or ones like them), it may all be very difficult to take in. The atheist compares them to the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, but they are something different.

One of my favorite stories is about the prophet Elisha. He angers the king of Aram, who sends an entire army to encircle his home. Elisha's servant sees the army and is terrified, and asks, "What should we do?" So the prophet prays that his servant's eyes may be opened to see things as they truly are. Then the servant looks, and the mountain behind the army is filled with the entire host of heaven, standing to protect Elisha, riding chariots of fire.

It is one of the great themes of the book: things are not as they appear. The climactic story of the Bible is, in many ways, centered on that theme. "Do you see that man there, nailed to that tree, naked, broken, bleeding, dying and being mocked by thousands? He is, this very moment, conquering death and Hell."

If you are a believer, it runs deep. C.S. Lewis wrote that every single person we see will some day, at the end of time, be transformed into something either so glorious and radiant that we would be tempted to worship, or else so hideous and wicked that we should have nightmares forever thinking about them. Paul, writing to the church in Corinth about some very nuts-and-bolts matters, says in passing, "Do you not know that you will judge angels?" He doesn't go on to explain it, he just says it. I remember sitting in church once, looking at the man in front of me, who had arrived late that morning because he had a sick cow, thinking, "This man will pass judgment on God's angels."

It's an extraordinary way to live. Believing that oxen should kneel at the stroke of midnight every December 25 does not seem ridiculous in comparison.

So, I used to love Christmas. It represented to me all the hope that I had. It represented my hope that at the end of days, all would be made right, like in the last verse of that carol:

Then louder pealed the bells more deep,

"God is not dead nor doth He sleep,

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, goodwill to men."

It represented hope that I could be different, that I could be better, that though I was beset by my own native sin, I was not what I appeared to be. I bore the imprint of God's image, the imago Dei. More, I was changed, I was a new creature. I had been raised from spiritual death, as surely as Jesus had raised his dead friend Lazarus from the tomb. I counted God my friend and death as gain. I had hope both here and hereafter.

I've always found arguments against the more fantastical elements of religion completely unconvincing. That the omnipotent God should speak worlds into being was nothing. That He should save a wretch like me was more unfathomable. Armchair agnostics sit at their laptops and ridicule the virgin birth, but they completely miss the issue. The power of the Creator of the elements to manipulate them to His will is a trifle compared to the mystery of grace.

The problem is that I know my own heart. I've known it since I was very young. I know its uncomfortable places and dark corners. I know what's under the floorboards and in the closets. Paul wrote that for those who are in Christ, old things have passed away, all things are made new. Yet my heart tells me I am just a man. Better than some, much worse than many. Son of Adam, to be sure.

I think that others would describe what has happened to me over the last couple of years as a "loss of faith." It seems like much more than that to me, much more than those three words can express. It is as though I awoke from a dream, only to discover than the world was waiting in all its ugliness and pain.

There are those, even some I count as friends, who think nothing of belittling religion and the religious. I forgive their ignorance, but it is ignorance, nonetheless, sometimes a very cruel type of ignorance. To mock that which is the very ground of being of fellow traveler in this world is callous. Strangely, I find it more painful now than when all those things were mine.

I suppose I've lost faith. I've also lost Christmas, or at least, I've lost what Christmas was to me. Tonight we're having friends for cocktails, a Christmas party. I am thankful I have that at least. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die," says the fool.

Thomas Hardy wrote another poem about Christmas called "Yuletide in a Younger World." He writes of remembering how it used to seem to him, then concludes thus:

We heard still small voices then,

And, in the dim serene

Of Christmas Eve,

Caught the far-time tones of fire-filled prophets

Long on earth unseen . . .

- Can such ever have been?

I miss those still, small voices and wonder the same. Maybe I'll make a trip through the gloom this Christmas Eve, and see the oxen kneel. Or maybe I won't and simply hope it might be so.