Pontypool Changes the Way I Think About Horror

Being both a horror fan and a list maker, I get really sucked in when people begin talking about their favorite horror movies of all time. Inevitably, I suggest one that very few people have seen and when they do see it, they are much less enthusiastic about it than I am. I wanted to write about that movie to maybe explain my great enthusiasm for it.

The movie I am thinking about is Pontypool, based on Tony Burgess' novel, Pontypool Changes Everything, and directed by Bruce McDonald. It's from a few years back, but I know very few who have seen it. (There are lots of spoilers ahead.)

Pontypool is essentially a zombie movie. Some of the most used zombie tropes don't really apply in the movie (the "zombies" aren't actually dead and you don't have to be bitten to be turned, among others), but it follows the now-familiar story arch of a single victim infecting others until the central characters are left hiding from the zombie hoard. 

What makes Pontypool different is the central conceit of the movie, which centers around the way the infection spreads.

From the outset, it's obvious that the movie will be centered around language. We hear Grant Mazzy, a talk radio host and protagonist of the story, telling a curious story about the name "Pontypool," the town that is the setting of the film. He quotes Norman Mailer about the power of certain coincidences before major events and we know that "something big is about to happen."

I think it is safe to say that if you are not drawn in by that opening monologue, this movie is probably not for you. It's not artsy or intentionally snobby in any way, but it's smart, really smart, in the way that very few horror films are.

Any horror story worth it's salt addresses important themes, and zombie films are some of the most conspicuous examples. In my opinion at least, zombie films tackle the question of what it means to be a human being, and when are we least in touch with our humanity. Two of the most notable examples of this are from George Romero, the grandfather of zombie flicks. 

The original Night of the Living Dead was set in 1968 at the height of civil unrest in this country. The climax of the film comes when the hero, Ben, the sole African-American character, is gunned down by the police who have mistaken him for a zombie. The police officers are immediately transformed into the movie's villains, with almost as little to redeem them as monsters they were hunting.

Romero's sequel, Dawn of the Dead, dealt similarly with the mindless consumerism that was fast becoming the norm in the mid-70s. The film's zombies return to a shopping mall where they had spent senseless hours when they were living, only to continue their old habits. 

Pontypool likewise engages us through metaphor about the way we use words in our culture. AM radio — that bastion of shock jocks, right-wing fear mongers, and conspiracy theorists — serves as the backdrop of a world gone mad with language. Words have lost their meaning, they are tossed about carelessly, and used thoughtlessly. Language, which is at the core of our humanity and separates us from much of the other life on the planet, has become the vehicle of dehumanization. The virus isn't passed through biting, it's passed through words.

Like I said, it's smart stuff.

The film's climactic scene occurs when the station manager, Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle), becomes convinced Mazzy is about to kill her and becomes fixated on the word "kill," indicating she is becoming infected. Mazzy saves her by telling her, "Kill means kiss," (yeah, do your own armchair psychology on that one) and they do kiss. Once they've discovered the tool to save others — talking nonsense on purpose, turning the meaning of words upside down — they go to the airwaves to help save the town. They are halted by a voice from outside (presumably police or national guard) demanding they stop broadcasting. There is a countdown and the screen goes black, leading us to believe the pair have been killed as the town is razed.

The epilogue features news broadcasts from around Canada (Pontypool is a real Canadian town) indicating the infection has spread.

The movie is a slow burn, with most of it taking place in the radio station studios, located in a church basement. So much of it takes place there, in fact, that I think it could be adapted quite successfully for the stage. There are only eight actors in the film, including those who are heard on the radio but never seen. The strongest performance is by Stephen McHattie (Watchmen, A History of Violence) as Mazzy, as boozy and washed-up of an anti-hero as you could want.


Pontypool does not shy away from the blood, but it is used only at critical points in the movie. The gore is truly disturbing, as McDonald uses it to show the victims' gradual deterioration into sub-human existence. The scares are more centered around mood, although there are a few jump-out moments. The true horror, however, is existential.

So much of the film is on-the-nose in terms of social critique, especially as regards the manner in which large groups of people become infected by words — words that have become stripped of their actual meaning and now just serve infect our minds. Dozens of these words and phrases come to my mind — "national security," "job creators," "family values" — words that are used to obfuscate rather than illuminate, words used to convey the very opposite of what their plain meaning might suggest. The mobs infected with these words are a cannibalistic horde, seeking to either infect others or destroy those who offer resistance.

Pontypool will not appeal to those groups, because it requires the viewer to engage with complex ideas. I don't mean to suggest that you are an idiot if you don't enjoy the movie; it will be too slow for many horror fans. But I think it's appeal lies in the way it stays with you and rolls around in your brain, long after you've seen it. You can't ask for much more than that in a movie.

The Last House on the Well-Manicured Cul-de-Sac

Let me begin by saying that The Purge, starring Ethan Hawke and Lena "House of Lannister" Hedley is not a movie for everyone.  My mother, for example, would hate this movie from the outset.  So my comments are really for those who might like this movie, if this is the type of movie one is inclined to like.  Who is that, exactly?  I'm not sure writer and director James DeMonaco knows exactly.

On the one hand, it's part home invasion thriller.  So, you know, all of the typical testosterone-filled 18-35-year-old males who go in for those movies might be the intended audience.  On the other hand, it's kind of an intelligent dystopian future political commentary, the kind that might be based on a book you had to read your junior year of high school if you had a progressive English teacher who also assigned Animal Farm and Brave New World.  Except this isn't based on a book.  So the intended audience might be the intellectual type who call movies "films" and think the NSA poses a serious threat to civil rights.

I guess the problem is that the type of film that appeals to both of these groups isn't likely to be the same film and The Purge probably falls a little short with both groups.  (See what I did there?  I called it a "film.")  In fact, I might be just the perfect intended audience member for this movie, because I like both home invasion thrillers and dystopian political commentary, but it kind of doesn't work for me either.

Briefly: the story is set in 2022 and there has been some sort of political upheaval leading to a "nation reborn."  Once a year for a twelve-hour period, all law is suspended, and many citizens go on a "hunt" - wreaking havoc and murdering others with impunity.  The net result is that crime at other times is exceptionally low and the economy is thriving.  Our supposed protagonist, James Sandin (Hawke), has benefitted considerably from the purge by selling very expensive home security systems to wealthy families.  The movie begins just an hour before the 7:00 P.M. start of the bloodletting, with Sandin arriving home to his wife (Hedley), a teenage daughter who has a boyfriend the parents don't approve of, and a misfit younger son who is luckily precocious with robots and hiding.  Two potential sources of story conflict begin when a. the boyfriend sneaks into the home just prior to the security system being armed and b. the junior Sandin, possessed of scruples of unknown origin, disarms the security system to let in a homeless man who is being hunted by a mob of entitled ivy-league collegians, dressed in school blazers, khakis, and creepy masks.  Learning that their prey has found refuge chez Sandlin, they come knocking.

As a premise, I think it's pretty brilliant.  Yet it comes apart in execution.

<Spoilers ahead>

I'm guessing it's in the interest of time, but DeMonaco gives short shrift to world building.  We're looking at a U.S. just nine years in the future and no real explanation is given about the events that led to the "nation reborn."  It strains credulity to watch the Sandins' neighbors proceed to deliver cookies, chant government mantras, and mutilate teenagers in Stepfordesque complicity.  DeMonaco seems to believe that the wealthy would happily populate the world he has created with nary a thought to the psychic repercussions of murder.  Strangely, the Sandins seem to be the only ones in the neighborhood who are troubled by the practice at all, in spite of the fact that their wealth is built on the purge.  I have no doubt that wealth may create the amoral zombies that we see in the movie, I just think it might take more than a decade.  Perhaps if the setting were 2042 instead of 2022 . . . I don't know.

What the film does best, in my opinion, is work Edwin Hodge's character, the target of the hunt.  Hodge plays the role close the reality that we see on a daily basis in this country.  We truly feel his fear as he is hunted, first in the street and later in the house.  Even as we watch him attack the family, our sympathies are with him: what else could someone backed into such a desperate corner, literally and figuratively, possibly do?

At those moments, the film's central thesis comes through clearest: poverty is violence.  In a world where even our personal security is dependent upon wealth, the poor are victims of the larger culture.  Poverty is an assault on one's personhood, an idea given an exclamation point by DeMonaco's refusal to give Hodge's character a name.  At the movie's denouement, Mrs. Sandin is left at her dining table saying goodbye to the neighbors who have terrorized her, calling them by their names.  She doesn't invite the homeless man to stay, or even inquire as to his name, even though he has saved her life and the lives of her children.  He is instead left to return to the streets where the purge is just a particularly nightmarish episode in a life of daily terrors.

(Aside: Bravo to DeMonaco for making the homeless man almost the only black face we see in the movie.  Although the film is tackling poverty, the subtext of racial inequality is given a human face through Hodge.)

On this level, the movie should work, addressing poverty, along with the country's obsession with guns, our desensitization to violence, and the sometimes sinister roles of media and government.  Yet it doesn't work, not really.

The main fault of the film is that it spends fairly substantial screen time engaging in just the sort of violent voyeurism that DeMonaco seemed to set in his sights.  We get sprays of automatic weapon fire into various torsos, axes buried into backs and skulls, and the leader of the hunting party glibly blowing off the head of a cohort.  The audience is left reacting precisely as they would in any other home invasion thriller, not only hoping the Sandins make it through the night but cheering wildly when the bad guys get their bloody comeuppance.  In the theater where I watched, the audience of mostly white twenty-somethings only really seemed to come alive when someone was being butchered.  This was made easier by the fact that the hunters themselves were dehumanized, not only through their inexplicably unconscionable acts, but also because most of them remained masked throughout the movie.  In short, DeMonaco seems to be offering a critique of the way the poor are dehumanized and then provides an alternative: dehumanize the rich instead.

Now, I'm rarely a critic of movie violence.  While I am given occasional pause considering its effects on the very young, I believe that Bowdlerized stories lead us to imagine that violence is not real.  The problem with The Purge is that its use of violence is to the detriment of the central point of the film.  Just as the audience is beginning to consider the brutal reality of poverty, they are given an out through escapist fantasy.

I really wanted to like this movie, but it was ultimately unsatisfying.  Maybe if there is a remake in a few years, they'll get it right.  In the meantime, I hope we see more art that wrestles with this uncomfortable issue in American life.

Superhero with a Thousand Faces

I am fresh from seeing Man of Steel, Christopher Nolan's Superman reboot.  A few stray observations (spoilers ahead):

1. Overall the movie is an excellent addition to the Superman canon.  For an origin story appearing in 2013, it seems to avoid most of the hipster meta-commentary on the meaning of the superhero. This seems particularly noteworthy, given director Zack Snyder's past with Watchmen and Nolan's vision for the Dark Knight trilogy.
2. Joseph Campbell needs a co-writing credit on this one.  I don't know if Nolan and Snyder immersed themselves in The Hero with a Thousand Faces or have just spent lots of weekends at Lucas Ranch, but this movie wears its mono myth on its sleeve and borrows heavily on Biblical imagery.  Clark/Kal has been made "a little lower than the angels" for awhile, the father sending his only begotten (not made, contra other children on Krypton) son, to save the world.  He is found in a basket-shapped ship, which is kept in the stable/barn, and he grows up as a normal human until he's ready to begin his ministry and ultimately his destiny . . . at age 33.  He even has his own garden moment in an inoffensive church of nondescript denomination, complete with a stained glass depiction of  Christ in Gethsemane over His his shoulder.  (According to adherents.com, Clark's family are Methodists.)
3. This is really the first Superman film fully imagined as an alien story.  Others certainly play around with the idea, but Krypton is completely developed and the alien craft would be right at home on Star Trek.
4. Speaking of which, Krypton is a pretty groovy planet that kept reminding me of Vulcan on the Star Trek reboot for some reason, maybe because we spend a good portion of our time there watching the place destruct.  They have really cool computer interfaces that frankly make me sorry I'm typing on a keyboard right now, and I really dig the art deco/Metropolis feel, especially when ghost Jor-El is telling Kal about the history of the place.
5. In case anyone forgot, Superman is a 'Merican.  He even says so, including once while American flags are waving over his shoulder.  His mom (Diane Lane) works at Sears, dammit!  (And was anyone else surprised by that product placement, including widow Kent's blue Sears polo and worker lanyard around her neck?)  He does manage to take out an unmanned drone that is spying on him.  He is currently still silent on the ones used to kill Afghans and Pakistanis, however.
6. Other unexpected product placement: IHOP.  And like, 27 times.
7. Henry Cavill is pretty great in the lead and manages to reimagine the character in a way that departs entirely from Christopher Reeves' portrayal, while keeping close to the source.  I was never personally a huge fan of Reeves' Superman, though it was certainly hard not to imagine it as commentary on his own life in later years.
8. Can someone just go ahead and acknowledge that Clark/Kal seems to have a pretty nonchalant attitude toward "collateral damage," including that which he seems to cause by, for example, chucking aliens into the gas pumps at 7-11 and watching the place blow up?
9. Amy Adams is a pretty forgettable Lois Lane.  I can't buy her as the "intrepid reporter" and really wanted Margot Kidder back.  She is given a few clever moments, however, like her inquiry about what the "S" stands for (interrupted just before she posits "Super") and her tongue-in-cheek greeting to Clark at the newspaper ("Welcome to the Planet.")
10. General Zod is one of the great villains and Michael Shannon is perfect.  He brings a lot of the self-righteous-but-ultimately-evil vibe with him from Boardwalk Empire.
11. Russell Crowe is a cool Jor-El, but I'm pretty sure they cast him for his dragon flying skills.  I didn't like his Ghost of Christmas Future bit on board the ship though.
12. The "dream sequence" (or whatever that was) between Zod and Kal seems lifted (in style at least) from Watchmen's dream sequence with Night Owl and Silk Spectre.  Except the part where Kal is sinking in human skulls, which reminded me of the climax of Drag Me to Hell.
13. Also, the Kryoptonian ship seems to employ the same technology as is used in The Matrix, where bits of metal can reform into some sort of sentience.  Scary shit.
14. Laurence Fishburne is a completely unintimidating Perry White, perhaps due to his earring.
15. Is it strange that we are now better at depicting what major American cities might look like if attacked by large destructive powers?  I mean, we know all about the clouds of ash and the papers floating around.  Did anyone think of those things pre-2001?
16. For my taste, they spend too much time just blowing shit up.  They could have easily trimmed the 143-minute run time by twenty minutes with no damage to the story.
17. Something in the Earth's gravitational pull ensures that anything entering the atmosphere (baby-ship, meteor, flying aliens, etc.) will only land in Metropolis or Smallville, KS.
18. This is my favorite suit, by far.  It's not just that the suit is stylish and indestructible, it actually looks indestructible.
19. Also indestructible: Kal's coif. 
20. Ghost Jor-El apparently insists (offscreen) that Clark/Kal shave before dawning the suit.  Which leads to the obvious question given the above observation, "How does Superman shave?"  I'm so glad you asked.
21. The cape does seem a particular disadvantage if you encounter fellow Kryptonians in battle, however.  They will use it to sling you into buildings.
22. Also cape-related: one of the flashbacks near the end shows a boy Clark Kent in his back yard pretending to be a superhero while wearing a quickly-fashioned red cape.  But, um . . . who is he imitating?
23. Kevin Costner reprises his role as Kevin Costner.
24. Was it just me, or was there some sort of under-current of faith versus science in the movie, with science wearing the black hat?  Clark/Kal discusses some nebulous "faith" at various points (and is clearly a Christ figure, as noted above), but the baddie-woman also says at one point, "If history has taught us anything, it's that evolution always wins," just before Superman and the 'Mericans kick her space ass.
25. Hans Zimmer's soundtrack is completely forgettable and although I understand they didn't want to do the whole John Williams thing, this barely rises above mood music.  Notable exceptions: some song with guitar when Clark is on a fishing boat (have to search this one out via the Google) and Allison Crowe doing "Ring of Fire."

All in all, if you care about Superman or superheroes, you should go see it.  Of course, if you care about these things, you've already seen it.  Also recommended for Jungians, Christopher Meloni completists, and people who like seeing things blown up.

P.S. For my own take on the Superman mythology, go take a listen over at Soundcloud.

A Humble Proposition

The last few weeks have me thinking a lot about guns.  In the interest of full disclosure, I should reveal here that I have been a gun owner in my life and am historically very leery of efforts to disarm the citizenry.  Jefferson famously said that where the governments fears the people, there is liberty; but where the people fear the government, there is tyranny.  This is one of his primary arguments for the second amendment to the Constitution.  It was also, of course, why Jefferson argued against a standing army.  It is interesting to me note that the disbanding of our standing army plays so little in discussion of second amendment rights.  It may also be worth noting that Jefferson rarely armed his slaves, though I'm not entirely sure what motivated his decision there.

Yet, despite my desire for an armed citizenry and a disarmed military, I think that the time has perhaps come for me to rethink my position somewhat.  I will confess here that my judgment may have become somewhat clouded by the recent events in Newtown, Conn.  I have a certain sentimentality for images of frightened children sobbing uncontrollably after their classmates have been shot multiple times with a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle.  But I recognize the media's attempt to manipulate my emotions through shocking images such as these.

It is hardly fair, after all, to attack weapons such as the AR-15 (the rifle the U.S. military refers to as an M16).  The AR-15 is actually banned as a hunting weapon in some states because the ammunition is not strong enough.  Wiser state legislatures recognize that it would be extremely inhumane to allow a less-effective weapon to be used against a 250 lb. adult deer.  Fortunately for the children at Sandyhook Elementary, the weapon was sufficiently effective in its use against first graders, as the average 40 lb. six-year-old can be felled with significantly less ammunition than his cervine counterparts.

It seems to me that a rational compromise can be reached on this front.  If we allow the state to restrict which weapons may be used against game animals, it certainly seems reasonable that they could restrict which ones may be uses against other human beings.  I realize that the language would have to be crafted rather carefully, however, taking into account the age, size, and general health of the would-be target.  For example, the state could require that those targeting adult males in the prime of life use a 50-caliber weapon, making a clean kill more certain.  If your target were kindergarten students, however, a simple 22 might suffice (though the larger caliber weapons would obviously do the job, too).  In that particular instance, however, it might be essential to craft code to insist on at least semi-automatic weapons with large magazines, since young children are small and naturally quick and all the more so if startled by the unexpected arrival of a stranger with an assault weapon at school.

The National Rifle Association has been quick to point out that more guns may have prevented the recent tragedy.  When I learned that the shooter, Adam Lanza, had taken his mother's legally-purchased hand guns and semi-automatic rifle, leaving her with only two traditional hunting rifles to defend herself against her murderous son, it really got me wondering.  What if she had owned two legally-purchased Bushmaster AR-15 rifles?  She might just have had a fighting chance herself, and prevented the needless deaths of 20 elementary school children.  (I would add here that it is probably advisable to actually own a third rifle as a back-up, as the AR-15 is known for it's tendency to jam when not kept clean. And let's face it: who has time to clean all of those weapons on a daily basis?)

In the wake of the shooting, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called for an armed officer in every school in America.  While the closet libertarian in me may question the wisdom of putting an armed police officer in every school and vaguely wonder if this may be the precursor to the sort of police state our aforementioned third president may have been warning us against, I think LaPierre has a point.  He correctly pointed out that we have armed guards at courthouses and airports and this effectively prevents tragedies in those venues.  And please spare me the liberal diatribe about the New Jersey gunman who seized an officer's weapon in a police station filled with armed officers, just two weeks after the Newtown incident.  The fact of the matter is that in that particular case, the gunman was killed while only wounding three officers.  Were it a school and an unarmed criminal had seized an officer's weapon, it is unlikely that he could take out more than five or six children before being shot himself.

This does bring me to another salient point, however.  Many in the public sphere, such as Texas Governor Rick Perry, rightly recognize that this does not go far enough.  These critics have called for arming teachers.  I could not agree more.  Like many on the far right, I do not trust the education of our nation's youth to such a lazy and incompetent group as public school teachers, but let me be the first to say that I do trust them with the safe handling and discharge of large-caliber rifles and handguns in America's classrooms.

Yet I cannot help but wonder, "Is this enough?"  Clearly, the answer is "no."  In the average American classroom there is only one teacher.  A savvy gunman would obviously target the teacher first, preventing her from quickly accessing her safely stowed weapon and defending the children in her charge.  No, the answer is much more radical, yet ridiculously obvious: we need to arm every single student in American schools.

I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking that arming every school-age child creates myriad problems, including the likelihood that some outcast loser (like an Adam Lanza or Dylan Klebold) would use the state-provided weapon to attack other students because he was picked last in kickball.  But consider it for a moment: if you knew that the class weirdo had a 44 magnum in his backpack, would you even think of giving him a wedgie?

Is it an expensive proposition?  Certainly, but isn't the safety of America's children worth it?

So how are we going to pay for it?  Well, I wondered that, too, until I read Mr. LaPierre's comments more carefully.

What is the root cause of this violence we see in America?  Clearly, it is neither legal gun ownership nor the availability of weapons with 30+ round magazines.  No, it something much more sinister.  Hear the words of the NRA spokesman:

There exists in this country a callous, corrupt, and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.  Through vicious, violent video games . . . blood-soaked slasher films . . . and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life.  And they have the nerve to call it "entertainment."

Digital media creators, actors, writers, directors, singers, and musicians.  These are the true culprits in American society.

Guns don't kill people, art kills people.

To pay for the presence of a school police force, the arming of both teachers and students in every school, and the design of a comprehensive marksmanship curriculum, I suggest the complete elimination of school arts programs.  These programs are costly and encourage students to "express themselves."  It is, no doubt, this sort of self-reflection that leads many of these monsters to unleash their inner demons on society at large.  Further, the content espoused by these so-called "academic subjects" include violent music, such as murderous British folk ballads and drug-induced homicidal fantasies, like Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique; the sexualized violence of the dance stage, as evident in Le Sacre du printemps; and canvas grotesqueries, for instance, those by Hieronymus Bosch.  Theatre, of course, seems almost designed to inculcate violence in our young people, with the Bard's Scottish play practically a requirement of the high school literary curriculum.

With the complete elimination of school arts programs, those industries will soon dry up and leave our shores for more barbaric countries like Finland or the U.K.  We will have no more music, film, or literature poisoning young minds.  Our children will grow up knowing only fresh air and the joy of mastering assault weaponry.

I realize there may be resistance to this plan at first, but I can honestly think of no reasonable alternative.  I urge the president, Congress, and the U.S. Department of Education to implement this plan quickly, before it is too late.

Amy

I'm on lots of boards as part of my job.  Sometimes it feels like my life is one long meeting.  For someone who is not a joiner by nature, it has been a rather strange experience and generally speaking, it is not the most enjoyable part of my job.  There are some exceptions though.

Today I was with the board of the West Virginia Thespians at the Poky Dot Diner in Fairmont.  The board meetings in each discipline are all very different and reflect the nature of the artists, I think.  Music educators' meetings tend to be highly organized and more formal.  Art teachers are a little less linear, shall we say, and seem bored by Robert's Rules.  Dance educators seem honored and surprised that there is a meeting for them.  Then there are the theatre folk.

For those of you who do not know any theatre teachers, let me begin by saying that they are a unique breed.  "Dramatic" doesn't really capture it, nor does "theatrical," though these are certainly true.  In any event, they are rather loud as a group.  Couple this with the fact that the Thespians hold their board meeting in conjunction with the student board meeting just one table over and you start to get the picture.

After the conclusion of the meeting, one member, Eileen Miller, wanted to speak to me.  Actually, she wanted to introduce me to a student of hers who serves on the board.  I'll call her Amy.  Amy is a junior this year.  Eileen asked her to tell me what happened yesterday.

"Well," she started, "we got our WESTEST scores back.  I hate when we get them.  It's the worst day all year."  Eileen told me that Amy had been especially worried about her scores this week.  

"How were they?" I asked.

"I got mastery or above mastery in all my reading scores," she said.

"Tell Mr. Deskins why that's a big deal to you," Eileen prodded.

"I had never scored above novice before, "Amy said.

For those of you who do not spend your days speaking educationese, I'll explain.  Students taking our summative assessment, the WESTEST, are given numerical scores.  These are also designated novice, below mastery, mastery, above mastery, or distinguished.  Basically, Amy had leap-frogged one to two levels in one year.  That almost never happens.

So I said, "Wow!  That's impressive.  How did you improve?"

"Mrs. Miller," she said.  "I love theatre."

Eileen told me that she had had Amy her freshman year in Theatre and that during her sophomore year she also took Scriptwriting.  Amy is a special education student, but Eileen keeps the bar high in her class.  Amy wrote and re-wrote.  Her parents said she reads all the time now.  She likes school.  And even though they don't have a lot of money, Amy's parents wrote a $100 check to the school theatre department because they saw the good it was doing their little girl.

Eileen said she had come running into her class yesterday morning and told her, "I'm not stupid anymore."

"You never were," Mrs. Miller answered.

Students like Amy are the reason I get up everyday.  Some of them are those academic "ugly ducklings" - like the geeky girl in the 80s movie who goes to the dance without her glasses and becomes prom queen.  Some of them spend years in a system that regards them in terms of their numerical value to the adults managing it, only to find out late in their school careers that they are good dancers or sing well.  Some of them never find out.

I have heard advocates for our current testing regime argue about the necessity of data collection as if it were a moral imperative.  I guess I understand that.  We need data to make informed decisions.  Yet as an educator I'm concerned with what physicists might call the observer effect.  The very mechanism used to collect data has become the raison d'être of our educational system.  The result has been, in far too many instances, the crushing of student aspirations.

The defenders of the system say that it is not intended to be used this way, that this is the unfortunate by-product of administrators and policy makers who do not understand the correct use of data.  That may be true, but it seems analogous to giving Ginsu knives to a group of three-year-olds and not taking responsibility for the resultant carnage.

The thing that is so tragic from my chair is that it has resulted in too many Amy's in West Virginia being deprived of theatre - or dance or art or music.  This is so wrong-headed as to be infuriating.

In the first place, the arts are central to what it means to be an educated person.  Simple skills in literacy and numeracy will not suffice in the 21st century.  They never did.  Every West Virginia student deserves a comprehensive arts education.

Secondly, even for those whose only concern are test scores, we know that students who have an arts-rich curriculum outperform their peers in nearly every measure of academic achievement.  All the data ever collected seem to suggest this and just this week we have data specific to our own state.

The cohort of West Virginia students who began 9th grade in the 2005-2006 year were studied according to the arts classes they took and leading indicators of achievement.  The study found that students who took two or more arts classes, above the single required course, significantly outperformed their peers on the WESTEST 2 as well as the ACT PLAN.

The data was disaggregated for students with exceptionalities as well as students from poverty - all of West Virginia's Amy's.  The finding?  In every case the result held and in some instances, the effect was more profound for these students.  (You can read a one-page summary of the research study here - thanks Nate Hixson and Andy Whisman.)

And so, I am inspired again to keep fighting, and I hope you are, too.  In West Virginia, the arts are core and arts education is a civil right.  Demand more art.

West Virginians Should Demand More Art in Schools

Anyone who knows me will tell you I've become fairly radicalized in the last few years.  I guess it has something to do with the gig I have, or perhaps its just a matter of looking at the evidence again and again.  Maybe its the fact that I live a lot closer to state politics than I used to.  In any event, "radical" is probably the best way to describe my opinions.  I'll begin with a proposition.

In 2012, a comprehensive arts education is the civil right of every student in West Virginia schools.

I didn't always think this way.  It's not that I wasn't an advocate of arts education - I was.  I just didn't think of it in those terms.  I believed that the arts were core academic offerings.  I still do.  I believed that every student should have a comprehensive arts education.  I just didn't frame it in terms of "rights." 

So, why do I now?

Well, let's begin with the facts, the things that are undisputed.

First, we know that the arts are central to what it means to be an educated person.  They always have been.  If you disagree with that, you are a Philistine at best and an imbecile at worst.  The idea that an educated person would be unfamiliar with the architecture of the Egyptians, the drama of the Greeks, the sculpture of the Romans, the poetry of the Hebrews, the calligraphy of the Chinese, the dance of the West Africans, the vocal polyphony of the Italian High Renaissance, etc., ad infinitum, is simply unthinkable.  I would like to get in my Delorean and flog the idiot who coined the phrase, "The Three R's."  Apart from his miserable capacity for spelling, he seems to have missed the point of education.  It as, as Robert Hutchins once said, to unsettle minds, widen horizons, and inflame intellects.

Secondly, it has been one of the primary goals of the Republic, at least, when she was led by statesmen.  I frequently quote John Adams on this point: " I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.  My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."  Do you get the import of that?!  Our second president believed all his efforts to establish a constitutional government by the people were to give his progeny the right to study the arts.  While I would not suggest that this is the only purpose of a peaceful republic, what nobler pursuits can one imagine?  

Lastly, let me point out all that we know about the benefits of a thorough education that includes the arts.  The arts are engaging to students.  The arts address the cognitive, affective, and physical needs of students.  The arts allow students with exceptional needs to experience academic success in multiple subjects.  Students from poverty perform better in school if they have the arts.  In fact, students with an arts-rich curriculum outperform their peers in nearly every measure of academic success.

These are the facts, and they are undisputed.  (Hat tip to Kevin Bacon in A Few Good Men there.)

So what's the effin' problem?  Why don't we have schools with comprehensive arts offerings?

The short answer is: because we choose to ignore the facts.

This should not be surprising.  For most of us, beliefs matter more than facts.  As a culture, we have come to believe a story about education, and the story tells us that the arts are somehow less important than language, mathematics, or the sciences.  As Ken Robinson has noted, this is largely due to the fact that public education systems are the product of the Industrial Revolution.  Simply put, we built education systems in this country (and around the world) the way that industrial barons wished them to be built.  The skills necessary for work in the mine, the mill, or the factory were the ones that were taught.  And not only were those skills and aptitudes taught, but so were those habits of mind: conformity, compliance, obedience, hierarchy, etc.

To suggest that this will not meet the present need is to simply state the obvious.  Yet in my home state, there is simply no political decision that is made that is not beholden to the coal industry.  I used to not believe that.  I am wiser now.  Come election day, voters in West Virginia will have a choice between a party that says they support coal and a party that says they really support coal.  All else is secondary.  West Virginia gets press for being anti-Obama because of its perceived racism.  While I don't doubt that plays a significant role, the simple truth is that the president is perceived as being anti-coal.  (I once was behind a coal truck in Mingo County with a bumper sticker that read: "Vote for Coal.  It's Black, Too." True story.)

Another key belief has something to do with an individual's rights.  Here in the U.S., we believe that property rights are sacrosanct.  Now, I believe in personal property rights.  I don't think that one has the right to seize the property of another, real or otherwise, without due process of law.  I also don't support the massive redistribution of wealth.  But English common law, the foundation of all of our notions about property rights, simply did not anticipate the fossil fuel industry.  It is inconceivable to me that a few generations of industrialists have the right to seize billions of dollars of non-renewable natural resources without it redounding to the benefit of the greater society.  It would be akin to draining the oceans of the world for profit while suggesting that no responsibility is owed to the culture at large.

"But coal companies pay taxes!"  I know they do.  Yet I also know that the counties in West Virginia that produce the most coal have some of the poorest school systems in the state.  I do not think this is coincidental.  For years, many of those school systems have been preparing those students for a life in the mines or on a tipple.  I would argue that this was ethically indefensible from the start; now it is also economically untenable.  Though the coal industry has historically been a major provider of work in our state, they increasingly employ fewer and fewer people to extract the same amount of minerals from the ground.  This is just the nature of technological development.

There are very many who today talk about the need for school reform.  They point to the changing nature of work in our country, and they are absolutely right.  Very few of our students in West Virginia schools will be joining the rank and file in the mines upon graduation.  Schools need to become places that allow students to succeed in a 21st century work force.  This includes the arts.  It is no longer necessary, for example, for a professional musician to live in Los Angeles or Nashville or New York or Chicago to work.  Many work virtually, from their homes, irrespective of geography.

Yet even the changing nature of work does not begin to suggest the changes that need to happen in education today.  To suggest that the primary role of public education is to prepare a workforce still presupposes that school systems serve the needs of industry.  If we are to transform education, schools must become places where we serve the needs of our students.  It is essential that our students leave schools prepared to make a living, but they also need to be prepared to make a life.  This includes so much more than job skills.  They need to be prepared to be informed citizens in the democracy.  They need to learn how to live healthy lives.  They need to love a life of the mind.  And they need the arts.

If we allow that education is the right of every child who lives in West Virginia (as our state's constitution does), then it stands to reason that they have a right to an education that includes the arts.  To deprive a child of an comprehensive arts education is to deprive a child of an education.  Our schools are neither "thorough" nor "efficient" (as required by law) if they do not include the arts.

This was a finding of the original "Recht decision" (Pauley v. Bailey) in 1982.  The West Virginia Supreme Court found that schools were in violation of a student's civil rights when they failed to meet certain criteria, including many in the arts.  Thirty years hence we have made little to no progress on this front, even though it could be argued that the arts are more vital now to a child's education.  Our technologies demand flexible, creative thinkers that arts classes foster.  We have a society that requires visual literacy more and more.  Dance provides another outlet for addressing our childhood obesity crisis.  And fundamentally, the arts are part of what it means to be a human being - in our century, the same as any other.

When will we see this transformation in our schools?  When we demand it.  The history of civil rights in this country teaches us that little progress is made until it is demanded of legislators, policy-makers, and other power brokers.  There have been advocates for arts education in this country for over a century.  Everyone knows the benefits of the arts for our students.  It is a "white hat" issue.  Yet there are children who have school every day without dance, without theatre, without visual art, or without music.  

I contend that we should teach dance every single day to children the same way we teach them mathematics.  I believe that art matters as much as language.  I think that theatre is no less important than science.

We need to abandon terms like "enrichment."  Of course the arts enrich us - in precisely the same way literacy does.  To be deprived of an arts education is to be consigned to educational poverty.  Describing these disciplines as "related arts" or "encore subjects" likewise suggests that the arts are not for everyone, or perhaps are of lesser importance for some of our students.  All West Virginia students need the arts.  The data suggest that the arts are actually more important for students from poverty or with disabilities. 

Students, parents, teachers, and community members should begin making these demands of their schools.  We should not be satisfied with smiles and words of encouragement.  Smiles and words are easy: change is hard.  We are glad for the sympathy of others, but what we need is their action.  

If West Virginia students are to meet their aspirations, all of us must begin demanding more art in school.  I hope you'll join me.

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.

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.