Bad News/ Good News

Out of the 30 political e-mails and texts I get daily, the ones I delete the fastest start with “Bad news!” or “We’re begging!!” Who needs it? We are built for hope and things are bad enough without having to be always reminded of it. At the same time, the only road to good news is through the dubious neighborhoods of bad news, through the stormy weather of anger and outrage, through the long hard look at the mirror of truth even if we don’t like what we see there. 

 

As a writer, I need to consider which route to take when I invite the reader to travel with me. And now, about to launch my first Podcast, I’m painfully aware that I have a short minute to see if I can entice the listener to keep listening and probably the bad news approach is not the best route to take. Here is a first draft of one possible opening episode, which I think I won’t use. You see I do get to the good news, but perhaps the listener will never arrive, having gotten out of the cab (well, Uber or Lyft, to be more contemporary) after the first paragraph. At any rate, having written it, why not include it here? (And yes, I will alert you as to when the first Podcast is actually launched and how to access it in case you’re interested. Hopefully by November 1^st!). 

 

Hello. I am Doug Goodkin and you’re listening to the ABC of Education. 

Today’s episode: “Between Education and Catastrophe.” Here I introduce the theme of this Podcast and why I chose it. 

 

The title comes from a quote by H.G. Wells: “We are in a race between education and catastrophe.” Think about that for a moment. When was the last time you had a serious conversation about education? That you read a book about it or listened to a podcast or bought an education magazine? Every day for some 12 to 15 years, parents drop their kids off at school, but how much do they think about what really goes on there? In our national discourse, everybody’s talking about the economy or technology or the latest diet plan or this crisis or that one, but how much do we hear about schools? In the recent Vice-President debate, the subject did come up briefly and the brilliant suggestion from one of the candidates was that we get “stronger locks on the doors.” I just filled out a survey about what issues I’m concerned about and out of 15 different choices—healthcare, immigration reform, creating jobs, etc.—no surprise, schools and education were nowhere to be seen on the list. 

 

If we don’t talk about it, don’t think about it, just keep going on with business as usual without considering how that business is actually doing, then catastrophe wins the race. And there are plenty of signs that it is. Our new unspoken national motto seems to be “my ignorance is as good as your education.” Here in the United States we are graduating people from universities who literally don’t know who won the Civil War. People who can’t distinguish a fact from a fantasy and don’t care which is which. People who are eating a daily diet of misinformation and disinformation, who are fed purposely manufactured lies by people in power and can’t see through them. People who will rarely read a book or go to a jazz or classical music concert or visit a museum in their adult life. People who are addicted to a steady stream of trivial nonsense on their phones and will rarely take a walk in the woods without them. And these people are empowered to vote. At a crucial time when we need more intelligence and more caring and more culture, books are being banned and teacher’s jobs are on the line if they tell the truth to students.

 

Everywhere I go, I see signs on the school walls like “Practice Mutual Respect. Be kind. Work hard. Work well with others. Knowledge is power.” And yet look at where we are. According to polls, it looks like close to 50% of the population is ready to vote for a President who is the exact antithesis of everything schools have said they stand for. There are signs everywhere that our schools are failing miserably, not just with low test scores, but with their mission of cultivating thinking, caring, responsible citizens. 

 

That’s the bad news. But there’s plenty of good news as well. School can be a place where children feel welcomed and valued and cared for, where they are trained to think critically and given a firm foundation in reading, writing and arithmetic, where they are introduced to music and dance and drama and poetry and visual arts, not merely as consumers, but as makers of art. This is not mere conjecture. I know such schools can be because they already are. They make a difference in both the present and future life of their students and those students go on to make a difference in the world as we wish it might be. Again, this is not mere dreaming. I have testimonies from over a thousand kids I’ve taught at school that contributed enormously to who they are and who they become. They give me great hope and remind me that if education is to surpass catastrophe in the marathon race, we better start talking about it and thinking about it and acting on it. And so here we are. Again, my name is Doug Goodkin and welcome to this podcast, The ABC’s of Education!