The Wonder Bread of Education

Driving to school today, I passed a Wonder Bread truck. Really? Do they really still make that? Heck, that was the longed-for product of my 50’s childhood and of course, like all the brainwashed kids of my and succeeding generations, the ads are forever imprinted on my mind: “Builds Strong Bodies 12 Ways.” My mother, way ahead of her time, served us whole wheat bread from the local Dugan’s Bakery, but Wonder Bread was the icon of the times and I did get to experience its soft fluff eating over friends’ houses. Truth be told, I don’t remember pestering my Mom to switch over. Perhaps my body already knew that something was terribly wrong here.  

Consider the logic. First, let’s process the hell out of the natural whole wheat fiber, removing its essential nutrients. Then let’s add back in the vitamins we took out! In a weird artificial form that certainly is not as healthy. But hey, let’s market it as “building strong bodies” because fooling the consumer is as American as apple pie made with processed white flour.

So driving to school, my predictable mind couldn’t resist making the comparison with education. Let’s take the natural state of childhood, it’s quirky, curious, energetic, dynamic, alive, funny and surprising qualities and put it through the mill of school to produce bland, dull, unthinking and numbed to feeling future consumers and compliant citizens (and let’s not forget the replacing of “brown” with “white”), process the hell out of them until they’re soft and fluffy and have no backbone or grit. Then when we realize that they can’t pass a test in 5^th grade that their natural counterpart abroad can pass in 2^nd grade and have to deal with their behavior because we’ve neglected to raise them with loving care, let’s surround them with tutors and therapists and self-esteem coaches and nervous-system-altering drugs, desperately trying to add back in the essential stuff we took out. Except like Wonder Bread, it actually doesn’t work. But hey, as long as we have our slogans (Builds Strong Minds 12 Ways!) and repeat them often enough, we can pretend all is well.

I happen to believe that the human being in its natural state is a splendid possibility. That children left alone enough to be children, running freely in the fields and poking and prodding the world to find out what it's made of, that children cared for enough by happy adults who clothe, shelter, nurture and feed them well (with whole wheat bread and gluten-free folks, don’t interrupt me here!), have a pretty good chance of growing up with their essential nutrients intact. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that we should get it right the first time because it’s extremely difficult, time-consuming and expensive to put back in in artificial form the bonding and nurturing the kids needed in their first five years.

We’re in a time of cataclysmic change, a time that is asking us to take stock and try to figure out where we went wrong to become so morally bankrupt, ignorant, confused, calloused, cynical, angry and hateful. Not to mention obese, sickly, depressed.

Me, I think it all began with Wonder Bread.

The Gift of the Starfish

Often we never know whether our work or words make a difference to anyone. Maybe it’s just as well, because if we got too many compliments, we might start living like the market place analysts trying to figure out what the people want and trying to give it to them so we can be popular, rich or famous. That’s no good for anyone.

But a well-timed note from someone letting you know that you touched them in some way is always welcome. I got a surprise one yesterday at my workshop and it particularly touched my heart because it referenced a story I shared (but did not invent) in a previous blog (I believe it was in January, titled “Save the Starfish!”).

The part I liked most was acknowledging the risks I took as an educator, talking about things in the context of my workshops that I don’t need to talk about and would be more popular and well-liked if I didn’t. But where is the glory in that? Our cowardice in not telling the stories that need to be heard and not asking the questions that need to be asked and refusing to pull aside the curtain of the bad man pulling the strings or declare that the Emperor is naked and it ain’t pretty, that habit of being nice and not rocking the boat is precisely what allows it all to go on unchecked. Having just seen the film “I Am Not Your Negro,” I’m sure James Baldwin would agree with me. He spent his life asking the provocative questions for which there were no easy answers. I’m with James. Just not as famous.

But that’s no reason to shut up. And yes, I’ve had my moments where I’ve stood too long on the soapbox and didn’t leave enough space for other points of view (the Orff workshop is not a great venue for that), but I’d rather err in the direction of being too outspoken than too meek and mild. And as my friend acknowledged, those articulated points of view come from a purposeful “vast fount of knowledge and expertise.” And finally, I loved that she accented the sharing of community, which helps steer it all away from adolescent adulation so common in our culture, makes clear that it’s not about me, but the choices I’ve made that help create community and are available for all to make in their own way.

I will hang this drawing by my desk as a constant reminder to keep pushing the envelope. While remembering to also pull from others (blog from March 4^th). 

Notes From the Far End of the Path

Yesterday I shared my new favorite song at a workshop I gave at my school. This was the third workshop in my annual series, a series I’ve been doing non-stop since 1976. At the end of the spirited singing, I remarked:

Gonna build me a mountain, from a little hill.

When I began my teaching career in 1975, I was standing right in this very spot. I had a vision of the world I wanted to live in that would shape every decision I made as a teacher. In terms of experience, materials, a developed pedagogy and such, my hill was small indeed. But I could imagine that looming mountain far in the distance and had an intuition that it was worth climbing. Or building.

Gonna build me a mountain, at least, I hope I will.

No one guaranteed that it would work or told me the sure-fire steps to success. The whole venture was built from a small flame of hope.

Gonna build me a mountain, gonna build it high.

Just out of college, I already was disappointed by how low my schooling had set the bar. If this was going to be a worthy undertaking, I knew it had to be higher than the prevailing mountains in the landscape I had been handed.

Don’t know how I’m gonna do it, only know I’m gonna try.

Ain’t that the truth! I had NO idea of what I was doing or how I was going to do it better. I just knew that I had to try and kept stepping forward in faith that the steps would reveal themselves bit by bit. That I would notice when I wandered too far off trail into the poison oak or stayed too long in one campsite. That I would have the good sense to keep moving forward.

Gonna build me a daydream, from a little hope.

See above. Not only the large daydream, but the daily class plans where I would dream the class into being first, then teach it in real time with real kids and then reflect on what worked out okay and what went so terribly wrong and why.

Gonna push that daydream, up the mountain slope

Great definition of the practice of teaching. The daily push uphill with the occasional Sisyphus moments when the whole thing rolled back down to the bottom. But in faith that I was not being cruelly tortured in Hades for penance, that eventually I’d reach the places with the great views and the rock would stay put.

Gonna build a daydream, gonna see it through.

Once convinced that the path was a worthy one, I made some silent vow to see it through. Not to say I imagined I would be 42 years in one school and still no plans to retire. I took it a year at a time and the years just piled up. But the beckoning finger was the one that made it clear, “Not yet. You have much more work to do.” And of course, as I ascended and got closer to the top, the top kept changing its address, moving a bit higher than it seemed to be yesterday. And in fact, I long ago realized that there is no end to this path and there is no on peak. The top is in each moment of integrity, authenticity, serendipity and grace that can happen—but never be guaranteed—in classes with children.

Build a daydream and a mountain, gonna make them both come true.

Well, they did. And still do. The dream was a worthy one and the mountain a sturdy one.

Gonna build me a heaven, from a little hell.

Let’s be realistic. I had many a heavenly class, but I paid my dues in hell as well. I can describe all the corners of that hot fiery place, the kids I missed connecting with or connecting with in the wrong way, the terrible ideas for classes and the good ideas that I didn't do well, all the ways I felt misunderstood and ill-treated by kids, faculty, administration, parents and myself as well. Nobody gets through this playing harps on fluffy clouds all day. Plenty of blaring bagpipes out-of-tune—and with me playing!

Gonna build a heaven, and I know darn well,

If I build my mountain with a lot of care…

Care I did and care I still do and while I didn’t always take care as well as I should have, I cared to take care.

Put my daydream on the mountain, heaven will be waitin’ there.

So I here I stand in front of you in the same place in the same room in the same city in the same country (well, maybe not that last one) 42 years later and I can testify wholeheartedly, heaven was indeed waiting for me here and here it is, right now with all of you, yesterday with all the kids and hopefully tomorrow with whoever is sitting in the circle with me. The view is magnificent and so are the wildflowers at my feet and the blue sky overhead.

What do I have to teach you? Well, all the things we’ve done, the material I’ve been lucky to gather, the process of developing the material that I’ve studied so assiduously, the sense of play and fun and humor and community that sits in the center of my daydream and more. But perhaps my biggest responsibility now is to show you what still might lie ahead for all of you who are at the beginning or the middle of your career. Not a burnt-out grizzled old codger bitter and cynical, but a youthful (inside) dreamer whose vision is yet stronger and clearer having been affirmed over and over and over again by all the kids and the adults I teach. And the beckoning finger saying, “Keep climbing. The air is fresh, the grass is green and the view is stunning.”

Pull, Don't Push

One of the greater pleasures of my life is having crossed paths with the great jazz vibraphone player, Stefon Harris. Stefon is that rare musician who is not only the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, but a remarkable virtuosic player who has kept music connected with a humanitarian vision. Some genius musicians who spent their childhood developing their talent neglected their social-emotional growth. They can melt your heart while playing the piano and then be a complete jerk when they get up from the bench. Keith Jarrett comes to mind.

But Stefon has both paid his dues practicing his instrument and practicing compassion and empathy. He is personable, articulate and always searching beyond merely playing notes. He has come to my school several times and worked with my kids and each time has been precious. At my workshop yesterday, I showed a video of him playing with my 4^th graders and then another from a TED talk he gave titled “There Are No Mistakes.” It occurred to me—and he would be delighted to hear it—that if you substituted the word “teaching” for “jazz” in much of his talk, the principles would apply. A few choice quotes:

• The only mistake is that I’m not able to perceive what someone else did.

• Every mistake is an opportunity in jazz. We don’t micromanage in jazz—it limits the possibilities..

• Be patient, listen to what going on and to pull from something that’s going on around me. When you do that, you engage and inspire the others and they give you more and gradually it builds.

These are precisely the thoughts I have always emphasized training teachers. “Watch the children” I tell them. “They will let you know when you’re on the right track. You need to constantly observe how they react to the opportunities you give them to express themselves, perceive how they’re reacting and then yourself react accordingly. None of this can be covered in a lock-step system of teaching, because it is your very attachment to the system that blocks you from seeing and hearing what’s going on.”

Teachers are notorious micro-managers and yes, we have to plan assiduously and with great detail. But if we focus too much on our plan and miss the mistakes both we and the children make, we are limiting the opportunities for real education.

And finally, that beautiful idea of “pulling from something that’s going on” rather than “pushing my agenda.” It requires deep listening, a measure of humility and a deep trust that others have something worthwhile to offer. And let me confess here: I can be obsessed as anyone with my own self-preoccupied ideas and though I do believe that the countless hours put into crafting them—extensive reading, writing, reflecting, living them in my teaching—gives them a greater value than someone’s ideas based on nothing more than what they’ve been served by their church, parents or Fox News, I have to remember to shut up and listen and even when the notes offered are discordant, consider the grain of truth buried there and change the music to accommodate them. I can do that effortlessly in my classes with children, but have a harder time when talking with folks who vote against their own self-interest.

And why stop at applying these ideas to teaching? What about political leadership? What about the old idea of leader as servant, pulling from the needs and ideas of the people one represents, listening to their concerns, hearing their suggestions, considering what they can give and gradually building solutions together? Isn’t that the height of the democratic promise?

I needn’t note how far we from that when led by a pathologic narcissist incapable of hearing anything but the echoes of his own deluded grandiosity. But of course, I just did note it because any long-term solution depends upon a clear vision about how to develop a human being capable of caring and compassion, someone who not only puts in the long hours to develop her or himself, but then can open the conversation with a listening ear and pull from other’s experience to create a community of compassion. Thanks to Stefon for the reminder.

A Musical Epidemic

Today was a happy day. I drove to school listening to Keith Jarrett’s version of Bye Bye Blackbird and went straight to the music room and found my own way through the tune’s changes on our lovely grand piano. This was that sacred time of the day before the classes start and I can warm-up with some welcome solitary music-making. 

But one of the 8^th grade boys who keeps lurking around the music room came in and sat down at the xylophone while I was playing. My first impulse was to let him know this was my time, but then I decided to teach him the melody of the song. I just kept playing and told him it was the key of F and played the first phrase for him to figure out. He has a great ear and immediately got it and within a few minutes, almost had the whole song. I got up and clarified a few notes and then sat back down and we played the tune together, me soloing while he kept working on the melody.

A few minutes later, my colleague walked in and asked if I could accompany her early-morning strings group in the room across the way. So I left and played a Serbian song with them and noticed that two of my 2^nd grade students were playing cello and doing a nice job.

After the piece, I came back to the music room and there was my 8^th grade student teaching Bye Bye Blackbird  to two other 8^th graders!! How cool was that?!! In the five minutes I was gone, the music was already spreading like a joyful infectious disease.

I finally had to kick them out before they were late for class and then in came my 2^nd graders. I told the two girls to get their cellos and as the kids worked on composing music on the xylophones, each cello was in one group. That was special! A refreshing new sound that made the beautiful music yet more evocative.

Later that day, I taught a stone-passing song at the 100-kid Singing Time, a place where kids could learn the song, but too many to organize the game. So I suggested they go outside, find some rocks and play during their recess. And lo and behold, three groups did!

I often say that yes, I teach music classes and am responsible for a music curriculum, but what I’m really after is creating a musical culture and community.  All three of these things today came up spontaneously and unexpectedly, a meeting point of the kids’ eager interest and passion and my alertness to whatever opportunities present themselves to spread music further. It’s a bit strange to use an infectious disease metaphor, since music is the healing of dis-ease, but at the bottom of the matter is the musician as the carrier of the musical bug that may or may not catch in the presence of the people close by. It’s not just a step-by-step sequential curriculum or the painful mastery of technical or conceptual details, it’s being caught by the passion transmitted from one soul awash in its pleasure to another in need of the message.

Perhaps tomorrow I’ll walk in to kids playing Bye Bye Blackbird on cello accompanying a rock-passing game.