R.I.P. Mr. Wright

I first encountered the story of Emmett Till in Richard Power’s extraordinary novel The Time of Our Singing. It has haunted me ever since. Of the thousands of brutal stories of slavery, lynchings, police brutality, the ongoing legacy of vicious racism, none have hit so deep at Emmett’s. I’d like to think I don’t need to retell it here because every American would know it. The fact that the vast majority probably doesn’t is why we are where we are. Without knowing the stories, without grief, without remorse and apology and determination to stop the hate, nothing will change.

In brief, Emmet was a 14-year old African-American boy from Chicago visiting his cousins in Mississippi. They went to a store and in a spontaneous moment of Northern bravado to show off to his Southern cousin, he allegedly wolf-whistled at the woman store owner. A few days later, two white men came in the middle of the night and pulled him from the bed he was sharing with his cousin Simeon Wright. They took him away, beat him, mutilated him, shot him in the head and dropped him in the river. Emmett’s mother came down to claim the body and bring him back to Chicago. By now, the newspapers came to report and she chose to have an open casket so the world could see what these people did.

The men not only were acquitted in the good-ole-boy so-called judicial system of the South, but had the gall to sell their story years later to Look Magazine and boast that they indeed murdered Emmett Till. They got paid $5000. What’s wrong with this picture?

A year and a half ago, I had the privilege to go to Alabama with our school’s 8^th graders on a Social Justice field trip and their the leader retold the story of Emmett Till. And then astounded us by introducing us to… Simeon Wright, Emmett’s cousin! What a moment. Simeon told the story from his own first-hand experience. He was a gentle, soft-spoken man and after the formal presentation, I sat on a couch with him in the hotel lobby watching the basketball game.  I asked him how he survived such horror and his answer was clear and simple: “Religion.” He had found a way to forgive, but not to forget. In an interview recently published he said,

“You don’t seek vengeance now; you seek justice. That’s what I mean by forgiveness. I’m going to leave vengeance to Almighty God and justice to the government.”

Why write of this now? Because I just got news that Mr. Wright passed away at 74 years old last night. I’m grateful beyond words that I got to meet him. And I imagine his God will greet him with open, loving arms.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm. “Possessed by a god (theos), inspired.” Well, here it is, my granddaughter’s before- school photo. Turns out that today was the first day of school, as it was cancelled yesterday due to extreme heat in Portland. And so here she is, ready for the adventure that lies ahead.

Me, I got a haircut yesterday and got my teeth cleaned today and cut my fingernails, all little acts of renewal. But nothing to match Zadie’s unabashed excitement about becoming a bonafide student. While at the dentist, my hygienist was surprised by my post about school having the power to shut down Zadie’s exuberance. She felt we all survived it and are much more influenced by our parents.

Well, it’s true that we may be more resilient that I sometimes think and that home shapes us much deeper and truer than school. And yet. We are actually at school for as many, if not more, waking hours in our childhood than we are at home. And because it’s a place where flawed human beings gather, we’re in danger of being neglected, bullied, betrayed, ignored, chastised, punished, disdained, excluded by teachers and fellow students alike. We also have the possibility of being cared for, valued, protected, celebrated, praised, appreciated, loved, included by teachers and fellow students alike. And naturally, it will certainly be a mixture of all of the above.

But it is school as an institution that can fail us or uplift us, a place with values and practices and expectations and ideas and ideals that can raise the bar high and organize itself to aid our efforts to leap over it or not. And yes, we are resilient creatures who can survive it all, but some for sure are damaged beyond their capacity to heal and sometimes its no one’s fault and sometimes it’s the wrong mission statement and sometimes the right talk with no walk to support it. That’s where my life's work comes in.

But this I believe to be true. The 5-year old who comes to their first day of school with that ear-to-ear smile and arms up in unabashed excitement and enthusiasm deserves everything we can do to keep that intact. But far too many leave 13 years later with their shoulders slumped, their cynicism sharpened, their curiosity dampened, their eager fire to learn and know reduced to “Will this be on the test?” Some of it is the natural process of aging— it’s not easy to keep that 5-year-old sense of wonder lit at 18. But far too much is the way schools substitute right answers for provocative questions, sort and judge and label kids rather than celebrate and admire them, leave no room for the theos to dwell and thus, kill enthusiasm.

So my wish for Zadie is that she leave at 12^th grade (and again at college) like the kid in this picture, not raising her arms happy to finally leave school because it was so deadly and boring, but happy to meet the next phase of her unquenchable enthusiasm for life and learning and thankful for the way school encouraged her. I want Theos still by her side and in her heart.

I didn’t get to talk to Zadie today, but the word from my daughter was that “she learned how to hold a pencil.” Great start! Off she goes!

First Day of School

Tomorrow my granddaughter will walk through the doors of her local school. And so this letter:

"Zadie, tomorrow is your first day of school. I’m imagining your Mom feeling that mixture of excitement and anxiety as she kisses you goodbye at the kindergarten door.

Schools have been my life and I am still astonished by the kind of places they could be—and are in the school where both your grandparents taught for so long, your Mom and Aunt went to and your Aunt is now teaching in. How I wish you lived in San Francisco and could be our student! But for now, this is not to be. And so I'm sending all my good wishes to you from afar as you walk the 10 blocks tomorrow morning to your school in Portland.

 Zadie, you will enter those doors with a fierce independence, a vibrant, explosive 360 degree personality, an intelligence waiting to be more fully awakened and tested. I wonder—and worry about—who you will become after 13 plus years of schooling ahead. Schools can open children up and help them blossom or shut them down and make them less than they were when they entered. I believe in your strength to withstand the grinding, but more than that, hope that there will be no need for you to simply endure because the school will help you thrive.

There’s no question that your raw energy could use some cooking, your fiery temperament could use some tempering like a steel blade being refined and sharpened, your unpredictable spontaneity could use some artful shaping through self-discipline and applied routine. School can give you all of that. And I believe all of that is possible without losing the center of your character. But not without care and careful thought from your teachers. I fret about your exuberance being ground down to compliance, your curiosity dumbed down to worrying about what’s on the test, your vivid imagination reduced to right answers on tests.

But as I make my wish list, I’ll start small and simple. May your teachers be kind and caring. May you make good friends. May you be led to the wonder of words and numbers and given the power to unlock the stories and ideas found in books. If the school be so lucky as to have an arts program, may the teachers be as dedicated and imaginative as your grandparents, giving you yet more power of expression in tones, dance steps and images. Of course, may you be safe and protected, find a haven of peace in a troubled world even as you learn about the things that have caused and continue to cause all that trouble.

Zadie, I will think of you tomorrow as you begin this grand adventure and can’t wait to hear your stories! Go get ‘em, tiger!"

Heads Up!

If I’m out in the park playing Frisbee (which I should do but don’t!) and the disc goes off course and veers towards a group of people having a peaceful picnic, chances are I’ll yell, “Heads up!” Which could go bad, as they look up and get hit right in the face! But the expression is another way to say, “Watch out! Be alert! Pay attention!”

www.phrases.org agreed with me and defined the expression thus:

…this phrase alludes to holding one's head up high and concentrating on what one is doing. (It can also be used as) an advance warning; for example, 'The boss was coming. Jim gave us a heads up to get on with some work'

That sense of holding one's head up and being alert and energetic is also expressed in this item from Collier's Illustrated Weekly, 1914:

"Heads up, you guys"... We ain't licked yet."

Well, you get the idea. And the idea is to be alert, to be alive, to pay attention to what’s important, to be aware of danger or impending trouble. Maybe this is why A on the report card is a good thing, symbolizing alertness, aliveness, attention, awareness.

And yet. Every day more and more of us join the walking dead, the people walking through the world with their heads down looking at their phone. They are attending to the things they know, the people they know, the sites they like to visit and all of that is fine as far as it goes. But I suggest it goes too far. The increasing number of hours spent heads down robs the world of attention, makes everyone look and feel the same, reinforces the loop of one’s own closed circle and brings us closer to the edge of collective narcissism.

I’ve already complained about my school’s casual decision to exchange the paper check-list at carpool for the screened corporate program i-Pad version. Yes, heads are down to check off the name on paper, but it is fast and feels different and looks different and allows for a more personal connection with each kid, even if it be a fleeting “goodbye.”

Then last night, another casualty was added to the list as I went to the monthly Sea Chantey Sing at the Hyde Street Pier, an event I’ve attended some 10 times or so in the past couple of years. I'm always warmed by a gathering that is as close to a West African celebration as American white folks can get—well, minus the dance and drums. People of all ages, all backgrounds, singing call and response songs, anyone invited to lead one, all while sitting on a boat docked at a San Francisco pier. It’s fun and festive and some of the singers are great and all are invited to join with good spirit and that room gets charged quickly with the energy of acoustic acapella music.

And now? Still pretty good, but over 50% of the people leading the songs were reading them from their i-Phone. Heads-down. Believe me, it’s not the same. They don’t feel and know and live the song the same way when they depend on written words and they can’t lead the song and connect with the community in the same way when they’re staring down at the screen. Aaarrggh!!! One of them started singing a song that actually didn’t belong, a Minnesota woodsman song called The Frozen Logger. She with her phone and me singing along by memory all eleven verses. Did anyone notice?

Of course, this didn’t start with phones. It began when literacy shifted the experience of knowing songs and poems and stories and dances directly in the body and voice, embedded in the folds of the brain’s memory to depending on books to store knowledge. People relied on “paper music” instead of just playing and improvising, on written poems instead of recited poems, on song-sheets at the Hootenanny. My mission as a teacher is to return to the old oral ways while still enjoying the many benefits of literacy, be it reading Debussy, Dickens or the Bob Dylan songbook. And personally, I’ve made it a goal to know some 200 songs to sing with kids, some 300 jazz tunes to play at the Jewish Home on the piano, some 20 stories I could tell around a campfire, some 35 poems I can recite at the drop of a hat (well, the latter two with a little practice kick-starting the memory). It gives me a special kind of power as a teacher and a person and one I value greatly. And of course, it’s available to anyone who is willing to make the effort and sees the benefit of doing so.

So heads up, people! Curtail your heads-down time, use all those minutes and hours to recite Yeats or Shakespeare or Langston Hughes, to learn all the words to 30 songs you could sing trekking in Nepal, to play music on an instrument with just you, your fingers, your breath and your imagination.

If you do, I’ll give you an A on your report card. And remember what it stands for. Or look it up on this blog on your phone.

Progressively Less Necessary

“The job of a teacher is to become progressively unnecessary.”

This quote from Orff’s colleague, Wilhelm Keller, speaks volumes about a kind of teaching that deserves the title “education.” When teachers understand how to give over the power of knowledge, they help create independent learners who know how to ask the next questions and know where to find possible answers. In spite of Trumplandia, where Ignorance is the new qualification to be given a job, Knowledge still wields power and kids who habitually feel powerless feel themselves grow with the muscles of knowing things and knowing how to do things and being able to do them without the teacher hovering over them.

Such was my 8^th grade class today, as I gave them the tools to play a coherent jazz-style 12-bar blues in three 45-minute lessons (that process summarized in my book All Blues should anyone be interested.) Step-by-step I led them down the garden path of the blues as an expressive medium, complete with drums, bass, blues chords, blues scales, form, structure, orchestration and improvisation. Near the end of class, I walked to the door and proclaimed: “Well, I think I’ll take a break. You don’t really need me anymore.” I counted them in with a “1-2-You know what to do!” and left the room. And they did know what to do and they did it and I heard it from out in the hall and it sounded good enough that the Spanish teacher walking by stopped in his tracks to peer inside and was amazed to see the kids playing without me.

So Wilhelm Keller would be proud. But you may note I borrowed his phrase for the title, but changed it. Because once you are indebted to a teacher for teaching you what you needed to know and you now can continue in his or her absence, I don’t believe they become entirely unnecessary. Chances are they still have things to teach you because they’ve been further down the path and when that moment comes when you’re walking authentically side-by-side or even ahead of your teacher or down a side path they never explored, I believe you still should keep them in your heart and because they were necessary to who you are becoming or who you have become, they still are necessary in a different form. I have many teachers who have come to my workshops like the one I’m giving tomorrow over the years and a fair number stopped coming because they got what they got and that’s fine. And some keep coming because it just feels good to keep company with the person and situation that helped move them along many years back. And that’s fine too.

So September began with that 8^th grade Declaration of Independence, one that I helped create and signed. And it was good.