Forbidden Neurons

I’m sorry to say this, God, but it seems like you were not thinking too clearly when you gave

human beings a brain and then instructed them not to use it. At least according to some of your followers. Have You seen this?

My first reaction is to point out the flawed logic and extreme irony in such absurdity—and I will. But the truly depressing thought is that it won’t matter to the people who attend this church. Because they are part of what seems to be a growing wave of blind followers who are not only ignorant and yes, just plain stupid, but are proud of it and want their children and the rest of the world to be the same. There have always been mass movements to keep the public uninformed and unquestioning, but at least lip service has been paid to the importance of education and respect paid to intelligence. This feels like something new under the sun and it is terrifying. These folks vote and they run churches and they run schools and they get media coverage. Well, for those who still believe in intelligent discourse and rational argument, here’s a few points.

IRONY #1: This was written on a lit sign that exists because of the work and thought of educated people. Education discovered and harnessed electricity, education taught the people writing the sign to read and write, education created just about everything these believers use in their contemporary life, from cars to flush toilets to degrees in ministry. Not to mention living in a democracy created by ideas from thinking, highly articulate and highly educated people purposefully steering away from the tyranny of blind obedience. This church’s very freedom to exist and post its statement comes from that democratic system.

IRONY #2: In the first thousand years or so of Christianity, it was Christian monks who were the caretakers of literacy and engaged in constant reflection on and disagreement about the fine points of the Gospels. When God-fearing Christians invented and produced the printing press with moveable type, the Bible was the first book printed. When the Protestant revolution suggested that individuals reading the Bible would bring them closer to God than taking the word of Catholic priests, Western schools as we know them were created to teach mass literacy. In short, schools came into being to bring people closer to God, not farther away.

IRONY #3: The first great thinkers who praised the rational mind as the highest human achievement—Descartes, Newton, Galileo and more—were all devout churchgoers. They saw no contradiction in seeking to understand God’s creation scientifically and retaining faith in that God. The idea that God would ask them to shut down their thinking brains was inconceivable.

Shall I go on? Clearly I need to lighten up and just laugh with the rest of the Facebook folks. But I repeat from my earlier blogs—in my lifetime at least, never has public discourse run to such a low level, have the four top candidates of a major political party modeled this kind of frontal attack on education and intelligence and counted on ignorance to back their fantasies of world domination, never have people been encouraged “NOT TO GET AN EDUCATION!!!”

Back to you, God. 

Skiing with my Russian Beauty: A Portrait of the American Mind

We are what we think about. We are what we talk about. And an epidemic of SPAM e-mails on my school’s system reveals a rather depressing portrait. (Not to mention the Republican debates.)

The Hindu chakra system has always been a useful guide as to what makes us tick. On the lower end of the spine (and in the brain stem) is our animal instinct and lust for food, sex and power. It’s at the 4^th level, the heart chakra, that human evolution begins and we move from reptilean survival and coldness to mammalian warmth and nurturing. Up it continues to articulate speech and thought, on to spiritual insight and finally, some apex of identification with the whole mystery and miracle of creation. It’s no secret that food, sex and power (which includes money) is at the heart of the magazines we mostly read, the TV shows and movies we watch, the advertisements that constantly assault us to look better, score more, earn more. But the job of good child-raising, good citizenship, good culture is to encourage us to ascend the ladder, to open the loving heart, cultivate the thinking brain, nourish the compassionate spirit and feel ourselves intimately tied to all of creation. All of this works against gravity and requires effort and encouragement. That’s the job of leaders in all fields—teachers, authors, filmmakers, politicians, spiritual leaders and more.

It is discouraging beyond words to see the likes of Trump, Cruz and Mario play to our lowest impulses, sow fear and promise military power and divisive hate and to keep attracting crowds with the TV cameras on full blast. I can’t remember a time when the national discourse has stooped so low.

But it’s no wonder when I see 45 SPAM e-mails invade the sacred discussion ground of a school seeking to nurture children’s highest promise. The titles are not:

• Increase Your Compassion!

• Learning to Love the Way You’re Put Together!

• Nurture the Fragile Butterfly Spirit in Your Students!

Instead, here’s today’s list.

·      Car Accident Attorneys

·      Burial and Cremation

·      Arthritis Relief

·      Get a Doctoral Degree Online

·      Lung Cancer prevention

·      Neuropathy Support Formula

·      Age Reversal Doctor

·      Slim Stomach Tip

·      23 Second Abs

·      Russian Beauty

·      Affordable Bathroom Remodels

·      Touchfire: iPad Keyboard

·      Roth IRA

·      Ski Vacation packages

·      Dr. Wonder

·      Annuity

·      Fix Your Blood sugar

·      Inpatient Drug Rehab

·      How to Lift Saggy Skin

Well, maybe if I found a Russian beauty on my touchfire iPad keyboard and we went skiing while my bathroom was being remodeled, my abs might improve and I’d feel young enough to cancel my burial and cremation appointment and be inspired to finally get my doctorate online. I thought all this would make me happy, but I skidded off the road when my Russian beauty told me my skin was too saggy and my stomach not slim enough and confessed she had escaped from a drug rehab program and then, I had to contact my car accident attorney and pay big money from my Roth IRA. So my SPAM e-mails seemed promising, but in the end, I’m still the same unhappy creature I was when I first opened them. But now I got blood sugar problems and arthritis. Time for Dr. Wonder.

Don't Know Much About History

Imagine a fishing community that neglected to teach its children how to fish. A farming community that forgot to teach anything about planting, sowing and reaping to the next generation. A Christian religion that forgot to tell the kids about the Bible or failed to mention someone named Jesus Christ.

Welcome to America. We are a nation founded on principles laid out in the Constitution and dependent upon informed citizens capable of defending, fulfilling and carrying forth those principles. And yet people are allowed to enter voting booths entirely ignorant of those principles. Heck, people are in Congress entirely ignorant of those principles!!

There are some Youtube videos circulating of college students asked who won the American Civil War— and none of them know. There was an interview today with Trump supporters with a guy insisting that China will be made to pay for Trump’s Mexican wall. When the reporter suggested that perhaps he meant Mexico, he was nonplussed. “Whatever. Someone’s gonna pay for it!” And his vote will count as much as yours or mine.

I’ve based my life on the supposition that music properly taught in schools will create the future humanity the world needs. Now I’m thinking that maybe history is more important. Real history, not the dates of wars and kings. Revealing the struggles of people edging the moral arc of the universe towards justice, exposing the resistance of the privileged and the powerful and the greedy, understanding the principles good on paper that are struggling to catch up with their promise.

The country has gone crazy with mandatory testing in schools. Okay, how about mandatory testing before entering the voting polls? We have to take a driver’s test to show we know the basic laws and can rise to the responsibility of driving a vehicle that can cause harm if not handled correctly. Yet a vote for the wrong candidate can cause more deaths than the entire history of automobile accidents, leading us to wars, environmental destruction, bad health care, assault weapons run amuck.

So I propose a simple history test. If you fail—as a voter or a candidate—you don’t get to vote or run. Democracy is not a spectator sport where you root for the team that has the cool jerseys. It requires the most basic form of knowledge, intelligence, critical thinking skill and hey, let’s throw in some emotional intelligence and moral character as well.

I keep coming back to H.G. Wells: “We are in a race between education and catastrophe.”

Come on, education, get to work!!! There are voters out there who need you!

The Tiger's Whisker

“How do you deal with the kids who don’t participate in class?” This the question that keeps coming up as teachers observe my classes. Because inevitably in a simple 30 or 45 minute class, some kids won’t participate as fully as others— or at all.

The first thing I do is notice it, then keep my eye out. If it persists, I might make some subtle signal to the kid that I do notice and give some tiny gesture of invitation. If they still don’t respond, I keep the class flow going and think about other possible kinds of invitations—“Hey, would you like to try this cool cowbell part on this piece? No? Okay, who does?” If they do cross the line into participation and do well, I may stop class for a moment and go over to publicly shake their hand and thank them for the remarkable progress they made. And then we all get back to work.

But in the long run, there’s more work to do. On my part, the first thing is to make sure my class is as enticing and engaging and exciting as a class can be. I want it to be as refreshing as a gelato ice cream on a hot summer’s day. Just offer it up, give the kids a choice of flavors and no extra coercion necessary.

But I understand that music class is not as simple as eating ice cream. It suggests expressing yourself in front of a group, opening yourself to emotion, risking failure in getting the notes right or knowing how to sing the words. If it’s new to kids, it can be scary, especially in the Orff class when we gather and hold hands in a circle—nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. In the end, music properly felt and understood asks us to be vulnerable, to open ourselves up and often to do it publicly. And that can be terrifying.

So it requires time—lots of it—and the constant cultivation of safety before a child can trust the teacher, the group, him or herself. And it can’t be rushed. Hiding parts of ourselves is not just uptight repression to be solved by some New Age pap about letting yourself go. There is a wisdom and a timing to hiding, a need to protect and armor the most tender and delicate parts of ourselves until we feel confident that it’s safe to emerge. And it can’t be scheduled or ordered on demand. It has its own timetable that is a mystery beyond our capacity to fully understand. All we can do is keep gently encouraging it to come out into the light and welcome it when it does appear.

There are a thousand things that can shut kids down, in class and outside of it. They can be overwhelmed with too much information, underwhelmed by too much boredom, hindered by undiagnosed (and diagnosed) learning differences, scarred by emotional trauma, addicted to electronic sensation or chemical substances, victimized by cultural and institutional trauma or simply hungry, tired or having a bad hair day. But there are only a few things that can open us up. And a teacher’s faith and interest and encouragement and offering of something worthy to open up to is one of them. (One teacher noted that a child who generally had not participated was super-involved in the jazz piece I taught and volunteered to do a solo—and it was great! Sometimes it’s simply a matter of finding what the style of music, the book, the sport, that fits the child’s way of thinking and doing.).

We all can use some reminders and encouragement and I’ve found a beautiful folk tale, The Tiger’s Whisker,  that has helped instruct me in the art of patience. Here’s a version:

A man comes home from the war a mere shell of his former self and much to the dismay of his wife, sits around all day hollow-eyed and non-responsive to his wife’s encouragement. She goes to the village elder to ask advice and he instructs her to bring him a whisker from the tiger who lives in the cave. The tiger is well known to be ferocious and dangerous, but the wise man offers her no other solution.

So she cooks some rice and meat, puts it in a bowl and walks partway up the path to the tiger’s cave, leaves it and turns away. The next day, she notices the bowl is empty. So she repeats the procedure, leaving it just a little further up the path. Day after day she continues like this until one day, she puts the bowl right at the cave’s door and steps back ten feet to watch the tiger eat. Each day, she steps back less until finally she stands next to the tiger and pets him while he eats. Finally, she reaches for his whiskers and plucks one.

She rushed back to the Wise Man and gives him the whisker. He asks her to recount how she obtained them and then says, “You have answered your own problem. Show to your husband the same kind of patience you showed to the tiger and one day, he will come back to himself—and you."

To Tread Where I Have Trod

Yet another glorious day in Australia, this at the Santa Sabina School in Sydney. One of those classes where a 4^th grader exclaimed at the end that she didn’t want to go to recess and the high school students led to jazz on violins, xylophones and voice noticed that it was “exciting to see how each step unfolded, engaging and fun.” Australia is one of the few places I’ve been that has compulsory (and elective) general music in high school and once again, the Orff approach properly understood has so much to offer. After classes, some deep reflection with the observing teachers and I’m convinced that I can communicate more of what I hope to teach to teachers by having them observe a class then simply do a workshop. And of course, both together is a powerful combination. At the end of the matter, it’s not the great material, clever techniques and seamless process of development that counts the most (though all of that is worthy), but the multiple strategies to engage students, help them feel in five seconds that you’re interested in them and have something fun and challenging to offer them, notice them immediately when they’re disconnected and start making overtures to gently move through their resistance.

After the last class, I finally had the supreme good sense to venture out into the world instead of hole up in my hotel room. Took a train into Sydney to Circular Quay and the familiar territory of my previous trips in 1994, 1996, 2002. The ’96 trip was particularly memorable since I came for a long time with my whole family and walking these familiar paths by the Opera House and Botanical Gardens, a poem began to emerge. And here it is:

SYDNEY HARBOR—1996-2016

So happy to pass through again,

To tread where I once trod.

Twenty time around the sun,

I’ve followed the same god.

The children who walked by my side,

Now grown and far away.

The shoes worn through with countless steps

That walked me to today.

The Harbor Bridge and Opera House

Still looming large and strong.

The days brim-filled with music,

With poetry and song.

I walk alone, yet by my side,

Fair company I keep.

The seeds I’ve sown that bore rich fruit,

Whose pleasures I now reap.

I count the blessings and the gifts

Bestowed by unknown gods.

The chance to pass through yet again,

To tread where once I trod.