Re-thinking School After the Pandemic

 I'm currently writing a weekly column called "Unpacking the Backpack" for our local newspaper, The Villager. 

This week's piece is about "Re-thinking School After the Pandemic":

“I actually kinda like the hybrid schedule.”

My high-school-age daughter revealed this feeling at dinner, and I was rather surprised, knowing how much she’d complained about missing school. Granted, she’s concerned about not learning enough to be prepared for next year, and she truly misses being around people. However, from an academic and mental well-being view, she actually prefers two days in-person with a couple days out of class to do the work, study, and review. She even suggested a permanent four-day week with office hours, support services, and extracurriculars on the fifth. I kinda like her idea.

The pandemic has forced families and schools to re-think ....

Schrodinger's Hamlet & Tarantino's Cat

Literature saves lives; it conquers death, erases impermanence, and counters irrelevance; it preserves the essence of life, and thus offers resurrection and even immortality. And despite my having spent decades teaching literature and language and acquiring an advanced degree in literary studies, it took a teenage student of mine to uncover and reveal to me the life saving power of literature.

Years ago in my AP English Language class, I opened a lesson by saying something crass like “OK, so, it’s time to kill Hamlet” because we were about to finish Shakespeare’s masterful tragedy that day in class. That little quip led to a fascinating discussion of the lives of literary characters and the roles they play. Out of the discussion, we coined the phrase Schrodinger's Hamlet, and I joked that our ideas would make a great master's thesis or dissertation for one of them someday.

For years, the idea stuck around in the back of my mind, and as I've been writing a lot more in these strange times, I finally gave in and went for it myself, crafting a piece that was published this week on Curator Magazine. It was a great deal of fun to write and then edit with the staff at Curator, and I'm really happy with the final product.

Taiwan Needs the World's Acknowledgment, Support, & Respect

Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith apparently hit a nerve in the fragile ego of the Chinese government and state-run media last week when he published his piece "Taiwan is a Civilization." Following his profile on Taiwan, in which he argued Americans must become more aware of Taiwan, some member of the Chinese government's social media arm criticized him for praising Taiwan even though he's never been there. The fact that they took the time to criticize the post and tweet indicates just how seriously the People's Republic takes the Taiwan Question. 

I'm appreciative of Smith's spotlight on Taiwan, formally known as The Republic of China on Taiwan, because this island nation needs attention from the world and deserves international recognition. While China becomes quite angry when anyone refers to Taiwan as a country, it is most definitely a distinct nation, state, culture, economy, and, yes, even a civilization. It is a thriving democratic republic of twenty-five million people with a vibrant economy of mixed-market capitalism, and while it is the primary investor in mainland China and a prominent trade partner and investor with practically everyone, it is also vulnerable to oppression, if not annihilation by the communist party across the Taiwan Strait.

I lived and worked in Taiwan for five wonderful years in the mid-1990s, and I have a deep appreciation for the island the Dutch called Formosa, or beautiful island, and the wonderful people who live there. Taiwan has never been a part of mainland China, and it has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, a fact that has been assured by the United States' support of the island's autonomy according to the Taiwan Communiques. That agreement must never be compromised, and every new White House administration needs to be reminded of America's commitment and responsibility. I can still recall being in Taiwan during 1996, which was their first direct presidential election, as well as the first ever direct election of a national leader in any Chinese-speaking land, and I vividly recall the communist party's attempt to intimidate the Taiwanese voters and the world at large. China held military exercises in the air above Taiwan, firing missiles literally across the island and triggering air raid warnings on the streets of Taipei. It was an egregious affront to diplomacy.

At that time, the Clinton Administration parked two aircraft carriers at the north and south end of the Taiwan Strait, officially as observers but unofficially as a warning to China to not attempt the unimaginable. China officially warned the US to not enter the Strait. The US forces didn't budge and stared down the Communist military leaders. Ultimately, the election occurred, the Chinese stood down, the United States pulled back, and the region returned to its now-seventy-year-old status of detente. The Biden administration should take note of that time in history and use it as a guide for any ripple in the waters of the Taiwan Strait.

And, to Noah Smith's point, Americans should become as familiar with Taiwan as they are with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. And they should make sure their representatives are also aware and willing to support and defend the peaceful democratic society. And Americans should also consider visiting the beautiful island when the pandemic eases. It is a rich, exciting, welcoming, and intriguing place.

Thanks, Noah.

Bobby Bones & Morgan Wallen

I really enjoy the music of country singer Morgan Wallen, and I am disgusted, angered, and deeply saddened by the news that came out Thursday morning. 

As I drove to work on Thursday morning, I happened to tune in to Bobby Bones show on 106.7 The Bull in Denver, and I am very glad I did. Bones is arguably the voice in country music radio, as his nationally syndicated show reaches more than nine million listeners everyday. And with that platform, he gave a roughly ten minute response and statement to the news of Morgan Wallen on video, drunk and shouting a racial slur. Bones' commentary was heartfelt, authentic, and what the world needed to hear.

The entire segment is worth listening to, but I want to comment on a few parts. First of all, Bones notes that he woke up to an avalanche of texts from the industry, and the corporate voices were wondering whether he was going to prepare a statement, whether the show would play Morgan's music, and what he thought the response would be. Bones did not want to prepare a statement, as he wanted to take time to process and gather his thoughts and troubled emotions. And then when a caller to the show asked what he thought, Bones commented that well, yes he had some things to say.

Bones was deeply impacted and disturbed by the video of Wallen, noting that word doesn't even enter his mind. It's just not something he would ever think to say. But it clearly is in Wallen's mind. And that changes everything. Bones noted that while he is not a supporter of cancel culture, he is a proponent of "go away for a while." Morgan Wallen has a lot of work to do on himself. Bones (and I) does not believe people are beyond redemption, or that this is an unforgiveable action. But Morgan Wallen needs to go away "and get right." There is much more in the dialogue, and I was particularly affected by Bones' memories of his experience with his high school football team. "This is every day for them," he recalled with a heavy heart.

We still have a lot of work to do. And Bobby Bones took a big step for us with his words. I'm glad he said what he said, and I'm glad I was listening at the time because it helped me process some heavy feelings.

Love Them

 "And these three remain - faith, hope, & love. But the greatest of these is love." -Corinthians 13:13

Parenting begins with unconditional love, and it's what always remains. Based on a line from a sappy family-romantic comedy from the mid-90s, I wrote a reflection on the idea of love as the best parenting advice. It was recently published on Fatherly, a parenting magazine, as "Love Your Kids, But Also Love the Act of Loving Them." Here's a bit from the opening.

 “Love them.”

That’s the best parenting advice I’ve ever heard. It comes from a culminating scene near the end of a somewhat obscure but sappy little gem of a movie from 1995. The film Bye Bye Love, with Paul Reiser, Randy Quaid, and Matthew Modine, arrived a few years before my wife and I married and had our first child, but I’ve always remembered the scene with the advice and all its sappy sentiment. And, even now, as my kids are into high school and college, and I enter my fifties reflecting on the love with which I was raised, and the same love I hope has guided my parenting, I remember this movie and its guiding principle for being a mom or dad.

First, a bit of a warning about this film I view so fondly and nostalgically: the movie received pretty harsh reviews from Roger Ebert who called it “a soppy sitcom that would like to pass as a quasi-heartfelt story,” and the Washington Post critic who decried it as “a warm fuzzy commercial.” I won’t counter with anything other than the simple admission: “I really liked it,” and I’ve wept through a lot of commercials. I especially like the wisdom that comes at the end from a dad who has seemed anything but soppy, warm, or fuzzy throughout the film. His insight is a sentiment that’s apparent throughout the film, but it’s only verbalized in the final ten minutes: “Love them. Just love them.”

Groundhog Day - Your Existential New Year

Ever since the 1993 film from Harold Ramis and Bill Murray, the term "Groundhog Day" has become synonymous with mundane repetition and mindless boring redundancy in our daily lives and jobs, but the film was never really about that. Instead, the message of the movie and the life of weatherman Phil Connor is about rebirth and the chance every day to make our seemingly boring repetitive lives whatever we want them to be. I've written about this idea several times, most recently on my blog post from 2019:

The film Groundhog Day is actually a wonderful primer for the wisdom of existentialism, and when I taught the philosophy in my college literature class, I would often lead or conclude with a viewing of Bill Murray’s brilliant portrayal of a man trying to bring some sense of meaning to a life that seems nothing short of absurd. Clearly, the idea of living the same day over and over again in an unfulfilling, dull, mundane place and repeating the seemingly mindless tasks of a pointless job is portrayed as a curse and a cruel joke, and that realization is at the heart of existentialism. Life makes no sense. Phil spends many years in disgruntled fashion viewing his life as exactly that, a cruel meaningless joke of an existence. However, the movie shifts when Phil considers his situation as an opportunity and a second chance at reinvention with the opportunity to get it right.

And in this essay I wrote for Medium:

Groundhog Day is a film with a message — each of us will wake up again and again to the same existence that at times seems pointless. The only point is that you have the rest of your life to make it exactly what you want it to be. Bringing meaning to our daily lives was a focus of the numerous American writers like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow whose poem “A Psalm of Life” advised us that “neither joy, and not sorrow is our destined end or way, but to act that each tomorrow find us further than today.” The point is progress; the goal is getting better. What F. Scott Fitzgerald called Gatsby’s “Platonic conception of himself” was simply the eternal quest for the ideal, for striving to become our own best selves. Life is an endlessly repeating opportunity to improve. In Bill Murray’s role as Phil Connor, we can find a second chance at New Year’s resolutions and an opportunity to, in the words of Henry David Thoreau, “live the life you have imagined.”

Thus, rather than a sad story about emptiness, the film and the day is a great chance to re-think and embrace the rich potential of our lives every day we live. Think about it. And perhaps even considering watching the film every year to brighten and warm up the dark days of winter.

Must-See Movies for Young Men

In the madness that was the Game-Stop rodeo this week, I texted a meme claiming to reveal the true identities of the traders who scammed Wall Street to my college-age son and several buddies. It was a pic of Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy from the poster for Trading Places. And, one of the more pop culture astute friends expressed ignorance of the image, saying "I know I should recognize this, but I don't." That quickly led to a discussion of movies these young men need to see as much for the entertainment as for the allusions. And I mentioned that I used to have a list of films which during the course of teaching high school, I would occasionally draw from, telling the male students these are movies that if they if they haven't seen them, "they are not yet men."

So, now I'm pondering exactly what I mean by that.

Many of the films were classic dramas centered on conflicts of battle and epic journeys and characters learning values like loyalty through the buddy relationships. Some leading titles are Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, The Great Escape, Cool Hand Luke, and The Magnificent Seven. As I pondered what is was about these films and the characters in them that defined some vague essence of manhood, I recalled a scene from a completely different but equally special film at least for Gen Xers, Say Anything with Jon Cusack. At the record store with his two female friends, Lloyd Dobbler hears an important distinction: "Don't be a guy. Be a man." And when we hear that, especially in our more enlightened age of confronting the toxic masculinity and cheesy embarrassing machismo that often masquerades as manhood, we just know what she means. Don't be a guy or a dude or a bro when you can be a man.

It basically comes down to character, which is an equally ambiguous term to define, though we all seem to know it when we see it. I think of that platitude about integrity - it's doing the right thing even when no one is looking. Trust and loyalty are important elements as well, as well as a disciplined sense of self worth and a quiet but secure confidence in identity and beliefs regardless of the situation. Of course, these are all equally vacuous in really defining what it means to be a man. Interestingly, after texting with "the boys" as I call them, I turned on the TV and ran across the pivotal scene in a great film that is ubiquitous on cable; I'm talking about the night of Andy Dufresne's escape in The Shawshank Redemption. Yeah, I know. It's immediately recognizable, and we just nod. Andy Dufresne and Red. These are men.

Thinking about Shawshank led me to some other buddy films which are pivotal in my thoughts about manhood. Stand By Me comes to mind. The pathos in that film is practically palpable. And I just watched another entry in the buddy genre on Netflix now, a French film from 2011 called The Intouchables, based on the true story of a quadriplegic and his caretaker. It was a heartwarming and also pensive story about what it means to be alive and what it means to be a friend and what it means to be a man. Another film that popped into my head which is certainly a buddy story, but with a different tone is The Sandlot. I mean, come on, "you're killing me, Smalls."

So many great stories about male characters learning what it means to be a man.

What are yours?

Gifted, Talented, & Advanced

"Every child is gifted in their own way."

That was the tagline years ago in a commercial for some cram school or tutoring center, and I've never liked it. Beyond the grammatical error and the manipulation of the consumer, the idea of everyone being gifted is a flawed and somewhat disingenuous idea.  

Of course, that poses an important question: Is there something special about a term like gifted? I truly believe there is. And there is something special, unique, unusual, and "extra-ordinary" about truly gifted individuals.

Advanced academic learning, acceleration, honors classes, enrichment activities -- these are all important in educating children, but they are not necessarily synonymous with or to be used as a substitute for the concept of giftedness. In many (or most) states giftedness or GT or T&G are legally defined exceptionalities that hold equal significance and are as relevant as exceptionalities protected under the American Disability Act and the Rehabilitation Act. In that regard, all schools should have staff and resources under a gifted title, as opposed to just "advanced academic services," which is what my district shortsightedly tried to call it a few years ago.

And this is not to say I believe the term is always accurately, appropriately, and equitably applied. White and affluent students are disproportionately identified compared to other demographics. And, truly the benchmarks of the 95th percentile lead to IDs for simply bright and hardworking students with resources. That doesn't mean gifted. Metrics are tough because in many ways it's a "know-it-when-you-see-it" sort of quality. My school has a large number of incredibly smart and high achieving students. However, some of them achieve through a lot of hard work and access to vast resources. And that should be honored, but it's not always gifted. If someone masters a standard or a class or a skill after diligent practice, that's wonderful. But if someone masters it almost immediately, is that not truly exceptional?

A great example of the distinction I'm getting at can be found by digging into the problematic claims by commercial intellectual Malcolm Gladwell in the book The Outliers about the the ten-thousand hours to mastery myth. While Gladwell's loose reading and interpretation of data has has been exposed as inaccurate by numerous researchers, many still believe it. And that can complicate discussions of giftedness. One of the best books on the counter-argument is David Epstein's The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Achievement. In reality, some people master skills and knowledge with hard work and access, and others simply do it naturally in far less time. Bill Gates is described in Gladwell's book as having great access to resources which led to his success. It's true. But he is also truly gifted. A real genius. The same can be said for someone like Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes. To be an NFL quarterback, you have to work pretty hard and be pretty great. However, there are some who are just beyond any sort of norms. And some are far beyond simply being the sum of access and hard work.

Some people are just gifted.

Facts, Truth, & Pierre the Frenchman

In the pandemic and quarantine, many of us returned to comfort media like favorite old movies and television shows. We've all had our binges and marathons that have been nostalgic and even healing at times. Mine has been Northern Exposure, the quirky 90s fish-out-of-water comedy-drama set in Cicely, Alaska. When I was just finishing college and beginning to step out into adulthood, the show's off-beat philosophical slant on a traditional storytelling formula just grabbed me, entertaining me while also making me think.

I loved all the characters, but the town's deejay, Chris of KBHR's "Chris in the Morning," captured my attention for his literary ways and existential explorations. To that point, I even envisioned myself working as a teacher in quaint small town where I would have an evening or weekend radio show on which I too would share quips, quotes, and reflections from Walt Whitman or Nietzsche or even Proust.  It was really in the third season that the show, not to mention Chris' on air reflections, really hit its stride with two episodes winning Emmy awards for writing.  

The sixth episode entitled "The Body in Question" was the one that I still recall moving me toward honest reflection and a belief in the enlightening potential of even silly little television comedy-dramas. That one told the apocryphal story of Pierre, a nineteenth century Frenchman frozen in block of ice along the river and discovered by Chris, of course. As the town becomes fascinated by his story, as recounted in diary found nearby, people react in a variety of ways, most notably Maurice who wants to create a museum and tourist attraction. 

But it's the two town intellectuals, Chris and Dr. Fleischmann, who become the center of discussion after it's "discovered" that Napoleon was in Alaska with Pierre at the time of the Battle of Waterloo -- at least according to the diary. If true, Chris posits, it would propose a deep existential crisis, especially after Joel asserts this "truth" must be revealed to the world. In a fascinatingly smart exchange, Chris suggests a difference between "truth" and facts, arguing that "facts remain the same, but truth twists and turns." That one really threw my twenty-one-year-old spirit for an intellectual loop. But it was the ending that stayed with me, beautifully filmed as the Tellakutans row upstream in a their canoes with the defrosted Pierre as the episode closes out on a Chris voice-over reading of Proust:

"When from a long distant past nothing persists, after the people are dead, after things are broken and scattered, still alone, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long, long time like souls, ready to remind us, waiting, hoping for their moment amid the ruins of all the rest, and bear unfaltering in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence the vast structure of recollection."

"Deal me in" - the graceful friendship of Aaron & Musial

In Henry Aaron's first All-Star game in the early 1950s, the future home run king met a baseball player known to many simply as "The Man." It was very early in the desegregation of America's past time, and it was also very early in the Civil Rights era. As the story goes, a group of African-American baseball players, all of whom who'd spent most of their careers limited to the Negro leagues, were sitting at a table playing cards. Stan Musial, the St. Louis Cardinals first baseman, just went over to them, sat down, and said, "deal me in."   

Deal me in.

Those words simply erased any racial or social barriers and said more about civil rights than hundreds of white politicians could ever hope to convey. And they meant the world to a young Hank Aaron; those words, that tacit olive branch, were also the beginning of a lifelong friendship between two of the greatest sportsmen to ever play. Sportswriter and columnist Ben Hochman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recounted that story today in his column on the passing of Aaron this weekend at the age of eighty-six. Aaron notes that those words were Musial's way of saying "I’ve looked beyond racism and everything."

These two men maintained a genuine bond the rest of their lives, and nearly every story about them acknowledges that as great as athletes Musial and Aaron were, they were equally good men of character and integrity. "I've always had him in my heart," Aaron said of Musial.

May we all aspire to live, and to play, with the grace and the class of Stan Musial and Henry Aaron.

Maybe that Degree in Art History isn't such a bad idea

On January 20, 2021, a graduate of the University of Delaware who was a history and political science major with a minor in English became the forty-sixth President of the United States. That background would make Thomas Jefferson and our Founding Fathers proud, for they believed deeply in the power and significance of a classical liberal arts education. In fact, the study of the liberal arts was the focus and goal of early higher education among those great men in order to create well-educated leaders who were deep thinkers. House Minority leader   McConnell, a political science major in college, would most certainly agree.

In recent economic downturns, as the Liberal Arts programs in higher education have continued to lose funding, the nation has begun to take a new direction in higher education, and it's a turn that will be to the detriment to our national identity. Sadly, colleges are cutting majors mostly in liberal arts to focus primarily on the study of STEM and the focus of basic utilitarian job training. But we go to college for more than just job skills - we go to study to become fully actualized and educated human beings. And those liberal arts can be more useful than many suspect. Here's a short list of the college majors of some well known people.

Carley Fiorina - former CEO of Hewlett-Packard studied medieval history & philosophy
John Mackey - the founder and CEO of Whole Foods majored in philosophy & religion
Andrea Jung - the leader of companies like Neiman Marcus and Avon focused on English Literature
Sue Wojcicki - the early CEO of YouTube eschewed comp-sci in favor of history & literature
Steve Ells - the founder of Chipotle was an art history major
Steve Jobs - Apple - the study of the humanities is credited for the unique brilliance of Apple

"It's morning again in America"

"It's morning again."

Officially known in advertising circles as "Prouder, Stronger, Better," the key commercial for Ronald Reagan's 1984 presidential re-election campaign was a masterpiece of messaging. 

It's morning again in America. Today more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country's history. With interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980, nearly 2,000 families today will buy new homes, more than at any time in the past four years. This afternoon 6,500 young men and women will be married, and with inflation at less than half of what it was just four years ago, they can look forward with confidence to the future. It's morning again in America, and under the leadership of President Reagan, our country is prouder and stronger and better. Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?

The message of renewal and rebirth and hope and optimism is an integral part of the American identity, the American consciousness, the American Dream. And each day as we wake up, it's important to remember that.