All Backwards at Work

I'm at work, and I feel all backwards. I'm teaching subjects and verbs.

At home we use a classical curriculum with our kids, which means, in part, that we cover the big historical periods in cycles: we spend a year on each: ancients, medieval, through the 1800s, and 1900 to today. Every four years, we start the cycle over so that if we do home educate our kids all the way through, they'll have seen each historical era three times.

But it's not just a repetition of content. It's a recursive return to the subject matter, meaning that they'll not only recognize it but bring to it an entirely different mind and set of skills. Imagine a spiral on an upward trajectory. Anything that is learned well is learned repeatedly. We take it in as beginners, attempt to apply it, fail, come back to the learning with a new perspective, then start all over.

But each time (if teaching and learning are happening), the application of the new knowledge is more effective. It's being handled by a different, older mind, resulting in higher achievement. Again, we go as far as we can with it, fail, and return to the learning to start again. This should be happening in the microcosm of a single lesson or unit and in the macro of a 12-year education. 

And while my public school colleagues are well-trained in the former, the public school bureaucratic machine has made the latter all but impossible. Worse than that--they've built a system so entrenched in old and humanistic dogma that they're working directly against it. We've lost the long view on education, and that is what I perceive as one of public education's greatest failures and biggest obstacles to meaningful reform.   

I spend much of my classroom time and energy teaching basic grammar--parts, that is. Parts of speech, parts of sentences, parts of paragraphs, and parts of essays. In pre-John Dewey days, these would have been handled in what was then called the "grammar" school, grades k-4. Those who chose to go on in their education would have been trained according to the dialectic method--question-and-answer driving curiosity and the innate desire to argue that inhabits every middle/junior high student. The high school years would then be for expression: the building of rhetorical skills, taking the parts and the pieces and the arguments and synthesizing them in increasingly sophisticated writing. This was the classical method: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric. 

But public (and most private) schools have flipped things around. Now students engage in expression during those first years when their minds are best suited for remembering parts. The middle years are more of the same, but here, as they're becoming more curious about the workings of the world and more adept at broader meaning, and as subjects are becoming more specialized, the parts gets introduced (like seeing a ball, bat, and glove for the first time just as you're being thrown into your first game. You'd learn how to play, eventually, but dang! that's a backwards way to do it). Then in high school, just when their brains are finally ready to write and create and persuade and build sophisticated arguments, just when they're ready to conquer the world, they're asked to memorize things. Things like formulas and dates and (cue the gag reflex) parts of speech.

Yes, some of that is necessary. Memorizing things will always be a necessary part of any educational setting, but at the high school level it should be the smallest part. It should characterize only the earliest years of formal schooling, not years 14-18. That's just backwards. And any high schooler could tell you that if he wasn't so busy memorizing vocab.

Counterfeit Assurances

It was the middle of fourth hour, around noon, when God interrupted me during silent reading with my students. Not with words, but with an impulse to pray. And not to pray for praying's sake, but to pray very specifically: for my 5-year old, Lewis, that God would protect him, that God would protect him while he rode his bike. I had four kids then and would usually pray for all if I prayed for one, but not this time. I would pray only for Lewis. So I prayed silently for a few minutes then taught my class.

When I got home later that day, my mom, who was watching the kids, met me as I got out of my car. She had a burdened look and said, "I have to tell you about something that happened today." Lewis, she explained, had bolted off the sidewalk into our busy street. He'd been on his bike. Cars coming from both directions had had to slam on their brakes to stop. It had scared my mom so badly that she felt she had to confess it now and still looked sick about it some four hours later. I asked her what time this had happened. They'd been on their way back for lunch. "Around noon," she said.

Evidences of God's provision abound in my life, not because I'm super spiritual (not even sure what that means) but because I'm weak and dim-witted and need my eyes knocked open. Most of the time the effect is good--I see God's hand and am edified. On my better days I tell people about it and God is glorified. 

But a dangerous effect of God moving dramatically in my life is that I come to depend on it. I don't mean depend on as in I count on it happening often (seeking experiences for their own sake would be bad), nor do I mean that I'm depending on God himself (that would be a very good thing). Rather, I find myself depending on the visible providence itself, pointing to it as a proof of God's favor. Not in so many words, of course--I would never say, "Remember when God did that wild thing for me way back when? I must be right with him!"--but in an attitude and an unconscious posture.  And I sometimes feel the counterfeit assurance that's rooted in such thoughts.

It's a dangerous way to think.

Saul may have bought this lie too. In 1 Samuel 10 we read that Samuel anointed Saul as God's chosen, that Saul was filled with God's spirit and made into a different person. The Bible says that God "changed Saul's heart." That's conversion language. Early in Saul's rule over Israel this seems to have been confirmed as God came to his aid mightily and helped him deliver his people from their enemies. 

Then came the spiraling down. Saul sets up a monument to himself, disobeys God and lets Agag live. He lets his soldiers take items devoted for destruction and tries to lie his way out of the sin. For these, the Lord rejects him as king. But things get worse: he tries to skewer David three times, swears to kill him, kills the priests of Nob, and threatens his own son with death. Yet after all that, we read this remarkable passage: "So Saul went to Naioth at Ramah. But the Spirit of God came even on him, and he walked along prophesying until he came to Naioth."  

This catches when I read it, and my first thought is to wonder why God would fill a man with his spirit if not to save him? I wonder if God's Saul Project just failed. But I don't wonder these things for long. I know that God fails at nothing, and that no one is to blame but Saul. 

And then I ask myself a better question: If I had been in Saul's shoes, what would I have made of it? The answer to that one is simple: I know what I would have done in his shoes because I've been there. I would have taken it as a sign of God's favor and gone on boldly in the same direction. I would have taken it as approval of the life I was living. After all, that's pretty heady stuff, being anointed by Samuel, being made into a new man. I probably would have thought I was locked in. 


God's purposes are his own, and how he chooses to manifest himself to his creation must never comprise the basis of our faith. I must point to no miracle in my life to say, "That's how I know I'm justified!" I can--and must!--point to Christ and his work. I can point to words like these: There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved or to these: he who believes has eternal life and will not be condemned. That he moves close to us and in a visible way--rescuing our kids from danger, say--should be encouragement for the Christian, but it should no more assure us of true faith, than Saul's prophesying should have assured Saul.

Don't hear me wrong--I am deeply thankful for God's intervening mercies. Answers to prayer should be made much of. Whether they're sudden and visible, or slow and behind-the-scenes, they're all "miraculous." But when I point to them it must never be to show how good I am, but to show how good God is.


  

I endorse Ron Paul for President

The Future of Publishing? I'm Hopin'

I'm probably the last on our block to realize this (and I live on a block of hicks), but the paper-and-ink publishing industry is dying.


No no, you say, people love books. They love the feel of books. They like paper and bookmarks and dog-ears. They like to cuddle with them in front of the fire. They share their intimate thoughts with them in highlights and exclamation points and notes in the margin. Heck, they even like that musty, old-book smell.


I know. I'm the same way. I love books.


But they're dying anyway. It's inevitable.


Look at what's happened already in the last year or two. E-reader users didn't like to scroll. They wanted to turn the page, so the e-reader makers listened. Now they flip and you don't even have to lick your fingers. And no one liked the look of the e-readers. It wasn't like real pages. It wasn't book-like. But have you seen a good one lately? They look great, clearer than paper, and you don't need light.


And people are voting with their dollars. Amazon recently announced that ebooks, for the first time ever, have out-sold hardcover books. Paperbacks, no doubt, are next. The market share of ebooks in the overall publishing sector has gone from 1% in 2008 to 3% in 2009 to 10% in 2010. I won't plot that on a chart right here, but if you can picture a graph going up like a skate ramp, you're on the right track.


But maybe the most telling piece of data is this one: people aren't going back. Talk to a Nook, Kobo, Sony, Kindle, or iPad reader--they're utterly, unapologetically sold-out to e-reading. And they're just blazing the trail for you and me. Oh yes, we'll be there too some day. The only way I can read an actual book in the morning is if I wear two pair of glasses at the same time. Seriously. And I look just as stupid as you're picturing me. An e-reader would fix that problem (it will fix it when I finally break down and get one--I was also the last on my block to get a cell phone, but I got one).


Anyway, all of this to say that as a bumbling author, I'm encouraged. Because as the book-printing part of this industry dies, so does the front-office part. The gatekeepers in this new game won't be the old guard. It won't be some intern with an English degree fishing manuscripts from a slush pile. It will be readers who'll decide whether something is or isn't worth reading. It will be the free market at work.


Of course, in another way the author's work will be harder. In the old paradigm, agents and publishers (if you could get them to take a risk on you) took most of the burden of book promotion. But today's author is on his own. For example, he'll have to plug his new e-books (click here for The Cornshuck Memoirs, here for Boy Soldier,  here for A Sword for The King, and here for The Left Foot Says, "GLORY!") all by himself, at every opportunity, and in creative and winsome ways.


But I'll probably be the last on the block to learn those tricks too. Oh well. If it's anything like e-readers and cell phones, I'll eventually see the light.

Freedom Ain't Cheap

Been busy lately, so I haven't posted in a while, but today I'm driven to it.


I've been checking essays--persuasive essays that my juniors are doing to prepare for the ACT--and their positions, their supporting arguments behind them, have me just a little freaked out.


Some background...


I teach an ACT prep course. It's what most juniors take as one half of their 11th grade English requirement. Every couple of weeks we do an ACT-style essay. 30 minutes to take a position on an issue and argue it convincingly. It's not an easy thing to do, so we practice a lot. 


Here's this week's prompt (a short version follows): 
In many of the largest airports around the country, full body scanners (sometimes referred to as “naked scanners”) and enhanced pat-down procedures have been implemented. Some groups are calling for these measures to be removed, claiming that they not only violate the 4th amendment’s protection from unreasonable search and protection of privacy, but are ineffective in catching potential threats. Others claim the new procedures better ensure the safety of the passengers, crew, and those on the ground by acting as a deterrent to terrorist attempts. Should such technology and procedures be the standard rule for all of our nation’s major airports? In your essay, take a position on the issue. You may write about either of the two points of view, or you may propose a different point of view. Use specific reasons and examples to support your position.


Short version: Has TSA gone too far with airport security?


So anyway, I'm grading these essays and coming across a LOT of comments like these: 


"Our safety is the most important thing..."


or "No constitutional amendment is more important than our safety..."


or "If better security means dumping the 4th amendment, then so be it!" 


Some of these are actually coming from kids who, in less than two years' time, will be in the military, risking their lives to secure freedom. They'll be proving by their actions that there are things that are more important than safety and security. But some are coming from kids who just can't see past their own skin.  


As a teacher, I'm torn as to the root cause here. Do they not see the disconnect? Are they still at a place on the learning curve that this example--allowing our gov't to violate a constitutionally protected right to freedom from unreasonable search--just doesn't have the same form that physically fighting an enemy has? 


Or maybe it's that they don't understand that the greatest threat to our freedom is, and always has been, ourselves, and that the constitution is there as a protection between the governed "us" and the governing "us." It is, after all, much easier to see the enemy in that desert over there, or on that continent over there, than it is to see that the enemy is us, and the treason is in our own hearts.


Or maybe it's that they don't see the logical end of such a position, that a compromise here says that all provisions in the Constitution are up for grabs and that the Fed's enumerated powers are more like suggestions. It takes a lot more dot-connecting to see this than it does to see some foreign tyrant who wants to put chains on you. 


But even if they don't get the deeper spiritual stuff, or the logical implications, you'd think they would at least respond to the whole romantic, patriotic notion of freedom having a great cost to it. I don't think any of them would disagree that giving up our lives to defeat Hitler was worth it. 


Again, maybe the example here is just too subtle.


This week, as the kids were writing, I got to thinking about this prompt more than I usually do, and before I even saw what they were doing with it, I decided to write the essay myself. So here it is, my ACT essay on airport security:

            Beware the term “post-9/11 world.” Too often these days it’s used to justify some government measure limiting our civil rights. From illegal wire-taps to an open assassination of a US citizen, such actions are justified by the simple response that we live in a post-9/11 world. Just because the terrorists ignored our Constitution when they struck the twin towers doesn’t mean that our government should ignore it too. But the invasive use of technology and search methods in airports today does just that. Moreover, it hasn’t proven any more effective in deterring terrorism than the methods it replaced. And if the 4^th amendment can be set aside with a simple memo from the President’s desk, what’s next? Our freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? The safety that the TSA promises—even it was effective—is simply not worth the cost of our freedom.

            For 230 years our people have paid the ultimate price to defend our liberties and make it possible that following generations could live in freedom. That’s what we’re celebrating every Fourth of July, Memorial and Veteran’s Day. Even in times of peace we remind ourselves that freedom comes at a cost and that the cost—an absolute cost for some—is worth it. What’s changed? Why do we not demand the same sacrifice today? In fact, our government today makes the opposite demand, telling us that by giving up our rights (freedom from unreasonable search, freedom of privacy) we’ll be securing our safety by deterring terrorism. Our government is saying the exact opposite of what it says when our sacrifice is needed. They’re saying that our freedom is not worth risking our lives over. They’ve flipped things around on us. So which is more valuable? Freedom and the risk of death or tyranny with safety?

            But that’s not even the choice we’re given because the increase in safety is unproven. In fact, given the available data, safety is impossible to improve upon. Since 9/11, there have been exactly zero lives lost to terrorist attacks on airplanes or airports in the US. How do you improve on 100%? Whatever security measures we’ve been using for the last ten years seem to have worked just fine. So why the changes? Why has the TSA embarked on what can only be described as an attack on the Constitution and the people of the United States? Thomas Jefferson said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. He understood, as did all the founding fathers and drafters of the Constitution, that people are power hungry, that at the first opportunity, our leaders will grab for more power over their people. Both the current and previous administrations have proven Jefferson absolutely right in this. We’re being stripped naked and radiated by our government because they saw an opportunity for more power. And they know that if we’re compliant in this, if we don’t refuse it, then the door is open for them to take even more.

            So far, we’re lying down and taking it. The next question must be “What’s next?” For the sake of fighting an enemy that hasn’t touched us in ten years will we give up our freedom of speech? It looks like that’s already in the works. The TV networks and national magazines and newspapers have for a long time now aligned themselves with political parties, so the “free speech” we have there gets sifted and filtered according to their values. That’s nothing new. The latest threat is to our last and best source of free speech and press—the internet. And they’re using the same tactic here that they used in the airports: fear. To avoid the next great terrorist attack—a cyber attack on our computer networks—a senate bill was introduced this year to give the President an internet kill switch. This would give the executive branch of our government another power that directly violates the Constitution. With the push of a button, the President can shut the internet down until he believes the threat is past. But who or what will be the threat? No one knows. We would just wait to see what the President decides. It could be a terrorist. It could be you or me because we disagree with him. Again, what do we value more, a risky freedom or a tyranny that claims to protect us?

            It may not seem like a big deal. Shuffle through the line with the rest of the sheep. Don’t complain or make noise. But ignoring the Constitution is a big deal. No other country in history has gone to such lengths to protect its people from the tyranny of its own government, and that protection lies in the specific provisions of our Constitution. Freedom is not free. It’s not even cheap—it should cost us something that has real value. Isn’t each person who enlists in our military saying exactly that? We may live in a post-9/11 world, but the most important things about us haven’t changed at all. We love our freedom, and we’re willing to sacrifice for it. Let’s do that today in our nation’s airports and show our enemies that we’re still free and we’re still not afraid.

I'll read this to them next week. Maybe it will get some wheels turning and I'll see that my freaking out is premature. 


Maybe.
   

Life-Changing...

The Otter and the Ocean

          One morning, Otter was awakened by the sound of the ocean, so he said to himself for the very first time, "I wonder."

            Later that morning he and his older brother were in the shallows breaking clams open with stones. "Brother," said the younger otter, "have you ever seen the bottom of the ocean?"

         "Of course I have," said his brother. "I know the ocean well."

"What's it like?" asked Otter.

"Oh, it's very deep," said his brother.

"Is it?" asked Otter, and he dropped his clam, half-eaten, in the water.

"Sure. Watch this!" And then Otter's big brother shot out past the sand bar to the middle of the bay. There he lifted himself halfway out of the water, waved, and plunged below. He was gone for less than a minute, but to Otter it seemed much longer. When he finally did break to the surface again, he held up a paw. But Otter could not see that he was holding tiny pebbles and bits of shell until his brother had swum all the way back to the shallow.

"Rocks and shells," said his brother, "as far as you can see."

"Really?" asked Otter.

         "Oh yes, that's what the ocean is like, a floor of sand that goes on and on. But don't worry. You'll see it all some day."

But to Otter's thinking there was nothing mysterious in rocks and shells.   

         That afternoon, he and his father were busy with the work of opening a new den—much higher over the water than their old one—when Otter said, "Father, have you ever seen the bottom of the ocean?"

         "Of course I have," said his father. "I know the ocean well." 

"What's it like?" asked Otter.

"Oh, it's very deep," said his father.

"Is it?" asked Otter, and he stopped his work to listen.

"It is. In fact, it's as deep as a full-grown stalk of kelp, and you know how long those can grow." Then his father took him to the entrance of the den and pointed to the ocean beyond the bay, to where the kelp beds began. "Many times I've had to hunt for clams where the kelp grows from the bottom," his father said with evident pride.  "And it is like swimming through a forest at night." 

"Really?" asked Otter.

"Oh, yes," said his father, "and that's what the ocean is like, a forest of kelp that goes on and on. Some day when you're older you'll find out for yourself."

But again, Otter couldn't help but be disappointed, for he could see nothing more frightening in a stalk of kelp than he could in rocks and shells. 

That evening, Otter was walking alone along a cliff overlooking the bay and the ocean beyond it, thinking of rocks and sand and kelp when he came upon his grandfather. He was sitting on a patch of lichen watching the sun go down. His grandfather was very old, the oldest otter in the colony. The fur around his eyes and mouth was gray, and he let the younger otters gather clams for him now. He was old, but most thought him to be very wise.

Otter sat down next to him. "Grandfather," he said, "have you ever seen the bottom of the ocean?"

His grandfather was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "I'm afraid I know very little about the ocean."

Oliver's shoulders fell at the words, and he rose to his feet to go, but his grandfather kept talking, "When I was young, about your age, I swam to the bottom of the ocean, and it was sandy and flat."

"Really?" said Otter, but if he sounded curious he didn't mean it.

"And when I was older and had cubs of my own," his grandfather continued, "I swam to the bottom of the ocean, and it was like walking through a forest of tall trees at night."

Otter stood quietly and waited for his grandfather to finish.  He was hoping that he might still have time to play in the high tide. 

"But one day, while I floated over the kelp beds preening my fur, a storm came in suddenly and took me far out to sea. I grew hungry, so I dove hoping to find food. I dove so deep that the water grew cold and pressed in on me, but I knew that if I didn't eat, I would die, so I went deeper."

"Deeper?" asked Otter, sitting down again. 

"Finally, I reached bottom."

"And what did you see?" asked Otter.

"I saw the edge of a cliff, like the one we are on now," said his grandfather, and then he peered over the edge, and Otter knew that he was remembering that day.

"And what else?" asked Otter, "What was at the bottom of the cliff?"

His grandfather turned to Otter and shook his head.  "There was no bottom," he said, "just a darkness that went on and on." Then he smiled. "Like I said, I know very little of the ocean."

Otter drew in a deep breath, and then he watched the setting sun until it winked out under a pink and orange sky, for his hopes of playing in the tide had slipped quietly away at the thought of a bottomless ocean.