Cultivating leaps of faith

Just read this piece, America's Youth Uprising, in the March 5 / 12 issue of The Nation, which reminds me that it does matter that people stand up.

It has made a difference to me: I am willing to stand up, too.

Also, the piece reminded me that anthropology matters in all this:

I could not help recalling on that remarkable night the response of Claude Lévi-Strauss to requests that he identify the “golden age” of human civilization. The father of modern anthropology rejected the question as absurd on its face, and absurdly disempowering in its implications. In Tristes Tropiques, Lévi-Strauss explained that “if men have always been concerned with only one task—how to create a society fit to live in—the forces which inspired our distant ancestors are also present in us. Nothing is settled; everything can still be altered. What was done but turned out wrong, can be done again. ‘The Golden Age,’ which blind superstition had placed behind [or ahead of] us, is in us.” Those are not blandly optimistic words. They are demanding. They suggest that we have fewer excuses than we thought, that this is the place, that now is the time and that there is truth in the maxim that we are the people we’ve been waiting for.

That Levi-Strauss. He is good to think (and act!) with.

Occupations

OK, sooner or later, I will need to write that Kate Clancy a fan letter - I confess that I have not commented on her blog due to the fact that I would need to register as a user on Scientific American and it just seemed like a hassle - but I wanted to bring this to the attention of anyone who might be reading my blog and not already reading hers. Check out this post, "What Does It Mean to Do the Right Thing?"

As an aside, I want to say to Kate Clancy that I agree with her decision to continue blogging at SA (for now) and calling foul on what else might be published over there that is unscientific, sexist, racist, and just plain wrong.

I also agree with the commenter who noted that the person who should be leaving SA's blog is not her. I feel like I have seen or else have heard of this happening too many times - that is, the principled person takes a stand that in the end has no consequence for the transgressor and no impact on the institution, which continues to back the transgressor. This is not the fault of the principled person. This is the failing of the rest of us, who need to have her back!

***

I know that someone somewhere already has said something a lot smarter and more meaningful than what I will tap here about this, but is it not kind of interesting and cool the way in which the word / concept "occupy" has become re-occupied? Part of what is so brash about "Occupy Wall Street" is that it turns on head who is (supposed to be) occupying whom. That is, Wall Street is / has been the occupying power. At a PTO meeting at my daughter's elementary school a few weeks back - where we were discussing the possibility that our city's neighborhood schools might become reorganized in order to cut costs (e.g., closing a building, laying off staff) - I joked about a need for an Occupy Our Schools movement.

I was only half joking...

Nipping ethnocentrism in the bud

As I drop off Beanie at her day camp, a girl she knows from school detaches herself from a small group of kids playing with Legos, walks up, and asks, "Where were you born?"

"In Michigan," Beanie says proudly. She loves the stories that I tell her about "when she was a baby," and being born in Michigan is significant.

"Oh," the girl says. "We thought you were born in China."

Beanie seems either not to know what to say or just plain not to care. Her attention has been diverted to the table where a group of girls is drawing "Stay Out" signs. (She has been making them for her bedroom door.) I, however, feel mildly provoked. What does it mean that they thought she was born in China? There is a child in the group who had been adopted from abroad. Is this an attempt to make a connection? At least one other child in the group is biracial / bicultural. Is this just the kids trying to make sense of seeing Beanie with her Asian mother?

So, as casually as I can, I laugh and say, "Well, my parents were born in Korea. So, it would have been unlikely for Beanie to be born in China."

***

When I pick up Beanie from her day camp, another little girl - not the one from this morning - asks me, "Are you Chinese?"

What is with the questions about China today? Still, I manage a smile and look at her. "No," I say. "Are you?"

She looks surprised. "No. I'm not Chinese. I'm normal."

"Well, I'm not Chinese, but being Chinese is normal, too."

***

For the most part, Beanie has been sheltered from questions about what she is. Until now. I think that is what has me feeling a bit discouraged and to be honest, sad for her. I spent a good deal of my childhood having to explain what I was to other kids. It gets tiring and discouraging.

Nipping ethnocentrism in the bud is a job that is just too big for me or for Beanie or for the only non-white kid in a classroom, family in the neighborhood, or colleague in the workplace.

I want to remind the parents who might be reading this that we need to be mindful ourselves about the way that we talk about difference.

I am not against noticing difference, but I am against noting it in a way that casts difference as not normal. That little girl's question might be rooted in curiosity, but her response about being "normal" speaks volumes to me about a curiosity that is shaped by a particular cultural, social, political, and economic context. It is a curiosity that divides her from Beanie and me.

In contrast, I think about the power to connect that questions about who or what you are also can have. This is what manners help us do. We can forgive children for their imperfect attempts at politeness, and show them how to do better next time: This is what it means to be a civil society.

Take action for our neighborhood schools

For parents and community members in my city, this is a follow-up to a previous post urging involvement in the school district's space utilization study - which will have impacts on where our children attend elementary school across the entire district.

For example, the study might result in the sixth grade being moved from the four elementary schools to the middle school - or the reorganization of the elementary schools into grade "cluster" schools (like K-2).

So, clearly, parents, teachers, and students ought to participate in every step of the the process, involving themselves in how the decisions ultimately become made.

As our local paper reported today, an initial meeting of the space utilization meeting will be held this coming Tuesday, January 25, at 7pm in the cafeteria at the Oneonta High School.

If you are interested in being involved in the study, you can call the district clerk Eileen Lishansky at 433-8323, ext. 300 - or just attend the meeting.

Support your schools!

In recent posts, I have been making all kinds of pleas, like to love your library and to recognize the post office as an important and meaningful institution of democracy.

Today, I am making my plea to the parents in my city’s school district to get involved in a study on space utilization, which might have implications down the road for where our children attend K-6.

Last night, the superintendent spoke at the PTO meeting at the school that my daughter, a first-grader, currently attends. (I expect that my son, who will be 4 in May, will start kindergarten there in September 2012.) During the meeting, which more than a dozen parents, teachers, and school staff attended, the superintendent outlined the need for the district to undertake a study of space utilization. These included further cuts anticipated in the state budget, which has provoked the board’s interest in saving costs such as the rent paid on the district’s Main Street offices.

In addition to an inventory of how space currently is used in the four elementary schools, middle school, and high school, the superintendent said that for the sake of comparison, the study will examine the costs and benefits of two other scenarios that have been implemented at other school districts across the country with declining enrollments: One in which the schools are reorganized to bring grade 6 to the middle school, and one in which the schools are reorganized in so-called grade clusters (such as a K-2 building and so on).

The superintendent noted that enrollments were not declining in the elementary schools, with projected “bubbles” to come, based on live birth statistics for the county. The decreases in student population can be seen in middle school primarily.

He also emphasized that the closing of a school is not a scenario being discussed. He said this specifically for the benefit of the parents at our elementary school, which in the past had been targeted for possible closure.

However, the potential impacts of the district’s study on space utilization clearly matter for more than one school and one neighborhood.

I laud the school board’s effort to collect and study data first in order to make informed and intelligent decisions for the long term. The superintendent noted that a study like this had not been undertaken in more than 10 years.

To this end, I urge parents, teachers, students, and other community members to involve themselves in the process. We need to participate in every step in order to ensure both that our perspectives are considered, and that our priorities remain in focus for the school board.

For me and for a number of parents whom I know, a neighborhood school is part of the foundation of a quality education.

Unfortunately, we live in times when services for the public good (like state parks) are treated as luxuries that we can do without, and short-sighted savings seem to trump longer-sighted values. So, I worry about the kinds of sacrifices in our school that might be made in the name of fiscal responsibility and austerity.

I think it is critical that we continually ask ourselves at what cost will the savings come? What price are we willing to pay for savings? Based on what we might learn from the space utilization study, we might need to consider questions like: Will $15,000 in savings for the school district (which does not necessarily take into account the impacts on other parts of the community) be worth moving your sixth-grader to the middle school? Or: Will $7,500 be worth removing your children from your neighborhood school to a K-2 building across town? Or: How about $1,250?

It is not that I do not trust the school board's sense of responsibility or their responsiveness - it is that if we as parents and community members wish to see our concerns remain in focus, then we need to work actively with board members to make sure that they do.

The school board has been seeking participation from community members to form committees to undertake the study. (A meeting about the study will be held on January 25. E-mail the superintendent’s office to become involved.) In turn, the committees will be seeking input from parents, teachers, and students. Be sure to give it to them!

Above all, I think we need to stay informed – and keep each other informed – about what is happening. For example:

• Talk to your school’s principal and to other parents.
• Be involved in your PTO.
• Visit the city school district’s Web site.
• Click here for a PDF of the school board meeting calendar - then go! Take a friend with you. There is a meeting this Wednesday at 7pm at the middle school.
• Share and repost this blog entry on Facebook :)