Years from now, when the story of our corporate age is told with the clarity of hindsight, I'm guessing one of the phrases scholars will keep coming back to is "plausible deniability." The tale will capture our era's wide disparities in wealth, and its almost universal indifference to the rampant mistreatment of workers from countries less fortunate than our own.
After all, when we buy a product -- a piece of fruit, a new suit, an iPod -- how many of us really comprehend what was required to bring that product to our tables, our backs, or our pockets? The expanding global economy demands that corporations seek out the cheapest possible labor to maximize profit, and stimulate growth and innovation. With free trade has come an explosion of global inequality that has left more than 2.8 billion people living on less than $2 a day. We in the wealthy West, living and dining off the fruits of their labor, can honestly say we are unaware of the devil's bargain we bought into. Or that if we do know, the problem is simply too great to comprehend and beyond our means to do anything about, save changing our lifestyles entirely. Best, in other words, not to think about it.
--Josh Rosenblatt
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The Problem With Christmas
by Bill Mckibben
The problem with Christmas is not the batteries. The problem isn't even really the stuff. The problem with Christmas is that no one much likes it anymore.
If you poll Americans this time of year, far more of them regard the approaching holidays with dread than anticipation. It has long since become too busy, too expensive, too centered around acquiring that which we do not need. In fact, it's the perfect crystallization of the American economy -- the American consumer experience squeezed into a manic week, a week that people find themselves hoping will soon end so that on Jan. 2 they can return to the mere routine hecticity of their lives.
From that central truth, a few propositions follow:
* Replacing regular stuff with green stuff isn't getting very close to the root of the problem. If for some reason you need to give someone a motorized spice rack, then a motorized spice rack with a more efficient motor is quite clearly better. But it's also quite clearly beside the point.
* Stuff itself is a problem less because of its environmental toll (though that is quite high) than because it's increasingly meaningless. Think of your friends. Are many of them lacking in stuff? Or is the first question that forms in their minds when a new gift arrives from under the tree: "Where am I going to put this?"
* But this pleasure gap allows for a concentrated opportunity to begin rethinking our economic life. If stuff isn't valuable anymore, what is? Time, clearly. A gift of time -- a coupon for a back rub, or a trip to the museum, or a dinner prepared someday in the future -- is a gift whose exchange rate is figured in a stronger currency (if you're an economics major, think euros vs. dollars). Or gifts can come embedded with time already spent: a jar of homemade jam, a stack of firewood in the back yard.
* Gifts can also be reconfigured to remove some of the hyperindividualism that marks our consumer society. Ask yourself what you'd rather receive: another thing, or a homemade card saying that, say, a cow had been purchased in your name and was now providing milk for a Tanzanian family that hadn't had milk before. (Note: this line of reasoning is probably especially strong for those of us who are Christians, and recall that the occasion we're celebrating is the birth of a man who said to give all that we had to the poor.)
* Since Christmas has long been in the business of baptizing consumption, it's a good place to start eroding consumption's allure. Newfound pleasures from a simpler holiday -- some silence, some companionship -- suddenly start to seem attractive. Maybe that attraction will remain with us even unto February.
That would be good, because our environmental problem, at root, isn't that the stuff we're buying uses too much energy or too much plastic, or that its paint has lead in it, or that it's been shipped too far. Our environmental problem is that we consume way too much because we've agreed to try and meet basic human needs -- status, respect, affection -- with material ends. And no time more so than at Christmas, when Santa rides in on a Norelco razor. It's a kind of joint conspiracy that few of us dare break out of, even though we all understand at some level that it's not working. What if you don't give your kids a "proper Christmas"?
But the second you do break out of it -- the second your family becomes one of those that exchanges used books at Christmas, or decides to follow St. Francis' Yule tradition of wandering the park and throwing seed so that the birds too could celebrate, or makes it an annual custom to serve turkey dinner at the homeless shelter -- then you start sharing in the deep human secret that consumer society is set up to obscure: the things that please us most are almost always counterintuitive. We need to be out in the cold air, we need to think about others, we need to serve.
There are, of course, some who will say that a course like the one I'm describing here will damage the economy -- that anyone who proposes a different Yuletide is a "grinch." (This, by the way, is a major literary faux pas. Close reading -- even cursory reading, or even viewing the annual television special, will remind one that it was in fact the grinch himself who believed that Christmas came in a box. He turned out to be wrong, as the Whos of Whoville, those communists, made clear.) You could answer those people by saying, "Well, it won't all happen at once, and the economy will have time to adjust." Or you could answer by saying, "Maybe you're right. And maybe the economy isn't therefore quite as rational and as obvious as we would like to believe, if in fact it depends on a corrupted celebration of Jesus' birth to stagger on for another year."
The second answer appeals to me. We need a kiss to break our enchantment, and a kiss (a coupon for a kiss! Or a dozen!) is a perfectly fine gift to give for Christmas.
The problem with Christmas is not the batteries. The problem isn't even really the stuff. The problem with Christmas is that no one much likes it anymore.
If you poll Americans this time of year, far more of them regard the approaching holidays with dread than anticipation. It has long since become too busy, too expensive, too centered around acquiring that which we do not need. In fact, it's the perfect crystallization of the American economy -- the American consumer experience squeezed into a manic week, a week that people find themselves hoping will soon end so that on Jan. 2 they can return to the mere routine hecticity of their lives.
From that central truth, a few propositions follow:
* Replacing regular stuff with green stuff isn't getting very close to the root of the problem. If for some reason you need to give someone a motorized spice rack, then a motorized spice rack with a more efficient motor is quite clearly better. But it's also quite clearly beside the point.
* Stuff itself is a problem less because of its environmental toll (though that is quite high) than because it's increasingly meaningless. Think of your friends. Are many of them lacking in stuff? Or is the first question that forms in their minds when a new gift arrives from under the tree: "Where am I going to put this?"
* But this pleasure gap allows for a concentrated opportunity to begin rethinking our economic life. If stuff isn't valuable anymore, what is? Time, clearly. A gift of time -- a coupon for a back rub, or a trip to the museum, or a dinner prepared someday in the future -- is a gift whose exchange rate is figured in a stronger currency (if you're an economics major, think euros vs. dollars). Or gifts can come embedded with time already spent: a jar of homemade jam, a stack of firewood in the back yard.
* Gifts can also be reconfigured to remove some of the hyperindividualism that marks our consumer society. Ask yourself what you'd rather receive: another thing, or a homemade card saying that, say, a cow had been purchased in your name and was now providing milk for a Tanzanian family that hadn't had milk before. (Note: this line of reasoning is probably especially strong for those of us who are Christians, and recall that the occasion we're celebrating is the birth of a man who said to give all that we had to the poor.)
* Since Christmas has long been in the business of baptizing consumption, it's a good place to start eroding consumption's allure. Newfound pleasures from a simpler holiday -- some silence, some companionship -- suddenly start to seem attractive. Maybe that attraction will remain with us even unto February.
That would be good, because our environmental problem, at root, isn't that the stuff we're buying uses too much energy or too much plastic, or that its paint has lead in it, or that it's been shipped too far. Our environmental problem is that we consume way too much because we've agreed to try and meet basic human needs -- status, respect, affection -- with material ends. And no time more so than at Christmas, when Santa rides in on a Norelco razor. It's a kind of joint conspiracy that few of us dare break out of, even though we all understand at some level that it's not working. What if you don't give your kids a "proper Christmas"?
But the second you do break out of it -- the second your family becomes one of those that exchanges used books at Christmas, or decides to follow St. Francis' Yule tradition of wandering the park and throwing seed so that the birds too could celebrate, or makes it an annual custom to serve turkey dinner at the homeless shelter -- then you start sharing in the deep human secret that consumer society is set up to obscure: the things that please us most are almost always counterintuitive. We need to be out in the cold air, we need to think about others, we need to serve.
There are, of course, some who will say that a course like the one I'm describing here will damage the economy -- that anyone who proposes a different Yuletide is a "grinch." (This, by the way, is a major literary faux pas. Close reading -- even cursory reading, or even viewing the annual television special, will remind one that it was in fact the grinch himself who believed that Christmas came in a box. He turned out to be wrong, as the Whos of Whoville, those communists, made clear.) You could answer those people by saying, "Well, it won't all happen at once, and the economy will have time to adjust." Or you could answer by saying, "Maybe you're right. And maybe the economy isn't therefore quite as rational and as obvious as we would like to believe, if in fact it depends on a corrupted celebration of Jesus' birth to stagger on for another year."
The second answer appeals to me. We need a kiss to break our enchantment, and a kiss (a coupon for a kiss! Or a dozen!) is a perfectly fine gift to give for Christmas.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Smoke and Mirrors
What seems to be happening now is that working Americans, and that includes the middle class, have exhausted much of their capacity to tread water. Wives and mothers are already working. Mortgages have been refinanced and tremendous amounts of home equity drained. And families have taken on debt loads — for cars, for college tuition, for medical treatment — that would buckle the knees of the strongest pack animals.
According to Demos, a policy research group in New York, “American families are using credit cards to bridge the gaps created by stagnant wages and higher costs of living.” Americans owe nearly $900 billion on their credit cards.
We’re running out of smoke and mirrors. The fundamental problem, the problem that is destroying the dream, is the extreme inequality pounded into the system by the corporate crowd and its handmaidens in government.
--Bob Herbert
According to Demos, a policy research group in New York, “American families are using credit cards to bridge the gaps created by stagnant wages and higher costs of living.” Americans owe nearly $900 billion on their credit cards.
We’re running out of smoke and mirrors. The fundamental problem, the problem that is destroying the dream, is the extreme inequality pounded into the system by the corporate crowd and its handmaidens in government.
--Bob Herbert
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Christmas Rush
It might be easy to run away to a monastery, away from the commercialization, the hectic hustle, the demanding family responsibilities of Christmastime. Then we would have a holy Christmas. But we would forget the lesson of the Incarnation, of the enfleshing of God—the lesson that we who are followers of Jesus do not run from the secular; rather we try to transform it. It is our mission to make holy the secular aspects of Christmas just as the early Christians baptized the Christmas tree. And we do this by being holy people—kind, patient, generous, loving, laughing people—no matter how maddening is the Christmas rush.
--Fr. Andrew Greeley
--Fr. Andrew Greeley
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Friday, December 07, 2007
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas, the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, is famed as a great saint pleasing unto God. From his childhood, Nicholas thrived on the study of divine scripture; by day he would not leave church, and by night he prayed and read books, making himself a worthy dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.
There was a certain formerly rich inhabitant of Patara, whom St Nicholas saved from great sin. The man had three grown daughters, and in desperation he planned to sell their bodies so they would have money for food. The saint, learning of the man's poverty and of his wicked intention, secretly visited him one night and threw a sack of gold through the window. With the money the man arranged an honorable marriage for his daughter. St Nicholas also provided gold for the other daughters, thereby saving the family from falling into spiritual destruction. In bestowing charity, St Nicholas always strove to do this secretly and to conceal his good deeds.
During his life, the saint worked many miracles. One of the greatest was the deliverance from death of three men unjustly condemned by the governor, who had been bribed. The saint boldly went up to the executioner and took his sword, already suspended over the heads of the condemned. The governor, denounced by St Nicholas for his wrong doing, repented and begged for forgiveness.
There was a certain formerly rich inhabitant of Patara, whom St Nicholas saved from great sin. The man had three grown daughters, and in desperation he planned to sell their bodies so they would have money for food. The saint, learning of the man's poverty and of his wicked intention, secretly visited him one night and threw a sack of gold through the window. With the money the man arranged an honorable marriage for his daughter. St Nicholas also provided gold for the other daughters, thereby saving the family from falling into spiritual destruction. In bestowing charity, St Nicholas always strove to do this secretly and to conceal his good deeds.
During his life, the saint worked many miracles. One of the greatest was the deliverance from death of three men unjustly condemned by the governor, who had been bribed. The saint boldly went up to the executioner and took his sword, already suspended over the heads of the condemned. The governor, denounced by St Nicholas for his wrong doing, repented and begged for forgiveness.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Leave Education to Principals, Teachers, Parents
by Leonard Pitts
As I wandered about looking lost, I chanced upon a teacher who volunteered to lead me where I needed to be. When I told her why I was here -- a series of columns on What Works to change the culture of dysfunction that entraps too many African-American kids -- she told me I had come to the right place: KIPP Gaston College Preparatory and KIPP Pride, two charter schools serving 600 kids here in farm country. She said she believes so much in what KIPP schools are doing -- longer school day and year, higher expectations, more teacher freedom -- that she came from Iowa to teach here.
In my last column, I told you about KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program), a network of 57 charter schools across the country that are reporting stellar results with their 14,000 mostly black and Hispanic students. Today I want to talk about the role teachers play in that, and all, academic success.
I'm not unmindful -- a handful of readers brought this up -- that parental involvement is also a key ingredient in that success. Some sorry parents never meet a child's teacher until graduation day -- if then. But even the most involved parent is limited in his or her ability to make a difference when teacher quality is, in the words of GCP Principal Caleb Dolan, "a crap shoot.''
''I understand how parents feel,'' he said. ''If my child gets this side of the hall, they're in great shape. If they get that side of the hall . . . '' He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to.
Having spent the last year studying educational success stories, I find myself increasingly convinced that much of what ails American schools can be traced to a bureaucracy that: a) doesn't pay enough; b) does too little to encourage and reward creativity; c) doesn't give principals authority over who works in their schools; d) makes it nearly impossible to fire bad teachers.
As Dolan put it, "I don't think you can pay a good teacher enough, and I don't think you can fire a bad teacher fast enough.''
''Teachers are generally very optimistic,'' said KIPP co-founder Dave Levin. ``Unfortunately what happens is, you don't have a lot of examples in this country of systemic success and success at scale. You might have a good teacher there or a good teacher here, but you don't get enough concentration within a school or a district to have a cycle of success.''
Spend enough time pushing boulders uphill, and it wears you out. Enthusiasm becomes indifference, energy burns out like candles, and success is defined down. Said Levin, "What you see in too many neighborhoods when people talk about schools, they want to talk about these tiny, incremental changes -- which are necessary. But for individual kids, when you gain two or three points on a reading test, it doesn't necessarily change your life options. As their teachers, we can't just go blindly celebrating that without saying that we expect more.''
No one becomes a teacher to get rich. You become a teacher because you want to give back, you want to shape future generations, you want to change the world. But the reality of our educational system and the grimy culture in which it operates is that that prime directive often winds up subordinate to the directives of a creativity-choking bureaucracy that seems less interested in educating disadvantaged kids than in warehousing them.
And then, here comes a program that's educating such kids so effectively a woman moves halfway across the country to be a part. The lesson could not be clearer.
You want to fix American education? Step one: Empower principals to hire good teachers. Step two: Require raised expectations.
Step three? Get out of the way.
As I wandered about looking lost, I chanced upon a teacher who volunteered to lead me where I needed to be. When I told her why I was here -- a series of columns on What Works to change the culture of dysfunction that entraps too many African-American kids -- she told me I had come to the right place: KIPP Gaston College Preparatory and KIPP Pride, two charter schools serving 600 kids here in farm country. She said she believes so much in what KIPP schools are doing -- longer school day and year, higher expectations, more teacher freedom -- that she came from Iowa to teach here.
In my last column, I told you about KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program), a network of 57 charter schools across the country that are reporting stellar results with their 14,000 mostly black and Hispanic students. Today I want to talk about the role teachers play in that, and all, academic success.
I'm not unmindful -- a handful of readers brought this up -- that parental involvement is also a key ingredient in that success. Some sorry parents never meet a child's teacher until graduation day -- if then. But even the most involved parent is limited in his or her ability to make a difference when teacher quality is, in the words of GCP Principal Caleb Dolan, "a crap shoot.''
''I understand how parents feel,'' he said. ''If my child gets this side of the hall, they're in great shape. If they get that side of the hall . . . '' He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to.
Having spent the last year studying educational success stories, I find myself increasingly convinced that much of what ails American schools can be traced to a bureaucracy that: a) doesn't pay enough; b) does too little to encourage and reward creativity; c) doesn't give principals authority over who works in their schools; d) makes it nearly impossible to fire bad teachers.
As Dolan put it, "I don't think you can pay a good teacher enough, and I don't think you can fire a bad teacher fast enough.''
''Teachers are generally very optimistic,'' said KIPP co-founder Dave Levin. ``Unfortunately what happens is, you don't have a lot of examples in this country of systemic success and success at scale. You might have a good teacher there or a good teacher here, but you don't get enough concentration within a school or a district to have a cycle of success.''
Spend enough time pushing boulders uphill, and it wears you out. Enthusiasm becomes indifference, energy burns out like candles, and success is defined down. Said Levin, "What you see in too many neighborhoods when people talk about schools, they want to talk about these tiny, incremental changes -- which are necessary. But for individual kids, when you gain two or three points on a reading test, it doesn't necessarily change your life options. As their teachers, we can't just go blindly celebrating that without saying that we expect more.''
No one becomes a teacher to get rich. You become a teacher because you want to give back, you want to shape future generations, you want to change the world. But the reality of our educational system and the grimy culture in which it operates is that that prime directive often winds up subordinate to the directives of a creativity-choking bureaucracy that seems less interested in educating disadvantaged kids than in warehousing them.
And then, here comes a program that's educating such kids so effectively a woman moves halfway across the country to be a part. The lesson could not be clearer.
You want to fix American education? Step one: Empower principals to hire good teachers. Step two: Require raised expectations.
Step three? Get out of the way.
Schools Where Students Learn
by Leonard Pitts
"Who you is?''
That's how a student greeted me years ago in a Miami classroom. I waited to see how the teacher would respond to this insult against grammar, but she did the last thing I expected: She answered the question, as if it had been posed in English.
So it makes an impression on me, standing in a classroom here, when a student says ''ain't'' and a teacher promptly and gently corrects him. It is a small difference, but on the basis of many small differences, Gaston College Preparatory and KIPP Pride, a middle and high school side by side in a former peanut field, have carved out one big difference: They work.
According to the state, 83.9 percent of GCP students are performing at or above grade level in math, versus a state average of 66.4. In English, the numbers are 87 percent to 72. KIPP Pride posts similarly impressive stats.
This, by the way, is the latest installment in What Works, my series about programs that are tackling the challenges faced by black kids. GCP and KIPP Pride certainly qualify, and Caleb Dolan, principal of GCP, wants you to know it isn't because they use selective admission to cull the cream of the crop. As public charter schools, they take students on a first-come basis. Kids come here reading below grade level. Or not reading at all.
So what makes a difference is, well. . . the differences: a longer school day and year; high expectations as a matter of policy; reintegration of sports, art, band, phys ed and other curricula that have disappeared from other schools; a culture of trust where students store their belongings in open lockers (if you are caught stealing, you must explain yourself to the entire school; Dolan says it's a potent deterrent); higher teacher pay; a lack of red tape.
''I worked for a good principal,'' says Dolan. "Strong disciplinarian, cared about the kids. She couldn't hire who was in her building. That [decision] was made in some central office. She couldn't get rid of the teacher who took naps. Versus, last year I fired my seventh-grade writing teacher because he didn't get it done in the classroom. There's too little time to waste with a bad teacher.''
A few years ago Dolan and Tammi Sutton, principal of KIPP Pride, were teachers dangling ''quite honestly, at the end of our rope,'' frustrated with the failings of ordinary schools. Dolan remembers working hard with one underachieving girl and seeing her blossom into "this dynamic student.''
''Then she's pregnant by ninth grade.'' He takes such failures personally, he says.
So he was primed to listen when he got a call from Mike Feinberg: ''You guys want to start a school?'' Specifically, a KIPP school.
Feinberg and his partner, Dave Levin, had been where Dolan was -- frustrated teachers. Says Levin, ''We kept asking ourselves, what more could we do? And one thing led to another.'' In 1994, it led to KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program), now a network of 57 free charter schools serving 14,000 kids across 17 states and Washington, D.C.
None of whom, presumably, could get away with saying ''Who you is?'' in front of a teacher. When that happens, it speaks eloquently to what that teacher sees in, and expects from, that child.
So consider Sherron Lynch, a 7th grader who thought her mother was ''crazy'' when she enrolled her in GCP. ''I thought it was a regular school, just longer time and mean teachers. But it was so different. Some teachers . . . only reason they're teaching is so they can get some money. But at GCP, they care about the student's education, and that really makes a difference.'' Lynch's reading scores have improved by 25 points in the last year.
That speaks eloquently, too.
"Who you is?''
That's how a student greeted me years ago in a Miami classroom. I waited to see how the teacher would respond to this insult against grammar, but she did the last thing I expected: She answered the question, as if it had been posed in English.
So it makes an impression on me, standing in a classroom here, when a student says ''ain't'' and a teacher promptly and gently corrects him. It is a small difference, but on the basis of many small differences, Gaston College Preparatory and KIPP Pride, a middle and high school side by side in a former peanut field, have carved out one big difference: They work.
According to the state, 83.9 percent of GCP students are performing at or above grade level in math, versus a state average of 66.4. In English, the numbers are 87 percent to 72. KIPP Pride posts similarly impressive stats.
This, by the way, is the latest installment in What Works, my series about programs that are tackling the challenges faced by black kids. GCP and KIPP Pride certainly qualify, and Caleb Dolan, principal of GCP, wants you to know it isn't because they use selective admission to cull the cream of the crop. As public charter schools, they take students on a first-come basis. Kids come here reading below grade level. Or not reading at all.
So what makes a difference is, well. . . the differences: a longer school day and year; high expectations as a matter of policy; reintegration of sports, art, band, phys ed and other curricula that have disappeared from other schools; a culture of trust where students store their belongings in open lockers (if you are caught stealing, you must explain yourself to the entire school; Dolan says it's a potent deterrent); higher teacher pay; a lack of red tape.
''I worked for a good principal,'' says Dolan. "Strong disciplinarian, cared about the kids. She couldn't hire who was in her building. That [decision] was made in some central office. She couldn't get rid of the teacher who took naps. Versus, last year I fired my seventh-grade writing teacher because he didn't get it done in the classroom. There's too little time to waste with a bad teacher.''
A few years ago Dolan and Tammi Sutton, principal of KIPP Pride, were teachers dangling ''quite honestly, at the end of our rope,'' frustrated with the failings of ordinary schools. Dolan remembers working hard with one underachieving girl and seeing her blossom into "this dynamic student.''
''Then she's pregnant by ninth grade.'' He takes such failures personally, he says.
So he was primed to listen when he got a call from Mike Feinberg: ''You guys want to start a school?'' Specifically, a KIPP school.
Feinberg and his partner, Dave Levin, had been where Dolan was -- frustrated teachers. Says Levin, ''We kept asking ourselves, what more could we do? And one thing led to another.'' In 1994, it led to KIPP (the Knowledge Is Power Program), now a network of 57 free charter schools serving 14,000 kids across 17 states and Washington, D.C.
None of whom, presumably, could get away with saying ''Who you is?'' in front of a teacher. When that happens, it speaks eloquently to what that teacher sees in, and expects from, that child.
So consider Sherron Lynch, a 7th grader who thought her mother was ''crazy'' when she enrolled her in GCP. ''I thought it was a regular school, just longer time and mean teachers. But it was so different. Some teachers . . . only reason they're teaching is so they can get some money. But at GCP, they care about the student's education, and that really makes a difference.'' Lynch's reading scores have improved by 25 points in the last year.
That speaks eloquently, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
