Episode 013 Transcript

Mother’s Day with Gretchen (6/2/18)

CINDY ASSINI: This is Cindy Assini, proud mom and proud educator. Welcome to the Point of Learning podcast with my friend Peter Horn. [To son:] Is that so funny?

PETER HORN [voiceover]: On today's show …

GRETCHEN MEISTER BRAND: Everybody needs to know that he or she is worthy, and he or she is cared for. We all respond to the encouragement that comes from the faith that somebody has in you, and then the request to move a little farther, to climb a little higher, to be a little better.

[VO]: Welcome to Season 2 of the Point of Learning podcast! In more and less direct ways, the 12 monthly installments of the first season explored strong early influences on me as an educator, highlighting ideas interesting, I hope, to anyone curious about what and how and why we learn. During this Mother’s Day special, I am circling back to the first influence on me as a teacher, as a learner, as a person. When I asked my mother Gretchen which aspects of her biography to play up or down in introducing her, she led with a reply that was at once surprising and totally characteristic.

GRETCHEN: I think that you should know that I was—I don't think I've ever said this before, but born to be loved. I was very much cherished as a kid. And I was born to teach, because I was the oldest of the three in the family, and at many points I got to teach my brothers. I'm not sure they would agree to that, but probably they would at least smile!

[VO]: All our mothers teach us things, if we’re lucky enough to know them. My mom taught me how to bake crusty bread and a flaky pie crust that still gets love on Facebook from friends who last tasted it 15 years ago. She was my first violin teacher. In fact, during group violin lessons she led, when I was about 11 or 12, she allowed me to do my first teaching—10-minute mini-lectures on the lives of the great composers. (So she may be partially to blame for the podcast habit I developed decades later!) She taught me how to disagree with people respectfully, which I still hold to be at the center of the civil discourse our country so badly needs right now. Some of my most popular blog posts feature ways to honor others that she modeled, not to mention dozens of the stories I’ve shared with my own students over the years. In addition to running her private business, the Violin Studio in Buffalo, New York for over 20 years, Mom has taught Sunday school, and US history, Global Studies, and psychology, in independent as well as public high schools. Still, as good as she is as a teacher, I’ve long been struck that when she was a kid, what she wanted to be first and more than anything else, was a mother, as she emphasizes in this quick story that got me giggling. 

GRETCHEN: I grew up wanting to be a mother so much that when my parents gave me a big doll—I called it my Bobby Doll. So there were the three Meister kids and this doll. And I made my mother tell the babysitter that it was our fourth child in the family, and I don't think the babysitter, Mrs. Heilman, believed that, but I was excited about having another baby in the family. [To Peter:] I didn't tell you that, you're laughing!

PETER: If she had believed it, maybe Momma and Poppa would not have left the house. I mean, right? Probably not.  

GRETCHEN That's right. You've got a good point, although I have to say by that time, I could probably have handled things. At least, of course, I thought I could, but—I had this strong matriarchal archetype, and it I think really promoted my years until I could be a mother.

[VO]: My mother Gretchen was born to The Rev. John (fondly known as “Jack”) and Miriam George Meister in Steubenville, Ohio, moments before the Baby Boom began in the mid-1940s. She grew up with her younger brothers Gregg and Peter, mostly in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a gang of preacher’s kids renowned for their kickball skills and occasionally willful dispositions. Mom notes that she and her brothers were deeply influenced by the life of service to others that they felt was their duty and mission. This was a time—the 1940s and ‘50s—when ministers and their families occupied an unusual status in the United States. There wasn’t necessarily a lot of money, but most people in town knew who you were. The role of minister’s wife, which my grandmother (and later my mother herself) held, was not only homemaker, but hostess for all manner of church gatherings, and very often counselor—to the minister, as well as at least half the congregation. We’ll get into a bit more on that in a few minutes …

PETER: I like to ask guests—because of course, this is a podcast about what and how and why we learn—I like to ask guests about a strong memory of a teacher. It could be positive or negative, and any kind of teacher. If I asked you that question, who comes to mind?

GRETCHEN: I think the person that comes to mind is Lutie Young, who was my high school teacher in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for my sophomore math experience. And it really was an experience more than a class, because I went into it thinking that she physically was challenged, and I think I was just beginning to come of age or something with how people looked and she—

PETER: “Physically challenged” in terms of just not being attractive, or—?

GRETCHEN: Well, she was she definitely was not attractive. And her eyes crossed. And I didn't like the subject, and I thought I wasn't good at geometry. Yes. And so my defense mechanism was to corral the kids in the class to help me make fun of her and to help us not pay very much attention to the subject, and I suppose we'd been into it a couple months when she called me to talk with her after school, and—

PETER: So you were kind of a ringleader. I mean, I've heard variations of this story before, you’ve shared it with me. I think I processed that you were acting up a little bit, but you were also prompting others to follow your lead …

GRETCHEN: Yes, yes. It must've been a difficult period for her, you know, period of the day, classroom period, because it bordered on impossible. You know, we giggled, we’d pass notes, we didn't pay attention. We really didn't respond to her work. And so she called me in to talk with her and she told me how— She told me first how very much she'd been looking forward to having me in class, because she was a member of the church, and she admired my parents so much, and she couldn't wait till she had Gretchen Meister in her geometry class. And right then I began to feel sad, because I felt I was letting her down, but letting Mom and Dad down too. So she said, “You know, you can do this math, you can do this. I need your help. I'd like to have us have a fresh start.” And the next day, we had a fresh start. And I went in and paid attention to her, and I actually sort of fell in love with her. I did very well in geometry, although that was really the last math I remember getting excited about, but she, eight years later came to my wedding to your father and she gave me a wedding present and she rejoiced with me, and she was there at the reception. And I really treasure Ms. Young. I'm sure she's moved on, but I give such thanks for her, because she cared so much and she helped turn me around. She transformed my experience in high school. It could have gone from bad to worse, and instead it ended up very well.

PETER: And how skillfully done! Rather than try to challenge you in front of the whole class, to pull you aside and to begin with what sounds like it wasn't a guilt trip. It sounds like it was a very sincere statement on her part, how she was looking forward, and now look how things turned out, but also treating you as a sophomore, as a young adult who could hear that, who could hear what she actually felt. Do you remember anything else that she said? I'm just curious, you know, anything that she said besides, you know, “Can we start over?”

GRETCHEN: Well, she assured me that I could handle the material. I think that on a number of different levels I was resistant. You know, I thought, “This is a strange—What are you talking about? Proofs? This is strange.” I'd been much more familiar with words than numbers and shapes, and so she assured me that I could handle it. She didn't seem to have any question about that. Maybe that was a relief. Oh, she also told me that I was a leader and that she was concerned about the nature of that class and, of course, now many years later I can understand that. I must have been able to understand it at some level then. I knew I was a leader, and I guess she made me want to be a leader for good.

[VO]: I love this approach to a discipline encounter, whether you’re engaging with a student or your child. In addition to taking the young person seriously and speaking from the heart, Ms. Young’s approach addressed the issue of confidence, which is the heart of kids believing that they can learn or do something. When learners lack confidence, they may protect themselves by acting out as my mother did, and as I myself did so many times in school and elsewhere—or they may choose to disengage entirely, which it’s important for adults who care for them to remember is also a form of engagement based on the relative power that kids perceive in the interaction. It’s up to the wise adult to take a breath, allow a little space, and circle back for another attempt at connection when the time and setting might work a little better. I loved having the chance to talk with my mom for this show while trying to stay focused on teaching and learning, but then discovering many times how my mother’s own mother kept figuring into what we talked about. My grandmother Miriam would have turned 101 on June 2nd.

GRETCHEN: I remember hearing my mother say that she very much wanted to be a good mother. And she had her hands full. She had three of us under five years old and I think her first reflex, she felt, was to scold in order to find ways to help us behave the way she wanted us to. But very early she said she realized that by praising me she got a better response, that if she could do that first, then she could turn it into whatever desirable behavior she wanted. Instead of hitting my brothers, for example. Or instead of teasing them, she would use that. She—

PETER: This would be you hitting them, right? Just want to be clear.

GRETCHEN: Yes. Me hitting them. [Laughing] I guess I did start off by saying how I taught them! But I think instead of “starting a fight,” that was one of her phrases. I wasn't the only one of the three of us start a fight, mind you, but when I would do that, or when I would tease them or somebody else or “provoke” somebody else—that's a word that's coming to me from her that I haven't recalled for a long time. She decided, I think very early on with me to show the possibility of what I could be, of how I could be liked. I could be a leader and so she brought out the best. I could help her cook, I could make things, and then it began to be “Gretchen, I don't know what I would do! I don't know how I would take care of this whole house and the boys without your help. I really need you. I really need your help.” And that's all I needed to hear was that I was needed and counted on, and I responded to that. And I think responding to that, it was part of my inner being that I would treat others that way. So I definitely think that it came as a gift from Mom, as part of her way.

PETER: When do you remember her talking with you about realizing that? You know, talking with you about realizing that you responded better to—

GRETCHEN: Oh, I think I was maybe only seven or eight when I would heard, “You know, what I've decided to do, Gretchen, is count on praise more than punishment.”

PETER: Wow, so she said it to you in those terms when you were—that’s very interesting.

GRETCHEN: Yes, she would say that she'd been “confounded.” She really had a lot on her. She was a minister's wife in the days that ministers' wives were—

PETER: —a full time job—

GRETCHEN: Full-time employed, and she felt it very keenly. She was willing to do anything to be a worthy, helpful minister's wife. And she had a huge house as far back as Sidney, Ohio. I went to it a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe how big it was! So she had that, and she had the three of us under five, so she was in a position that she had no training for either, because she grew up without a dad in the house. Her father died when she was nine months old, leaving the mother with twins, and it was the grandmother that took care of the kids while the mother herself went out to work and was a professional woman in East Liverpool, Ohio, working as the Lead Secretary for the Potter China Company. So Mother had no experience in keeping house, in taking care of little ones, in being a wife. She didn't see a wife functioning, so she was almost in over her head, and I did respond to the praise and I think really knew she meant it, she needed it, and it seemed to be a wonderful—a combining of some of my gifts.

[VO]: Gretchen was also a professional musician, who performed with regional as well as professional orchestras, including the Buffalo Philharmonic, which she joined in a tour under the direction of Russian-born maestro Semyon Bychkov. She had not played the violin for at least three years when I asked her to break out the ol’ fiddle one more time for this episode’s soundtrack. We had such a blast that every non-Shayfer James piece you’re hearing in this episode came from mother and son playing together that afternoon. If you heard the conversation I had with my brothers for the Thanksgiving special (episode 007), you know music played a pivotal part in our growing up. Mom was behind arranging all those lessons, and making sure we got there, as well as thousands of rehearsals for orchestras and bands and summer workshops over the years. Behind her, as you’ll hear, was my grandmother. 

PETER: Tell me about your experience with the Suzuki method.

GRETCHEN: Well, again, I would point to Mother talking on the phone with me about it, and an amazing concert that she saw in Philadelphia and I was living in Buffalo. We had just moved to Buffalo, and I wanted you children to have music and your brothers had started piano lessons in Whippany, New Jersey with truly a saint of this world, Ruth Snow, who came to the house to teach your brothers piano. So I knew that I wanted something for the three of you here. It was impossible to think of life without music. And your father agreed. So your grandmother, my mother, talked about seeing little children playing Mozart on the stage in Philadelphia! She said it was magical! And within a week—this is some synchronicity, synchro-destiny—within a week I saw in the paper an advertisement for an accomplished violinist who would be willing to train in the Suzuki method at the Community Music School.

PETER: A want ad, in other words.  

GRETCHEN: Yes, an ad in the paper. And I talked with your father, and I called up and I answered the ad and they were happy to have me be on the staff there and they indeed sent me, and as it turned out, all of our family to Stevens Point in Wisconsin, which was in the heyday of the Suzuki movement in this country. We may still be in the heyday, but that was certainly some of the beginning of it. And I was able to work with Kay Sloan, among other people. And then in the course of my teaching Suzuki, I was with Dr. Suzuki himself several times. The Suzuki Method is named for Shinichi Suzuki, who died in 1998 at the age of something like 98. And he designed the method for teaching music, not for creating prodigies, but to ensure world peace. His method is called Talent Education. And it's the method also named Nurtured by Love. My memory is, and I'd have to check it, that it was in 1920 and ‘21 and his family was making violins and he began to take seriously what it meant for little people to play. And little people learn to play by listening to their parents, so they were imitating. They wanted to play the same way.

PETER: There's a couple things that are really remarkable to me about that. One is that, you know, to go back to thinking about the things that Momma loved most, I would include children and music. So little kids playing Mozart would have been like her vision of unicorns sliding down a rainbow! That would've been just delightful.

GRETCHEN: Oh, absolutely! Rhapsody!

PETER: I could imagine her approaching you with that. But the other part—because we have this idea sometimes about, you know, musicians, the violinist in particular (as I've explored in episode 009). There's something unusual about the place of the violinist in our culture. We think of this talented, virtuosic person, um, you either have it or you don't, you know, that kind of thing. Whereas Dr. Suzuki’s approach was saying, “It's not about that. Anybody can do it.” How would you compare the individual work with private [violin] students, in comparison or in contrast with working with a class full of Global Studies students or psychology students in a high school setting?

GRETCHEN: Well, it's an excellent question and I'm not sure I have a definitive answer. I did think that there would be many more similarities than there were when I applied to teach in the classroom in social studies and in English. Everybody needs to know that he or she is worthy and he or she is cared for, and you don't have a half an hour or an hour of a private session with one person to communicate that. But there are other ways to communicate it, such as eye contact, such as phrasing, such as praising, such as pulling out the positive before there's a request to inch ahead on the progress. And that's true for all of us. We all respond to the encouragement that comes from the faith that somebody has in you, and then the request to move a little farther, to climb a little higher, to be a little better.

PETER: When you say “phrasing,” for example, as one of the signals that you can use to say that you care about a class, that you're there for them. What's an example of something that you might say?

GRETCHEN: Well, I can think of examples of things that are unfortunate to say because they're—

PETER: Ok, counter-examples are good too!

GRETCHEN: —unfortunate to be heard, like “No, that's not right!” or “That's wrong! I told you that before, haven't we been through this?”

PETER: So what would you do if somebody, you know, they say something, a student says something that is what might be called “the wrong answer,” or not the answer you're looking for—how might you phrase that?

GRECHEN: “That's almost it! That is almost it! So if you're putting it together with the other event that happened that year, and you know that was the breakup of World War II, you know that that must've been 1939, so you're right, that must've been when …”

[VO]: So here once again you hear my mother’s affirmative approach, so omnipresent in my growing up as to be the water I swam in. I have a sister-in-law who has chided that the rule in our family is “Praise or be praised,” which is not too far off the mark! When it is genuine, I have found praise to be highly effective in getting others’ attention. With students, or others whose behavior you’d like to influence, it’s one way to go “soft on the people” before you go “hard on the problem,” as Roger Fisher and William Ury put it in their classic on win-win negotiation called Getting to YES! (see the related post on the show page). I asked Mom if this was something she learned from her parents.

GRETCHEN: I think so. I think I would give both Mom and Dad credit for valuing the person and the self-esteem of the other person and the confidence of the other person more than any particular, exact, objective fact. I think both of them went about their lives caring for all people in such a way that we came into that naturally. We were swept up in that conviction. I do believe that all things are possible to him or her who believes. And so if the inner soul is intact for a person, then possibility is endless. If there's no confidence, and if there have been too many hits on that person, too many points of frustration, then you're at a stopped place. I think some people who believe in punishment think that punishment will be enabling. Maybe that's the best you can say about those people who believe that punishment is the answer. There has to be discipline. There has to be expectation, with students and with children, and with violin students. But there are so many ways to enable, and so many ways to crush.

[VO]: I’m very grateful for this chance to have a conversation with my most influential teacher. Before the credits today, I want to share just a few lines from a favorite mother poem that I used many times with students in May. In a poem called “Translations from the Mother Tongue,” Suji Kwock Kim writes, “I listen for your mother in your voice and cannot know/ if I find her. Not much lives on, from one generation/ to the next. Not much, but not/ nothing” […] “I want to know what survives, what’s handed down/ from mother to daughter, if anything is, bond I cannot cut away, that keeps apart what it lashes together./ And I want to know what cannot be handed down, the part of you/ that’s only you, lonely fist of sinew and blood,/ deep in your gut where cords lash bone, nerve, breath,/ the part of you that first began to sing.” Thanks once more to Gretchen Meister Brand for joining me this month to talk, as well as letting me goad her into picking up her magic violin another time. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for theme musics! Thanks to you for listening, subscribing, rating, and sharing this podcast with everyone you know curious about what and how and why we learn. The next show will showcase my interview with Pulitzer prize winning journalist Jake Halpern—you’re not gonna wanna miss it!  

Episode 012 Transcript

ALL THIS: Poets Aja Monet & Meghann Plunkett (4/30/18)

PETER MEISTER: Squirrel in winter:/ A crust, at least, with my tea/ And a little nap--

PETER HORN [voiceover]: That's right. It's the Point of Learning Poetry Special. Props to my uncle Peter Meister, whose haiku “Squirrel in winter” first got me wondering about what poems could do. On today's show, two rising stars of poetry:

MEGHANN PLUNKETT [describing Aja Monet]:  She is not afraid to go there, to say the thing, to be direct, whether it's a difficult image that she just really wants to drive home, or if it's something that people just aren't writing about. What she was talking about earlier—she was saying that she is looking for the story that no one is telling, or a story that is in the world, but no one's really paying attention to. I think that that's really self-aware of her to realize that that's what she's so good at. And she's so brave in her work.

AJA MONET: When I met Meghann, I was very much in a binary world. The way I looked at the world was very binary. So, you know, it was right or wrong, God or the devil; it was black or white; it was rich or poor, like the world was just very binary. That was the way that I had learned the world, and it wasn't until I met Meghann that all of that kind of washed away and became like … everything was kind of an inverse of each other and I had to really start to question, wait, What does it mean to be right? What does it mean to be wrong? Is that possible? What does it mean to be this or that? You can't, you can't just be one or the other.

[VO]: Aja Monet is a poet, singer, and performer. At age 19, she was youngest individual to win the legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Café Grand Slam title. That was 11 years ago, and according to Wikipedia, no other woman has done so since. Her books of poetry include Inner-City Chants & Cyborg Cyphers, The Black Unicorn Sings, and My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter, which was nominated for a NAACP Image Award. Monet has performed at the Town Hall Theater, the Apollo Theater, the United Nations, and the NAACP’s Barack Obama inaugural event. I was delighted, but not surprised to look up at the Washington, DC Women’s March in 2017 to see her glorious visage on the jumbotron as she prepared to read, reminding the massive crowds that words have electoral power. Meghann Plunkett is a poet who seems to be winning a prize every other time I check Facebook. Recent triumphs include the Missouri Review and Third Coast Magazine. She has been a finalist for Narrative Magazine's 30 Below Contest as well the North American Review’s Hearst Poetry Prize. Meghann is just about to graduate with her MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where she was awarded the 2016 Academy of American Poets Prize and serves as an assistant editor of the Crab Orchard Review, as well as a poetry reader for Adroit Journal. Her work can also be found in Tinderbox, Pleiades, Washington Square Review, and Luna Luna Magazine, among many others. She is the writer in residence at Omega Institution and the director of The Black Dog Tall Ship Writing Retreat on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

These two phenomenal poets are also close friends. When they were first-year students at Sarah Lawrence College, they admired each other’s work at an open mic during Orientation Week and soon realized that they were both passionate about the right words in the right order.

Aja is currently based in Miami, where she is equally invested in the community as artist and social activist. I caught up with her several weeks ago when she was back in New York City to host the finals for Urban Word NYC, a spoken word collective that played a significant role in her own artistic development when she was a teenager. We talked backstage at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem moments before the event began, so you’ll hear some hustle and bustle in the background on our end. We called Meghann in Illinois, where she had just defended her poetry thesis. They’re both so busy that it wasn’t easy to coordinate schedules, but I really wanted to interview them at the same time, because they have influenced each other’s work for the past dozen years or so, and because it was Meghann who introduced me to Aja through one of Aja’s poems when I invited Meghann in to lead workshops with my students five years ago. Here’s a taste of “What I’ve Learned,” a list poem by Aja Monet well worth hearing and watching on YouTube in its entirety. As Meghann predicted, my students and I kinda went nuts for it.  

[Excerpt from "What I've Learned" by Aja Monet, produced by Cam Be and used with permission.]

MEGHANN: That poem “What I’ve learned.” I love it. I love teaching that poem of Aja’s because it's so beautiful and subtle and so relatable. She talks about knowing how, learning how to glue a dish back together and then she further explains it. “I know how to put things back together,” which is not just about the plate; it's about her life, it's about everything. It's about her emotions. And I think that no one talks about the world better than contemporary poets—our current world. So that's why I like teaching that poem.

[VO]: I like to ask guests about their teachers.

AJA: My teachers have been pivotal to my entire life. I mean, every teacher I've come across has shaped and/or helped me understand what I wanted or what I was aspiring towards, or what I didn't want out of life. In elementary school there was a woman named Haryn Intner—and she reached out to me actually, not too long ago on Facebook—but I was kind of going through a lot of stuff at home. And I actually, I think I like stole some money from a kid in class or did something really stupid, and she took an extra interest in trying to understand why, or what was the issue, versus making me--like I was really embarrassed that I got caught, I felt horrible--but versus making me feel really bad about it, she actually spent more time with me and she took more time to show me attention and care, and she would spend time with me after school. She called my mom and like not to be complaining but to just show how much she cared and she wanted to know what was going on at home. So then she invited me to go with her one day. I guess her and my mom got cool. She started hearing my mom's story, a single mom raising these kids by herself, struggling to do so. And she invited me to go spend the night with her so that she could tutor me because I was really wanting to do more writing and I was not the best essay writer. So she was like helping me revise things at the end of the class. And then I think there was one essay or project and she let me go home with her and then I stood with her and her family, they made me dinner, and she took me around her neighborhood. And then after that I think, you know, we just always, she just always kind of like made me feel like I was important and that, you know, my schooling mattered.

[VO]: As a teacher hearing this in retrospect, I can’t help wondering what might have happened if things had gone the other way—if instead of embracing Aja and trying to figure out why she had made this mistake, the teacher had sent her to the office to be punished. God bless you, Haryn Intner! For more about this kind of approach, reclaiming students as learners, check out Episode 010.

AJA: And then there was a principal, Tanya Kaufman--she was a superintendent for a short time--at PS 183. There's articles about her, and actually what she did at her public school, which was a big deal at the time, and her approach to education, and the way that she was talking about the public school system and all this. And I would say she's someone that stood out in my life. Recently, she passed away, but she's someone that was in my life from the time I was in elementary school to the time I was in college, and consistently would call or just check in on me. Like there was a time I was at Sarah Lawrence and I couldn't even afford to finish some of my credits and randomly she sent the money and told me not to tell my mom, and she was just one of those people that looked out for me.

[VO]: As reported by the non-failing New York Times, Aja’s principal, Tanya Kaufman was the kind of educator who led a school without bells, and would replace the word UNSATISFACTORY on report cards with the description NOT YET—which feels to me like a promise.

AJA: I think what was special about growing up in New York was there was always, maybe it was just my luck or I don't know, but I felt like there was always angels around that were in the public school system, trying to use the school system to, you know, to help change the conditions of young people and like what was possible. So I think most of my educators were really young, they came from liberal schools, they were very fiery, bright-eyed people. They weren't just—I was very fortunate because they weren't just in there for a paycheck, you know. So yeah, Meghann?

MEGHANN: Wow, that was amazing. There's stories that I didn't know. I’m getting stories that I've never heard. I had some great high school teachers. I did a lot of math and science in high school, so it wasn't until I went to Sarah Lawrence that I felt like I really connected with professors that were introducing me to writing as something that was actually possible to do for your life. So I'd say that Jeff, Jeff McDaniel—who was also Aja’s professor, we had that class together—he was one of those teachers that really kind of broke things open for me. And Matthea Harvey also: she was incredibly kind and incredibly insightful, especially during a transition of high school to college. She was really supportive at Sarah Lawrence and that was really helpful to me.

PETER: Aja, you've written that “when a woman writes a poem/ she spends time with the gods/ on your behalf.” I love that. As a teacher, I favored a Emily Dickinson's definition, "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” That’s how I feel when I read my favorite poems by Mary Oliver or Robert Hayden, or by you two. What is your favorite description, or working definition, or non-definition of poetry?

AJA: Well, let me first say, I never thought I'd be mentioned the same phrase as Mary Oliver or Robert Hayden, so that's pretty cool. I think, I don’t know, I feel like there's a difference between poetry and a poem. I feel like a poem is more concerned with the writing of a thing. It's a piece of writing that is, you know, very literal but not literal, but it's a piece of writing that is concerned with, you know, poetic techniques and elevating the everyday language we use to create some new meaning of our human experience. So I think that there's a concern with something very specific in what you're creating, that there are metaphor, alliteration, random imagery, that all these things are kind of in that. And then I think poetry can be, it doesn't have to be a written piece of literature; it can be a song, it can be art, it could be, you know, it could be the way somebody cooks, it could be the way somebody gardens. I feel like poetry in and of itself is a little bit more universal, and it's more about a perspective or an approach to life that forces someone to look beyond what is readily visible or available to people. So I don't know, Meghann, I’d be interested in what you define ... You're probably better at communicating this than me!

MEGHANN: No, I think that that's really—I agree with what you just said, and you said it so beautifully. I do think that there is poetry in other things, not just things that happen to be crafted with words. I keep thinking of this Adrienne Rich quote where she says, “When a woman tells the truth, it opens up the possibility of truth around her ”? or let me see if I can look it up. “When a woman tells the truth, she's creating the possibility for more truth around her.” And I think that that to me is what a poem is. When, because of it, because of its existence, more truth circles around it. And I think that that's also the feeling of having your head taken off that Emily Dickinson said in response to a poem because you're opening some small little truths around this concept that you're trying to understand. And I think that that's maybe the difference between a good poem and one that's not really hitting it on the head. You can kind of tell when a poem isn't really telling the truth, or it's talking about a truth that isn't necessarily needed right now—

[VO]: Here's an example of Meghann's truth-telling that is sorely needed right now:

["In Which I Name My Abuser Publicly" by Meghann Plunkett, from Rattle 27 June 2017] 

MEGHANN: I just taught a creative writing seminar for undergrads last year and I spent most of my time trying to get my students to not be afraid of poetry, and unlearning what they learned in high school. I am a firm believer that poetry is storytelling and it should be accessible; and if it's not accessible, then it's not doing a service to its message and the people that are reading it. So it was interesting to see that that's still happening. I was lucky enough in high school to have a teacher, his name was Ransom Griffin, which is an awesome name! He introduced us to contemporary poetry. I think that that's one of the larger mistakes that maybe teachers of high school students are making: not to introduce them to contemporary poetry—because I think a lot of contemporary poetry is accessible.

PETER: Aja, would you add anything to that?

AJA: Yeah, I think it's a little bit of— What I loved— I took a physics course in high school and before I even took physics I was like, the word— I had already made up in my mind I wasn't going to get it and I had a teacher who ended up teaching me that physics was not just about like learning formulas and like all these talking points and everything, but he was very hands-on and action-oriented and he was really big on getting us to see how things were made and then explaining the physics of them, so taking like a slingshot and then breaking it down and it made—like, his excitement for physics … he was the most charismatic, excited person every time he came into class. I'm sure there were so many days he was tired, but his energy around—and his love for physics is what made me curious, to want to learn what the hell is this thing that he is so enamored with? And even if I didn't get it, I could admire his admiration for his craft and his passion. And so I think 1) We have a lot of people teaching things that don't actually love it. And that's a really big failure of our young people in the education system. I think if someone loves poetry and actually spends time with poetry and is teaching it to young people with that same level of, you know, energy and admiration for it, that's going to translate to kids. So that's one thing that's really important. The other thing goes back to what I was saying about poetic techniques. There are ways that rhythm and alliteration and personification and all these things that seem so huge show up in everyday writing material in the names on corner stores in your community, or you know, the songs that we're all listening to, or the TV shows that we're watching. So there's ways that we can pull pieces out and say, “Look, this is what we're talking about today. We're talking about personification. Let's see how personification shows up in all these different ways.” And then that's going to give somebody the ability to say, “Oh, that's what you mean by personification!”

[VO]: For more ideas about poetry in the classroom, check out Episode 003, my conversation with Paula Roy last summer. 

PETER: I've been fortunate enough to participate in seminars led by each of you, but I was also once in a workshop led by Marie Howe, who talked about what it was like slowly coming to realize that she had something to say, that her take on the world might matter to somebody else. That made an impression on me as a reader of her work, because it's easy to assume that somebody who makes poems like Marie Howe maybe always knew that she should make poems. How did you each come to believe that you could and should write for a larger audience?

MEGHANN: I think I had the desire to write long before I actually felt like I had something of importance to say. And I don't know, I think very similar to Marie—I love Marie Howe—I think that I have a similar mission as Marie. I think largely what she wants to do is tell female stories, and that is a political act in itself. I think that it took me a really long time, and it took me as a person to become a fully confident person that wanted myself to succeed. And then I started realizing, “Oh, the story is that I want to tell, the poetry that I'm making is actually worth something.” And that was, I think, within the last five years that I've finally arrived there and maybe, you know, in the next five years I'll say, “Oh no, now I have arrived.” But I think that the desire to want to do this and my ability, my feeling that I actually have something to say were two separate journeys. There was something about hearing people read poetry. I used to watch the Def Poetry Jams that were on—it was on HBO or something—in high school and I just, my heart exploded every time I heard—

AJA: Remember when we snuck into them? And we went and saw them ourselves?

MEGHANN: Yeah, we did. We got to go backstage, Aja and I, during one of the filmings in New York. But yeah, that was, that desire was totally different from feeling confident. And I think that that really was tied to my self-worth as a person, which makes me think that my poetry and my humanity are really linked.

AJA: Well, for me, I mean it's kind of ironic that we're here at this poetry slam finals for young people from all over the city. And it wasn't until I was in high school, I had done a poem—it was in a talent show. I won the talent show with the poem, and my teachers were all like in tears and they were all just like super ecstatic. And one of my friends was like, “Oh, there's this, these …” I was like, “Wow, this is a thing? I want to find more.” And then this one kid was like, “Oh, there's this organization, you can look them up, and there's more people who are doing poetry like this, young people who are doing this all around the city.” And then I found out, I googled Urban Word NYC, found out that they were doing poetry competitions. I went and did it or “fought.” That was the first time I ever did it. And I was so ecstatic to find a community of young people who cared about words and language and raps and poems and songs and all this. And so I feel like I could, I couldn't avoid—like I didn't want to go just back home. I wanted to just spend like every day after school, I was at Urban Word and I was sitting at Teachers and Writers and I was taking workshops and preparing myself and bettering myself. And so I saw that there a craft and that there was a community and that there were mentors and people who lived and made careers off of poetry. And seeing that was like a whole other thing for me. But I want to say kind of maybe not to push back on Marie Howe, but to give an alternative: I think what's really important is not just having something to say, but also having an ear for what isn't said and to listen for the voices that are not heard and the voices that are not allowed to speak has always been a big part of my journey. Which is like realizing the stories that resonated with me or resonate with people from where I was from. And realizing that those stories weren't heard, weren’t being shared. And if they were, they were skewed, or there was a certain way that they were being shared. So it was important to me that just as much as I spoke, I listened. And I spent a lot of time trying to understand What stories do I want to tell that is different from the stories that everyone else is telling? and How do I get into a place of being as truthful with myself about what's needed in that story to come across in order for other people to be motivated to do the same thing?

PETER: Aja, what do you value most about Meghann’s work?

AJA: Well, I value Meghann as a person, and so I'm invested in what she has to say and what she's working through in her poems beyond just reading them. So there's something else there: I actually love this person. I care about this person, and I've gone through things with this person. I've struggled with this person. I’ve cried with this person, I've laughed with this person. So there's so many layers. There's so much poetry to our friendship. Our friendship is its own poetic tale, you know. Regardless of whether or not it's ever written in words, we have that as a shared story or poem. But I think what I love about Meghann’s mind and just how she talks about poetry, is that she's the first person I met in my life who got as geeked as I did about poems. We would sit—and she and she helped me get even more excited about poems—we would sit in our dorm room and she would just open up a book and we would read poems to each other back and forth, and we'd be like, “Oh my god! Remember ... Let's listen to this line!” And we would just like, ah, fall over ourselves, on lines of poetry. Just like, “What are you guys doing?” We shouda be out drinking or doing something crazy, wild night out on the town. And as kids we were just like in love with poetry to the point that—I think she has also, she, because she grew up, she didn't maybe talk about this, but she, the way she grew up was very different than me, but very similar in some ways. Her dad was a really big figure who wanted her to live–he wanted to be engineer, essentially. [To Meghann] Wasn't that what he wanted? He wanted something like that.

MEGHANN: Something science-based, yeah.

AJA: And so she just had this mind that was so inquisitive, but also very calculated, and math and just all these random facts about life and science and the world and nature. And so she would just bring up, like we were just talking about something and she's like, you know, “It's due to Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, you know.” And I'd be like, “What? Who knows that? Who says that?” And she finds ways to pull these things into her poems. She reminds me of Jeff--and maybe part of it's because we both were in class with Jeff--but in the way that Jeffrey McDaniel is: he turns your mind upside down. He has a way of making you look at the world in the inverse. Just his metaphors and surrealism. It's very surrealist. So there's these ways that something is very, very mundane or whatever. She just kind of flips it upside its head. I'm like, even the goldfish poem [“Human”]: It's like this one thing that you'll see. Someone just looks at goldfish and they never really think about a goldfish’s life, you know, they don't think about what a goldfish feels, or how that's a metaphor for our life or what we feel. So Meghann has a way of really doing that so beautifully and so clearly that it inspires me to think about, well, you know, How much stranger can I perceive the world? You know, how much more science fiction can I be? In a sense, she appeals to that sensibility of me that I really value that because I think the biggest thing I learned was ... When I met Meghann, I was very much in a binary world. The way I looked at the world was very binary. So, you know, it was right or wrong, God or the devil; it was black or white; it was rich or poor, like the world was just very binary. That was the way that I had learned the world and it wasn't until I met Meghann that all of that kind of washed away and became like … everything was kind of an inverse of each other and I had to really start to question, wait, What does it mean to be right? What does it mean to be wrong? Is that possible? What does it mean to be this, or that? You can't just be one or the other. And those are the things that we push each other on, for sure. There's definitely different levels to our friendship. I think her poetry is a reflection of her person and her person is a—it's just a beautiful, beautiful person. She's an incredible person. She's an incredible human being. There’s so much I can say so much about Meghann, and I don't often get to say as much as I would like, but she's an incredible person and I think it shows in her poetry. She's also super dark, which is I thing something I should say. She's incredibly dark, and I am incredibly dark in moments. I think we kind of fulfill each other's like—you know, we've gone through a lot of shit as women and so we have a way of making light of our darkness, in a weird way, if that makes sense.

PETER: It does.

AJA: I love you, Meg.

MEGHANN: I love you too. I'm all teary over here!

[VO]: Toward the end of our conversation, Aja had to excuse herself to prepare to host the spoken word finals, so I had the chance to pose the same question to Meghann about Aja’s work.

MEGHANN: I appreciate that Aja talked about me as a person because I sometimes can't separate her from her poetry, either. I see a lot of herself in her poetry. I remember when we first met and still sometimes—I'm inherently a shy person. I rarely spoke when I was young. I was afraid to speak out. And when I met her and we would go out and, you know, talk to people or hang out with people, I was so afraid of her ability to just say what was on her mind and not agree with someone and state her opinion and argue for what she believed in. That was an entirely new concept to me as a—I think we met when I was 17. And I think that that's one of the reasons why I love her poetry is that she is not afraid to go there, to say the thing, to be direct, whether it's a difficult image that she just really wants to drive home, or if it's something that people just aren't writing about. What she was talking about earlier—she was saying that she is looking for the story that no one is telling, or a story that is in the world, but no one's really paying attention to. I think that that's really self-aware of her to realize that that's what she's so good at. And she's so brave in her work. It's crazy. But also weird and surreal: there's a poem where she's inside the womb and there's, you know, she's like tattooing the womb, her mother's womb with her words. There are moments where there's prophecy and magic in her work, while also being so rooted in reality and so, so gritty. It's this amazing balance of reality and magic, which is I think also something that I really appreciate in her as a person. I think that she's one of the oldest souls that I've ever met, and one of the wisest people that I've ever met, but also has extremely childlike wonder and excitement and energy. It's this strange paradox that she's able to exist in both places.

[VO]: We’ve mentioned that Meghann is a poet who also loves math and science. I was struck that several years ago she began teaching herself how to write code for computer software. 

PETER: I read in your interview with Muzzle magazine that you see a connection between writing poetry and writing code, and that in each domain you are striving for elegance: that's the point. I wanted to ask you to expand on that a little bit because it's hard to resist this question. You are well-versed in, it seems to me, both the oldest and the newest kinds of writing that humans do.

MEGHANN: I like that you're putting it that way. That's interesting. I never thought of that before …  Yes, I was surprised. One of the most exciting things that I learned when I started learning to code was that there wasn't just one way to do it. I thought that I was entering into something that was really similar to mathematics where there's maybe one or two different ways to solve an equation and you know, you either get it right or you get it wrong, and that's not the case. There’s so many different ways to organize something that you're building. There are so many different ways to phrase it. There’s an editing process and it's literally called—the process is to make the code more "elegant." That's a word that is used in our development teams and it really felt very similar to the way in which we write poetry, where every word is so precious and delicate and means so much and has its purpose and is placed there for a reason and carries its own load. And phrases that are intended to take you down one path and then turn you here and direct you in certain ways. It continues to feel very similar to me in that way. On a more macro scale, I think that when you're thinking about how you're organizing something, how you're going to build something in an app, that process is kind of like the pre-writing phase for me, and this may be not only with poetry but with any kind of storytelling where you're trying to organize how? what is the most effective way to tell this story? what genre? where do I start? That also was a similarity that I saw. In general, my desire to learn coding was something that is important. I'm trying to remind myself all the time that I need to always be a student in order to be a poet and in order to be a storyteller. Learning new skills—even if I'm afraid to learn them—is the right thing to do. Always. I think that we have little tiny fears pocketed around things that we don't understand. And that's when you know you have to understand it the same way. If there's something that you don't understand in life, that's the thing that you need to write a poem about.

PETER: Is there a question you would have liked me to ask that I didn't ask? Especially on the subject of learning? I like to think of this as a podcast about what and how and why did we learn …

MEGHANN: I don't know if there's a question in this, but I really do think that unlearning things is just as important. And I've spent a lot of my time in grad school not just unlearning things that have to do with writing, but also just as a person with my habits and my weird little pockets of safety that I find myself huddling onto because of childhood or other things that we learned, the mistakes that we make. I think that that after teaching those students last semester, teaching them creative writing and really realizing that this whole class is just showing them that you can do anything. I tried to never say No to them. I tried to affirm all of their instincts and just get them to write and enjoy the process. And that was the entire— I had an entirely different objective and goal before I met them. And then I realized, “Oh, I just want them to generate something and not hate generating it.”

[VO]: So here we are. The point of learning is sometimes best engaged by unlearning, a perfect turn to go out on. What a joy to be able to talk with these remarkable makers for this month’s poetry special. My great thanks to Meghann Plunkett and Aja Monet for taking the time to talk, to Cam Be, a brilliant director and interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of independent film, documentary and progressive hip-hop culture, who granted permission to use the clip from “What I’ve Learned”—you do need to watch his film of the poem on YouTube—and to musician Shayfer James, who has collaborated with both these poets, and made available some instrumental tracks from his album Haunted Things especially for this episode. Thanks so much to you for listening, subscribing, rating, reviewing, and spreading the word about this podcast to everyone interested in what and how and why we learn. Back next month with a Mother’s Day special. See you then!

Episode 011 Transcript

Drama, Democracy & Hamilton with Oskar Eustis (3/31/18)

MELISSA FRIEDMAN: Hi, this is Melissa Friedman, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Epic Theater Ensemble in New York City. You are listening to Point of Learning with my friend Peter Horn. I am so excited to hear this conversation with Oskar Eustis!

PETER HORN [voiceover]: On today’s show, a titan of American theatre discusses the dramatic possibilities of the classroom …

OSKAR EUSTIS: Connect and spark and kindle in each other that human connection between the people in the room, that the people in the room are together getting excited about that third thing, that play or that idea or that other thing and when that happens, people are learning from each other, not information, but they're learning from the connection that they form with each other, which is, of course, what theater's all about.

[VO]: Plus a thing or two he’s never shared before in an interview …

OSKAR: The one I'm going to talk about is actually somebody I've never talked about, my high school drama teacher, Carl Shutts …

[VO]: And his unprecedented plan to release the rights for Hamilton to high schools before professional regional theaters … 

OSKAR: It would make, in high schools across the country, the theater department the cool place to be. And what a change that would be! What it would it be, to be saying to young teenagers of color, urban teenagers, “You know what? Yes, there's hip hop. Yes, there's music. Yes, but you know what there also is? There’s theatre!” It would just be a huge boon for our profession to bring in talent like that.

[VO]: If it’s possible to be a prodigy of the theatre—I don’t mean as an actor, but as a director, producer, and dramaturg; as somebody who makes theatre happen—Oskar Eustis is such a prodigy. Founding his first theatre company at the age of 16 after moving to New York from Minnesota, Eustis has been intimately involved in the creation and development of a significant number of the greatest works of US theatre of the past 30 years—from Angels in America to Hamilton, and many, many more. Throughout the 1980s Oskar worked at the Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco, moving in ’89 to the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, where he commissioned and directed the world premiere of Tony Kushner’s landmark Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. From 1994 to 2005 he was Artistic Director of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, which was the period where I got to meet him, first as a director and then a professor. Which may not be the most memorable element to Oskar from this chapter of his life, but it’s my podcast. Oskar has been a champion of new plays throughout his career, directing world premieres by Rinne Groff, Larry Wright, Paula Vogel, Philip Kan Gotanda, David Henry Hwang, Emily Mann, Suzan-Lori Parks, Ellen McLaughlin, Eduardo Machado, the list goes on. Since 2005, Oskar has been Artistic Director of the Public Theater in downtown Manhattan, famous first for founder Joe Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival and Shakespeare in the Park, but in the years since as the birthplace of the musicals Hair, and A Chorus Line, and during Oskar's tenure, the adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s revolutionary Hamilton: An American Musical. It was my pleasure to join Oskar in his office at the Public last month [15 February 2018], where we sat down to talk about the teacher who helped set Oskar on his path, about what teachers today might do with Shakespeare in the classroom, about drama and its connection to democracy, and of course, a little Hamilton, in addition to current projects that the Public Theater is undertaking. Given the many sources of material available, I knew I wouldn’t have too much trouble sketching a brief bio of Oskar at the outset, but I did ask him what he wanted me to highlight. Here’s what he said, plus the sound of me suddenly adjusting the mic when I realized he was opening with what would not be ordinary background material. 

[04:25]

OSKAR: From my point of view, the most important parts of my biography when I look back is that I was raised by Communists, I was raised by recovering alcoholic … I didn't go to college, or didn't have an academic education, and that I basically started from making theaters myself for nothing with friends, and built that up until I ended up here at the Public, so that there was nothing sort of top-down about how my career developed. It was all sort of built up from the bottom, so to speak.

PETER [in interview]: You left Minnesota when you were 15.

OSKAR: I turned 16 about four weeks later.

PETER: But you had graduated high school.

OSKAR: I graduated at 15.

PETER: Was that skipping two grades, or—?

OSKAR: The essence of it was Minnesota, in its last-ditch attempt to avoid forced busing because this is the early 1970s and Minnesota was desperately trying to avoid forced busing, as were many cities in the country. So, they created a magnet school in the all-Black school, Central High in Minneapolis. And literally this was the value proposition: any White kid with a B+ or better average who could voluntarily bus himself into the Central High School could graduate early. So, what they did was in 1970 to take a bunch of liberal Hippies with parents who would approve this kind of thing, who were smart and White and put them in an all-Black school and give them special privileges! It was maybe the worst educational idea I’ve ever encountered, but it meant I'd already skipped a grade earlier and it meant I could skip another grade, which is something I would never advise anybody. And that's why I got out when I was 15!

PETER: Then you helped co-found a theater, Red Wing? Named after the town in Minnesota?

OSKAR: Of course it is. You betcha! Red Wing, Minnesota. It's the rare day today that I'm not wearing Red Wing boots. I take Red Wing very seriously here. When I got to New York, I lived at the Performing Garage, met a young Swiss, a theatre guy named Stephan Müller, who had gotten a grant from the Swiss government to come over here for two years to study experimental theatre. We teamed up and together we founded Red Wing in February of ‘76, and that was my first theatre company.

[07:21]

PETER: I took your class during the summer of 2003, after I had been teaching English for six years. As a teacher, one of the things I noticed first was the reverence you seemed to have for teaching, and your stated wish to do it as well as you could. You were modest about your teaching ability, disclaiming at the outset of the course something like, “Well, if you don’t get much out of the class itself, at least you will have read some great plays.”

[VO]: That summer course at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English was called Modern American Drama, with works by a spectrum of writers, including Cuban and Canadian First Nations, Asian American, Native American, Latino, Puerto Rican, Black, Jewish, lesbian and gay playwrights, each illuminating conflicts in what it is to be human by means of different lenses. If you’re curious about specific authors and titles, the course reading list is on the show page. 

PETER: How do you think about the role of teaching? You know, this is an education podcast, so I wanted to ask—

OSKAR: The line about, you know, “Even if I'm not a good teacher, at least you will have read a lot of good plays”—that was actually my mother's line. My mother said that about teaching. She was the Chair of Women's Studies at the University of Minnesota, and she said that was what she said in order to calm herself down and suggest that she was not wasting the time of her students, no matter what. (Of course, she was a wonderful teacher.) In that class, there are a couple things going on. On the one hand, what's happening is that students are coming into contact with what I think are some of the great works of theatre art of our history and that by putting that together, they're starting to understand an arc of what the theater has done in the United States. And you start to see a story there and start to understand how plays fit into that story. And therefore, maybe you can find some measure of your own story. And on the other hand, what's happening, I hope, is there's an infectious quality of excitement. You’ve got to figure out a way in the classroom that your enthusiasm or excitement for something as a teacher, but also your students’ enthusiasm, can connect and spark and kindle in each other that human connection between the people in the room, so that the people in the room are together getting excited about that third thing, that play, or that idea, or that other thing, and when that happens, people are learning from each other, not information, but they're learning from the connection that they form with each other, which is, of course, what theatre is all about. That's what theatre depends on.

[VO]: As he was growing up, Oskar’s parents and step-parents were all educators.  

OSKAR: [My mother] was Chair of Women’s Studies at the University of Minnesota. My step-father was a professor of physics. My step-mother was a professor of sociology in the Humphrey Institute, and my father was a professor in the Law School. So. So, you know, although I didn't spend that much time in the classroom as a student, I was living in a world that was completely surrounded by educators!

PETER: Was there a teacher for you who was influential?

[10:45]

OSKAR: There were a lot. But the one I'm going to talk about is actually somebody I've never talked about, my high school drama teacher, Carl Shutts. Carl was in the English department, like in a lot of high schools, but he ran the drama program because that’s what English departments did. This school was, as I said, an all-Black high school until all these White kids showed up! So it was about 15 percent White kids, and Carl's room was a completely integrated room. It was almost the only activity that happened at Central High School that was genuinely integrated with Black kids and White kids; sports were all Black kids. And Carl had just started teaching; actually, his mother was a long-time English teacher at Central High School. And he—the year I arrived, which would have been ’73—he had just begun teaching there, and the enthusiasm he had … Here’s something I remember completely: we did a scene-study class, a semester-long scene-study class, and then when we got to the end, to the grading part of the class … He sat out in the hall, sent us in to do our scenes in front of our classmates. Then we came out and we gave ourselves a grade for how well we did! My little mind was blown! But what was so beautiful about that is that it totally did what it was supposed to do: it put the focus on me thinking about What do I think about how well I'm doing?

[VO]: I might have mentioned earlier that the 6 train of the New York subway runs right beneath the Public Theater. (I’ve tried my best to limit the rumbling in post-production.) Also, I want to underscore the impact of this drama teacher, Carl Shutts, who asked students for input about their learning. What Oskar was just talking about, having students assess themselves—it can go wrong, of course; like any strategy or policy or plan, how you do it, your implementation counts for 90%. But here's a case where it went very right: Carl Shutts got Oskar thinking critically about what he was doing in this theater class. A few years later, Oskar began a career helping others think critically about the plays they were writing, and acting in, and producing. (Yeah, teachers!) Mr. Shutts was also, I was surprised to learn, responsible for a nudge in this direction.  

OSKAR: He was a great influence on me. He got me my first job!

PETER: He did?

OSKAR: There was a program, which you're too young to remember, Peter. It was called the CETA program, Comprehensive Education and Training Act.

[VO]: CETA was an extension of [FDR’s] Works Progress Administration (WPA) from the ‘30s, signed into law by President Nixon in 1973, when I was -2. 

OSKAR: What it was doing was it gave federal grants to nonprofits who could then turn around and use those grants to put young people, teenagers, on salary as a way of interesting them in a life in the nonprofit sphere. It went to all kinds of nonprofits; it was a great program. Carl heard that there was a settlement house, [now called Pillsbury House + Theatre] that had a children's theatre program that gotten a CETA grant and could hire a teenager to come work with them. I went and I did that. I was making $80 a week in 1974, which was a fortune. I fell in love with the theatre … and CETA did exactly what it was supposed to do, which was take, you know, an ambitious and talented young man who didn't know where he belonged, and it introduced him to the nonprofit theater. And by god, that's what I've been doing for the last 45 years!

[14:45]

PETER: Most English Language Arts curricula for middle and high school students include plays, often Shakespeare, Ibsen, and one or two Greeks. Not always, but usually these works are approached more or less as written texts. There’s often a wide chasm between drama as literature and drama as performance. What do you think about this approach? 

OSKAR: You know, we've been through this a lot in our various incarnations, Peter. If you don't get those words in your mouth … if you don't stand up and start embodying those plays, you don't know what the work of art of a play is! What's on the page, it's like studying the score of a symphony and saying you understand the symphony. That's just the score for the event which is between people—two people, five people, 18 people in the case of Shakespeare—embodying, people interacting with each other. That's the art form itself. The written piece is just the notation for the art form. So, in addition to being true, this [concept] is also tremendously useful in terms of engaging people, and engaging young people in particular. You start to realize that the theatre, and the art of the theatre, is a full three-dimensional, embodied reality. It's not a literary and intellectual reality.

PETER: It struck me when you were in conversation with Paula Zahn [NYC-Arts 12/6/12], you called Shakespeare “the most accessible writer in the history of the English language.” But you followed that up with immediately with “Everyone who sees his plays … .” You know, “seeing them, they fall in love immediately.” So there is that caveat.

OSKAR: I've had the experience over and over: We take Shakespeare into prisons. We take Shakespeare into homeless shelters. We put Shakespeare in front of the people who not only haven't seen Shakespeare, they've never seen a play in their lives. And what I watch—because very often the people come in with trepidation and anxiety. You know, prison audiences are literally captive audiences, and they are not necessarily there because they want to be at your performance. And I watch. I watch them, watch and realize that after about five minutes they are understanding. And it's not just that they're understanding, they are interested and they start to care, and then there's this whole second reaction of them realizing themselves, “Oh my god, I understand Shakespeare!” And there's this elevation that comes from that. There was this thing that has always sounded like inaccessible and high culture: “It's not for you!” Well, it is for me too! I can get it! And I think it's a tremendously uplifting thing when people understand that Shakespeare is for them.

PETER: The precursor to opening the Public was a Shakespeare project, right? Wasn't that the original thing that Joe Papp did?

OSKAR: What started out in 1954 was the New York Shakespeare Workshop, which the next year became the New York Shakespeare Festival (which, legally, we still are). Joe put Shakespeare on the back of flatbed trucks and parked it in parks and parking lots and housing projects around the five boroughs. And it was a huge success from the moment he started. One of the things that I am so astounded by: He started in 1954. He was doing it as a volunteer job while he worked as a stage manager for CBS television. Eight years later, the City of New York built the Delacorte Theatre for him! In that fast a span, he had turned the Shakespeare Festival into an institution that the City of New York was never going to let go!

[19:03]

PETER: Given limited class time, how best to give students a taste of drama as performance?

OSKAR: Well, the simplest thing is to have the kids act it out. And don't worry about big, long sections of the play, because some of the words are difficult, and what they mean is difficult too. Instead, take some hot sections of the plays. Take the balcony scene from Romeo & Juliet, take the forum scene from Julius Caesar and then talk to the kids. Help them understand what the words mean, help them understand how to pronounce it, but talk to them in acting terms. Talk to them about what Marc Antony is trying to do, and let them compete about who can rile up the class the best, who is the most convincing orator, who understands what the action is … and then let them suit the word to the action! Let them use the language to try to do what the character is trying to do, and that's the magic key, and suddenly you start understanding. If we think about it—I've spent my life doing Shakespeare. There are many words I don't understand. There are many sentences that I can't be sure of exactly what it means, but if I know what the character is trying to do, it doesn't matter. I don't care because I'm following what he or she is after. And that's the thing that to me. If you can unlock that in the kids, then they can have a sense of mastery of Shakespeare that I think is empowering.

PETER: Is there a play (or two or three) that you would like to see more students read, given that some works don't necessarily come to life as easily as others?

OSKAR: Oh Peter, I don't know. Because remember, I'm not an educator. I'm certainly not a K-12 educator. So, the plays that I suspect exist in most of the curriculum are Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet, and “the Scottish play”—

[VO]:—also known as Macbeth, but that’s bad luck to pronounce if you’re in a theater—

OSKAR: and those aren't bad examples. Those are each plays that either don't have subplots or where the subplots are minimal; where the characters are very big and boldly written. Julius Caesar is about politics and assassination, Romeo & Juliet is about young love, and the Scottish play is a tragedy of ambition. They're easy to understand the feelings behind them. I don't know … I mean, [A Midsummer Night’s Dream] is actually—it's a beautiful play, but it's actually weirdly complicated. I don't know how kids respond to Midsummer. As You Like It is my favorite play. It's, I think, pure genius, but it's also very sophisticated; you know, what exactly Rosalind is doing with Orlando is not a simple thing. She's pretending to be a boy trying to teach him how to love a woman. So, of course, what she's doing on some level is she's teaching him how to be a husband before she’ll accept him as a husband, and that's a beautiful thing, but it's a relatively grown-up thing. So I don't know …

[22:47]

PETER: In my high school English classroom, I was interested, among other things, in asking my students to think about their role as citizens. Toward this end, I used different drama process strategies over the years, asking students in different ways to imagine and embody some other person from some other group with some other perspective. The relationship between drama and being a citizen or playing a role in a democracy was not always obvious to me. In fact, even as someone who studied ancient Greek literature and history in college, I had not spent much time thinking about this connection before taking your class. Can you recap the fundamental relationship between Western ideas of drama and democracy, born at the same moment in Greece 2500 years ago?

OSKAR: And of course, this is where my disclaimer that I'm not an academic really comes into force, because I'm telling you a story. A story that's based on historical truth, but I'm not claiming historical accuracy. I'm claiming that it's telling a truth based on the fact that democracy and drama were invented in the same city in the same decade—literally, the same decade. Somebody had the idea in Athens that power should flow from below to above, not the other way around; that people should be ruled by the consent of the governed, not by power or force. That is an unbelievably radical idea, which we've been unpacking for 2500 years since. And of course, Athenian democracy was incredibly limited: it was limited to men, it was limited to landowners, and it was a slave society. I'm not holding out Athens as a model of the perfect democracy, but nonetheless, that idea that power flows from below was instituted there. In the same decade, in the festival of Dionysius, a storyteller stopped telling the story directly to the audience. He turned to the left and started talking to another person on stage, and the idea of dialogue was born. Suddenly, it’s not a story that's being told to you, it’s a story that's being acted in front of you by characters. And my contention is that everything changes at that moment, and partly what changes is the notion of truth. When I'm the storyteller telling the story to you, I am the unitary authority. I am the one who possesses the truth. I'm telling it to you. If I turn and talk to another character on stage who then answers me back, and their answer has to dispute me (because drama is conflict), so then you have two points of view on stage, conflicting with each other—and of course, in the early Greek plays, literally only two points, two characters—but as soon as you do that, you’re saying the nature of truth is to be found in the conflict between different points of view. It's not somebody's possession. It's in the interaction with somebody else that you find out what the truth is, and if you don't believe that you don't really believe in democracy. If you don't believe that, then you're an autocrat who is willing to put up with democracy until you can impose your ideas on everybody else. If you are really a democrat, you actually believe that's how truth is discovered, in the struggle between different points of view. And of course, it's changing what it’s asking an audience to do, because instead of asking you to sit back and listen to my truth that I'm dispensing to you and you're either agreeing with or just absorbing without even thinking about whether you agree with it; or if you're disputing it, you’re just disputing in the privacy of your mind. I'm asking you to lean forward and identify with me as a character and what I want, and then the other character starts to talk and I'm asking you to identify with them and what they want. I'm not asking you to accept the truth. I'm asking you to imagine it from somebody else's point of view. Imagine what that truth feels like to Xerxes, what that truth feels like to Oedipus. And by doing that, we're exercising the muscle of empathy, we’re exercising something that is a key tool of citizenship, which is the ability to imagine somebody else's point of view and to understand that their point of view has validity and that it's in the clash and contrast of given points of view that the truth is going to emerge. Those two things—the idea that truth is dialectical, and the idea that empathy is a core human act—to me, they lie at the basis of theater and they're also the things you have to believe if you're going to believe in democracy.  They are the skills you have to practice if you're going to be a democratic citizen.

[27:48]

PETER: I want to double click and just follow up on that empathy issue because—I think I mentioned to you I was able to study with Augusto Boal the year before he passed away, so it really was a fortunate experience on several levels—

[VO]: Boal was the Brazilian director, writer, and luminary who developed the radical form known as the Theater of the Oppressed. Boal was influenced by the German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht, whom we discuss in a second.

PETER: I was struck that empathy can go a couple of different ways: that it can be a force that could be radical or engender some kind of radical understanding or action, but then again it could also manipulate, coerce …

OSKAR: Well, Brecht and Boal were both fighting the same thing, which I would call, after [Marxist thinker Antonio] Gramsci, capitalist hegemony. The problem with empathy in a society, in a capitalist society, and maybe it was true in feudal society too, I can't tell, is that empathy can simply reinforce the notion that the way things are structured is natural. That human motivation is a biological, natural, unchangeable fact, that human nature is the way things are. Which is of course all the way of saying that private property is just the way God made it! God just made it that I own the factory and 500 people are working in the factory and I take all the money that the factory makes, and these guys make a pittance. That's just the way it is! That's just nature! And what Brecht—all of Brecht’s techniques to try and disrupt simple empathy were designed to try and interrupt the idea that the world is unchangeable, that the world is composed of forces, and your only recourse is to understand and accept them. His idea was that actually, the world is changeable; that capitalism deliberately disguises itself as nature, just as the Divine Right of Kings disguised itself as something eternal. And then, in order to have a revolution, it's necessary to empower people to realize that they can change things that look unchangeable, things that look like they're objects are actually relationships between people and that you can change the nature of those relationships. Brecht claimed for many, many years that his theatre was anti-empathy, and it's just not true. What he was interested in was problematizing empathy, viewing empathy as one of the things that was necessary, but another thing that he claimed was necessary—and he's right, I think—is the ability to critically reflect on what you or anybody else is doing. For me, the best example of this is Mother Courage—

[VO]: Mother Courage and Her Children, a Brecht play set during the Thirty Years’ War, revolves around a woman who relies on selling merchandise during wartime for her personal survival. One by one her three children die, yet she continues her profiteering. 

OSKAR: Watch Mother Courage, and there's absolutely no question that he's asking you to care about Mother Courage and her kids. He's not asking you not to care. You absolutely are supposed to care about them. He wants you to care, and you do care, in any good production. But at the same time, you don't accept everything she does as a given. What he wants to do is look at the choices she's making and look at the consequences of those choices, and by the end what he's done is I think very radical, dramatically. He said that the moment of realization or illumination where we realize the truth of what has been under this doesn't happen on stage. Mother Courage never figures out what she's done. It happens in the audience. We are the ones who realize, O my god! Mother Courage set out to defend her family at all costs and what she achieved was the death of all of her children. And she did that because she was trying to define her universe, moral universe so narrowly that she couldn't actually have any impact on it. “I'm only going to care about my family.” Because she didn't care about the war, because she didn't care about the broader society, she actually was completely unable to protect her family. And we in the audience of a good production of Mother Courage will recognize that, even if the character doesn’t.

[32:58]

PETER: You've spoken about theatre as a place, especially US theatre, as a place where various groups of Americans lay claim to citizenship. What do you mean by that?

OSKAR: There’s terms that we use in the theater that are used casually and anecdotally by the public as a whole, “to put somebody center stage,” “to put someone in the spotlight.” Those are theater terms, but when we say it in our common life, what we mean is to make somebody the center of attention to legitimize and even prioritize their experience to allow them to be the subjects of their own life, the stars of their own life, not the supporting characters for somebody else's life. The stage can do that, quite literally. We hardly remember it now, but one of the things that [Eugene] O’Neill was doing was taking the Irish American experience and putting it center stage and saying, “This is actually the quintessential American experience.” [Clifford] Odets and later [Arthur] Miller, were taking the Jewish American experience and saying, “This is actually America. You can see it.” August Wilson was taking the African American experience. In each of these, you see that by being protagonists of plays, people are able to step in front and say, “My story is actually a central story of our culture. I am not a subsidiary character. I'm not the object of history; I am the subject of it.” The theater is tremendously good at that and tremendously powerful, authentic because of course, the theater always involves bringing a large group of people together to act and to watch. And you're actually doing that in relationship to real people. You're not on a screen somewhere. You're actually standing up, center stage, in the spotlight, in front of everybody, saying, “This is my point of view.” My favorite writing about this was Alfred Kazin, the great critic wrote in Starting Out in the Thirties about what it was like seeing Odets' plays at the Belasco.

PETER: This is Clifford Odets.

OSCAR: Clifford Odets, great, great writer of the Depression. He wrote Awake and Sing! and  Waiting for Lefty. He wrote Paradise Lost. And Alfred could only afford the very cheapest seats which were like a quarter, on the second balcony at the Belasco, which was a long way from the stage. But he said, “I would sit there and watch my aunt and my uncle and myself onstage with as much right as if they were Hamlet or Lear. And I believed that there was a place for me in America.” And it's a beautiful passage, and that idea that you and somebody who represents your experience has as much right as Hamlet to be on the stage, it's a beautiful way of articulating that notion that we have to be able to imagine ourselves as the center of our stories, if we're going to be able to empower ourselves to make a difference in the world.

[36:14]

PETER: To slide from Hamlet to Hamilton, this is quite literally part of the project. Of course, I should say that you produced the original production of Hamilton, which was staged right here where we are at the Public Theater. This radical casting choice, which I guess wasn't just casting, it’s baked into the design of the play that everybody should be non-white, or almost everybody except for George III, for a foundational story of Americanness.

OSKAR: There's no question. The core idea behind Hamilton is to tell the story of the founding of America through the eyes of the only founding father who was a bastard immigrant orphan from the West Indies, and by doing that, claim America for every (metaphorical) bastard immigrant orphan from the West Indies or anywhere else in the world, to say that at the very founding immigrants were there, at the very founding people from the West Indies were there, at the very founding people who had no money, who had no education, who had no privilege in life were there founding the country.Aand that's the principle that's both there in the text of the show and the music of the show, and was there in the casting of the show. So there's a unity among all of those things—just as the language of the show is hip-hop and rap, and Broadway musical theater and pop songs. I mean there's a wide variety, but it's saying that we're gonna tell the story in the language of the streets, not just about the bastard immigrant orphan from the West Indies. We are going to tell this story in the language of street culture, and then we're going to cast it with Black, Brown, Asian, Latino peoples! So that there's a moment in the very first song, “Alexander Hamilton,” which is incredibly striking. On the one hand, the whole cast is just singing the story of how Alexander Hamilton came from the West Indies to New York, but on the other hand, there's a moment where that cast as a whole all just walks downstage and stands in a line across the front, and physically, at that moment, this cast of Black and Brown people are claiming America's founding for themselves, and it's just really thrilling watching it. It was astonishing to me. We just opened in London in December and to my absolute shock, it works the same way Britain. When that cast comes on—and it's all British people of color, all of the actors are British and they're all, you know, the former colonies, black, yellow, brown, and when they do, you can feel the same energy in England that the audience is like, “Oh, this is our country now. This is what Britain is. It's not what we imagined from G.K. Chesterton and Arthur Conan Doyle. This incredibly diverse, multicultural cast is a representation of our country too.” It’s palpable in a way that is a lot different than what happens in politics or political speeches.

PETER: What do you know about some of the ways that Hamilton is being used in school? I was observing an English class a couple months ago when they were studying it, but I imagine this would be one of the great plays to do in history or social studies classes as well.

OSKAR: Well, we have a program that I'm very proud of called EduHam—

PETER: EduHam?

OSKAR: E-d-u-Ham. It’s the way young people are talking these days.

[VO]: Why didn't I think of this last spring when I was trying to come up with names for my education podcast?

OSKAR: What it is: in every one of the big cities where we are, in New York, in London, in Chicago and in Los Angeles, we bring 20,000 Title I [low-income] school kids to the theater for like 10 bucks, usually paid for by the schools every year, and there's a curriculum that goes out before then that teaches about Hamilton, but also basically encourages everybody to make up their own performance piece about American history. And on the day these kids come to the theater, they come in the morning and they perform those pieces on the stage and then they sit and watch it. And it's just fantastic. The thing that we need to do, and I am in very lively discussion with my producing partners about this, I think the thing we need to do is release the rights for high schools to perform. Normally, you release the rights to high schools about 10 years after the show has closed on Broadway. My contention is “Let’s release them right now, so that for the next 10, 20 years, the only way somebody sees Hamilton is they see one of our shows or they see a high school production, and that's the only Hamilton you can see.” I think that would do nothing but drive more people to see Hamilton at the professional level, and what it would do to those theater departments in those urban schools, what it would do to the way that history departments and theater departments could collaborate. It would be a huge gift to the nation, so I'm hoping to win that argument!

PETER: Just for my clarification, it's not just after the show closes … if it runs again, usually you wouldn't be able to mount a production of any kind within 75 miles or something?

OSKAR: Yeah, there's various exclusions zones, but 75 miles is the standard one for a professional production.

PETER: So is this was this kind of maneuver fairly unprecedented?

OSKAR: Oh, completely unprecedented! It never would have been done before. But Peter, my claim—and you know, my credentials for making this claim may be a bit skinny [laughs], but my claim is that it’s good business. My claim is that letting high schools do it would not satiate people's desire to see our professional productions. Rather, it would just increase it and encourage it, while also doing a massive amount of good in the world.

PETER: What it would do to those kids. I mean—

OSKAR: Let me talk in a very sort of narrow professional sense. It would make in high schools across the country, the theater department the cool place to be. And what a change that be! To be saying to young teenagers of color, to urban teenagers, “You know what? Yes, there's hip-hop. Yes, there's music. Yes, but you know what? There also is theater!” I think it would just be a huge boon for our profession, to bring talent like that into our shabby little field.

[43:48]

PETER: When I go into schools these days, the work I most like to support is efforts to promote civil discourse, to model ways to engage in difficult, respectful conversations with people who disagree with us. It’s critical for schools to do this, because unless you’re getting it around the dinner table—which few of us are these days—you’re probably not going to learn how to have a meaningful conversation about something that is hard to talk about, and about which reasonable people disagree. Ignore these skills long enough, and you get, well, Congress, not to put too fine a point on it. One of the reasons we have so few public models for civil discourse, I like to joke, is that it makes lousy television. Screaming and throwing chairs, maybe, that’s exciting. But taking time to slow down in a conversation, to pause and think, maybe even risk changing your mind—who wants to watch that? However! it seems to me that one of the things the Public Theater has done for over half a century, and that you personally are very committed to, is using theatre to spark a broader public conversation about matters of shared concern. What are some of the ways you’ve done this recently?

OSKAR: I think the most important project that we're undertaking right now is a national tour of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat—

PETER: Set in Reading, Pennsylvania?

OSKAR: It was built out of Lynn’s experiences in Reading, Pennsylvania, spending years getting to know the people there and getting to know the effects on that community of the de-industrialization of the city. Because of NAFTA, the last remnants of the steel industry left Reading and went to Mexico, and this town that had been built on steel and industry for over a century decayed from within, and she wrote this brilliant play about that which won the Pulitzer. [In NYC] it opened here. We took it to Broadway and now what we're going to do is next fall, we're taking it to 35 rural counties in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. And the unofficial limitation has been that we are only taking it to “red” counties; we’re only going to take it to counties that voted for Trump. We have found partners in community centers or churches or union halls. So, in each of those communities that we will be presenting it in partnership with a community-based organization. The entire goal is really two-fold. First of all is to say to those folks in “red” America, “We're here for you too. We are not here only to speak to people who already agree with us.” The culture in this country belongs to everyone, and that includes people who disagree with even the idea that the culture should belong. And second, to try and spark a dialogue in exactly the way you're talking about by saying, “You may not agree with our ideas, but let's show you a story about a community that may have some similarity with yours, and then let's talk to each other and figure out where we see alike, where we don't see alike—find a way to give voice to those people as well.” It's a huge experiment for us. We've never done anything like this, but I'm really excited about it. And then the dialogue is about: How do we reach the most people? How do we create a dialogue with most people? How do we have follow-through so that their voices get heard? What kind of advance do we need? So we're working on all of that with the spirit of “Of course we don't know how to do this because it's a new thing,” so we're going to figure out what. There’s going to be a lot we learn from this year, a lot. And then we're going to try and come back every year after that. I think it’s important to say—Peter, the genesis of this was right after the election of 2016, when I was in so much shock as everybody else. I looked at the electoral map of the United States, and I said, you know, if you gave me this map and said, Look, this is mapping where the nonprofit cultural organizations are, the blue is where the nonprofit cultural organizations are, and the red is where there are none, I would have believed you. It's almost that accurate a map, and then I realized that we often act as if those people in “red” America have turned their backs on us. We turned our back on them a long time ago.

PETER: How do you mean?

OSKAR: The culture, the nonprofit cultural sphere, which is my sphere, where I've spent my life, has said to itself—passively; it hasn’t acknowledged it—that we're not for them, we’re not for those farmers in Wisconsin and we're not for those ex-steel workers in rural Pennsylvania. They don't want us. We're not going to talk to them. We're going to talk to the people who like us!

PETER: So, Red Wing, Minnesota?

OSKAR: Red Wing, Minnesota is red. We have never done theater in Red Wing, Minnesota. I named a New York theater after Red Wing, Minnesota, but I've never actually performed in Red Wing, Minnesota and we have to change that. That’s one of the ways that I feel like my sector of society has contributed to this lack of civic discourse. We essentially have said, We're only going to speak to the people who proved they want us, by funding our theaters and building our buildings and buying subscriptions. Those people we’ll speak to, but all the rest of America that doesn't know they want us, doesn't cross their mind that the theater could be exciting for them— We reach out to them and say, No, we're here for you too! [As part of this tour] we're going to try a lot of things. The thing that I'm most excited about is—we're just putting the sort of first flesh on the bones of an idea of where—Sweat is about people losing their jobs and we're going to try and generate workshops that produce writing from people in these communities about their relationship to their job, about what their job means to them what losing their job means if they've lost it, but actually trying to get people to write, and then the actors in the company will perform those pieces as part of the residency in that city. They'll do Sweat, but they'll also perform these people back to them. And if we can do this right, what I'm hoping is that we can basically set up a series of regional competitions, and in the states—in each town that we go to, the people would choose which of these statements best represents their town. They would send them into us, and then we'd have a night at the Delacorte in Central Park in which we get our best and brightest to perform those. I think that would be amazing,

[VO]: And so the great work of Oskar Eustis and the Public Theater continues. Thanks to him for taking the time to talk, to the phenomenal Gil Scott Chapman for his piano playing on this episode, and to you for listening, subscribing, rating, and spreading the word about Point of Learning to everyone you know interested in what and how and why we learn. Co-producer credits for this episode belong to Paula Roy, who wrote me back with 11 potential questions within an hour of my telling her I booked this interview, and to Robyn Lee Horn, whose vast knowledge of theatre feeds my brain whenever I’m wise enough to ask. Back soon with a special edition for National Poetry Month! I think you’re gonna love it! 

OSKAR: I have to say, Peter, the very first time you were in class with me, you sent me a very polite note correcting my use of the word peripeteia and saying, “I think you meant anagnorisis,” and I had to say, “Not only do I think you're right, but I can't even be sure of it …”  

PETER: I do not recall.

OSKAR: It was a good moment.

—30—

Episode 010 Transcript

Better Alternative Education with Alan Lantis and Jackie Spring (2/28/18)

ROY CHAMBERS [bumper]: Hi, this is Roy Chambers. I'm the Artist in Residence for Project ‘79. You're listening to Point of Learning with Peter Horn, my dog.

PETER HORN: On today's show, a better way to do school:

ALAN LANTIS: So what we try to do is to reclaim these kids, to let them feel as though they can do it, they should do it, they belong, and to give them a sense of being a part of something and an identity.

JACKIE SPRING: The best conversations I have ever had, the most open, the most authentic conversations I've ever had about difference come in Project classes. There’s a willingness to just say things that I don't always experience in other places.

PETER: On September 4th, 1979, a small alternative education program welcomed its first students, high school students, to a different kind of learning experience. Nearly 40 years later, that program is still going strong. That kind of longevity alone would make Project ’79 unusual, even unique among alternative education experiments undertaken in the 1970s. But there’s so much more to it than that. As someone who worked in Project ’79 for 14 years, first teaching English and then teaching while also coordinating the program, I believe it’s about the best way to do school, for reasons today’s show will explore. I’ll be talking with the program’s two other coordinators: my predecessor, Alan Lantis, who directed Project from its origin in the late ’70s until 2008, and Jackie Spring, who took over from me when I left Westfield High School in 2015. They are both dear friends and important influences on my thinking about what matters in school. We’ll get to the magic of Project ’79 in just a minute, but I’d like to introduce these two remarkable educators, both coincidentally social studies teachers, through stories from their own school history that set them up to value a more personalized approach to education. In the spring of 1966, Al Lantis was a high school senior in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. By his own lights, he was a mediocre student, earning Cs in most everything except history class, which he really liked. He wasn’t thinking seriously about college until one of his teachers nearly literally went the extra mile to offer a word of encouragement.

ALAN: It was nighttime graduation under the lights. It was my English teacher, Mrs. Bartlett, who again, she had an artificial leg, I remember it so well, and she was a little older and the ceremony was about to begin and we're all lined up on the field getting into our appropriate spots and everybody looks across the field, and here comes who we referred to as Black Bart because we thought she was, you know, so tough and she comes limping across the field, across the field, and everybody's looking at her and saying like, eyes opening wide, “Who’s she after now?” And she came closer and closer and she came up to me, I said, “Me of all people?” And she's huffing and puffing and she said, “I just want you to know before you graduate, you've got the highest grade on the English exam.” And I was aghast. I could not believe that because we had some pretty high-achieving kids in our four classes. But anyway, long story short, it really, really stayed with me. And once I did go off to this little school in the cornfields of Iowa, that one comment and that one little achievement of four years of high school was enough to say to me, “Wait a minute, I can do this!” And I went there and had a wonderful experience with some great professors. And I graduated with a degree in history and political science, and I do attribute a lot of it to that one interaction because it was that that led me to believe that it's possible.

PETER: That school in the cornfields of Iowa was called Midwestern College. Al earned his Master’s at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

ALAN: I say this all the time. As a teacher, as an educator, you have to be on every moment that you are interacting with students because you never know: You never know when that moment is going to take place. What you think is a simple interaction, what you think is a simple look, to a student in the back of the room, could be the difference in that kid's life and so you have to be aware of that. Your radar has to be on all the time. Who is it that I can connect with at this moment? Who in this class— When you walk in, not only are you thinking about your lesson plan, you're not just thinking about the questions you're going to ask, and the assignment you're going to give. One of the things in your mind is Who out there, who out there needs something today? and Am I the person who can provide that for them today, at this given moment? And maybe—who knows?—maybe 90% of the time it's not going to happen, but if you're aware of that, and continue to look for it, if you get it 10% of the time, over the course of a career, you’re doing pretty good.

PETER: Jackie Spring, who has done graduate study at Rider University, is a proud graduate of Virginia Tech. But her example of what connected her to the kind of teaching offered in Project ’79 came while she was still thinking about attending the University of Georgia.

JACKIE: When I got serious about going to college, I went down to Georgia and one of the advisors was like, “You need to take chemistry.” And I'm like, “Oh my God, no. I have worked very hard to not take any sciences except for the expected ones for the state of New Jersey. Can we negotiate on this?” And they were like, “No, you can't. You have to take chemistry.” So, my senior year of high school I took chemistry because I wanted to go to Georgia, and the teacher that I had, his name was Mr. Vitale. He was awesome. I don't know what happened about that class, but I just gained this confidence where every time he lectured, when he was done, I'd be like, “Excuse me, Mr. Vitale. Everything you just said I didn't get. Can you come and reteach everything you just said to me over here?” And he would. And he actually did. Literally, every week he spent at least 15 minutes with me just going through all of the things that chemistry expected of me. I didn't go to Georgia, but I think he just demonstrated to me that teachers weren't just these authoritative figures. They actually cared.

PETER: I asked what it was about Mr. Vitale.

JACKIE: I think he just sort of was like, “Hey you in the back!” He was this guy who was from Western Pennsylvania. My family is from Western Pennsylvania. There's this sort of like demeanor that is sort of like “Yo!” but not in a New Jersey way, in a Western Pennsylvania way. And so I just sort of approached him in that way, like, “Yo, Mr. Vitale.” And he just sort of responded to that. I think he also was not a guy who, if I'm being totally honest, I don't think he was a guy that I think— He cared very much about his content area, but didn't take himself too seriously. I think he really was there to make us feel like we could learn chemistry.

PETER: Act 1. Just what is this program called Project ’79? Let’s start with some experts, the students themselves.

INTI: There’s a great sense of community and I always feel respected in the classroom. I'm always excited to participate. It really broke me out of my shell and I'm friends with a lot of people that I haven't been friends with before.

JACK: Project was and will always be a family for me. An academic family, sure, because without Project I wouldn't have learned how to do so much work that I'm doing now in college. I just wouldn't have succeeded without Project.

COOPER: Project is not like any other program that you'll find. It is based upon what students are going to need. And so, they decide how to handle the class, what's being done in the class, in the way they approach topics. And giving students that freedom is something I've never seen any other classroom.

SARAH: This question is probably my least favorite question of anything about Project, because there's so many different aspects about Project that I just personally love, and I feel like this question just always bothered me because there's so many—I can't think of just one thing. Project is just such a beautiful place and it's such like a meaningful thing to me that I can't pick out one thing. It's nearly impossible for me.

PETER: Just what Project is hasn’t always been easy for coordinators to put our finger on.

ALAN: It wasn't an easy question, depending on your audience at any given time.

PETER: Structurally, Project ’79 is a kind of school within Westfield High School for students of average to above-average ability who have struggled with more traditional approaches to education. Most years, Project offers courses in the four core academic areas of English, mathematics, science, and social studies, taught by a team of teachers who meet regularly to talk about kids and plan new ways to engage them better as learners. The classes are smaller than traditional classes. You might have 10 or 15 kids in a class, as opposed to say 25. The smaller classes and the meetings and the multiple years in the program let teachers get to know students better than they would in non-Project classes. In 2009, art teacher Roy Chambers joined the program to support interdisciplinary projects using sculpture, painting, graphic design and more—but these structural descriptions just scratch the surface.

ALAN: So what the program started out as, and what it is today—again, 39+ years later—is an attempt to reach those students who, for so many different reasons, are not feeling comfortable in school, who may be alienated, who may have issues outside of school that make it difficult for them to connect in what is in Westfield a pretty standard, strict approach to education. And the kind of thing that if a student is not feeling confident, for whatever reason, will tend to disengage pretty quickly. So what we try to do is to reclaim these kids too, to let them feel as though they can do it, they should do it, they belong, and to give them a sense of being a part of something, an identity. It's an attempt to reach out, to not allow these students to be left in the wake, to be left in the dust. They are someone, they have something to contribute, and as we've seen over the course of 40 years, if you grab them and pull them back in, they will succeed. They have succeeded. There are hundreds and hundreds of kids who have gone through the program, many of which, most of which are living happy, successful lives right now.

PETER: For example, Jessie Gregory, class of 2011, who developed the sick beat you just heard as part of her senior independent study in hip-hop. 

JESSIE: School was extremely hard for me. I wasn't able to focus in large classes. I honestly never thought about college, or even considered applying until I became a Project member. Because of this program, I found my way. I'm now Project ‘79 alumni, and a graduate of West Virginia University.

PETER: All the music in the soundscape of today’s show was written and/or performed by    Project students.

PATRICK: Hi. I'm Patrick. I'm a Project student. So Westfield is a really black-and-white kind of stereotypical high school movie town, and Project ‘79 is a good way to disconnect from all that.

MOLLY: When I think about Project ‘79, I think about a community that accepts different learning styles, as well as encourages these learning styles.

ADAM: Hi. I'm Adam, and what I wanted to say about Project does is that, if you've been branded as a “stupid” kid, like someone who doesn't try, and you don't feel that way, but the school system has branded you that way, that Project will see that and take you and make you into a better student.

JUAN: Yeah. Yeah. What up, everyone? What Project is to me is … your new home away from home. And I like that. It's lit. Yeah.

JACKIE: I was asking the kids this morning this question, “How do you describe Project?” They say things like, “We're all weirdos. We're all weirdos and it's cool. Then we can take an academic risk. Then we're not afraid to ask a question, then we're not afraid to say what we really think because we know that our answers are going to be considered and even if it's not right, they're just not right yet.” And I think that really tells you about what Project is: it is a place where people are willing to give kids a space to really develop and grow. And I don't know that kids really always feel like they have those spaces in any academic institution. I think this is a thing about Project that is not understood in a way that I wish it was more understood: with that understanding and sense of comfort and closeness comes a different kind of accountability. So kids know, and kids will say often that they're not just accountable to themselves and their parents, but they know that when they come and they don't do something, someone in the class is going to check them on it. If they are not working to their potential, even kids are going to check them on it. Teachers are going to know on a day that you're phoning it in, “You know, that's not—I know that's not your best, so I'm not going to accept it,” or “I'm gonna work with you to like develop it so that it is a presentation of your best work.”

ALAN: The closeness and the respect that's built up over the course of multiple years between the staff and the students are such that they there is a built-in accountability. They don't want to let themselves down, their classmates, and the staff, because of the investment of staff has made with them. Kids are not by nature bad. There are always reasons why they are dysfunctional or not succeeding, and that's part of what Project does is to find out why that is the case. Because once you know that and start addressing that issue, they will respond. They begin to say, “Hey, wait a minute. This person cares about me. They understand me. I'm not going to do that to that teacher because they know who I am, about what I'm doing and what I'm not doing.”

JACKIE: In so many ways, I think Project kids are just not about playing the game. They want authentic connections, they want authentic interactions, and I think sometimes for a lot of our kids that question of “Are you real right now or are you faking it because you're the teacher?” gets in their way of doing anything that they want to do in school.

PETER: Act 2. How to Build an Effective Education Alternative. Over the past four decades, Project ’79 has hosted educators not only from throughout New Jersey and the U.S., but also international visitors from Russia, Germany, England and France. One of the reasons I wanted to devote a show to Project ’79 is that I know that when people learn about this program, they want to understand the elements of its success. Every school has some students who are more like orchids than wildflowers; astonishingly various, fascinating young people who nonetheless require some particular care in order to show their spectacular colors. A former colleague in recent years helped to rebrand the Alt Ed program on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts Project Vine, for instance. So kids who could benefit from a program like Project are a given in any school environment, but what else is required to develop and sustain your own local Project? The second half of the show discusses the four key ingredients: the right teachers, time for those teachers to meet, a common space to serve as headquarters. But before any of that, you gotta do your homework! In the mid-1970s the Westfield Superintendent of Schools was a man named Larry Greene. He recognized there were students who needed something different, so he convened a committee of educators, parents, and other citizens interested in exploring the issue. These people did their homework, reading whatever they could find about alternative education, and decided to move forward.

ALAN: We did a lot of reading. We did a lot of research. We had librarians pulling out all the current articles on, on alternative education, all of which were extremely helpful.

PETER: Superintendent Greene found money for a team of volunteers to travel and learn what they could about strategies in alternative education.

ALAN: We went to Maine, we went to Pennsylvania, we went down to Maryland, and a number of different places where we knew alternative programs were in existence based on the research that we had done. And what we did was to visit those that were highly acclaimed, and then found ones that had not succeeded and went to both to find out what was the difference, and that was important. That was a real turning point for us in terms of developing the program because the thing we found out was that what was very popular at the time, the period you're talking about, in the ‘60s and ‘70s was this drive to make kids feel good. You know, to make them feel at home, to make them feel comfortable. And a lot of the programs that were set up did just that and did only that. And what we found from those that had failed was that what they neglected was to have a strong academic base, strong academic accountability. You just can't bring at-risk kids together and say, “We're going to make you feel good.” We're going to make you feel good, but at the same time, and more importantly, you're going to study, you're going to achieve, you're going to do what we asked you to do in terms of academics, and it's got to be a continuous balance between those two: to feel comfortable, to feel connected, to feel respected, but at the same time to have strong academic base. And that was always what we did in Project. And it's what goes on today. It's not a place to warehouse kids and keep them out of trouble and keep them calm. It's a place where they're going to achieve.

PETER: So the first major takeaway was that an effective alternative program needs to educate the whole child, tending to intellectual and academic, as well as social and emotional needs. Number two: let them choose to join. A program like Project needs to be voluntary.

ALAN: That was the other thing that we learned, that a lot of the programs that were developed at that time was that—they were a warehouse of disciplinary problems. [Imitating rigid school official] “You've gotten in trouble seven times, 10 times you're going to the alternative program!” [Student protesting] “But, but—“ [Official] “No, you're going right now, report in the morning” kind of thing. Well, you know, that wasn't the case with our program and certainly not the case to this day. Every student who came into the program did so because they chose to enter the program, because their parents were supportive of that decision. And that buy-in is of course very important, because as you bring them in and you say, “OK, here we are, here's what the program is, here's where you have some difficulty. We think we can help you with that. Do you want this? OK?” If they say yes, we say, “Here are our expectations if you come into the program.” So because we've been around for a long time, you know, to some degree, some of the kids see it as a privilege to come into the program.”

PETER: So that's what you can learn by taking an inquiry stance from the outset. Key ingredient number two, the right staff.

ALAN: Staffing was always a big issue in the program. After over 40 years—I've never even stopped to count—but we’ve had dozens and dozens of staff members go through the program. Most of them: successful. But what made that staff member successful is their ability to give up who they are, give up their ego and to focus on the student. Not always easy. And even those staff members who said, “I want to be a part of that. I like what you're doing. I want to be a part of that”—they’ve not always come into the program and turned automatically into the stellar alternative education staff member. It takes a certain amount, no not a certain—it takes a lot of self-confidence, not ego, not ego, but self-confidence that you're going to go in there and you're going to work and work and work, not only in teaching history or math, but you're going to work at teaching that kid about life, about decisions, about where they fit in. And not all teachers are cut out to do that or want to do that, but those who do can find a very rewarding experience, because if you do it, those kids give back.

JACKIE: I think also that the comfort in questioning yourself daily and never feeling like you have the balance of pushing and pulling back right. And being OK with the feeling that like, “I'm going to try again tomorrow.” That's hard for a lot of people to just be OK with that condition. You know, today: “I pushed a little too hard.” Tomorrow: “I didn't really push them as hard as they needed to be pushed.” And feeling a sense of comfort I think is also something for a staff member to be able to find peace with in their own way. Because it's not the same thing every day. You're getting wildly different experiences month to month, year to year. And I think when you say—I mean, Al, you always talk about ‘chipping away’— I try to say that a lot too, that you don't always see the rewards of all your input in the freshman year, when you start with them on day one in September of their freshman year. You often see that in their junior year, perhaps senior year or perhaps when they're like 35 and they come back and they say, “Look at this awesome thing that I'm doing!” And you're like, “If we could just go back for a minute and look at what life was like for you in high school, I don't know that I would've ever expected that. So thank you for that gift of knowledge that you have done something really awesome or that I have played some tiny little role in that progress!” I think finding that comfort is really hard for Project teachers, and I think the best of intentions don't always mean that you're good at that. I think it takes a lot of self-restraint to be a good Project teacher, and a lot of constant reinforcement of you're not always going to get it right, and most days you don't get it right, but that's OK. Come back tomorrow and try again and you'll have a team of teachers around you to try to support you tomorrow, and the next day and the next day and the next day.

PETER: Jackie has a slightly different take on ego:

JACKIE: I think when you assume a role of teacher, I think there's a certain degree of ego that you have to adopt to just even go in front of a class full of teenagers, or little children, or whatever age you're working with. I think you have to adopt a certain degree of ego, but I also think sometimes when you don't understand why a kid is behaving in a way that you don't want them to behave and you can't actually control their behavior, sometimes it's easier to just jump into the [attitude]: Well, that kid's a pain, that kid’s disruptive. That kid is ruining my class dynamic for everybody else. Something that I have learned from Project is when I can leave my ego at the door, we can actually engage in those conversations in a way that makes it productive for both the teacher who's trying to get kids to demonstrate some kind of academic growth and personal growth and the kid who is just confused about who this lady is, Jackie Spring, talking at them.

PETER: Sidebar. Two Paradoxes of Teaching. Paradox is a device I loved to teach, not least because it was an excuse to write some Greek on the chalkboard. Para here means “next to” like paramedic, or paralegal, or parallel lines. Dox means “belief,” as orthodox derives from “right belief,” and doxology means some words about belief sung in Christian churches. You get a paradox when there’s two non-overlapping ideas worth taking seriously. The paradoxes of teaching are part of what makes it so hard—and so rewarding. I embraced one with help from Bev Geddis, a master colleague in English by the time I started at Westfield. We were sharing a classroom in my third year of teaching and, one day, during the transition between classes, we overheard an exchange between students in which one kid clearly couldn’t remember the name of the teacher he’d had just last year. Without missing a beat, Bev, who was adored by students and colleagues alike, said, “Kinda puts it all in perspective, doesn’t it?” She was smiling because she also knew that for many kids, you as the teacher are probably seeing them more in a given week than their own parents. To remain effective while not burning out, teachers need to remember both parts of this paradox: your work may be immensely influential; and also, given what all else is going on in a given kid’s life, he may not remember your name next year. The trick is relying on the part that will help you keep things in perspective at any given moment. There’s a similar apparent contradiction in Al’s educational philosophy: on the one hand, you as a teacher have to be on the lookout for a small interaction that might make a great difference in a kid’s trajectory, like Mrs. Bartlett’s labored trip across the field to congratulate Al on his exam score. On the other hand, especially in a program for at-risk learners, you need to consider your daily work one small part of a long and collaborative process.

ALAN: Nothing you do, nothing any one teacher in the program does, is going to make the difference, is going to change them. It's a process. It took them many years to get to the point where they're at. You're not going to change them in one class or one week. It was a process, and we knew that and you could see that because we had the privilege of working with these kids over the course of multiple years and you could see the development. You could see the change.

PETER: As Jackie said, Al’s memorable metaphor for this was chipping away.

ALAN: And it's not one sculptor. It's, you know, four or six sculptors working on the same project. And one of the things I liked about Project is that— We know as human beings that we don't connect or identify with everybody that we come into contact with. Our personalities don't match everybody that we meet. And so in Project I think working with a team of teachers, all of whom had different personalities, you had a greater chance of working together to say, “That kid is you, the kid that you're able to connect with. That's the kid who, for whatever reason, connects with you. And so you know that individually you can back off a little bit, knowing that your colleague is going to work on that one. And so, you know when I went in and I had—whatever it was I was teaching in any given year, you know—65 kids at the beginning I would say, “Who are the kids here that I can (for whatever reason) I have some kind of connection with?” Those are the ones that I would go after. And then I'd look as the coordinator to see who else is connecting with some other these kids so that everybody is covered. Now, it doesn't mean that every kid has only one staff member; it overlaps a lot, but to be able to identify those kids that you can just kind of grab onto and pull in is important, and again, the privilege of having those kids for three or four years working with however number of staff members—six, eight staff members—there is a certain amount of comfort in that knowing that you don't have to solve the problem today, that it's going to be a process …

PETER: Essential ingredient number three: time for staff to meet. Project staff meet for a full period nearly every day.

ALAN: That was built into the program, right from day one. It was part of the schedule from the first day the program went into existence. Even before we met the first student, we knew that there would need to what we called a debriefing session. That's how it was originally designed. You know, What went on today? What kid was on? Who was off? Who needs to be attended to? Whose parent needs to be called? Do we need to set up a meeting?

JACKIE: The staff meeting allows us to go from teachers who have specific kids that we share in different spaces to We all teach these kids. I truly believe you cannot have program without that time for teachers to understand that they are in a community of teachers that then extends outward, and if teachers don't feel connected to other teachers, teaching similar kids and trying to achieve similar goals, that you can continue to have the cohesiveness.

ALAN: No, you cannot feel isolated teaching at-risk kids. You'll burn out too quickly.

PETER: And finally, the last key ingredient, easily overlooked: the Project Office is the headquarters of the program, a large classroom arranged with meeting and workspaces for teachers and students. There’s also room to play a little, with areas for kids and teachers to catch up, to read, or play chess or eat lunch.

JACKIE: I think that's really important for people to understand that it is both for teachers to have desks and do work in that office, but also for kids to have a space to do homework, sit quietly, talk with people. One thing I learned from you guys is the value of the office early on. It's not about just going and being in there. It's about interacting with kids. It's about sitting with kids, eating your lunch with kids and having conversations, and the things you can learn about them just by sitting with them. We often joke with some of the kids we have now. There is a Period 5 group right now. The group that's in there, we just seem to every single day to talk about food. And these kids that are in there—they were Period 3 last year; they've become Period 5 this year—we just talk about different foods that we like from around the world, and things that we've tried and things that they've made and experimented with. And it allows these kids to talk about their different cultural backgrounds in the foods that their families have made. And none of that would I have known just by teaching them in a history class, even if it was a Global class. I'm hearing about how a kid makes gnocchi, you know, like I don't know when you’d ever have the opportunity to talk about that. I'm hearing about how they all come together on weekends and they go to someone's house and they make food together. You don't think that of high school kids when you just think of Random High School Student, you know. And there are so many stories beyond that that … reveal themselves when you spend time in that space. We have dance Fridays. So this is a new thing too in the morning. Something that is new is— I don't know, a high school kid that likes to get to school before 7:28. I don't know that kid other than the kids that have come into Project. We have kids that show up every day at 6:50, and every Friday kids decided we have Dance Party Friday. There’s a way that these kids just make you look forward to school in a way that when you come in at 6:30 on a Friday— you know sometimes it can feel so cold and you’re like, “Can't the weekend just be here?” I've written in a lot of college recommendations: I am thankful for these kids creating that kind of environment, because it makes me look forward to coming to school just as much as maybe they look forward to it.

ALAN: Here's the important thing I think, also, is that, let's be honest, these are at-risk kids. At some point they're going to screw up. After having spent this kind of time with these kids, and having opened yourself up and have them open themselves up to you, when that critical time comes where you really do have to hold them accountable or you really have to say, “This is wrong. You can't do this. How are we gonna fix this?” They're going to stop, and they're going to listen. You're going to spend the time. They're going to respect who you are. They're going to listen and that what we're talking about here is laying the groundwork for when the tough times come so that, that tough time becomes a learning experience rather than a—you know, backing off and saying, “You can't tell me!” That's the investment that you put in as an educator. You build those times so then you can cash in on that later on, when it comes to that meaningful time, that meaningful work.

JACKIE: I think whenever you ask kids why they feel different, for whatever reason they are different, when they come to a place that has a very strong expectation around acknowledging and seeing the value in our differences, I think everybody feels more at ease talking about the differences that exist. I think a lot of times in my non-Project classes, we are a little less comfortable talking or addressing or acknowledging our differences, whatever they may be, but that never really happens in Project. We have fierce conversations and debates over how people see things, and why different narratives are justified or why we should discredit others. The best conversations I have ever had—the most open, the most authentic conversations I've ever had about difference, have come in Project classes. There’s a willingness to just say things that I don't always experience in other places, and I have grown a lot because I have learned so much from the different kids that come in and talk about their different backgrounds, different experiences. It makes kids better. And I also really believe that it's essential for those—I think our kids are better suited to go into the world because they have had that experience, because they are not the kids that are going into the world that cannot confront difference on any level. They have had practice in dealing with that. And I think, isn't that what we want in the world? People who can manage that in some way of addressing that, of confronting it? I don't know. That matters to me. I love that about them. Some of the best conversations we had, like—I watched and I wasn't always part of them—were specifically around race. A white high school male and a black female talking about their experiences, and feeling like in the beginning of that conversation that there's nothing that they can agree on, and watching them walk through that together and feeling like a mutual respect by the end of their experience. You know, that's powerful. That's hopeful for the future.

PETER: That’s it for today’s show exploring an alternative education program with its own inspirational take on what and how and why we learn. Here’s to the next 40 years, Project ’79! Thanks to Alan Lantis and Jackie Spring for joining me, as well as current and former Project students who shared their take on the program and not a little bit of great music sprinkled throughout the soundtrack. If you want to learn more about Project ’79, check out the show page for additional information. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for intro and outro music, and of course thanks to you for listening. Point of Learning may be found on Google Play as well as YouTube and Apple Podcasts, where you can now rate the program. [5 stars] Thank you for subscribing and spreading the word about this podcast to anyone interested in what and how and why we learn. Back next month, when I’ll be talking with Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director at The Public Theater in downtown Manhattan. See you then!

Episode 009 Transcript

Master Class with Thomas Halpin (1/31/18)

VANESSA VARI [bumper]: Hi there! This is Vanessa Vari, Director of the Suzuki Strings of Denver in Colorado. You’re listening to episode 009 of Point of Learning with Peter Horn. Enjoy!

PETER HORN: On today’s show, a master violinist and teacher considers his decades-long career.

THOMAS HALPIN: There’s good teaching and bad teaching. I’ll begin with the bad …

HORN: Some thoughts on making the leap from advanced student to artist: 

HALPIN: The technical obstacles presented by the violin, beast that it is, can interfere with the player’s very recognition of his own expressive feelings.

HORN: And a few insider secrets!

HALPIN: I realized immediately that I was seeing teaching of a kind that I never knew existed …

HORN: Chances are, if you didn’t study violin yourself at some point, your sister or best friend did. As somebody who took weekly lessons from the time I was 3 until about age 19, I continue to be interested in the study of music for its own sake, but I’m talking today with the man who used to be my violin instructor because I realized shortly after I began teaching English in a public high school that Thomas Halpin hadn’t only taught me violin. Through sustained exposure to his methods and techniques, I learned how to break down challenging problems down into component parts in ways that translated fairly easily to studying English—or most anything else. We’ll get to some of those strategies later in the show, but as we’re getting started, I need to warn you that Tom is fairly direct about his bias in favor of the violin as opposed to, well, any other instrument. 

HALPIN: Don’t get me started on string bass!

HORN: Notwithstanding this low-level bigotry, there is something about the violin, which I asked him to address. (You’re right to assume, by the way, that all the violin music on this episode’s soundtrack is played by Halpin himself.*) [to HALPIN:] Can we riff for a minute on the popular idea of the violin? Even people who claim to know nothing about classical music can usually name a famous violinist or two.  What is it about the violin?

[02:43]

HALPIN: First of all, the sound of the violin is enchanting throughout its entire register.  A violin may create gorgeous melodies reaching deep down into its G-string territory or soaring high above the staff on the E-string. There may be dazzling passages and thrilling displays of virtuosity. Of course, a flute or a trumpet might dazzle or thrill, but those instruments don’t have the palette of tone-color the violin does. They can’t produce double-stops. The piano can play two or more notes at once, but it too has limited tonal variety. But what is more important, possibly, is that violin-playing is fascinating to watch. With wind instruments, the change of pitch is visible in the fingers. But the air-column — equivalent to the violinist’s bow — is concealed within the horn. The same is true of keyboard instruments; while articulation and pitch-change are clearly visible, the apparatus that strikes or plucks the strings is hidden under the lid. With the violin, the entire mechanism of music-making is exposed. The left-hand fingers select and vary the pitch, while the bow produces the column of sound. The audience can witness visible action leading to audible result. Of course, the same is true of other stringed instruments, but the lower strings don’t produce as appealing a sound — especially not the viola or the string bass. While the cello has its fans, the violin possesses a hole-card, a quality that causes professional wind and keyboard players — masters of their respective instruments — to confess that they always wanted to play the violin. That quality is contained in words of the the pop classic “Misty” [music by Erroll Garner; lyrics by Johnny Burke]: “Walk my way… / And a thousand violins begin to play….” In the collective imagination, the violin is the instrument of romance.

[05:57]

HORN: Tom grew up in Oakland, CA, beginning his musical career at the age of 3 playing triangle in a kind of babies band. He got his start on the violin after his parents, who were both amateur musicians, noticed their son’s fascination with a little toy guitar, which, when cranked, played “Pop! Goes the Weasel." Instead of strumming it, Tom stuck it under his chin like a fiddle and pretended to play it, using a pencil like a violin bow. He began lessons and soon became the front man of that band of toddlers, known as The Calloettes to people on the SF Bay Area music scene of the early 1950s (see the show page for some great shots). Fast forward to the early 1970s, after his undergraduate work at Yale College, and Tom was earning gig money sharing the stage with pop artists ranging from the Pointer Sisters to Boz Scaggs to Petula Clark to Van Morrison. In the decades following, Halpin performed as a soloist with orchestras throughout the U.S. and Canada, and recorded works by C20 composers Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, and Lou Harrison. But he was equally outstanding as a teacher. By the time I met him, he was one of the most sought-after violin teachers in Western New York. This was something I wanted to ask about, because just because you’re really good at something does not mean that you know how to teach it. I often recall my chem professor in college, who was a Nobel Prize laureate, reputed to be one of the world’s experts on carbon. However, he did not strike me as a particularly strong teacher. I don’t blame him for the low grades I earned in that course, but I do remember thinking for the first time that sometimes it can be a liability for a professor or teacher to be so advanced in a particular field that they can’t remember what it was like not to understand the fundamentals. With this in mind, I asked Tom what helped him most in terms of learning how to teach. 

[07:17]

HALPIN: Well, let me start with a story. The summer before my senior year in high school, I went to String Congress, which was a program sponsored by the Musicians Union. I studied with a violinist who was the concertmaster of a major orchestra. And he had odd, individual ways of doing most everything. Well, I came out of that summer with a new bow-grip, a different right-arm height, a strange new way of confronting the fingerboard with no side-contact of the first finger—and very little chance of playing in tune. My intonation was unsure even in first position, and shifting? Forget about it! Shifting attempts would always bring proceedings to a screeching halt. I was so out of control that I couldn’t react to my Oakland teacher’s suggestion, so I ended up canceling virtually every lesson that year. When I got to college, my private violin teachers in New York City got me back to a physically normal approach. But I’d spent months terrified that I would never again play accurately. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of teaching, the experience was a windfall. What happened was that rather late in life, I had forgotten how to play and then relearned. The trip across the River Styx and back again gave me a conscious awareness of how I play, and that’s uncommon among advanced players, most of whom blissfully operate their hands the same way they have ever since they were kissed by the Talent Fairy in childhood.  

HORN: Later in our conversation, he named that New York teacher who repaired his technique, Sally Thomas, as one of his most important influences. 

HALPIN: Her help was so valuable that I studied with her exclusively throughout my freshman year. At a time when everything I’d been hearing was wrong, everything she told me was right. And that is no small thing.

HORN: So this harrowing experience of needing to rebuild his violin technique as a college freshman was a strange yet essential step in learning how to teach. The other key element was a self-designed apprenticeship with a man named Bernard Mandelkern. 

HALPIN: In 1973, when I arrived in Buffalo, Bernard Mandelkern was the Grand Old Man of violin teaching in this area. He came to one of my concerts and afterwards he introduced himself. I went to his home and watched him give a couple of lessons. I realized I was witnessing teaching of a kind I never imagined existed. When I heard him give a talk to group of teachers, I realized that what I’d seen at his house was just the tip of the iceberg. I wrote to Bernie and explained that I wanted a bigger piece of him.  I proposed an arrangement in which I would watch him teach one of his students and in the same week, give the student another lesson free of charge.  Bernie was fine with the idea and suggested his student, Eric. So for 2 1/2 years, I wrote down every word Bernie Mandelkern said to one little boy. I watched Eric move from the elementary level through the intermediate and into the advanced stages of violin study. Eric learned the violin, to the extent of his talent and interest, while having some excellent fun. And I became a violin teacher.

HORN: As you know, Point of Learning is a show about what and how and why we learn. Very few violin students will go on to play professionally. Why study music?

[12:43]

HALPIN: Well, let me ask you this: why study mathematics even though most who study it will never be professional mathematicians or scientists or math teachers?  Why study English although most English students will never be poets or writers or English teachers?  It is because math and English are subjects of human thought, endeavor and accomplishment.  They are worthy of study and schools exist to ensure that they receive the intellectual attention they deserve.  The situation is similar with music.  One of mankind’s greatest discoveries was that the noise of the world could be refined into pure pitches and that those pitches could be organized in a logical way that could  narrate and express. Organization of that kind is called music, and it’s a subject worthy of study.

[14:08]

HORN:  One of the most famous violin teachers of the 20th century in the United States was a man named Ivan Galamian, an Armenian who was born in Iran in 1903. He studied in Russia with Konstantin Mostras, a proponent of what would come to be called the “Soviet School” of violin playing, and, after being jailed at age 15 by the Bolshevik government, in Paris, with Lucian Capet, who was known for the skill and finesse of his right arm, which operates the bow, that elegant stick strung, on high-quality bows still to this day, with hair from a horse’s tail. By the time Galamian emigrated to the US, in 1937, with deep knowledge of both the Russian and French schools of violin playing, his reputation as a teacher had preceded him. 

HALPIN: When he first hung out his shingle, he got eight very talented students …

HORN: I grew up hearing stories about Galamian, whose students included Sally Thomas, mentioned earlier, who became his assistant, and eventually, Thomas Halpin. One fascinating—and enduring—aspect of Galamian’s legacy was the summer music camp he founded, which Tom cites as a major influence on his development. As you’ll hear, it is a place where students learn from each other, as well as their formal teachers and coaches, an admirable feature of any school, classroom, or other learning environment. It’s also the location where Halpin first acquired one of the strategies I would later use with my English students. 

HALPIN: Meadowmount Music Camp. After Galamian had been in this country for seven years, he purchased a large parcel of property in Upstate New York.  He built a summer home there which he named Meadowmount.  His students migrated there each summer along with him.  Initially, they numbered eight. By 1968, my first year at Meadowmount, I was one of more than 150. Metaphorically, Meadowmount was a teeming anthill; the power of the swarm was so much greater than sum of the individual insects. Students watched each other, they traded ideas and tricks, and learned from one another. I have heard players say, “Galamian never told me much, BUT, while I was at Meadowmount, I discovered—on my own—the secret of violin playing.” It wasn’t you, bug.  It was the hill!  During one Meadowmount break, I listened to a student speak about the practice techniques of his teacher back home in Indiana.  One such technique I really liked. It had to do with three “I-words”—Identify, Isolate and Integrate. Identify a problem; Isolate the problem (and solve it); then Integrate the solution back into the piece. I use that procedure to organize my own practicing and I present it to my students as the “De-bugging Process.”

[17:07]

HORN: I’ve used that mnemonic device when working with students on memorizing chunks of material, like poetry or a monologue of Shakespeare.

HALPIN: It makes sense. It’s especially useful when it comes to memorization.

HORN: I’ve also used your line, “A mistake is still a mistake until you can get into it and out of it.”

HORN: I promise you, this is magic. The three I’s once again are Identify, Isolate, and Integrate. Whether you’re having a memory slip or technical difficulty at a particular point in a concerto you’re looking to learn—or a poem you want to memorize, or more generally, a pattern of behavior in your life you’d like to change: Identify what’s tripping you up, then isolate it so you can repair what’s broken, but the money step is to integrate it back into the larger passage or piece or routine, making sure you can get into and out of this tricky spot with ease. Recently I was interested to learn that Jaron Lanier, the computer scientist who coined the term virtual reality and has remained at the forefront of that field, is, in his own description, a “compulsive” collector and player of musical instruments. In fact he envisions the future of virtual reality to be analogous to the work of musicians, who “create worlds together” by interacting in real time. That’s fascinating, and I’ll post a link to those ideas on the show page, but I don’t want to get too far afield with that here. Rather, I want to pick up on Lanier’s assertion that musical instruments are the “most expressive user interfaces ever designed.” Maybe because I grew up around musical instruments, it took me awhile to tumble to the realization that instrument literally means a tool used by a person to do something, or express something. Like a pen or a paintbrush, a violin in the hands of an advanced player should be a tool for the artist to express himself or herself. Tom teaches violin literature that is in some cases hundreds of years old. Classical music infamously seems to present rigid indications about how long or how fast or how loud to play particular notes and phrases, so I wanted to know how Tom thought about approaching the work of helping a player find her or his own voice, becoming an artist.  He begins with a story about Don Weilerstein, the violin professor who drew Tom to study at the University at Buffalo in the early 1970s. Weilerstein also, btw, once studied with Ivan Galamian. And yes, 3 Degrees of Ivan Galamian is absolutely the violinist’s version of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon—but obv. way cooler. 

[19:00]

HALPIN: Donald Weilerstein was a genius-level violinist. His absolute best tip as a teacher, in my opinion, is that students who want to make the leap from advanced-player to artist would do well to sing their music. This is great advice in the conservatory. But how could I demonstrate the value of singing to my demographic? Ever try to get seventh-graders to sing in a lesson!  They won’t, at least not solo.  But they will sing if I sing with them, and — revelation! — they will sing with greater gusto if my contribution to the duet is conspicuously wretched.   

HORN: Mr. Halpin's singing badly on purpose helps students feel more comfortable as he demonstrates a 3-step vocal process. Step 1 is singing the passage. Step 2 has you sing it again, but this time add fiddle, so you’re singing and playing at the same time, which is a trick with any instrument. The final step is to play without singing, but—and this is critical—you continue to maintain the feeling of singing. Physically, this means you’re supporting your diaphragm like an actor or opera singer. Emotionally, it means you’re using the violin as an instrument for your own voice. Tom went on to explain an advanced variation on the first step. 

HALPIN: Later, as the student gets older, I expand the first step into three. It becomes: a. Sing the passage; b. Sing the passage into the tape recorder; c. Listen to the playback and incorporate any discoveries into the interpretation. Advanced players will appreciate the expansion.  The technical obstacles presented by the violin, beast that it is, can interfere with the player’s very recognition of his own expressive feelings.

HORN: That was a nocturne by American composer Aaron Copland. Playing piano on that recording was Yvar Mikhashoff, a member of the piano faculty at University at Buffalo who frequently invited Tom to perform with him in recitals in this country and abroad. I thought we should listen to Tom’s violin for a minute, since he credits the legendary French violinist Zino Francescatti with inspiring his own unusual sound. 

[24:18]

HALPIN: Francescatti’s tone on the vinyl recordings in my parents’ record collection was the sound I loved and tried to emulate in my childhood. As an adult I listened to him playing short Fritz Kreisler pieces — phrase by phrase — then taped myself on the same phrases.  I listened to the playback, kept an occasional note that I liked, and tried for more. In trying to copy his sound, I found my own.

HORN: After a quick break, Tom and I will talk about good teaching, bad teaching, and a few more of his favorite ways to think about how students can tackle problems. Hope you’re enjoying this episode of Point of Learning, a monthly magazine for anyone interested in what and how and why we learn. For more ideas about music and learning, be sure to check November’s show, episode 007. Today’s interview was recorded near the University at Buffalo. If you are in the Buffalo area and find yourself in need of dog care services, why not consider Dognanny? Dognanny is a Buffalo-based, woman-owned business and proud sponsor of the Point of Learning podcast. Learn more about their unusually perfect services for dogs (and cats) at dognanny.pet. If you’re just joining us, my guest today is my former violin teacher, Thomas Halpin, who was instrumental in my approach to teaching as well as learning. 

[26:10]

HALPIN: There’s good teaching and bad teaching. I’ll begin with the bad. I have watched lessons, and taken lessons, which boiled down to, “You suck, you suck.  It sounds terrible. I’m holding my ears. Are you stupid?  untalented? or just lazy?  Go home and practice.”  That kind of negative teaching, unfortunately, is all too common in the violin world, but people pay good money for it. Good teaching is less typical. At its core is pedagogical advice which is nurturing and that is offered with the purpose of helping the student.  The advice should be pleasant, patient and positive. I will contrast the two teaching types.  Say that something goes wrong — a girl has learned a passage poorly or not learned it at all. Blaming her for not already knowing what he’s being paid to teach, the negative teacher pounces, resorting to abuse, invective and character assassination.  Meanwhile, the nurturing teacher recognizes an opportunity to…well…teach. Imagine that the girl has run out of bow.  The nurturing teacher—that’s me—might write at the top of her music,  ALWAYS PLAN AHEAD.  But I begin too close to the right edge of the paper, causing me to run out of space by, say, the H. I then finish the word vertically down the side of the page.  

(ALWAYS   PLAN  AH

     E

     A

    D)

I force a bit of a laugh and smile broadly at the girl to make sure she sees that I believe I am being funny.  So she relaxes; she’s off-the-hook — since I’ve obviously used the joke before — and now she’s more receptive to the dry, bow-distribution advice that I’m about to give her.

HORN: If I had to encapsulate Tom’s approach in one word, that word would be systematic. 

[29:18]

HALPIN: I like my students to have a Learning Process for approaching music that is at the frontier of their technical ability. The process involves proceeding with a bit of material at a time — say 4 bars — and dealing separately with the elements of notes, rhythm and bowing. 

HORN: The idea of breaking down complex problems into component parts is not original to Tom Halpin, of course, but I realized as I began teaching high school that learning violin was where I learned to feel comfortable facing challenging tasks. Attaining some measure of success in violin playing gave me confidence to attempt other hard things, a phenomenon reflected in educational research into students’ sense of mastery in school. Where does a given student feel smart, and how does that help them feel at least confident enough to try in other places?  I’ve added Tom’s process for violin learning to the show page. In my early years as a teacher, I adapted it to help students look at challenging poems or prose passages in literature, and to think about their writing and research processes.  Tom is big on asking, “Is there a problem?” 

HALPIN: Is there a problem? If so, try these remedies: Build the parts before the car.

HORN: Build the parts before the car.

HALPIN: If you were the greatest mechanic in the world, could you build me a car?

HORN:  Of course.

HALPIN: No you couldn’t, not unless you had the parts.  Build the parts before the car becomes the mantra of taking a problem apart and putting it back together again.  Working backwards is the best way to proceed whenever a passage is harder to finish than it is to start. Varying the problem, such as with different rhythms and bowings, adds depth to one’s command of the solution. Finally — it is sometimes possible to generalize a solution by taking a piece of it and transposing chromatically up and down the fingerboard.  Generalization looks to the future, preparing variations of today’s solution to be applied to up-coming pieces. But I am devolving into violin minutiae.  Maybe I should wrap all this up by stating what might be called my educational philosophy: In a career that spans several decades, a teacher may host dozens, even hundreds of students in his studio.  Not many of these will pursue music professionally; not many should.  But whether a student is in it for fun or in it for blood, the goal of the lesson should be to advance him, to the full extent of his talent and desire, in a setting of educational enjoyment.

HORN: Here endeth today’s lesson. My great thanks to Thomas Halpin for joining me to talk, let alone for all the amazing music he performed over the years, some 30-40 examples of which are searchable on YouTube. Everything you heard on this soundtrack is available there in some form or another. Thank you for listening and spreading the word about Point of Learning to anyone interested in what and how and why we learn. In addition to iTunes and YouTube, the show is now available on Google Play, so really, is there any good reason not to subscribe? Okay then! See you next month! 

HALPIN: Teaching violin is something that a lot of performers decide to do in their retirement. I mean you can just sit in a chair and say, “It needs a little more je ne sais quoi—oh now, it is perfect!”

---

* Correction: I discovered soon after production that the Copland recordings were misattributed, based on some mislabeled source tapes uploaded by a third party. Halpin did record these works, but the performances included on the podcast should be credited to violinist Louis Kaufman. The pianist for Ukulele Serenade was Annette Kaufman; for Nocturne, Aaron Copland himself. I regret the error. 

Episode 008 Transcript

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, as abridged by The Rev. Gilbert J. Horn (12/24/17)

[START 00:00]

BOB CRATCHIT [bumper]: It’s recording? Hello, this is Robert, no—Bob Cratchit and you are listening to the eighth installment of the Point of Learning podcast. What?

VOICEOVER (Peter Horn): On today's show:

EBENEZER SCROOGE: Merry Christmas! Out upon a Merry Christmas! If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with a "Merry Christmas" on his lips would be boiled in his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart! He should!

VOICEOVER: The December edition of Point of Learning is a holiday special, but one that follows this first season’s theme of strong influences on me as I began to think about what and how and why we learn. I grew up listening to my father read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The late Gilbert Horn was a Presbyterian minister who for thirty years performed his own abridged version of the classic tale for the congregations he served in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Colorado. For me as a very young child, Dad's distinctive vocal characterizations gave this story flesh and bone. Through his voice, it leapt from the page into my imagination every Christmas Eve. I was amazed, delighted, and a little scared, all at once. It’s not hard to draw a line from these childhood experiences to my career as an English teacher. I don’t know of any way I more surely internalized the power of story. 

Inspired by a visit to a free school for poor children in Manchester England, Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in just over a month in the fall of 1843. Published on the 19th of December, the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve. Recognizing the story’s immense popularity, Dickens himself was the first to do dramatic readings of it, earning rave reviews in New York City as well as throughout England. I began reading A Christmas Carol in Westfield, New Jersey in 1998, the first December after my father’s death, and I am honored to continue the tradition. Full credits at the end, but what follows is the 20th annual performance, recorded live at First Baptist Church on December 16th, 2017, of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

[O Come, All Ye Faithful 02:36]

[STAVE 1—SCROOGE begins at 05:13]

NARRATOR: Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was dead as a doornail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did! How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain. Scrooge never painted out old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterward, above the warehouse door: Scrooge & Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge “Scrooge,” and sometimes “Marley,” but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him. Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays, and didn’t thaw it out one degree at Christmas. Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and the door of Scrooge’s counting house was open that he might keep an eye on his clerk, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like a single coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room. So the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle, in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.

NEPHEW: A Merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you!--

NARRATOR: —cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew.

SCROOGE: Bah!

NARRATOR: —said Scrooge.

SCROOGE: Humbug!

NEPHEW: Christmas a humbug, Uncle? You don’t mean that, I’m sure!

SCROOGE: I do! Merry Christmas … What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough!

NEPHEW: Come then, Uncle. What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough!

NARRATOR: Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said--

SCROOGE: Bah!

NARRATOR: —again, and followed it up with

SCROOGE: Humbug!

NEPHEW: Don’t be cross, Uncle!

SCROOGE: What else can I be, when I live in a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas … Out upon a merry Christmas! What’s Christmas to you but a time for paying bills without money, for finding yourself a year older but not an hour richer. If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!

NEPHEW: Uncle!

SCROOGE: Nephew, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.

NEPHEW: Keep it? But you don’t keep it.

SCROOGE: Let me leave it alone then. Much good may it do you! Much good has it ever done you!

NEPHEW: There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas, when it has come around, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women open their hearts freely, and think of other people as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good, and I say, “God bless it!”

NARRATOR: The clerk in the corner involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, extinguishing the last frail spark forever.

SCROOGE: Let me hear another word from you, and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir,

NARRATOR: —he added, turning to his nephew.

SCROOGE: I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.

NEPHEW: Don’t be angry, Uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.

NARRATOR: Scrooge said that he would see him—yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of that expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

NEPHEW: But why? Why?

SCROOGE: Why did you get married?

NEPHEW: Because I feel in love.

SCROOGE: Because you fell in love!--

NARRATOR: —growled Scrooge, as if that were the only thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas.

SCROOGE: Good afternoon!

NEPHEW: Nay, Uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?

SCROOGE: Good afternoon.

NEPHEW: I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you. Why cannot we be friends?

SCROOGE: Good afternoon.

NEPHEW: I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So a Merry Christmas, Uncle!

SCROOGE: Good afternoon!

NEPHEW: And a Happy New Year!

SCROOGE: GOOD AFTERNOON!!!

NARRATOR: His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.

SCROOGE: There’s another fellow, my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife, and a family, talking about a merry Christmas—I’ll retire to Bedlam!

NARRATOR: This lunatic, in letting Scrooge’s nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him. Referring to his list, one of the gentlemen spoke.

SOLICITOR: Scrooge & Marley’s, I believe. Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley?

SCROOGE: Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years. He died seven years ago this very night.

SOLICITOR: We have no doubt his generosity is well represented by his surviving partner--

NARRATOR: —said the gentleman, presenting his credentials. It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word generosity, Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

SOLICITOR: At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessities; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.

SCROOGE: Are there no prisons?

SOLICITOR: Plenty of prisons …

SCROOGE: And the union workhouses? Are they still in operation?

SOLICITOR: They are. Still, I wish I could say they were not.

SCROOGE: The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?

SOLICITOR: Both very busy, sir.

SCROOGE: Oh, I was afraid from what you said at first that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course. I’m very glad to hear it.

SOLICITOR: Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude, a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?

SCROOGE: Nothing!

SOLICITOR: You wish to be anonymous?

SCROOGE: I wish to be left alone! Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.

SOLICITOR: Many can’t go there; and many would rather die!

SCROOGE: If they would rather they, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population! It’s not my business. It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen.

[O Come, O Come, Emmanuel 17:45]

[STAVE 2—MARLEY begins at 20:04]

NARRATOR: At length, the hour of shutting up the counting house arrived, and with an ill will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and said to his clerk--

SCROOGE: You'll want all day, tomorrow, I suppose.

CRATCHIT: If quite convenient, sir. 

SCROOGE: It's not convenient! It's a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December--

NARRATOR: --he exclaimed, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. 

SCROOGE: But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier the next morning.

NARRATOR: The clerk promised he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl, leaving his clerk to scurry off through the snow, with his white comforter flying out behind him (since he boasted no great-coat).

Scrooge took his usual melancholy dinner at his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called "fancy" about him as any man in the City of London. Let it also be borne in mind, that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven-years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker--but Marley's face!

Marley's face. (It had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.) It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look--with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. But as Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. Scrooge, his blood conscious of a terrible sensation, turned his key sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. He did pause before he shut the door, looking cautiously behind it, as if he half expected to see Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing but the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so up Scrooge went to his rooms.

Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa, nobody under the bed, nobody in the closet, nobody in his nightshirt, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. 

SCROOGE: Humbug!--

NARRATOR: --said Scrooge; and walked across the room. After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing! It swung so softly at first that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house. That might have lasted a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below, then coming up the stairs, then coming straight towards his door.

SCROOGE: It's humbug still! I won't believe it.

NARRATOR: His color changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. The same face--the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots. The chain he drew was clasped about the middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail, and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses made of steel. His body was transparent, so that Scrooge could see the two buttons on his waistcoat behind. He had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he never believed it till now. 

SCROOGE: How now!--

NARRATOR: --said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.

SCROOGE: What do you want with me?

MARLEY: Much!

NARRATOR: It was Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

SCROOGE: Who are you?

MARLEY: Ask me who I was.

SCROOGE: Who were you then?

MARLEY: In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley. 

SCROOGE: Can you--can you sit down?

MARLEY: I can.

SCROOGE: Do it, then.

MARLEY: You don't believe in me.

SCROOGE: I don't.

MARLEY: What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?

SCROOGE: I don't know.

MARLEY: Why do you doubt your senses?

SCROOGE: Because a little thing upsets them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whoever you are!

NARRATOR: Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is that he tried to be smart as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down his terror. For the specter's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. But Scrooge said--

SCROOGE: Humbug, I tell you. Humbug!

NARRATOR: At this the spirit raised such a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself from fainting. But when the phantom took off the bandage around its head and its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast, Scrooge fell upon his knees and clasped his hands before his face.

SCROOGE: Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?

MARLEY: Man of the worldly mind, do you believe in me or not?

SCROOGE: I do. I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?

MARLEY: It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide. If that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so in death. It is doomed to wander through the world and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness. I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it, link by link, and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?

NARRATOR: Scrooge trembled more and more. 

MARLEY: Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas Eves ago. You have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain!

SCROOGE: Jacob. Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!

MARLEY: I have none to give you, Ebenezer Scrooge. I have been traveling thus these seven years--no rest, no peace, incessant torture of remorse; now knowing that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I!

SCROOGE: But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.

MARLEY: Business! Humanity was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! At this time of the rolling year, I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of my fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor stable? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me? I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.

SCROOGE: You were always a good friend to me. Thank 'e!

MARLEY: You will be haunted by three spirits.

NARRATOR: Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the ghost's had done.

SCROOGE: Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?

MARLEY: It is.

SCROOGE: I--I think I'd rather not.

MARLEY: Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one. 

SCROOGE: Couldn't I take 'em all at once and have it over, Jacob?

MARLEY: Expect the second on the next night at the same hour and the third upon the next; and for your own sake, remember what passed between us. 

NARRATOR: Scrooge looked up, and the specter vanished into a night screaming with phantoms, many like it, many known to him. He tried to say--

SCROOGE: Humb--

NARRATOR: --but stopped at the first syllable. Being much in need of repose, he went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

[Carol of the Bells 32:39]

[STAVE 3—CHRISTMAS PAST begins at 33:50]

CLOCK: Ding dong!

SCROOGE: A quarter past--

NARRATOR: --said Scrooge, counting.

CLOCK: Ding dong!

SCROOGE: Half past.

CLOCK: Ding dong!

SCROOGE: A quarter to it.

CLOCK: Ding dong!

SCROOGE: The hour itself--and nothing else!

NARRATOR: He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn, and Scrooge found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them.

SCROOGE: Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?

GHOST: I am.

SCROOGE: Who, and what are you?

GHOST: I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.

SCROOGE: Long past?

GHOST: No. Your past. Rise, walk with me!

NARRATOR: The spirit made toward the window.

SCROOGE: I am a mortal, and liable to fall. 

GHOST: Bear but a touch of my hand there, and you shall be upheld in more than this!

NARRATOR: As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and Scrooge found himself in the place where he grew up. He recognized every gate, post, and tree; the little market-town in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. And the school he attended, not quite deserted; a solitary child neglected by his friends was left there still. And Scrooge wept to see his poor, forgotten self as he used to be. 

SCROOGE: I wish ...--

NARRATOR: --Scrooge muttered, putting his hand back in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff. 

SCROOGE: But it's too late now. 

GHOST: What's the matter?--

NARRATOR: --asked the spirit.

SCROOGE: Nothing. Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door late night. I should like to have given him something, that's all.

NARRATOR: The ghost smiled thoughtfully and waved his hand:

GHOST: Let's see another Christmas!

NARRATOR: They stopped at a certain warehouse door, and the ghost asked Scrooge if he knew it.

SCROOGE: Know it? I was apprenticed here!

NARRATOR: They went in. At the sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk that, if had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement--

SCROOGE: Why it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again!

NARRATOR: Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven, and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice--

FEZZIWIG: Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!

NARRATOR: Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow apprentice.

SCROOGE: Dick Wilkins to be sure. Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear. 

FEZZIWIG: Yo ho, my boys! No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up before a man can say "Jack Robinson"!

NARRATOR: Shutters up! There was no chore they wouldn't have undertaken with old Fezziwig looking on. Every moveable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore. The floor was swept and watered, the lamps trimmed, fuel heaped on the fire, and the warehouse was as snug and bright a ballroom as you would desire on a winter's night. When the clock struck eleven, the domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door. Shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, they wished every one a Merry Christmas. During the whole of this time, Scrooge acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. It was not until now, with the bright faces turned from them, that he remembered the ghost.

GHOST: A small matter--

NARRATOR: --said the ghost--

GHOST: --to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.

SCROOGE: Small! 

NARRATOR: Scrooge was indignant.

GHOST: Why, is it not? He spent but a few pounds of your mortal money. Is that so much that he deserves praise?

SCROOGE: It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service a pleasure or a toil. The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.

GHOST: What's the matter?

NARRATOR: --asked the ghost.

SCROOGE: Nothing particular.

GHOST: Something, I think.

SCROOGE: No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all.

NARRATOR: Suddenly, Scrooge was not alone but sat by the side of a fair young girl, who spoke through her tears.

BELLE: It matters little to you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.

YOUNG SCROOGE: What idol has displaced you?

BELLE: A golden one.

NARRATOR: Scrooge heard himself reply--

YOUNG SCROOGE: This is the even-handed dealing of the world! There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty, and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!

BELLE: You fear the world too much Ebenezer. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. May you be happy in the life you have chosen. Good-bye, Ebenezer.

SCROOGE: Spirit! Show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me? Leave me. Take me back. Haunt me no longer!

NARRATOR: Scrooge was suddenly conscious of being exhausted and, furthermore, of being back in his own room, and barely had time to reel into bed before he sank into a heavy sleep. 

[It Came Upon the Midnight Clear 41:03]

[STAVE 4—CHRISTMAS PRESENT begins at 44:33]

NARRATOR: Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough [snort] snore, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of one. Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing. Consequently, when the bell struck one, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. At last, however, he began to think how curious it was that, at the stroke of one, his bed had been bathed in a blaze of ruddy light, which came from the adjoining room. He got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. The moment Scrooge's hand was upon the lock, a strange voice called him by name, and bade him enter.

GHOST: Come in! Come in, and know me better, man!

NARRATOR: Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before the spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

GHOST: I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before. 

SCROOGE: Never.

NARRATOR: The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

SCROOGE: Spirit, conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.

GHOST: Touch my robe!

NARRATOR: Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. The spirit led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's, stopping to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch.

MRS. CRATCHIT: What has ever got your precious father, then?--

NARRATOR: --said Mrs. Cratchit.

MRS. CRATCHIT: And your brother, Tiny Tim? And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an hour!

MARTHA: Here's Martha, mother!--

NARRATOR: --said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

CHILDREN: Here's Martha, mother!--

NARRATOR: --cried the two young Cratchits.

CHILDREN: Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!

MRS. CRATCHIT: Why bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!--

NARRATOR: --said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet with officious zeal.

MRS. CRATCHIT: Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless 'e!

CHILDREN: No, no! There's father coming!--

NARRATOR: --cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once.

CHILDREN: Hide, Martha, hide!

NARRATOR: So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

CRATCHIT: Why where's our Martha?

NARRATOR: --cried Bob Cratchit, looking around.

MRS. CRATCHIT: Not coming.

NARRATOR: --said Mrs. Cratchit.

CRATCHIT: Not coming?

NARRATOR: --said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's bloodhorse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. 

CRATCHIT: Not coming on Christmas Day?

NARRATOR: Martha did not like to see him disappointed; it were only a joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, where the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the washhouse, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

MRS. CRATCHIT: And how did Tiny Tim behave?--

NARRATOR: --asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had railed Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content. 

CRATCHIT: As gold as Gold, and better. [Tremulous:] Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who it was, made lame beggars walk and blind men see.

NARRATOR: Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. There never was such a goose! Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration. When dinner was done, all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth to taste the festive drink which had simmered there all day. At Bob's elbow stood the family display of glass: two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. These held the hot stuff from the jug as well as golden goblets would have done, and Bob served it out with beaming looks. 

CRATCHIT: A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!

NARRATOR: --which all the family re-echoed.

TINY TIM: God bless us, every one!--

NARRATOR: --said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child and wished to keep him by his side, dreading that he might be taken from him. 

SCROOGE: Spirit--

NARRATOR: --said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before--

SCROOGE: --tell me if Tiny Tim will live.

GHOST: I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die. 

SCROOGE: No, no! Oh no, kind spirit, say he will be spared!

GHOST: If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my race will find him here. What then? "If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population!"

NARRATOR: Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

GHOST: Man--

NARRATOR: --said the Ghost--

GHOST: --if man you be in heart, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is, and where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too-much-life among his hungry brothers in the dust!

NARRATOR: Scrooge bent before the ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name. It was Bob Cratchit's voice.

CRATCHIT: Mr. Scrooge! I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the founder of the feast.

NARRATOR: His wife was livid.

MRS. CRATCHIT: The founder of the feast indeed! I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it!

CRATCHIT: My dear, Christmas Day.

MRS. CRATCHIT: I'll drink his health for your sake and the day's, not for his. Long life to him. A merry and very happy Christmas. He'll be very merry and happy, I have no doubt!

NARRATOR: It was a long night, if it were only a night, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of the time Scrooge and his guide spent together. Turning to the ghost, Scrooge asked--

SCROOGE: Are spirits' lives so short?

GHOST: My life upon this globe is very brief. It ends tonight.

NARRATOR: Scrooge nodded, but still looked quizzically at the spectral form.

SCROOGE: Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask, but I see something strange and not belonging to you protruding from your skirts.

NARRATOR: From the foldings of its robe, the ghost brought two children: wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet and clung upon the outside of its garment.

GHOST: O man, look here! Look, look down here!

NARRATOR: They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.

SCROOGE: Spirit, are they yours?

GHOST: They are humanity's! This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.

SCROOGE: Have they no refuge or resource?

GHOST: "Are there no prisons?"--

NARRATOR: --said the ghost, turning on Scrooge for the last time with his own words--

GHOST: "Are there no workhouses?"

NARRATOR: The bell struck twelve.

[Angels We Have Heard on High 55:40]

[STAVE 5--CHRISTMAS YET TO COME & CHRISTMAS DAY begins at 57:54]

NARRATOR: Scrooge looked about him and beheld a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him. It was shrouded in a deep, black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. 

SCROOGE: Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?

NARRATOR: The spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

SCROOGE: You are to show me the shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us. Is that so, Spirit?

NARRATOR: The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received. 

SCROOGE: Ghost of the future! I fear you more than any specter I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear your company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?

NARRATOR: It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

SCROOGE: Lead on! Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!

NARRATOR: The phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. The spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. 

FAT MAN: No--

NARRATOR: --said a great fat man with a monstrous chin--

FAT MAN: I don't know much it either way. I only know he's dead.

DEEP-THROAT: When did he die?--

NARRATOR: --inquired another.

FAT MAN: Last night, I believe.

SNUFF-HEAD: Why, what was the matter with him?--

NARRATOR: --asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large box.

SNUFF-HEAD: I thought [sniff] he'd never die.

FAT MAN: [yawning] God knows--

NARRATOR: --said the first, with a yawn.

COCK-NOSE: What has he done with the money?--

NARRATOR: --asked a red-faced gentlemen with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

FAT MAN: I haven't heard. Left it to his company perhaps. He hasn't left it to me, that's all I know.

NARRATOR: This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. 

FAT MAN: It's likely to be a very cheap funeral, for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?

COCK-NOSE: I don't mind going if lunch is provided; but I must be fed if I make one!

NARRATOR: Another laugh. Speakers and listeners strolled away and mixed with other groups. The ghost then conducted Scrooge through several streets till they entered Bob Cratchit's house, and found the mother and the children seated round the fire. The mother laid her work upon the table and put her hand up to her face. 

MRS. CRATCHIT: The color hurts my eyes--

NARRATOR: --she said. The color? Ah, poor Tiny Tim. They were very quiet again. At last she said, in a steady, cheerful voice that faltered only once:

MRS. CRATCHIT: I have known him to walk with--I have known him to walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed. He was so very light to carry, and his father loved him so, so that it was no trouble, no trouble ... And there's your father at the door! You went today, then, Robert?

CRATCHIT: Yes, my dear. I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday ... My little, little child! My little child--I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was--although he was a little, little child--we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.

NARRATOR: Ill at ease, Scrooge turned from this scene to the ghost.

SCROOGE: Specter, something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. Tell me what man was that who died?

NARRATOR: The ghost conveyed him to a churchyard.

SCROOGE: Before I draw near to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will Be, or are they shadows of the things which May Be, only?

NARRATOR: Still the ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave, his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE. 

SCROOGE: No, Spirit! Oh no, no! Spirit, I am not the man I was. I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!

NARRATOR: In agony, Scrooge caught the ghostly hand, and tightly closed his eyes, only to find himself clutching his own bedpost. [Pause.] Yes! And the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!

SCROOGE: I don't know what to do! I'm as light as a feather! I'm as happy as an angel, as merry as a schoolboy, as giddy as a drunken man! A Merry Christmas to everybody! A Happy New Year to all the world! I don't know what day of the month it is. I don't know how long I've been among the spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo there!

NARRATOR: Running to the window, he opened it and put out his head. No fog, no mist--clear, bright, jovial, stirring cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sunlight, heavenly sky, sweet fresh air, merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious.

SCROOGE: What's today?--

NARRATOR: --cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes.

YOUNG BUCK: Today? Why, it's Christmas Day!

SCROOGE: [Realizing] It's Christmas Day! I haven't missed it. The spirits have done it all in one night. Of course they have. They can do anything they like! [To Young Buck:] Hallo, my fine fellow! Do you know the poulterer's in the next street, at the corner?

YOUNG BUCK: I should hope I did!

SCROOGE: An intelligent boy! A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize turkey--the big one.

YOUNG BUCK: What, the one as big as me?

SCROOGE: What a delightful boy! Yes, my buck!

YOUNG BUCK: It's hanging there now!

SCROOGE: It is? Go and buy it. Yes, go and buy it. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I'll give you half a crown!

NARRATOR: The boy was off like a shot.

SCROOGE: I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's! He shan't know who sent it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim!

NARRATOR: It was a turkey! He could never have stood upon his legs, that bird! Scrooge dressed himself all in his best, and got out into the streets. He regarded everyone with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant that three or four good-humored fellows said--

GOOD HUMOR MAN: Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you.

NARRATOR: He had not gone far, however, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting house the day before and had said--

SOLICITOR: Scrooge & Marley's, I believe?

NARRATOR: It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met, but he quickened his pace and took the old gentleman by both hands.

SCROOGE: My dear sir, how do you do. I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A--merry Christmas to you? 

SOLICITOR: Mr. Scrooge?

SCROOGE: Yes, that is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to beg your pardon. And will you have the goodness--

NARRATOR: Here, scrooge whispered into his ear.

SOLICITOR: Lord bless me! My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?

SCROOGE: If you please, and not a farthing less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favor?

SOLICITOR: I will!--

NARRATOR: --cried the old gentleman, and it was clear that he meant to do it. Scrooge went to church, walked about the streets, patted children on the head, questioned beggars, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon, he turned his steps toward his nephew's house. He passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it. 

SCROOGE: Fred!

NEPHEW: Why bless my soul! Who's that?

SCROOGE: It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?

NARRATOR: Let him in! It's a mercy he didn't shake his arm off! Scrooge was at home in five minutes. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful happiness! [Pause.] But he was early at the office the next morning. Oh, he was early there. If only he could be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That was the very thing he had set his heart upon. And he did it, yes he did. The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was fully 18 minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come in. Bob's hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on the stool in a jiffy, driving away with his pen as if he were trying to overtake 9 o'clock. 

SCROOGE: Hallo!--

NARRATOR: --growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. 

SCROOGE: What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?

CRATCHIT: I am very sorry sir. I am behind my time.

SCROOGE: Now, I'll tell you what, my friend. I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore--

NARRATOR: --he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the wall--

SCROOGE: --and therefore I am about to raise your salary!

NARRATOR: Bob trembled. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down, holding him, and calling for a straitjacket.

SCROOGE: A merry Christmas, Bob! A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you in many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your struggling family. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!

NARRATOR: Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more. And to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh and little heeded them, for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for the better, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter at the outset. And knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that was good enough for him. And it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, Every One!

[Joy to the World! 01:11:58]

VOICEOVER: Marley to my Scrooge for so many years, it was William R. Mathews in 1998 who invited me to read at First Baptist, the church which has welcomed me back for two decades. Bill was then was the organist and choirmaster of First Baptist Church, as well as a colleague of mine at Westfield High School.  In recent years, and in today’s performance, the tradition has continued with Michael Rosin on organ; it’s Michael’s pipe remix of Shayfer James’ "Weight of the World" that you’re hearing now, as at the top of the episode. Piano preludes are usually performed by Justin Rosin. The Westfield Concert Choir was rehearsed by its directors, John Brzozowski and Maureen Francis. Big thanks to the Choir and all other participants, this and every year, for donating their time to the performance. During the reading, Robyn Lee Horn played the part of Ebenezer’s onetime fiancée Belle. Thanks to Kevin Johnson for engineering sound for the live taping, and Ed Lara for assisting with video for the YouTube version. If you’d like to make a donation to the food pantry where we send all the proceeds for this performance, hang out for a few more seconds and I’ll provide details. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and spreading the word about this podcast, and all warmest wishes for a generous and humane 2018.

All proceeds from this reading benefit Grace’s Kitchen in Plainfield, New Jersey, which serves hungry families the last 5 days of every month, every year. If you’d like to make a contribution, mail a check made out to PLAINFIELD COMMUNITY OUTREACH and send it to Plainfield Community Outreach at 600 Cleveland Avenue Plainfield, NJ 07060. All donations are tax-deductible. 

Episode 007 Transcript

"My Brothers, Teachers" with John and Gregory Horn (11/29/17)

JORDAN HORN: This is Horn. Jordan Horn. Welcome to the Point of Learning podcast, episode 007.  

[00:32] PETER HORN: On today's show: moments after Thanksgiving 2017, I'm grateful for two of my greatest teachers, my brothers.

JOHN HORN: So whenever I give a talk, if it's a good talk, it's because I've taken the time to set it up. And I'm talking—when I'm addressing a jury, when I'm addressing a judge, when I'm addressing colleagues. Whatever it is, setting it up with why they should care. Why is this an issue? Why is this urgent? Why is this relevant? That's where the gap was, for me, is that—you know, I did pretty well—but why it was relevant, why it connected, why it mattered, why I should care … I don't recall that ever having been established.

PETER: That was John, the eldest Horn brother. He turns 50 the day this episode drops. Happy birthday, Johnny! And here's Greg, the middle Horn, two years younger than John, and six years older than me.

GREGORY HORN: Often the memory that I conjure up first when when I reflect on my high school years and how I spent them, or rather misspent them, with respect to learning and applying myself … I remember this specific World Regents class. It didn't seem to have any validity, any relationship to my life at the time, and I couldn't figure out how to get excited about it enough to apply myself. And so it was really excruciating. And I just remember going like, you know, I can't believe they're making us do this.

[02:23] PETER, voiceover: A week before Thanksgiving, I asked John and Gregory to join me at a table in our hometown of Buffalo, New York, to talk about learning, school, education and music. Here's how I set it up:

PETER, in interview: Here you are, brothers, 21 months apart. Having known you for 42 years, I feel confident in saying you're both wicked smart and capable of learning anything. John, your work as a trial attorney means you have to prepare for cases involving everything from safety features on power tools to the proper remediation of radioactive waste. Gregory, as a firefighter currently preparing for the examinations that would qualify you to make lieutenant, you're committing to memory voluminous details about how you deal with a wide range of emergency situations. Yesterday morning I saw a sheet of equations taped to your bathroom mirror that nearly made my brain snap [see image on show page]. John, you went right from high school to the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester to study jazz trombone. You adjusted your course a little, graduating four years later with a degree in Political Science. A Master’s and a law degree followed. Greg, after high school, you played trumpet in the Great Train Robbery, an alt-rock band that had a huge local following. And I should say you started that as a sophomore in high school. You made money as a carpenter, framing houses at first, and eventually running your own home improvement and restoration business before becoming a firefighter. You elected not to go to college. So, my first question for you both: As you look back at it now, how do you think your experience in high school, or school more generally, affected your decision to choose college or not? (Gregory answered first.)

[04:21] GREGORY: Well I think the institutional, conventional approach for education is certainly suitable for some percentage of the students. There is—it’s of course a one-size-fits-all approach which, of course does not fit every student. I wonder what percentage it really does fit. It certainly didn't suit me.

PETER: What could have been better for you?

GREGORY: Well, all right, so the force feeding of it, and the pressure of it, and the deadlines, and grades even…You know, it's about as free as it gets, but the degree to which I'm familiar with something called a “Free School,” in theory, at least, makes the most sense to me, and it's about the most opposite approach from the conventional approach that I can think of.

PETER: “Free Schools,” as Gregory is referring to them, grow out of an education reform movement in the 1960s and ‘70s to establish very independent, privately funded alternatives to public education. As one example, the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts has been around since 1968. As far as curriculum, students are free to spend their time and learn as they wish.

GREGORY: What's your interest? What do you want to learn about? Let's make that happen.

PETER: Also unusual and appealing to this educator, Free Schools are often radically democratic—small ‘d’. Sudbury Valley, for instance, is run as a direct democracy in which students and staff are equals.

[06:26] GREGORY: The line I was giving everybody, and I think it was more or less true, was that when I decided I was going to go for—you know, higher education—when I figured out what it was I wanted to learn, and when I felt like I was ready to do that, and then I was going to go. There certainly was a time as an adult when I felt like I was trapped in the job—you know, all of the details of my life, but the profession I was in, and I was not able to transition—at least, not in any easy way, in my 30s or something like that. There was not any easy way to transition, to quit my job and go back to school, and be able pay my bills, and raise kids, and all that.

[07:18] PETER: John, what would you say? Was it something you considered—not going to college—or was that just going to be the way it was? Firstborn son, go ahead.

JOHN: Right so. So somehow early on, Dad and I were both on AOL.com, and I was in the graduate program there at Northwestern, and was taking an ancient Greek—something—course. And you had to have a pass phrase or a catch phrase or something like that by which you would be identified to … AOL. So I wrote, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” You know, Socrates. So Dad wrote back, “True, but the examined life is just plain scary!” So we can pick that up later, perhaps, maybe in another podcast.

But look, for me, the unexamined life was my life for a long time, and by that I mean I kind of did what was laid out for me. I did pretty well in high school and it was everybody's expectation, I think, and therefore mine, that I would go to college, just because that is the thing that happened next. But also, I was a trombone player; I really wanted to be a better trombone player; I had spent the six weeks between my sophomore and junior years of high school at the Eastman School of Music Summer Jazz Studies Program. That was a transformative period. That six weeks, in so many different respects, changed my life and cemented my love for music, and made me know that I could do pretty well in it. So I wanted to go to Eastman, and I wanted to be a jazz trombonist. Dad said, “On the off chance that doesn't work out, why don't you go to a school that has a good liberal arts, a good academic pedigree, alongside the music credentials?” And so, Eastman was the choice for me, because the U of R was a great school on top of it.

So it was kind of a combination of things. It was conforming. It was understanding that, you know, to move ahead in the society in which I lived, moving to that next level, and succeeding at that next level was going to lead in some form or fashion to my success, or at least be sort of, in my view, that was the bare minimum. You just needed to do that. If you didn't check that box with an undergraduate degree, you weren't going to reach whatever that next level was, whether it was going to be music, or whether it was going to be something else. I felt I needed to do it. And I just didn't think a lot about it. It was almost reflexive that I was going to go to college.

But also, I loved to learn. And I knew that if I was going to learn more about trombone, one of the ways to do that I was going to go it was going to be to go to where the masters were and where they were teaching really good stuff. And I still feel that way about learning. I mean, learning is critical. I don't know that it's in formal education where you are going to learn the most. In fact, I'm convinced that there are lots of other places where you will learn gobs more.

[10:50] PETER: It leads me into the next question, because I just mentioned the kinds of things which are a couple of the things that have stuck in my head from cases that we've talked about, you know, just that you have to as a trial attorney acquaint yourself with. I'm sure sometimes you have to learn some, you know medical, information. You know, it just depends on what the case is. And this is sometimes called “just in time” learning, as opposed to “just in case” learning, which is what most of school is. So “just in time” learning you learn because you need to know it right then; there's a there's an exigent, urgent situation that requires you to master some new material. Do you feel like that kind of learning, and you mentioned that you love to learn, but do you feel like the kind of learning that you did in the school carries over into the kind of learning that you'd need to do when you prepare for a trial and try to get yourself acquainted with a new body of material, or is it different, or how do those things fit together?

JOHN: Right, so when I hear Greg talk about a “Free School” or whatever, you know, the notion of your interest—

PETER:  Really unstructured.

JOHN: Really unstructured—and your interest being nurtured or facilitated by somebody who's just listening to what you think you want to do and helps you get there … I immediately recoil against that in a visceral way, and can’t even explain fully why that is … Just because, I feel like you know, on the one hand, what does a high schooler know, what does a middle schooler or what does a college student know about what he really wants to know, what he should know in order to succeed in life? And you're taking your cues, you're taking your pointers from people who have been there. So I recoil against that, and yet I think that there's something really important there, because the “just in case” thing is about learning to learn. It's about a sort of foundational set of skills, a foundation of knowledge and understanding, and so on and so forth. And I think that's necessary, at least in my case, for me then to be able to get to a case where now it's “just in time” learning, right? I need to learn engineering principles, I need to sit down with a civil engineer or a structural engineer, or an orthopedic surgeon or somebody who's going to help me understand what I need to understand in order to advocate for my client. And I don't think I could do that if I didn't have a certain threshold reservoir of “just in case” learning built up. So I think that, for me anyway, it goes very much hand in hand.

[13:39] PETER: You're each the father of two amazing kids who but I can assess impartially in this way as their beloved uncle. All four kids are now in high school. How do you think your own experience with education affects the concerns or goals that you have for your kids in school?

GREGORY: Well with both of my kids, I talk about what I think is a good idea is that they have some sort of plan. And so their plan can be college, for example, and so sort of a conventional approach. Now it’s from the perspective of a parent that I am able to advocate for the more conservative general approach of, you know, keeping your options open. What I do remember and what figures into my perspective now pretty heavily is the degree to which you can be absolutely certain as an 8 year-old or a 12 year-old or a 17 year-old what what you're going to be doing next. And it’s certainly as a 17 year-old that you have all the answers at that point, and all the other invincibilities inherent to being that age.

PETER: How about you Johnny? How does your experience in school, any of it, affect the way you think about Brooke and Ava in school?

JOHN: What I want for them with education is what I experienced with my formal education that is to say the exposure to lots and lots of different ways of thinking about the world, and the problems of the world, and the joys of the world, and developing relationships … And I think about my time in high school and college and graduate school and law school as opportunities for me to develop wonderful relationships and friendships that sustain me to this day.

And for me to be exposed to a variety of opinions, some of which took hold and shaped my life, and some of which I rejected out of hand, and probably therefore shaped my life in a different way, by being exposed to all of those different people, whether they were professors, whether they were fellow students, whether they were people protesting in shanties in the mid ‘80s at the U of R— Whatever it was, I was caused to think about who I am and what I wanted to do and why. And I think unfortunately there's not enough of that in our country and our world, you know, being open to and bombarded with different views. My experience was one of horizon broadening, every successive step of my educational journey. And that's what I hope for for them.

PETER: You mentioned how motivated they are to study. Does the flipside of that, does the stress, or the potential for stress, concern you as you as you as you think about that?

JOHN: Yeah it really does. It really does. They are achieving at what I think frankly is an unsustainable clip right now, such that they are certain to fall off at some point.

GREGORY: I worry about sort of the opposite end of that pressure, because I remember all too well the stress that missing some classes and not doing well in school and having homework hanging over your head, that kind of stress and pressure I really worry about. There's pressure either way is my point, I guess, at either end of those spectrums. Only if you find yourself happily somewhere in the middle maybe can youget away from the pressure.

[18:05] PETER: Let's talk about music. Growing up mom and dad both sang and played piano. Eventually we all sang and played piano. Dad also played cello. Mom not only played but taught violin lessons for many years. Johnny played trombone, guitar. Greg, trumpet, guitar, percussion. So you two Horn brothers were also horn players, a fact many people found hilarious but probably—

JOHN: Many still do.

PETER: —probably drove me as little brother to study violin. Is learning music like learning other things?

GREGORY: Well I was going to mention this earlier, the idea that the internal motivation is ideally the impetus for all learning but—and there were certainly—I recounted many times over the years the number of times I'd throw myself off the back of a piano bench—

PETER: Trying to break an arm?

GREGORY: Something. Maybe I wanted to be sitting on a different bench than the piano bench. But at some point, and this is the way I think that music learning has been different for me and for my son Alex, for sure—and I think he had very similar experiences. We more or less made him do cello lessons starting at the age of three. The idea was at some point it would be his own idea, his own choice. And that has happened. He still plays the cello, not as much as he has over the years, but he's really taken to guitar and that's been almost, no that's been 100 percent under under his own wind, in his sails, whatever the expression is. Yeah if learning could always take place with that much enthusiasm and that much interest that would be the idea. But again, it's a good example of him needing a push to get started with that and you know maybe that's an approach that you could employ with different endeavors, in various endeavors.

JOHN: Is it like learning other things. That was the question? Look, I think it is in a lot of respects, right? I mean if you don't learn basic vocabulary, it's tough to communicate at any higher or more intimate level. You’ve got to learn the notes and you've got to learn how to put together basic sentences. So like one of the things that we learned again, during that six week magical period for me between sophomore and junior year in high school at Eastman School of Music, I remember watching the really, really accomplished jazz musicians, high school jazz musicians that I was just wowed by, this one guy in particular, John Bailey, sitting in his room on the floor with his trumpet in his hand and a Harmon mute at the end of the horn, and he was listening on a turntable to a Miles Davis solo, and he would play about eight bars of it, on the record, and then he would play. And he picked the arm, the needle up and he played what he thought he had just heard. And then he would come back and he would play again—it was a lot harder on a turntable, than you know today, right? But the idea was Learning from the Masters, right? And learning the vocabulary and then when he hears what Miles does with a particular chord progression he then gets comfortable in his own skin, with what he can do. But only after he listens to the Masters. It's a combination of skills and aptitude, and then something more, right? Just a love, a desire to to reach the next level on that thing. And the people that combine those two things—because the skill without that desire is kind of a dead end. But sometimes the desire without the requisite skills or the requisite discipline to learn those skills, that doesn't get you very far.

GREGORY: And I've got to cut in there. You keep talking about music in terms of being good at it and getting better and stuff with it. And there's certainly that approach that you can take with music. But I would suggest that maybe music is a little different from a lot of other disciplines and it can just be about expressing yourself. It can be, can and should be for amateurs, you know for the love of it, for people to just do once in a while or on the spur of the moment. You know it's a participation thing, it's an expressing yourself thing and as such doesn't have to be the culmination of any kind of practiced, disciplined, methodical approach to get you to that moment with any other particular goal. Communication, vocabulary, you know those things certainly can be part of and are part of music, depending on the approach, but don't need to be, is my view.

PETER: One of my goals—as you know, there was a baby grand piano in my classroom, in my English classroom—and one of the reasons I brought in visiting artists like you, like Jonathan Hiam and like Shayfer James, who was was an artist in residence, was to try to disabuse kids of the notion that we can learn internalize very early like “You can't sing, you know that’s not for you, it's for that group of people over there, music is for that group of people,” and of course there's, aside from language, arguably nothing more fundamental to human societies than music. You know, the upside of an iPod is that you can have any kind of performance you want. You know, right there [snap]. The downside is that it's very easy to let other people be the ones who are making music and not you because you're not good enough, you're not the pro and you're never going to be as good as those guys so why try?

[25:34] PETER: Greg, why are you better at percussion than John and me?

JOHN: Objection! Presupposes an answer. Not established!

PETER: You’re better at percussion than we are!

GREGORY: I don't know that that's true. I think I just expressed myself—

PETER: [scolding John, who begins drumming with his fingers] Not at the table with the microphones!

JOHN: Yeah, I got your percussion superiority!

GREGORY: I was gonna say, “I’m not better than you guys,” but maybe better than Johnny! [Dogs barking]

PETER: Production support brought to us by Dognanny, unusually perfect care for dogs, home services available for cats.

GREGORY: Well I've spent so much time playing, maybe developing what are typically typically considered percussion skills. But who's better expressing themselves with percussion?

JOHN: You. [Laughs] You know actually you just you kind of made my point there a little bit. I mean you, I think, just had a better sense of time than I did. Now I can hear when somebody is off, I can hear when somebody loses time, or picks up time, or can't keep it straight. But if I'm left to do it on my own, I invariably will screw it up. And it's because in part I just don't think I have the hard wiring or if I have it, I haven't worked hard enough to sort of cultivate it, which is the other thing. You have spent a lot of time listening to it, studying and working on it, and putting in the time, putting in the reps leads to a degree of accomplishment, which is what I was saying about music before, right?

So if you want to be at a level, you've got to put in the work to get to that level. And it does it mean that somebody who just does music once in a while can’t derive the same level of satisfaction as somebody who does it for a living, and maybe arguably derives much greater satisfaction, because there's no pressure, you know, to put bread on the table with the music, right. But look, if you want to be good at something, you've got to work at it, period.

GREGORY: I think it has to do with interest. You know certainly people have, everybody has areas that they gravitate towards and areas they would consider themselves sort of less adequate at. Peter is very good at—and I think it's due to his interest in—he’s very good at accents and doing impressions and that sort of thing. I'm horrible at it. And John, you’re not so good at it—

JOHN: Are we gonna get to a point in the program where I’m good at a thing?

PETER: You’re good at talking real loud when you’re uncomfortable, when you wanna make a point. I’ve heard a lot of that so far.

GREGORY: I've been really aware over the years, and I'm not the only one that this is true of, but, that I don't know the words to any pop songs and stuff like that. And there are some people that know every word, and it's not because I haven't heard it as many times as these other people, it’s because I don't pay attention, I'm not interested in that. It's not something I pay attention to. I think Peter pays attention to accents, and hears them and hears the details of them in a way that I don't perceive them. And maybe the way that I listen to percussion, or the way that I'm interested in percussion is a way that expresses more interest in it than you have in it. Maybe you're busy listening to other aspects, melodically, or you know chord progressions or something like that. Just a theory.

JOHN: I think it’s a good theory. I think it’s a good theory. I don't know why it is—so again, now we've reached a thing that you and I are less good at than another brother but I can't remember the words to stuff either. I mean there are a few tunes—

GREGORY: Maybe you're not that interested in it. That's my theory. I can't tell you how many times too—and this is unrelated, but—somebody will say, “Well what did you think of that?” You know we were just looking at, and I have no idea what they're referring to! You know, the whatever, the guy had a parrot on his head or something like that. You know I'd like to think I would notice that, but I have what I like to consider a gift for being able to focus on what interests me and sometimes it's at the exclusion of things that don't necessarily capture as much of my attention at that moment.

PETER: I feel like as a family we spent too much time wearing parrots on our head when Greg was growing up. It's just like, “Been there!”

JOHN: Right.

GREGORY: I didn't notice them, is what I’m saying.

JOHN: So that may or may not be true.

PETER: But as far as what Greg, and here’s another thing that Greg’s better than you at John—

JOHN: Was there a subtitle for this podcast that I wasn’t aware of?

PETER: I write them afterwards, you know, see how it shakes out.

GREGORY: [on Jeopardy] Alex, I’ll take GREG’S BETTER THAN JOHN AT THIS for $1000.

PETER: But walking into a room like at a restaurant and Greg’ll be just checking out the tile, like how the place is put together, like “Oh you know this is an addition right here” or like, “This place burned down at some point,” you know—

GREGORY: Or the drywall seams are making my skin crawl. And Johnny’s like, “What’s drywall? Not really, but—”

JOHN: [mock offended] Wow! You know, I walk into a room and I notice what they have on tap and who's in the room.

PETER: There you go, connector?

JOHN: I’m a big connector. You know, I think that my success in my career has every bit as much to do with my interest in, and affection for people, and helping them get where they want to be, which invariably involves introducing them to the folks they want to be introduced to, or maybe can benefit from being introduced to—so I'm always looking at that when I walk into a room. So now, it would be a good idea to say Happy Thanksgiving!

GREGORY: Happy Thanksgiving.

PETER: Happy Thanksgiving. That was awesome. Let’s do it one more time, let me turn this on.

PETER, voiceover: Well that’s it for this Thanksgiving edition of Point of Learning. My great thanks to my brothers for sharing a little bit of the ideas, music, banter, and firm but loving disagreement that marked so many mealtime exchanges around the table when I was growing up. Special thanks to Johnny for embracing what turned into a little bit of a birthday roast toward the end there. My niece Jordan represented her talented brother and cousins, all of whom make music, with the Sara Bareilles chord progression and song you heard midway through the episode. John played the rest of the piano parts, Gregory was on trumpet, I played fiddle. Also, a little bit of Gregory’s song “So Uncivilized” was featured when I was talking about his time playing in the Great Train Robbery. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for intro and outro, to you for listening, sharing, and—PLEASE!—subscribing through iTunes. There’s one more holiday edition of Point of Learning on tap for next month, with a Victorian take on what and how and why we learn. Back at you then!

PETER: What's the coolest thing you ever learned how to do?

JOHN: Taxi whistle without putting my fingers in my mouth. [whistles]

GREGORY: Scuba diving. I think it's real cool in that, you know, we don't belong down there. And so it's pretty cool that somebody figured out how to—under the water?

JOHN: We, people, don’t belong—

GREGORY: We don't belong to the bottom of the ocean.

JOHN: Well we figured out a way to be there.

GREGORY: We figured out a way to be there, not belong there.

JOHN: Well who of us belongs anywhere?

GREGORY: Ask anybody else you run into down there. I don’t really think so.

JOHN: There are a lot of places I wind up on a daily basis where that could be said.

PETER: Sit, Ubu, sit! [Dog barks] Good dog. (Oh that’s going in.)

GREGORY: That’s the plug.

Episode 006 Transcript

How to Connect with Teens, with Maureen Mazzarese (10/30/17)
    

KATRINE SINGHBABA [bumper]: Hi, this is Katrine SinghBaba. I teach English at a local community college, and no one in high school was more important to me than the woman you're about to hear. Stay tuned for episode 6 of the Point of Learning podcast.  

VOICEOVER (Peter Horn): On today's show, Maureen Mazzarese, an expert on the social and emotional worlds of adolescents. 

MAUREEN MAZZARESE: The need for independence has to be preceded with attempts at independence, which for parents and kids, are often awkward and sometimes angry. There are not a lot of kids that become fully independent without some strife with their parents.

VOICEOVER: We'll learn some of what she has figured out over the course of her career. 

MAZZARESE: Where families have strong cultural bonds or strong family bonds, that's probably one of the biggest assets you have in the bank of living is that you're validated by your community. 

VOICEOVER: She's worked with parents for 40 years, and the subject still fascinates her. 

MAZZARESE: The common theme in everything I read is the parenting out of fear for your child's safety, that constant fear of "Is my child safe? Are they going to be OK?" And it comes from school violence, it comes from 9/11, it comes from Columbine, it comes from all those places, it comes from night after night after night of seeing all kinds of things happening to kids. And I think that that creates an anxiety in parents that they might not even be aware of that says, "I need to keep them safe!" 

VOICEOVER: As you know, Point of Learning is a show about what and how and why we learn. Today we'll be learning from Maureen Mazzarese, who has helped kids and parents of every age for 40 years. She began her career working with high-risk pregnant women in the neonatal intensive care unit of a hospital. There she began to recognize her ability and desire to help people who were feeling worried, anxious, and fearful. A counselor's counselor in many senses, Maureen is currently the Director of Counseling for the Westfield Public Schools in New Jersey. But for many years as the Student Assistance Counselor [SAC], she provided specialized support to students and adults in crisis of all kinds: break-ups, terminal illness, addiction, divorce, suicide. She's been there for kids and families and staff at their saddest and angriest, in their worst possible times. She's listened and consoled, but also asked challenging questions and delivered hard truth when needed. Maureen was one of the first people I met when I joined the faculty of Westfield High School 20 years ago. I can remember clearly how she greeted us new staff members saying, "You matter to kids." Throughout the 18 years I spent at Westfield High School, I had the opportunity to see how Maureen kept and continues to keep kids at the center of her work, and at the center of any school- or district-level decision making she's a part of. As someone who has relied on Maureen's guidance and friendship more times than I can count, I'm delighted to share some highlights from my conversation last month with this extraordinarily talented and wise counselor. This episode will be of special interest to anyone who works with teens, but also those courageous enough to try to raise them. Parents and families, listen up! 

[04:02]
Act 1: Kids Today! Parents and teachers get frustrated

MAZZARESE: That's one word!

HORN: --with teenagers, we sometimes begin sentences with exclamations like, "Kids today!" implying, of course, that there's something fundamentally different about this species than when we were kids. In your experience, in your professional practice, what if anything has changed about the social and emotional lives of high school-aged kids--and what hasn't? 

MAZZARESE: I think that there are fundamental tasks of adolescence that will never change: identity, connection, validation. And with that comes experimentation. And I think that has always been true--at least as far as my life's history-- 

HORN: "Experimentation"? You mean like, pushing borders--

MAZZARESE: Pushing borders, trying things on ... whether it's cutting your hair or not cutting your hair, whether it's bobby socks or whether it's mohawks at one point, or whether it's piercings, or whether it's sexual experimentation, which is more openly talked about. I think that that has always been part of it. And I don't think that ever should go away. I think it's an essential component of adolescence, and it happens in schools. I think it's almost built-in in schools, because of the ways that schools contain kids and the ways in which school sometimes offers obvious routes to go: I can go there or I can be that, or I can join this. And it provides opportunities for that kind of identity search, but it also is very confining and constricting. The search, the need for independence has to be preceded with attempts at independence, which for parents and kids, are often awkward and sometimes angry. There are not a lot of kids that become fully independent without some strife with their parents. Some "Why? I don't want to do it that way!" "Well, you're grounded." "No you're not"--those kinds of things. But I do think that a couple of things have changed rapidly, really rapidly, in the past maybe 15 years, I don't know ... The ways in which adolescence has been forced down. The idea that there are 10 year-olds struggling with those issues that maybe were better struggled with at 16. I think that we have a lot of kids in things, experiencing not just activities, but the feelings that go with those activities much earlier. When I go to the middle schools, I watch and I hear the discussions, the language, the relationships of an 11 year-old. And I think, "Wow! You're young. You're young to be having those experiences. And I think the other thing that has changed: parenting has changed more than anything. The intense nature of the parent child relationship, and the intense need in all communities, but in some more than others, to to provide for your child that clear path to whatever it is you think they need to get or be to be successful. And I think my view, my experience is very much contained by the community that I have worked in for a very long time, and I have to acknowledge that. I have worked in a small, affluent suburban school district for a very long time, but I also see, as you listen and you try to learn, that same urgency--Black Lives Matter, or Moms Against Guns is parents trying to protect children from a world that they don't necessarily feel is safe. Or where they don't go to bed at night trusting that they'll be OK in this world. And I think that sense of anxiety affects kids. You know, first they were "Helicopter Parents." Now we call parents "Lawnmower Parents," parents whose primary purpose in life is to plow the road, so that there is never a bump in a child's road. And I think that is significantly different than parenting in other places, and certainly parenting in other generations. So I think that that has created a kind of anxiety for kids, a kind of performance anxiety, a kind of fearfulness that creates a lot of turmoil inside kids. And I think probably in my last 10 years that is what I have dealt with more than anything is kids who can't handle the anxiety of not being "that kid."

HORN: So some of that anxiety, if I'm understanding the way you're explaining is that this is brought about, or abetted, by some of the parents' maneuvers, that may be well-intentioned.

MAZZARESE: Absolutely.

HORN: But complicate things for kids later on.

MAZZARESE: Most of my reading now is about parenting, and it's about the world of adolescents, and I think the one thing that's the common theme in everything I read is the parenting out of fear for your child's safety, that constant fear of "Is my child safe? Are they going to be OK?" And it comes from school violence, it comes from 9/11, it comes from Columbine, it comes from all those places. It comes from night after night after night of seeing all kinds of things happening to kids. And I think that that creates an anxiety in parents that they might not even be aware of that says, "I need to keep them safe. I need to protect them. And their safety, often ensuring their safety translates into "I need to make everything perfect, I need to fix it. I need to fix it." And as a result, I think that we threaten kids' resilience, which is my new favorite word.

VOICEOVER: Resilience, in kids as adults, is marked by the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.

[10:38]

VOICEOVER: Act 2. A Few "Givens" of Adolescent Development. Everybody's a little different, of course, but there are some common aspects of adolescence that it can be very helpful for parents, teachers, counselors, employers, and friends of teens and young adults to keep in mind. For instance, one helpful fact Maureen encouraged me to remember is that kids develop at different rates--not just one kid as compared to another, like who hits their growth spurt first--but different dimensions of a given kid's personality: physical growth as opposed to intellectual growth, as opposed to social and emotional growth. These different facets can occur within a given kid at quite different speeds. So a freshman might act much younger than he looks, because right now he's physically more developed than he is emotionally. And in fact some current neurological research suggests that some people may not become adult in terms of brain development until as late as age 25. So it's critical for everyone to remember that "There's more to me than what you see." I asked Maureen to talk about some of these "givens" of adolescent development and contrast some of the features of adulthood that can sometimes make it difficult for adults to remember what it was like to be a teen. She starts with two of my favorites. One she calls the Personal Fable, which is basically the normal adolescent conviction that "nobody's life is quite the same as mine, nobody knows the trouble I've seen."

MAZZARESE: I think that as a teenager you believe that your story is the only story in the world, that your life is the hardest. It's the best, it's the hardest, you're the prettiest, you're the ugliest. It's all lived in the superlative adjective.

HORN: Number 2 she calls the Invisible Audience, which is the suspicion that everybody's always watching--they definitely know, for instance, that you're wearing those jeans for the second time this week!

MAZZARESE: And it's all lived in the notion that "Everybody is looking at me, and my mistakes are so public, and my choices are so obvious." I would hope that when you get to be an adult, you realize that you are not the only person in the world and that you share experience. One of the things that you bring to your--whatever it is you do, your marriage, your family, your friendships--is a common experience, and so you become much more comfortable with that.

HORN: Identity takes time to develop. A caring family helps, a caring community helps.

MAZZARESE: I also think, you would hope, that as you get to mature that you become comfortable with-- You know who you are, you're comfortable with who you are, and you're comfortable being who you are in the presence of somebody who's not exactly like you. Where families have strong cultural bonds or strong family bonds, that's probably one of the biggest assets you have in the bank of living is that you're you're validated by your community, which teenagers don't always feel. They feel validated by their community as long as they are like the community, you know, they're exactly like them. I think as an adult you might see that a little bit a little bit more genuinely. The other thing though is I don't not sure that every adult leaves their teenage years behind them. I think that a lot of us bring some of that with us. We learn to live with it. We learn to put it in the context of time. You know, one of the hardest things for a kid to do is put what they're experiencing in the context of time because they have a lot of time. How can I say to a 12 year-old, "Oh you're going to get over this, you're going to get through this some day, you're going to come out on the other side"? When I say to them, "Ten years from now," and they look at you and say, "Ten years from now? What about tomorrow? I can't do this tomorrow!" So you would hope that an adult has the perspective of experience. You know I think that's probably the biggest advantage. Let's take an adult who loses a parent. It's always terrible. And the loss of someone you love is not quantifiable, it's not measurable, and it's certainly not comparable. But I think as an adult, you have a better concept of the fact that death happens. At least you hope you do. You also have more years to have enjoy the relationship than you did when you were 15. So you take that experience of prior loss--maybe you lost a grandparent, maybe you lost your dog--and you use that experience to inform your ability to manage or to cope with whatever comes now. A kid doesn't have that experience, ever. Especially if they have been sheltered from those experiences, which is what we're seeing now. 

VOICEOVER: Speaking of challenges related to the perspective that time can provide, another important given of teen development is sometimes called Now/Not Now. 

MAZZARESE: I think the other part of adolescence is the notion of Now and Not Now: if it's not happening now, it's not happening. And if it is happening now, it's never going to end. And I think that's very adolescent, and can make can make a day for a student or a kid at home eternal. 

VOICEOVER: Let's go back for a sec to the idea of the Personal Fable and explore one implication for teens, in talking with teens--and everybody else. 

MAZZARESE: The Personal Fable--

HORN: --we call it--

MAZZARESE: --which I love, the Personal Fable: it's my life, it's the most important life, and it's the most, the most in any way I'm living it right now. It's the most beautiful, it's the most horrendous, it's the most.

HORN: You could never understand me.  

MAZZARESE: No. So you never say to a teenager "I know exactly how you feel," because you just made them angry. You just made them angry.

HORN: "I understand, because I remember what it was like when I was your age."

MAZZARESE: And then they're saying, "No you don't, and you're not paying attention to me!" And I think that's, I think that's actually true for people in general.

HORN: It's a bad idea to say--

MAZZARESE: Yeah, I know.

HORN: So "Stop talking, I know what you mean!" 

MAZZARESE: And so sometimes I've learned to say, "I can't, I don't begin to understand how you're, what's happening right now, how you're feeling, or what your family is going through. But if you want to talk about it I'm here, if you don't want to talk about it, just know I'm thinking about you. Let me know." But I think that dismisses a lot of people because-- We do that, most people who do that, do it to ease their own discomfort, not necessarily the person. They think they're helping the person, but they're not. 

VOICEOVER: One other common feature of teen development is a sharpening of a sense of justice in the sense of right, wrong, fair, unfair. Toddlers will sometimes declaim events as "Fair!" or "Unfair!" of course, but with adolescence comes an increased ability to reason about the world. So it's often during teenage years, for example, that kids begin to express an interest in political issues, sometimes hewing close to their parents' ideas, sometimes defining themselves in opposition to those ideas. 

MAZZARESE: I think the idea of justice is, well, I think it's very adolescent. The confusion between "fair" and "even" is really key. 

HORN: And how do you explain those things when you do peer counseling or mediation? Y 

MAZZARESE: Well, you know, I think the first thing I will say to them is "What about this feels unfair? Where do you see the unfairness?" And "What would seem fair to you?" And then and then we will talk about that. "Fair" is not "same." You know, if we want, and sometimes depending upon how concrete they are, or whether you know: "If I want it to be fair, that doesn't mean we each get 20 dollars, because if you have 50 to begin with and this person has 20, fair means they get 30. You don't get anything." And that's very infuriating for kids, but it's also introducing a concept of justice. And it's also the idea that fairness isn't guaranteed, and that's the other thing is that "I have a right to fair. I have a right to (those kinds of things)." And to explain-- That's again part of the resilience. Resilience is understanding that it isn't always fair, that it can it won't always be even. It won't always be just. But how do you manage the injustice in a way that allows you to continue to grow, and not get stuck in your anger or your frustration. So sometimes I'll simply say, "It just isn't always fair. I wish it was, but it isn't always fair. How could it feel fairer?" Because that's the other thing. I think that the world of adolescence, and the world in general, is getting more and more in the realm of black and white is getting-- The range of gray has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And so it's a world of either/or and sometimes it's about saying, "No, it's both."

HORN: Just check Facebook. 

MAZZARESE: And I think, you know, if you bring up Facebook, part of Facebook and adolescence this idea of the perfect life, the perfect persona, and you know, you can present yourself any way you want on Facebook. And that makes--or Instagram, or whichever one--

HORN:--or Twitter, or Snapchat--

MAZZARESE: And then that makes other people try to measure their life by that snippet of your life. That creates a tremendous amount of anxiety.

HORN: The snippet of your life that you have assiduously curated for public presentation.

MAZZARESE: Correct. Correct.  Yes. Yes. Yes. And so, how real is that?

[21:18]

VOICEOVER: Act 3. Some Basics of Connecting with Kids. In the spring of 2000, I took the most important school-based professional development course of my career. It was called simply "Connecting with Students," and it was taught by Maureen, and a middle school counselor named Carol Gerson, and Cas Jakubik, who was then Director of Guidance at Westfield High School. The premise was that understanding some basics of what skilled counselors do in conversations with kids could be helpful for anybody, especially anybody working with teens, to understand. Now of course, it's important to remember that you are still an amateur if you're not formally trained in counseling. However, as I've worked with parents and families over the years to recognize that raising a teenager is a lot like trying to nail jello to a tree--and you are not alone in feeling this way--I've continually benefitted from the strategies and techniques that I learned in that class. 

HORN: What kinds of questions do you find most powerful in situations where you really want to connect with somebody else? 

MAZZARESE: My favorite question with kids, in meeting a kid for the first time, would be "I'd like to know a little bit about you. So tell me who you are, but please don't tell me what you do." And I would say that 8 times out of 10, the response would be a deep long-lasting silence. Because the tendency is to say, "I'm this: I belong to this, I do this, I live here, I do that," and asking someone to tell you a little bit about-- "Share something about yourself, about who you are" ... It changes forever the kinds of conversations you have with that person.

HORN: But you don't get to tell me you're a football player, or that you're in the orchestra--

MAZZARESE: No you don't, or where you live, or what your grades are, or where you're going to go to college, or anything like that. But tell me who you are. And it's really been probably one of the most effective questions I've ever asked. And sometimes it's "I think you're having a hard time with with this, so we don't have to do it today, but the next time we meet, you know, can you think about that a little because I really like to know who you are." And I think that has really given kids a bit of a challenge, but I think it's given them permission to talk about things beyond labels and those kinds of things. Sometimes they'll say, "I'm a good friend." "So, as a good friend, tell me what that means, to be a good friend. And do you have good friends?" Because that will bring us to the discussion of "I don't" or "I do, but they're not as good a friend to me as I am to them." Or "Yes, but they don't really know who I am." "I'm angry," "I'm confused." They'll often go to labels, but they'll say, "I'm a son" or "a daughter," and I will say to them, "Well what does that mean? What does it mean to be a daughter in your family?" I had a great mentor once, and you know him, and the thing he taught me was to remember that everybody has a story to tell. And so sometimes I will say of a kid, "What's your story? Where you want to begin? You want to begin a birth, or do you want to begin last week?" but "What's your story?" And then really believing, when you're sitting with them and showing them, in all the ways that you show somebody, that I am listening to your story. 

HORN: What are some of the kinds of things that you try to to keep them mind as you prepare for, or participate in a meaningful conversation, that is, a conversation where you are trying to connect with somebody as an empathic listener?

MAZZARESE: I think you know, I think in early trainings as a counselor, you go to the obvious. You established a safe space. You need to pay careful attention to your seating arrangement. You know, you never talk to a kid across a desk--

HORN: Why?

MAZZARESE: --because the barrier is real. The barrier is real, and especially in a school setting, behind the desk comes with a-- you know, a hint of authority. So I think you want to establish a room that, or a space that feels quiet, that feels private. I think you want to really get a sense early on about the comfort of the person that you're meeting with. If it's a person that you're meeting for the first time, I always invite them to take a seat. And then what I do is I sit, and then I invite them to sit in any seat in the room that they choose, and they'll always tell me by the distance how how close they want to get to me. I think that after a while you get a sense of how long this meeting should go. Sometimes you can do some really good work in 20 minutes because that's all that the student, that's all the kid can handle right now. And then sometimes you forget the bell and you go for an hour; it depends on where you're at. You do want to know a little bit about their background, and their attitudes and values towards counseling, and acknowledge that in the beginning. I think that one of the things that that you need to do with anybody is to really go over the boundaries, and the promise of confidentiality, and what that means. And then mean it. You really gotta mean it. 

VOICEOVER: Because Maureen has counseled probably as many parents as kids over the years, I asked if there was anything fundamentally different in her approach when she deals with people of different ages.

MAZZARESE: The basic premise doesn't change, in that you establish an atmosphere that says, "I'm listening. I'm attending. I'm really attending. I'm non-judgmental," that "I'm going to listen for the purpose of listening, not for the purpose of reacting or responding, not for the purpose of advising, and then we'll talk in whatever way makes sense for us to talk." I think the basic fundamental principles don't change. You know, if I'm talking to a 6 year-old, I'll get down on the floor, or I might talk to a 6 year-old while we play with blocks or we play with Legos--or I might talk with a hyperactive kid while we walk instead of while we sit, and I might choose to walk side-by-side instead of face-to-face, because that allows you a certain degree of comfort there too. 

HORN: Oh, I use that when I'm talking to boys especially. 

MAZZARESE: Yes, boys especially-- and you know, dealing with fathers is very different than dealing with mothers, but the the fundamental practice of "How can I help?" or "What is it--Why are you here? What can we do together that's going to seem helpful? What's happening in your life? What brings you here?" It remains the same. I think it remains the same.

HORN: One of the things that you taught me to ask, when I was trying to sort out the difference, whether I was listening to a student or a colleague, who was upset about something--listening for a while, but trying to sort out the difference between somebody who was just venting, and somebody  who really might have a complaint or a difficulty that warranted further investigation, further action of some kind, was the question, "Well, how might this be different? What do you want to change? You've got these things that you're upset about right now, but really, what would you like to see happen?" And that's been such a useful go-to. I don't feel like I'm presenting this as a question to you right now. It's just saying, "Thank you!" 

MAZZARESE: You're welcome!

HORN: Yeah because it's been useful at various different points to tell the difference between "Are you really--" Because that's something that we need to do sometimes.

MAZZARESE: Absolutely.

HORN: But you as the interlocutor, you as the listening other, and somebody who wants to care for that person, you can be blindsided by that request sometimes, and say like, how do I navigate this conversation? You know, it's important to be able to say, "Well are you asking me to do something? Or are you just asking me to listen?" 

MAZZARESE: And that's that's an important distinction is is to be able to to figure out in the moment--even if the moment is an hour--what should be happening right now. And I think one of the challenging things is Where is the pivotal moment? How do you identify the time that you can start to move this in a different direction? And I think that's hard sometimes, and I think sometimes it happens almost naturally--when a person has the opportunity to vent, or to cry, or to be angry. The release of emotion has sometimes an almost natural calming down, and then you can see that, OK we're at a moment now where where we can talk about something different, but sometimes you don't see that. So sometimes you have to say, "Is this a person, or a time and a place where I can say we need to stop?" You need to stop, you need to take a breath. Let's walk around the block. And we need to take a little walk and see if walking in silence will allow you to calm down in a way that will allow us to have a conversation. I think therapeutically as a counselor, you begin to know when that person will not ever be able to do that with you in that space. And then it's very clinical. When you have that kind of overwhelming anxiety in a kid that no matter what you do, it doesn't dissipate. It can't be brought down enough to get into "What can I help you with? What would you like to happen next?" You have to know that. And I think that's also very hard, because when you are a really good listener and you want to help a kid, you can find yourself being a listener, and listening and listening--but it's not affecting anything. It's almost not helpful. That's really hard to do. So I think that seeing, assessing, looking for that pivotal moment: When can when can I move this into a more helpful direction, without invalidating the feelings, without violating the spirit, the experience of the person ... when it happens, it's wonderful, but it doesn't always happen. And sometimes you have to know that. 

[32:39]

VOICEOVER: And finally, Act 4. About six minutes of Advanced Guidance on the topics of suicide, referral networks, and owning vulnerability. During her years as the Student Assistance Counselor Maureen was the go-to person in the building for certain kinds of crises, including if a student might be contemplating suicide. Because suicide, of course, remains an important issue for schools and school systems, let alone parents and families, I asked about how Maureen viewed this model of a specialized counselor or "SAC" today. 

MAZZARESE: I don't think any school can afford to rely on one person for anything. In the State of New Jersey, every teacher, every staff member in the district is required to have suicide training--suicide prevention training--in order to be able to respond to kids, and to to be able to listen, to identify, to refer. Listen, identify, refer. So I think that whether a school has a SAC or not is ... it's not an issue. It's lovely if you do. But you can't rely on that person. You have to have a system in place, you have to have a team, an organized response practice for suicide identification, intervention, and referral that cannot rely on one person. Especially now, most of the suicide flags that pop up don't pop up in school anymore. They pop up in an e-mail to a teacher, or an Instagram or a random post. And so that notion that a SAC is sitting in their home 24 hours a day, ready to respond is not going to fly. It doesn't work. So who else is there? Who's your team? Who's your suicide intervention team? And it can be led by one person, and that one person can be responsible for training. But you can't put that on one person anymore. It's too scary, and it's too dangerous to do that because circumstances have changed so much. I think that there are a lot of schools in this country that don't have a SAC and they have a suicide prevention/intervention plan that works very, very well. But you have to know what it is. 

VOICEOVER: About 10 years ago when I needed some therapy, Maureen was able to recommend someone she knew would be a great match for me. One of Maureen's strengths as a counselor and director of guidance is that she's familiar with dozens of therapists, local and not so local. I asked her how important it is for any counselor to cultivate that referral network.

MAZZARESE: I think it's essential, and I think it's especially essential because we don't have in any school system the breadth of expertise that we would need. And so I think that there is an urgency to have a strong referral network. I think it's also important to have a strong referral network that takes you beyond the familiar. I mean especially now with insurance the way it is, your net has to be much wider. And I think sometimes we have to get on the phone and interview people. You know I've called people like, you know they'll send me a card and say, "Would you like-- Please refer," and I will call them and have them come in and meet with them, and find out what their particular areas of expertise are, and you know, "What is your relationship with adolescents?" One of the most critical things: if you have a person in need, a person in crisis, a person who needs individual therapy, a program. whatever. When you get that person at that point when they are ready, what you don't want to do is send them to the wrong person. Because you may not get them back. So you need to be able to send them to a person that you feel will be a good match for them, but also, I mean one of the things that's that's worked well for me is to be able to call that person and say, "I'm referring someone to you, and with their permission, these are some of the reasons why I'm sending them your way." Because that first cold visit is so hard for some people. And if it doesn't go well, they don't go back. So I think a referral system is very important. I also think that as a school-based counselor--and even a private practitioner--knowing when you're not that person anymore is really important. And so, when I look back on my career, I can think of many times when I should have referred sooner. I should not have been the lifeline for as long as I was because, because! Because you get too close to it, you get too connected. You also build a false sense in that person that there's only one person in the world that can help them, and that's really-- You need to be really careful about that. 

VOICEOVER: As we were finishing our conversation, I asked if there was an issue she'd wanted to address that I hadn't asked about.

MAZZARESE: I think that we still have to work hard at the stigma around mental illness, or emotional weakness, because I still think that there's there's a judgment there. And be ok with the idea of vulnerability. And I think we still have to work hard at that.

VOICEOVER: And how to begin?

MAZZARESE: When you are a teacher or a counselor, honor your own set of vulnerabilities, insecurities, feelings, uncertainties. Don't sweep them away because you're so busy taking care of everybody else's--which could be a good intent, and also an avoidance tactic.

VOICEOVER: Maureen shared some about her own support network, how she had an excellent supervisor when she was starting out who helped her think through difficult cases, and how she continues to consult with other professionals about recommendations she's making. She was candid about some of the questions she continues to ask herself regularly. Here's one.

MAZZARESE: I have to step back and say, "Are you the real deal, or are you pretending to be the real deal, or where do you need to own your own imperfection, or your own anxiety?" It's not easy. I think I'm good at what I do. (I can't believe I said that--on tape--but) I do believe I'm good at what I do. And that's nice.

VOICEOVER: But,

MAZZARESE: I have to be willing to say, "I wasn't so good at what I do today." So I think the last thing I say to anybody in the helping profession, whether you're helping your family, your neighbor, your student, your whatever--is that sometimes, as the helper, you can screw it up too. So, self-assessment is not a bad thing. 

VOICEOVER: That's it for this month. My great thanks to my dear friend Maureen, who, you may have inferred, is a huge James Taylor fan. I asked some friends to supply stylized takes on some JT hits for this episode's soundtrack, so thanks so much to guitarists Justin Rosin and Jason Grant, and to pianist Gil Scott Chapman for their original recordings. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for allowing me to use his music to open and end the show, and thanks to you for listening, subscribing through iTunes--oh, just do it already!--and sharing the word about this program to anyone interested in what and how and why we learn. See you next month! 

HORN: True or false: When in doubt, listen?  

MAZZARESE: Oh true! True beyond true! You can't go wrong when you listen. Have I said that enough? You can listen too long, but you can't go wrong by listening-- 

Episode 005 Transcript

Writer's Digest with Peter Horn (9/30/17)

JOHN DeFLAMINIS: Hi, this is John DeFlaminis, and I'm a director of the Penn Center for Educational Leadership and I run the distributed leadership project. You're listening to episode 005 of the Point of Learning podcast. Let's check it out!

PETER HORN: On today’s show, a quick trip through some ideas about writing that I want to live forever—a companion to last month’s crowdsourced theme “The Idea about Writing You Most Want to Die” that I discussed with that brilliant panel of educators studying at the Middlebury BLSE. Afterwards, several people asked if I would be willing to highlight some ideas I have found most useful as a teacher of writing for two decades who continues to work with teachers of writing as part of my consulting work in schools. Because I’m a glutton for feedback, here goes! 

Point of Learning, as you know, is a show about what and how and why we learn, so I’m excited to spend a few minutes with you today sharing some ideas about writing that I would like to live forever! 

Before we get started, a note on today’s condensed format: there's a full-length episode in the works that I think you’re gonna love, but a couple listeners have suggested that a 10-minute edition every so often wouldn’t be a bad idea, especially for folks who haven’t yet figured out how to fit a longer podcast into their daily routine.

1. Start with #stuvoice. Students have expertise in how they learn, but schools too rarely seek it out. The first quarter of the year especially is a good time for teachers to learn what students like to do. What was their favorite assignment ever? What goals do they have for their own writing? Obviously teachers also need to feel free to suggest some appropriate goals because we also have some expertise in learning—let’s just remember we’re in this together. 

• When I was a high school English teacher, the best regular feedback I got—on many aspects of my teaching--was from my students. I regularly solicited my kids’ opinions on what we studied, how it was presented, and what could be improved. Every marking period or so, a 3x5 index card went out to each  student, soliciting anonymous responses to three questions: 1. What works (about this class)? 2. What doesn’t work? 3.Comments/ suggestions? Depending on the class and the point in the year, I might only have had time to read and reflect on the feedback myself. But when students’ comments were particularly detailed or diverse, I compiled and distributed responses for full-class discussion. Exercises like this not only provide specific, actionable, useful data for you as a responsive instructor, but also-- and I would argue equally importantly—such exercises reinforce the teacher-student relationship that is essential for many students to feel confident enough to really push themselves. 

2. Develop some assignments based on the kinds of writing that you yourself learned the most from. Don’t forget the kinds of writing you enjoyed the most. Obviously you want to modify and tailor assignments so they present a healthy but attainable challenge for your kids.

• For instance, as a student of literature in high school, and college, and grad school, I always loved pastiche compositions, where you imitate the style of a given author or a specific work but give things your own twist. It’s kind of like you get to play dress-up as a writer—it’s still you underneath, but you’re disguised as Virginia Woolf. And who’s afraid of her, people? When I was teaching the short stories of Franz Kafka—especially the short short stories--I loved reading what kids wrote to demonstrate their understanding of elements of his nightmarish and bizarre storytelling. (05:00) Often a small creative constraint yields big surprises in what writers produce.

3. The Artist and the Editor. I either straight-up stole this idea from Anne Lamott, whose wonderful instruction book on writing and life is called Bird by Bird, or I conceptualized it after reading her. The idea is that one of the reasons writing poses such challenges is that it comprises two sets of skills that overlap a little, but really have different personalities. The Artist is the part of you that is all about the generation of ideas, and possibilities, and imagination, the stuff of what you want to go in there. The Editor manages issues like structure and sequence, and details like punctuation, usage, and spelling. This is an oversimplification, but I think the two roles can help kids to focus on one part at a time. In general, unleash the Artist first: Give kids 20 minutes to free-write on the subject at hand (when they get good at this, and depending on the students’ confidence, this part can happen at home, but I liked to practice together with students and see what we came up with. Set a timer for 20 minutes, then permit no interruptions. Here’s a place where phones and email will not just interrupt the process, but actually cost valuable minutes to mentally reset—so don’t permit them. The key during this time is to not judge yourself (that’s the Editor coming in with some concerns about what’s logical or how long it is—these may be important, but not yet). This freewrite Artist part is about saying Yes, and always write it down. If you write it down or type it out and later your Editor doesn’t like it, it’s easy to get rid of. But if you’re busy judging an idea as no good at the same time that you’re trying to generate other ones, you’re thinking in two directions at once, effectively wasting creative energy while that “bad idea” creates static in your head. (My father used to say that writer’s block comes from too many ideas--not too few.) Then, at the end of your 20 minutes or whatever, when  you’ve got some thoughts together, let the Editor in to help you consider what makes the most sense, what you should cut, what you should start with, what comes next, how to spell it, like that. Describing these different writing functions differently can help young writers keep them straight, and think increasingly precisely about where they may be getting hung up. 

4. Alternatives to the 5-Paragraph Essay—by popular request. The 5-paragraph essay got slammed pretty hard in last month’s show, and more than a few listeners noticed. Just to reiterate our theme: it’s not that the 5-paragraph essay shouldn’t be a tool in your kids’ toolbox; it’s just that it shouldn’t be the only tool.

• So, especially for juniors and seniors, if you want them to understand what great essays can do, make sure you’re asking them to read examples of great essays. Give them some Mark Twain or Adrienne Rich or Michael Pollan or Suzan-Lori Parks or Jack Hitt but then, ask for a really concise response: Ask for a 300-word response to a single aspect of the model essay for which the point is to Make Every Word Count. This short reaction paper should focus on one single idea that they found most compelling—because they loved it or hated it or didn’t understand it, or it prompted some new idea or question of theirs. Especially in September as you’re still getting to know your students, this can be a great way to learn quickly. You can get into longer papers later, but this is a very fast way to assess where kids' strengths and challenges lie. (And until you can do a short paper well, I don’t want to see a longer one!) 
• Another strong option for any grade level is a contract poem based on a model. Read some sonnets, discuss the form, and then everybody try to write one. The “contract” part is that you agree to write one too, and everyone can share. Or select any poem you like by Marie Howe or Mark Doty or Lucille Clifton or Mary Oliver or whoever you just encountered in that magazine you were checking out last week. Read it aloud a couple of times (you first), and then identify some salient aspects of that poem together with your students, and then you all agree to write something according to the rules you agree on together. (For more good poem ideas, check out episode 003 with Paula Roy). (07:15) 

5. Here are some goal-based questions I found helpful to ask myself for designing good writing challenges for my students. (Of course, many times I would not know the answers until I had read their work!)

• Have I challenged kids to think critically AND creatively?
• Will they produce something that I (as the teacher) will learn something from?—obviously this includes learning about how they reason about the world, about who they see themselves to be, in addition to knowledge about a given subject of their writing?
• Is this something that I will enjoy reading entire class sets of? True story: Oedipus tragedy—argument about most important scene?
• Is what I’m asking them to write virtually impossible (or at least too much of a hassle) to plagiarize?

6. Some thoughts on grading. 

• It is possible to grade on individual progress, rather than fixed notions that apply equally to confident writers and those struggling with language. For some detailed ideas, check out Linda Cristensen’s fabulous tome Teaching for Joy and Justice. 
• Don’t look for everything—no 5-page rubrics—stuff like that makes you crazy and kids hate you! pick a few areas of focus, e.g. the middle of a story, not beginning or ending, or page 317 of your life’s story
• Ask for a writer’s reflection. Here’s what I was trying to do, here’s where I struggled, please read for this. Especially if a kid is sharing their own extracurricular writing with you, make sure to ask what kind of feedback they’re looking for. 
• Finally: High-Stakes Test Anxiety. I don’t have the space or adequate blood pressure medication to rail with sufficient detail or fervor against the testing-industrial complex that continues to regard teachers as curriculum-delivery technicians to students who, in one district I worked in recently, literally spend more time being tested than learning. For a taste of my ideas on this subject, refer to the post called High-Stakes Tests will Always Backfire on the show page. In one sentence, my advice to teachers is that if we figure out how to teach students the value of strong writing, and design assignments interesting enough for them to enjoy practicing writing, they will be able to write well anywhere—even an absurd standardized assessment. 

That’s it for today’s Writer’s Digest edition of Point of Learning. Thanks so much for checking it out! If you like what you hear, subscribe through iTunes and the Point of Learning YouTube channel. Please spread the word about this show to anyone interested in what and how and why we learn. Back next month with Maureen Mazzarese talking about counseling, parenting, and the social-emotional development of teens. You’re not gonna wanna miss it! 

Episode 004 Detailed Outline

with Amy McNeill, Sarah Murphy, Stacy Rodgers, and Robyn Horn (8/31/17)

00:01         STEPHEN THORNE’s bumper

00:34         PETER HORN intro

04:35         AMY McNEILL on the importance of writing and communication for all kinds of jobs

05:12         Act 1: Essays

• The French verb essayer and Michel de Montaigne
• STACY RODGERS on essays as weird (06:11)
• DANIEL TURKELTAUB on the dreaded 5-paragraph essay (07:06)
• AMY “The problem isn't the model itself, it's just that we often don't teach students that there are other ways to write ...” (07:43)
• AL MORALES on the writer’s gift of surprise (08:27)
• NONI THOMAS LOPEZ on letting students experiment with different ways to lay out an argument (09:11)
• ROBYN LEE HORN on the 5-paragraph essay as “part of the vocabulary, instead of the only vocabulary” (09:47)
• The strangeness of always responding to fiction reading with non-fiction writing (10:18)
• SARAH MURPHY on learning to write by reading (11:06)
• AMY on providing models for students and writing as thinking (11:44)
• ALEXIS ANDERSON-URRIOLA: “If you would never say a word aloud, you should never write it!" (12:43)

13:15         Act 2: Audience

• SUSAN LYTLE on the need for more authentic audiences (13:32)
• STACY on writing as not just something English teachers care about (13:59)
• SARAH on science writing (14:39)
• AMY on writing for different kinds of audiences (16:10)
• NANCY LATIMER on writing for new media (16:41)
• AMY on the school tradition of writing for the teacher only (17:10)
• WARREN HYNES on the greater satisfaction of writing for wider audiences (17:38)

18:37         Act 3: Author

• SARAH on the problem with blue book assessments (19:26)
• ROBYN quoting Professor Teresa Choate: "I don't remember. I have a very bad hard drive, but an excellent search engine!" (20:47)
• SARAH on being able to evaluate information (21:40)
• AMY on protecting students’ unique voice (22:15)

23:41         Act 4: Purpose

• Do we write to demonstrate learning? to discover? to reflect? to create a better society?
• ROBYN on leaving “rough edges” (24:17)
• Can we throw grades out? (25:20)
• ELEANOR LEAR on writing for a grade vs. authentic audience (25:37)
• AMY: “In a way, writing is never done; it's just due.” Did you learn something? Did you make progress from where you used to be? (26:09)
• STACY: “I'd rather an interesting piece of sloppy syntax, then a perfectly formed set of paragraphs that don't go anywhere …” (27:42)
• HEATHER ROCCO with a thought about formulas for “good” writing, 5-paragraph essays, 3-point thesis statements, summary conclusions, 1st and 2nd person, and fragments (28:03)
• STACY on loving when students notice aspects of work that she hasn’t (29:51)
• SARAH on how kids acquire online writing skills (31:52)

32:31         Act 5: Process

• AMY on modeling her own writing process for students; presenting multiple tools for drafting work to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach (32:41)
• STACY honestly enjoying writing only about 20% of the time (34:45)
• AMY: "Aaaargh! Writing is so hard!"--and being open with kids about that (35:40)
• The importance of participating alongside students in writing and other classroom activities (36:26)
• STACY on teaching texts that still get her fired up (38:33)
• ROBYN and AMY on using tableaux vivants with students (39:24)
• Mel Levine’s idea of writing as the largest orchestra we ask kids to conduct—the many parts of writing (39:40)
• The different levels of aural vs. oral comprehension and expression, and reading and writing for kids with developmental differences and English Language Learners (41:20)
• JENNI BRAND: “When writing feels like breathing, I believe we’ll all be in a better place.” (42:14)
• AMY on the power of doodling and other analog engagement (43:04)

Episode 004 Transcript

The Idea About Writing You Most Want to Die (8/31/17)

STEPHEN THORNE [bumper]: Hi, I'm Stephen Thorne. I first met Peter Horn in 1999 at the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont. We shared the stage together on a wonderful Shakespeare project. You're listening to Episode 004 of the Point of Learning podcast, recorded at the Bread School of English in Vermont. Let's take a listen! 

VOICEOVER (Peter Horn): On today's show, a little something different. I'll be speaking with four graduate students at the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English. Let's meet them, shall we? Sarah Murphy is a librarian at a K-12 independent school in New York City who teaches reference skills, media literacy, and research writing. She was recently featured in Teen Vogue for a piece on how to identify "fake news." 

SARAH MURPHY: It's also so important for the for students to be able to evaluate the different sources that they do find. So finding is one thing, searching is one thing, but being able to tell the difference between the source that's going to help you and the source that's not--for any number of reasons--is such a huge, huge, huge part of the process. 

VOICEOVER: Stacy Rodgers teaches English, film, and Theory of Knowledge at a public high school in Austin, Texas. Her current teaching load is 130 students--the lowest she's had in 10 years, by the way. 

STACY RODGERS: Ultimately, why I love doing what I do is that I feel that it's a portal into thinking about the world in different ways. So we're reading these texts and we're getting into the minds of these people, but also at that same time, in order to really engage with it, you have to evaluate it in terms of your own experience. 

VOICEOVER: Amy McNeill teaches English and journalism at a public junior high school in Utah. She teaches all three of her school's grades--seventh, eighth, and ninth. She also does yearbook, the student council, the newspaper ... it may be that she does too many things.

AMY McNEILL: In a way, writing is never done; it's just due. You just have to give it to somebody to read it and whether you're going to go publish it, or whether you're giving it to a teacher, whether you're giving it to a friend, or whatever you're doing with your writing, at some point you have to be done with it because you've you've got to give it to a reader. But that doesn't mean that it's going to be perfect. 

VOICEOVER: Robyn Lee Horn is a theater teacher at a performing arts magnet school. She teaches freshmen and juniors acting, playwriting, dramaturgy, directing. She was Teacher of the Year for 2017. And I get to talk with her about school and students nearly every day, because we're married! 

ROBYN LEE HORN: We're in this class right now where like everything is out the window. That's strong. Maybe everything is not, but every assignment ends with the sentence "Leave some rough edges"--which is so freeing! And he encourages us to embrace cliché, embrace sentimentality--it's really made the process of writing so enjoyable.

VOICEOVER: I sought these four friends out to help us explore the question: "What is the idea about writing, or the teaching of writing that you'd most like to die?"--which I posted on social media to crowdsource responses. Today's episode will also showcase some of these posts read by the author. As you know, Point of Learning is a show about what and how and why we learn. In this first season, I'm tracing strong influences on me in my early teaching. [The Middlebury] Bread Loaf [School of English] was transformative for me as a Master's student, which I was, happily, each summer between 1999 and 2003. The Vermont campus of the school holds very fond memories of challenging classes, great theater, and opportunities to make friends with teachers working in different kinds of schools across the country. So let's get started. If you're not a teacher of writing this episode is still for you. As Amy discovered a little while back ... 

McNEILL: I asked a group of my friends, none of whom were teachers, a few years ago--because I wanted to know so that I could share it with my students: "What are some of the things--when do you need to write?" And every one of them without exception said, "I write all the time." Whether it's just emails to colleagues, or reports, or any sort of thing. I had a friend who was an engineer, one who worked in construction management, one who worked as a graphic designer for a company. And they all said that day that writing was important and that it was important to be able to communicate ideas.

[05:12]

VOICEOVER: Act 1: Essays. The ubiquitous generic term for school writing takes its name from the French verb essayer, which means "to try," as in "to try out or test" an idea. It's a tribute to Michel de Montaigne, the 16th century philosopher who popularized the genre. Unfortunately, things in school have veered a good deal from his aim of writing to discover what he thought--most upsettingly for many teachers and students in the form of what is called "the five-paragraph essay," a tidy script including one paragraph each for introduction, three main points, and a conclusion that too often presents nothing new. As you will hear, the five-paragraph essay was a popular candidate for The Idea About Writing that teachers and professors Would Most Like to Die. Stacy gets us started.

RODGERS: When I'm thinking about essays, which I think are weird things that exist in the world, I remember learning about Montaigne a little bit, as background knowledge for teaching Hamlet. But I was just so amazed by his writing, because he's sort of credited with inventing the essay--but what he wrote was like, "Look at my belly button, isn't that weird? I never noticed that!"--and you know he wrote these really just sort of very personal things that often went someplace interesting, which is why people still read him now. And so much of Hamlet's musings are connecting to this idea of wonder about the self. So and that's kind of some of what I was thinking as I was reading.

McNEILL: That kind of goes to what a lot of people mentioned which was the five-paragraph essay or the very rigid form ...

DANIEL TURKELTAUB: I'm Daniel Turkeltaub, Associate Professor of Classics at Santa Clara University, and the idea that the teaching of writing that I'd most like to die is the five-paragraph essay. I imagine it's a useful tool for introducing argumentative writing, but students reproduce it mechanically when they learn only the blueprint and not the principles of argumentation, paragraph structure, and exposition that would allow them to progress to more sophisticated writing. I've seen more than a few eight-page papers comprising exactly five paragraphs, and most papers I receive suffer from those dreadful "funnel" introductions and conclusions with their vaguely stated theses. 

McNEILL: The problem is it isn't the model itself. It's just that we often don't teach students that there are other ways to write, or that there are methods beyond the organization that we've taught them that's really only valuable in academia. Nobody--five-paragraph essays I suppose have their place in writing a research paper--there's a kind of organization--but nobody outside of academia writes anything remotely like that. That's not "real" writing. 

AL MORALES: I'm Al Morales, a public middle school administrator in New Jersey, and the idea about the teaching of writing I'd most like to die is the five-paragraph essay. Changing our minds requires a moment of surprise in order to make our former beliefs vulnerable to change. The five-paragraph formula exposes everything, and leaves little room for surprise: if I agree with the claim, I'll look for opportunities to agree with the author and further solidify my position; if I disagree, I'll look for holes to discredit the so-called "facts." So let's give students license to find new and inventive ways to create the surprise necessary to change minds. 

NONI THOMAS LOPEZ: Hi. This is Noni Thomas Lopez, Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning at Ethical Culture Fieldston School. We are a pre-K through 12 independent school located in the Bronx and Manhattan in New York City. The idea about the teaching of writing that I would most like to die is the idea that the thesis statement must come at the end of the first paragraph in any expository essay. Students should be allowed to experiment with different ways to lay out their argument like real writers do. 

R. L. HORN: We teach this five-paragraph essay like "this is how you speak the language of writing," whereas! There are so many different ways to approach it, and if you look at the five-paragraph essay as just one form--because you can't throw it out. You can't throw out the window and send them off to college and not have them learn it, because there's going to be teachers who want that and they need to know those skills. But to have that as part of the vocabulary, instead of the only vocabulary, I think is great. 

VOICEOVER: The night before rerecorded, Robyn and I were sitting on the back deck [a.k.a. Moby Deck] of the Bread Loaf theater with some other teachers talking about how strange it is that we ask kids to read fiction like novels and short stories, but so many times we only ask them to respond to it by writing non-fiction, namely essays. 

R. L. HORN: The idea that we're looking at all these different forms of writing--of poetry and plays--but you're responding to them all through this same form, through this five-paragraph form, this analytical form. And it will be so wonderful to have that just be a part the communication, a part of the way that you're learning to write. 

VOICEOVER: We also talked about how important models of strong non-fiction writing can be. 

MURPHY: I learned writing by reading; I continue to learn writing by reading. And one thing that I notice that my students are not--the reading that they are assigned is either novels, fiction, poetry, sometimes plays, but very rarely any kind of article which is most of the reading that most of us do. Most adults probably read articles more than anything else, either online or in print. 

McNEILL: I think that's an important thing to give students: good models. It's important for students to have something that they can look at and model and that gives them other opportunities to try new forms. This essay format is not the only option. They have this whole array of ways in which they can format their writing, but giving them the models--finding those models and saying, "Look what this writer did here. Let's try and model that. Let's try and recreate that in in a different way." And it gives them a sense of ownership, and a sense of being able to use their writing as good thinking. 

VOICEOVER: And as we use writing to think, it can be helpful to remember that we are not playing Scrabble. The best word isn't necessarily the longest one.  

ALEXIS ANDERSON-URRIOLA: This is Alexis Anderson-Urriola from New Jersey, and the idea about writing that I'd like to see die is the focus on big words. I dislike the idea that using complex vocabulary results in sophisticated writing. It's not Scrabble! Big words don't win points. I tell my students, "If you would never say a word aloud, you should never write it!"  

[13:15]

VOICEOVER: Act 2: Audience. The traditional transaction for high school writing assignments is teacher assigns; student writes for teacher. A number of people responded with the desire for more varied, authentic audiences. 

SUSAN LYTLE: Hi, this is Susan Lytle. I'm an Emeritus Professor of Literacy from the University of Pennsylvania. I believe that students of all ages need authentic audiences for their writing--and there really are a million ways to make that happen, both in and out of the classroom, especially with some of the affordances of the internet. Too much school writing is into a vacuum, for the teacher only. 

VOICEOVER: Stacy introduced the interdisciplinary nature of writing.  

RODGERS: I do wish--to play "Perfect World"--I do wish we had more time to collaborate with teachers across the school in our schools. Because I don't think the frustrations with the way students write is something that only English teachers experience. Writing is a part of many--especially when they get into high school--it's a part of their demonstration of knowledge in many of the areas. So I don't know, I am really interested that it's the science teachers that are the most interested in your assistance as a librarian. 

MURPHY: Well, in those cases I think that they--even in middle school, they model their work and I'm sure this is true of Molly, who talks about AP biology lab reports ... 

VOICEOVER: Molly is a high school science teacher who wrote that the Idea About Writing She'd Most Like to Die is the idea that writing for subjects other than English doesn't require any of the form, function, or flow learned in students' English classes. She believes students need to apply all of the skills they've learned in English class to their, for example, AP Bio lab reports--so their teacher doesn't lose her mind trying to decipher them. 

MURPHY: They are really looking at the peer-reviewed system of writing journal articles to discuss your findings, and as science teachers that's the process they've gone through and so it's the process that they want to prepare their students to go through--and I really mean this, even in middle school. So they see that as so essential, but they also recognize that it requires skills outside of the scientific method and outside of what they're doing in their labs and they remember, I'm sure, as teachers and as humans, where they learned to write, and they remember the necessity of applying your writing understanding to other subjects. 

McNEILL: That also speaks to the idea of writing for an audience--that you're going to write differently when you're writing a science, peer-reviewed article than you are if you're going to do an article in The New Yorker, because you have a different audience. And so understanding the changes that you're going to make is crucial to creating a coherent piece of writing, and a piece of writing that's going to accomplish the purposes you want it to accomplish. 

NANCY LATIMER: My name is Nancy Latimer, and I am an educational technology specialist in New Jersey. The idea about the teaching of writing that I'd like most to die is the concept that we are still exclusively writing for old media, such as print publications. For example, I have a son who writes a very popular blog about physical fitness, and he has often remarked to me about the fact that schools don't teach students how to write for an entirely different audience such as he does on the web.

McNEILL: A lot of people here mention that that was something that they would like--that in school, writing is most often just given to the teacher for the teacher to read and it's part of how the system is kind of set up, you know, they do something and turn it in for a grade and then they get it back. That's that's the way that school works, but that's not the way that writing is perhaps most effective. 

WARREN HYNES: Hi, this is Warren Hynes. I teach English and journalism at Westfield High School in New Jersey. The idea about teaching that I'd like to see it go away is the idea that the teacher is the audience for publication of essays and whatever written pieces students have done. I believe that it's really important for students to forego the teacher as the main audience but to turn to blogs, to publications, to wider audiences that receive their written work. As a journalism teacher, I see every day when students are able to put their work out there and have others read it, there's a whole other level of satisfaction and fulfillment that they experience. I think we can do that throughout our teaching--to extend the audience that receives the students' work, so that they can feel so much more gratified and proud of themselves, and receive much more feedback for the work that they've done. 

[18:37]

VOICEOVER: Act 3: Author. What about the creator of a piece of writing? The panel considers what's worth kids' time to write, single vs. multiple authors, and the power of each student's unique voice. 

P. HORN: Sarah, you said one of the things you'd like to say goodbye to is a blue book essay. (And we should say that this is this like an old-school kind of college format--I think that's where a lot of people would recognize blue books would be used in college, but it's still used in some kinds of schools under the post-secondary level where kids have no recourse to anything else--it's just a timed piece of writing and just from your own brain.) You'd like to see this go bye-bye. Why? 

MURPHY: Well, I think it's partly due to the fact that I am a librarian and not an English teacher, and that I measure success in my students by their curiosity and their ability to find information, to want to look for information. And so the idea of saying, "Your brain is the only tool you have for the next hour and a half. Fill this book with what's in your brain" to me is very antithetical to what looks like learning to me. And it is, I think, pretty product-based, not process-based. And I think that the stresses of that environment are horrific! 

McNEILL: I don't think it's as valuable to to know all the things as to be able--in 2017, we have access to all of those sources. It's more important to know how to access the information than to have all of the information stored. And you, Robyn, had a professor-- 

R. L. HORN: --a professor, a beloved professor Teresa Choate, who, in reference to her brain, and specifically her memory, would say, "I don't remember. I have a very bad hard drive, but an excellent search engine!" You know, "I know where to look, I know who to talk to." And not just what books to look at, but who to reach out to, who to communicate with about certain topics. 

MURPHY: Yeah, and that speaks to collaboration, which we haven't really touched on in writing, but that does seem so important to me in terms of real-world life skills. And obviously in a vacuum, in a test-taking situation, a timed assessment with a blue book in front of you, there's no collaboration, either with another author of another piece or a classmate, or someone who's an expert. And those are things that I think it's valuable for students to be able to access. And I also just want to say one more thing about the "search engine." It's also so important for students to be able to evaluate the different sources that they do find. So finding is one thing, searching is one thing, but being able to tell the difference between the source that's going to help you and the source that's not--for any number of reasons--is such a huge, huge, huge part of the process. 

McNEILL: One thing I notice that is another thing that I'd like to see die is some students get their voice beat out of them! Some students already have the voice, and I had a student--actually, for me, I was lucky enough to have him for all three years of junior high (and it probably wasn't as lucky for him but ...)--he just had this brilliant writing voice. It was so full of personality, but he was he was really smart, and he got his points across well, but just delicious writing! And I told him probably 25 times to never let anyone beat that out of him, because I know that's a thing, when some teachers are looking for something specific, or looking for this "analytical" or whatever--that they say, "Oh you know you're not supposed to use first person or you're not supposed to use {any of these kinds of techniques}," and I don't want this kid to lose his brilliant voice! I don't want to lose part of himself by having to conform to the system. And so I made sure to tell him a lot, "If you have to do other stuff, that's fine, but don't ever lose this part of yourself. Make sure that you keep the voice you already have.  

[23:41]

VOICEOVER: Act 4: Purpose. In this section, the panel takes on how we think about the purpose of writing. In other words, what do we want students to get out of their writing? What do we as educators and citizens want out of it? Is the point to demonstrate learning, or should writing be about discovery and self-reflection? Maybe it should be about a more just and democratic society. It's all possible. Robyn gets us started by talking about a playwriting class that she's taking right now. 

R. L. HORN: So we're in this class right now where like everything is out the window. That's strong. Maybe not everything is out the window, but every assignment ends with the sentence, "Leave some rough edges"--which is so freeing, and he encourages us to embrace cliché, embrace sentimentality, and it's really made the process of writing so enjoyable! And so since I teach freshmen, I just feel like 100 percent, all the way, that's the way I'm going to teach playwriting freshmen. I'm going to--"Rough edges! Embrace sentimentality! Embrace repetition! Embrace all these like 'bad'"--you know, they're so worried about being "boring" or repeating ideas that they've heard before, and I really feel like "Go there first. Let go of all the judgment, and don't worry!" But I mean the hard thing is that you sort of necessarily have to then let go of the grade, like how do you like have a rubric and say also, "Leave some rough edges"--So that's a really hard thing about being a teacher, you guys. Can we throw grades out? 

McNEILL: Please! Pretty, pretty, pretty please! [General agreement] But that's a whole different discussion.

R. L. HORN: Is it?

McNEILL: I don't know.

R. L. HORN: I don't know.  

ELEANOR LEAR: Hi! This is Eleanor Lear, and I teach at a private school in New Jersey, high school English. And the idea about teaching of writing that I would most like to die is writing solely for a grade. Writing for a grade serves a purpose for some kids, but writing for an authentic audience gets better results. I would like to see students invest as much in their writing for class as they do in her college essay.

McNEILL: I like the idea of progress, though.

MURPHY: Yeah.

McNEILL: Because in a way writing is never done; it's just due. You just have to give it to somebody to read it, and whether you're going to go publish it, or whether you're giving it to a teacher, or whether you're giving it to a friend, or whatever you're doing with your writing--at some point you have to be done with it, because you've got to give it to a reader. But that doesn't mean that it's going to be perfect. And the idea of making progress from where you start to where you finish--it's okay if you have some rough edges, but did you learn something along the way? Did you make progress from where you used to be? Thinking about maybe grading writing in that model--rather than "Did you meet every single criteria on this universal rubric that I'm going to use for every single student?"--Where were you, and where are you now? 

RODGERS: And a reflective component to writing also is nice. To where I started, like putting yourself in there, it's not going to be--writing isn't going to be interesting if the person writing is not interested in what they're talking about, right? We have tasks, we are all, I'm sure, beholden to some sort of tests that our students will have to take that will determine whether they advance. Nevertheless, even if it might cost you a few points on a test, but you can teach your kids to write about what they think is interesting within the task that they have ... I'd rather an interesting piece of sloppy syntax, than a perfectly formed set of paragraphs that don't go anywhere, but that are very neat, and they conform to a formula. 

HEATHER ROCCO: This is Heather Rocco from New Jersey. The idea about the teaching of writing that I'd most like to die is that there is a formula students need to follow to make writing "good"; that five-paragraph essays are sufficient; that thesis statements have three points; that conclusions need to summarize your argument; that you cannot use first- or second-person in your writing. And that fragments are bad.  

RODGERS: Ultimately, why I love doing what I do is that I feel that it's a portal into thinking about the world in different ways. You're reading--The God of Small Things is a text I love to teach, right?

P. HORN: Arundhati Roy?

RODGERS: Arundhati Roy. Having them like--"Okay, here we are at this point in the novel. Who's the good guy? Is there a good guy? Who is the good guy, and what makes them 'good,' according to your way of thinking about the world? Is your understanding of the world being modified by her way of portraying the world?" Because it's a novel about justice, it's a novel about everything! And also, even that. I love it for that too. What is it that you see? I can tell you what to think about it, but also there are endless possibilities for what you could find in this. 

P. HORN: One of the things that some kids have been trained, unfortunately, to deliver is what the teacher thinks about the book. I think that's one of the things that they've been trained to do--so that there is a right answer to this. [Teachers need to] make sure that you're opening it up to say, "Writing is about discovery!" Writing is about this--I want to know what you understand about it, but I also want to know what you think, and what you feel, if you're willing to put that out there. 

RODGERS: There's nothing that I would love better than for you to point me to something that I don't already know . That's the most fun for me as a teacher, in terms of reading or writing, is to is to hear that you're really excited about this or are interested in this, but moreover that you're seeing this in a way that I'm not telling you how to see it. You're seeing it on your own terms, and of course with that you have to defend your idea, and that has to be based and in details. You know you have to push back on all that so that they ... become good readers. To me, I think the most important thing about writing is demonstrating that you have learned how to read. 

VOICEOVER: Things get a little playful here, as I have the rare opportunity to call out Sarah Murphy.

MURPHY: Even when I am writing an e-mail to someone, if I want to persuade them of something, you better believe there's going to be some secondary sources in there that I will link to in the course of this e-mail! 

RODGERS: I do believe it. 

MURPHY: I think you've probably received one or two of these e-mails!

P. HORN: How about a primary source? "Here's a blog I've already written on this topic."

MURPHY: But.

P. HORN: You've done that. You looked at me like, "Oh, I've done that before. I've quoted myself." 

MURPHY: I did! I was giving  travel tips for Ireland to some friends and I linked to my own Trip Advisor reviews.

P. HORN: Yeah, see? I see you, Murphy!

MURPHY: But it seems like something I want my students to be able to do: I want to be able to review things online, and to look at other reviews and to understand what that might mean, and to think about that, and then also be able to show someone, "Oh here's an example of something I've written online, and these skills are just completely absent, and those [students] who have them have them the way we have them--because they've picked them up. They've taught themselves, they've figured it out. They're not learning it. And clearly those are the kinds of things that, as adults or even just citizens, they're going to want to be able to do! And I'd like for us to have some role in teaching them that. 

VOICEOVER: For more on the difference between learning and acquisition--the process by which Sarah is saying many students pick up and teach themselves Internet-based reference skills--see the related segment in Point of Learning episode number 001 [with Kevin Johnson, 5/18/17].  

[32:31]

Act 5. Process. (Got to have five acts for the English teachers listening today.) This last one is about the process of writing, including being honest about how hard it is. 

McNEILL: I think there are two things that I do with that. One is showing [students] models of my own writing process, showing them multiple versions of something that I've created and where it started that was really awful, and places where I made--or writing in front of my students, and showing them, "I'm going to try this," and verbalizing my thought process and my working through that. The other is giving them multiple options of ways to work through the process of drafting something, because what works for one student isn't going to work for all of the students. Some students need to have an outline of a fiction story that they're writing; they've got to know every single thing that happens before they can draft the thing. Some students need to discover it as they're writing it. Every writer has a little bit different process, and so teaching students that, "Here are some tools. I'm going to give you some tools. These are some possible ways you could do it. Try these out. See which one works for you, or come up with your own way." You need a system, but your system isn't going to be the same as every other person. Not every person needs a graphic organizer for all of these exact steps that you're going to follow A to Z. Some people need that, but some people need other things, and giving them a toolbox of options helps a lot, I think, with creation.

R. HORN: That's so good, that you share your work with students, and that's something that I ... am committing to doing this coming year: writing with my kids, when I give them a writing assignment, to take it. Maybe not every one, because there's a zillion things to do, and sometimes you need to steal a minute to answer a parent's email, but, I mean, what a cool--to struggle with them! To write with them, to struggle with them, to work through ideas, to backtrack and go through that process with them, and show them that that's part of the joy of it. That's part of the fun. 

RODGERS: We keep saying "joy" and "fun." [Laughter] I would describe writing as--and I am an English teacher--and I would say maybe, if I'm lucky, 20 percent of the time I'm writing am I happy and enjoying myself. 

MURPHY: That's high, actually.

RODGERS: And it's probably not that, right?  I mean here I am at the Bread Loaf School of English, a graduate program, doing it of my own volition. It's really mostly because I want to do this, because I want to keep studying, but like I've got to go after this and sit and be tortured in front of a computer screen and at the end of it, I'll be glad I did it.

McNEILL: Part of being authentic, too, is being open and honest with students about what writing really is--and not seeing it as "Writing is this structured form," "Writing is timed or test-driven"--That writing is messy! That writing is hard! The number of times this summer that I've said, "Aaaargh! Writing is so hard!" I need to like--it's a high number. Writing is really difficult, and writing takes collaboration, writing takes lots of revision--lots and lots and lots of revision--and being open with students about "This is hard, and it might be a little bit miserable and it's gonna be messy" is I think empowering. Being open and authentic about what writing is helps them, and helps them be more open to the process.

VOICEOVER: As Robyn said a minute ago, sometimes teachers do need to attend to urgent business while class is in session. I get that. However ...

P. HORN: I believe this aspect of modeling is just so important. You know, clearly there are limits: You're not going to sit down and take your final exam alongside students and be like, "Wow! I'm kicking tail on this answer too!" I mean, you're not gonna do that. But to ask them to write about something, to reflect on something, and have them do it and have them see you doing it as well. And then you can talk with them about something that you're doing in real time. I mean there's just--to me there's nothing clearer that shows this is valuable, in much the same way--It's always a pet peeve, and it's maybe irrational of me, but when somebody shows a film in class and sits back reading papers or doing e-mail or whatever, how could that not be sending the message "I'm going to expect you to see this movie, but I'm not interested in this." Or "I've seen it before. This isn't interesting to me." It's like I'm here with you in real time, watching this with you, and I want to be able to talk with you about what you just saw and remind myself of it--

RODGERS: And how much does it validate the activity if you've seen this film that you're showing--50 times and yet you're still--

P. HORN: Interested! Exactly. Exactly.

RODGERS: The other thing that I try to do is when students see things--every year I've taught Hamlet for 10 years, and that means I've also taught it like probably 40 times because of the--or more, because of the number of sections of the class I have, right?

P. HORN: To literally 300,000 kids.

RODGERS: Something like that. Approximately.  Shoutout! Anderson Trojan alum! But you know, there are still things that I haven't even seen, but students see that--I'm not teaching them texts that I'm like, "I know this one. I got it all, right?" I'm teaching them texts that I still--and if I do feel that way, I'm like, "I'm tired of teaching this one. Let's push it out the curriculum!" 

P. HORN: And so you should!

RODGERS: Right? Because if I'm not excited to do it again, then they're going to know that.  And there are texts that kinda can hold up to that, that they like, but ... 

VOICEOVER: Robyn, our theatre teacher panelist, is about to talk a bit of drama process as a means for physically working through ideas about literature. She's going to mention tableau which is short for tableau vivant, French for a "living picture." As Amy will confirm, English teachers can use tableau as an exercise in which students imagine a scene from the given book or other situation that they then inhabit, striking poses without further movement or speech. 

R. L. HORN: There is something that I do when we're talking about plays where students are sort of creating tableaux to communicate theme, to communicate like What do you think happens after this play, What do you think happens in this gap in the play, or where you don't follow the characters, or we don't know what's going on. So they're working collaboratively and they don't have to verbalize first. They sort of get it but they maybe can't say it. And so they put it in their body, and it's timed--you get this amount of time to create these pictures, so I really like that exercise and I think it leads to some really fruitful conversation.

McNEILL: I do that same thing in my English classroom. It's amazing, just getting a different sort of literacy and a different sort of expression--by putting it in their physicality. 

P. HORN: And do you have that experience sometimes that kids that maybe hang back when there's a discussion, or aren't as strong in writing can step to the fore in that kind of situation? 

McNEILL: Absolutely, and they can express ideas differently with a different medium. 

P. HORN: I think it's so important to remember that--not just with kids who may have a developmental difference where it's much easier for them to speak than to write ... You know there was that line by Mel Levine, who said that "writing is the largest orchestra that we ask kids to conduct" because it's the composition of the ideas, but then it's dealing with all the sequencing and organization, and then all those tiny details that you know some people think are the most important. But they're the details of punctuation and spelling and so forth--but it's all of those things that happen at once. For some kids--for some adults--that is really difficult to juggle. Whereas they may be quite able to speak out those ideas--and then also, kids who are learning English as a second language, or third language--they can have quite a difference in terms of aural comprehension (what they can hear) and then orally what they're able to express, and then reading and writing can be at different levels. And that's always important to take into account when you know that those things are not necessarily at the same level. So coming at those points of expression from different ways can be very important as you're trying to get a sense for Where is this kid really at? 

R. L. HORN: Mmm, this is a whole other topic. But Stacy mentioned at one point writing with paper and pencil and I was thinking about Jenni Brand's comment about ... 

JENNI BRAND: Hi! This is Jenni Brand from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. The idea about the teaching of writing that I'd most like to die is writing for assignments. Of course this is important, but I wish that I could see more writing with a pen and paper as a daily exercise. I know teachers have kids journal these days, which is different than my experience in the '80s, but it still feels assigned, like something they have to do. I wish that every class took the first or the last ten minutes to write whatever they felt like, with no grade at the end--but lots of help if a kid asked for it. When writing feels like breathing, I believe we'll all be in a better place. 

VOICEOVER: Jenni's comments speak to several worthwhile issues, including how to balance digital learning with traditional analog modes like pen or pencil and paper. 

McNEILL: My students keep notebooks, and this actually--the way that I do it started with a Bread Loaf class I took a couple summers ago about rhetoric and the power in print but also in digital media, and so we did a lot with digital stuff. We also did a lot with, I guess, "analog" sources, so we all kept a notebook and we we spent the entire class--we had to have our pen moving somehow, so we we colored pictures, we doodled, we took notes, we drew, and it was incredible! the sense of engagement that all of us had because we were using our hands the whole time. And it's kind of become an addiction for me in a way like I need to be writing and stuff, but it helps me engage with whatever I'm listening to. And I taught my students that, and a lot of them have said, "Finally I have a tool that helps me not zone out in classes, that helps me engage with what I'm doing," because I've taught them how to doodle in their notebooks. And it's like this whole new world because they're so--it's so ingrained to have everything digital that when they have this tactile thing in front of them, it's a new experience. And so I have them do a lot of charting, and a lot of writing in their notebooks like you -might--journal-writes or those kinds of things. But also just engaging with the physical pieces of paper has made a huge difference in my class, and I have kids that take those notebooks and they just fill them with all this wonderful stuff, and it's like this creative collection of their lives and of their ideas and of their experiences. And I've had a few students who've come back after a couple of years and they're like, "I'm still making notebooks! Let me show you my notebooks that I've made" because they're so engaged with the physicality of it. So for me, I find that to be very beneficial, but we also do a ton of stuff on computers. I have a Chromebook lab in my classroom and we do all of that as well. So I think there is a place for both of those.

VOICEOVER: May there be a place for all of it, and a classroom for any and all teachers like these. That's it for today's crowdsourced edition of the Point of Learning podcast. My great thanks to the panelists Robyn Lee Horn, Amy McNeill, Sarah Murphy, and Stacy Rodgers, as well as all those in the greater Point of Learning community who contributed Ideas About the Teaching of Writing They'd Most Like to Expire. Thanks also to Mark Wright (Bread Loaf '89) for supplying the lush piano score for today's show, and to you for listening and spreading the word about Point of Learning to anyone interested in what and how and why we learn. See you next month! 

Episode 003 Transcript

Supervision, Feminism, and Poetry with Paula Roy (7/31/17)

[START 00:00]

JOHN M. OPERA [bumper]: Hi, I'm John Opera, and Peter Horn and I met on a boulder in 1985. You're listening to the third installment of the Point of Learning podcast. Let's have a listen.

VOICEOVER (Peter Horn): On today's show, some big ideas about essential questions to ask students.   

PAULA A. ROY: The high school is all about boxes. English, history, science, whatever! To help them make connections across disciplines and across ideas and out into the world. I mean, how does this stuff all connect?

VOICEOVER: How to establish a classroom where student voices are authorized and encouraged. 

ROY: It's not a true democracy. It's your classroom. But you can choose to share some of the power of the classroom with your students. 

VOICEOVER: How to make difficult choices as a supervisor in order to keep kids at the center of your work. 

ROY: We're there to educate kids and someone who's gotten too tired, or too disillusioned, or too negative is not a good influence or a good teacher.

VOICEOVER: And using feminism as an entree to many varied and deep conversations about social justice.

ROY: Feminism to me is social justice, because the idea that women are equal has to open you up to the fact that a whole lot of women are not white, and a whole lot of women are not straight. And so wait a minute--you're not just talking about gender, you're talking about the inclusion of people  who are marginalized for various reasons in the curriculum, and in the in the conversation, and probably in the community in which you live. 

VOICEOVER: Later on we'll even hear a poetic confession. 

ROY: I  have been guilty of just what you described when I first started teaching, because that was what all English teachers did: we killed the poem. We took it apart, and we had no idea how to put it back together again.

VOICEOVER: Stick with us for today's episode of Point of Learning, the show about what and how and why we learn. In this first season of the podcast, I'm continuing to trace early influences on me as an educator. Twenty years ago, I joined the faculty of Westfield High School in New Jersey, in no small part because I wanted to learn from Paula Roy, who was my first supervisor. She retired two years later, but she and I kept in touch. Throughout my education career, she has remained a sounding board, a mentor, and a friend who has never hesitated to challenge my ideas. Paula Alida Roy is a master teacher, writer, and poet. She began teaching English at Westfield High School in 1971 and became Department Chair nine years later. She's been published in education journals and lit magazines, authoring poems as well as articles on feminist teaching, homophobia in the classroom, and teaching about women in literature. She's served as a consultant on gender, race, and class to independent and public schools around the country, and she continues to write and lead writing workshops now. As you will hear, she is wise and reflective, tough but humane, keeping kids and what they have to say at the center of her work as a teacher and supervisor.

[04:22]

ACT 1: Supervision. Twenty years ago, Paula was my first teaching supervisor, so I began our conversation by asking her about her own development as a teacher, and how becoming a supervisor affected the way she thought about effectiveness in the classroom. 

ROY: When I started teaching, I learned a great deal from my peers, and I modeled myself after two or three people who were very influential to me in my early teaching, and whose methods aligned themselves with my pretty progressive view of education at that point. And I became a good teacher. Until I became a supervisor, I thought that the way I taught and the way these other teachers I admired--and I had been in their classrooms by invitation as I was learning--that was the definitive model. When I became a supervisor, I was humbled and enlightened by going into all the classrooms of a pretty large department--I think at that time it was 21 teachers. So I saw all kinds of teaching. I saw bad teaching. I didn't see really terrible teaching, but I saw what I would call mediocre teaching. But I also saw lots of good teaching that didn't look anything like the way I taught. And initially I remember thinking, "Oh, well this teacher has all these kids in straight rows, and you know that's not good." But it was good enough for the teacher.

PETER HORN: Because you're a big fan of circles in discussion.

ROY: I am, and again, I have to emphasize for me, because I've seen good teaching where people were in rows looking at the back of each other's head and where discussion was not the main vehicle of learning, but I still saw good teaching and that was really good for me, because I know that good teaching is not just one model. I know it's much more complex than that, which is why I've always been resistant to these various workshops over the years that we've had when someone comes in with a model where you have to put on the board your objective for the day and then you have to--I can't even remember the rubrics, but there's like a rubric you go through, and they're not bad! I have since come to an idea that there are three kinds of teachers. I know I'm over simplifying or generalizing but--

HORN: Try it out-- 

ROY: Keep that in mind. [1.] There's the there's the OK Teacher: you go into that classroom, you see potential, you know the person is going to need a lot of help, and you also know the person is never going to be a brilliant teacher. But the teacher will be a good enough teacher with enough support and help. [2.] And then this kind of the medium-good teacher, who need support and help, is open to suggestions, tries new things, and does a good job. [3.] And then there are the artists. And they do exist! And there is no template or no format in the world that you should ever impose upon them, because it's almost like it's natural to them to be good teachers. [4.] I sort of left out the really bad teachers that you need to get rid of.

HORN: I was going to say, it seems like there might be a fourth-- 

ROY: No, there is a fourth one.

HORN: You may have read, I wrote about a colleague of mine who's now an interim superintendent in the Duval County [Florida] schools, and she had a line that I love very much. She said, "If you're working with a teacher who's struggling, help them out. But if you work with them, and you work with them, and they still don't get it, and they're not good for kids, then you help them out." So there is a choice that you make at some point. What is your standard? What were you thinking about as you identified a person that you believed "there's no amount of help that I can give that's going to make this person a good fit for the school, for our kids"? 

ROY: It's an area I feel very strongly about, because first I think we're in education for the kids we teach, not for our colleagues. I mean, we may love our colleagues and have great relationships with them as their supervisors and their peers, but that doesn't mean we protect them when they're bad teachers. I feel that someone who cannot relate to kids, who is hostile to kids, and who sees discipline as the main focus of classroom work should be out the first year as far as I'm concerned. That that's never going to work for me. Unfortunately, I have seen in my work in other schools that the emphasis is on the teacher who can control the classroom. And that to me is tragic, because very often behind our highly controlled facade--or front--is someone who is not really a good teacher, who may be a good disciplinarian. So I don't have any issue at all with--I hate to use the phrase "getting rid of"--but I do think that the way to do it is to try to counsel the person into seeing that this is not the right profession, rather than moving him or her along to another school which may then employ him or her. So you know it's something that it's hard to do, that I would try to do gently ... I know I have been sometimes seen as cold-hearted about this; I don't feel that way. I think we're there to educate kids, and someone who's gotten too tired, too disillusioned, or too negative is not a good influence, or a good teacher.  

[11:02]

VOICEOVER: ACT 2: Establishing a safe, yet challenging learning community in the classroom.

HORN: You were able to establish an environment in your classroom where high school students of every level, not just in Advanced Placement classes where some might assume that the kids are hanging out who can handle more involved topics in any English IV classroom, English III classroom that you were in, you had kids engaging with moral and ethical questions and dimensions (usually raised by the texts that you were reading) at a level that a lot of people outside of the school system certainly would assume, "Well, kids aren't talking about that kind of thing, or kids can't talk about, or maybe shouldn't talk about that kind of thing." Could you talk a little bit about why you felt that was important to your practice? -- and maybe share a couple of thoughts about how people who are interested in engaging in those kinds of discussions could think about doing so. 

ROY: I came over the years to realize and think about deeply how difficult and important transitions are. Now if you think of a high school kid's day: they've got eight subjects or seven subjects, you bounce from one class to another. "Ok, now I'm interested in history, or now I'm supposed to be into science, now I'm into math, now I'm into literature," with five minutes if you're lucky in between! 

HORN: And we should say this is a very standard high school model with a 42- or 43- minute period. There are some kind of block variations in places, but still in most high schools around the country we're talking about 40-odd minutes and seven or eight sections of that. 

ROY: That's right. So I think that two things came into my teaching as a result of thinking about that. First, at the beginning of the year, a student is coming into a brand new teacher and a brand new classroom seven times in that day. And the model is: read them the rules, give out the textbooks--I mean, for good teachers, I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad model, but I think interrupting models is a good way to start off. So I never started that way. I started with a conscious attempt to build a classroom community. And I did it in a number of ways--using poetry, usually. One way was to ask kids to write--using poetry and writing--to ask kids to write about a First Day of School memory or sometimes I would say "the earliest one you can remember" or "describe the first classroom you remember"-- something that took them back into their school experience, and then we would share those. And it was interesting to see that many of them were negative memories--not all, but some of them. And so then, in some form or another, I would ask them to think about how they wanted this classroom where we would be together for a year to be run. That there has to be some kind of--I don't want to call them "rules"--guidelines for how we work together for a year. And I have mine, and I'm going to participate in this exercise, but I want you, the students, to right now write down five guidelines, and then I would put them into groups and have them hash out which ones were more important. This whole thing took maybe three or four days of the first week of school, and I would use poetry about school and learning as part of it, and writing. And so together we would hammer out in each class, if I were teaching two--or, before I was department chair, four--classes, we would have four--they were always similar but we would have four [sets of guidelines] that would be posted on the bulletin board. And things that were important to kids--most of them, many of them were important to me as well--like, We shouldn't have to raise our hands all the time. You know, If we want to go to the bathroom, it shouldn't be such a big deal. People shouldn't interrupt all the time. So we were able--and I would add the things that were important to me: what was I going to do about late assignments, what was I going to do about missing assignments--you know, they wanted to know that, and I would lay out some guidelines about that. One of the guidelines that either came from me or other kids, depending on the group, but it was always there, was that we were going to respect one another in discussion and this was going to be a classroom of tolerance and understanding, and that there would be very little that would be acceptable, but I would make clear that no one could be talked about in a derogatory way. No group, no person: people couldn't be made fun of. Often they would say that themselves--probably from kids who had had that experience. That I would not use sarcasm, and that I would expect that we would all respect one another. But I didn't lecture that; it evolved. So they never needed for me to give a list of rules. We developed the guidelines together, and then we would begin a regular study of the year. And I don't mean to sound like I'm the best disciplinarian in the world; I can remember maybe four (in the course of almost 30 years) what I would call "discipline problems" in the classroom. One in my second year when two young men went at each other (physically) and a couple of others when I lost my temper, you know, threw a kid out. I mean you do it. That's the other thing: You have to be a human being as a teacher. You come back the next day and apologize, or write a letter to the class, saying, "Look what happened yesterday. None of us is happy about that. This is how I feel. How do you feel?" It's a dynamic environment of human beings who come together every day for a hundred and--I don't know how many--80 days? And it's valuable as a community to teach communication skills. It's not just pie-in-the-sky "I'm being nice. This is a loose environment." It's teaching communication skills, and group interaction skills--all of which are in all of the guidelines that get published by state departments about how to teach, what you should teach. And it didn't work. I mean, it worked in general. We  all violated the rules, but they were up on the wall and usually some kid would say, "Hey I thought we said we weren't going to interrupt." I think the building of community, however you do it, is very important. So you're not being the dictator from the top right away. I believe in a democratic classroom, but you always have the great book, you're always having to grade them. So it's not a true democracy. It's your classroom. But you can choose to share some of the power of the classroom with your students.

HORN: And of course what you say, in terms of establishing the classroom dynamic, aligns with the most current research on building effective teams--in any kind of environment, a corporate environment, a political environment where you have people working together. You begin with establishing a clear elevating purpose--What is it that we are here to do? But then very soon, if not immediately, you establish some norms: Here are the expectations about when we show up, and what we do when we show up, and how we treat each other, and have permission to call each other out, or not, according to ideas that we come up with together. And of course you add to that the special bonus that kids feel when so often in schools they are restrained and constrained and presented with rules and guidelines that are given to them that were developed at some other point in time maybe for some other class--to be asked to share in that process and say, "OK, let's think about this together." It can be an excellent exercise. 

[20:12]

VOICEOVER: SIDEBAR: Sarcasm versus humor. As she was discussing class guidelines, you may have noted that Paula specified sarcasm as something she wouldn't use in class. Based on my experience teaching and working with teachers, I thought we should clarify this point. What gets confused sometimes is that in everyday use people sometimes say something like, "That guy is so sarcastic!" when they really just mean, "That person is funny." What I'm advising against is sarcasm as the specific type of humor that quickly becomes a liability in a mixed setting. Broadly speaking, humor can be magical in class. It's important for teachers to model that learning is fun, charged with delightful surprises. Opening yourself and your kids up to what's funny makes the often difficult work of teaching and learning lighter, and easier to bear. As you may guess, I'm not a fan of that strange old-school notion that teachers shouldn't smile until Thanksgiving. That's no fun for anyone, besides kids usually know when you're fronting. One of my own best high school teachers, Chuck LaChiusa, once said, "A good class isn't a great class without a belly laugh." In my early years of teaching especially, I'd often work up a two- to three-minute monologue to break the ice on Monday mornings after I'd asked how everyone's weekend was. Still, the belly laugh is hard to plan for, so it's critical to stay open to funny moments that might get everybody laughing and loosened up to do some harder thinking. That's humor in general. Sarcasm, on the other hand, swims close to the bottom of the great barrel of comedy. It's an easy formula: Change your tone of voice, and say the opposite of what you mean. See Chandler's zingers on the old TV show Friends for 1000 examples. It's a cheap trick, but the real problem is the cutting effect: Sarcasm comes from the word sarx, the Greek root for "flesh." Sarcasm is a form of humor nearly sharp enough to cut flesh, that is, quite risky for classroom use. Sarcasm can cut at the expense of an entire group, or just as bad, an individual kid in your class. Now maybe that one kid you know pretty well can take a public joke, but your classroom audience includes other students who may not get it, or worse, feel uncomfortable or hurt by something the teacher assumes everybody should be okay with. As we talked, Paula followed up with a few thoughts on the danger of sarcasm, and the potential of humor for a variety of classroom purposes. 

ROY: I would make clear when I said that what I meant by sarcasm. And I will illustrate that by talking about conferences with teachers after I've observed a class, and suggesting to a teacher that he or she was sarcastic and having the teacher say, "Oh that was just a joke." I think there's a very blurry line and unfortunately a lot of classroom "It's-just-a-joke" from the teacher's point of view is very often hurtful--maybe not to all the kids, but to some of the kids. I think that humor is very important and humor is an extremely effective way to defuse potentially difficult situations in the classroom--not to laugh at the person, but to laugh at yourself. We never know where kids are coming from and what they're bringing into the classroom. Instead of getting mad because the kid just said something disrespectful to you, instead of throwing him out, or making a big discipline thing--to just walk really close to the kid and say, "I'm sorry. You know, if I said something that bothered you. I'm sorry." It just completely takes the air out of the situation 90% of the time. So: laughing at yourself, saying you're sorry, suggesting that maybe you misunderstood. You don't lose power when you do that; you you gain trust! Trust goes a long way for a classroom environment to not have scenes or disciplinary actions or somebody feeling humiliated.

[25:05]

VOICEOVER: Act 3. The F-Word: Feminism. (What'd you think I was going to say?) 

HORN: One of the labels that many adolescents resist--and perhaps it has to do with the way that they understand it--is the label of "feminist," which of course, can and should be applied to people of any and all genders who take women seriously. You began your career as a teacher in 1971. This was a modern moment of feminism at the same time that critics like Adrienne Rich were establishing new ways of critical discourse thinking about roles typically assigned to males and females. Can you talk a little bit about feminism, and the way that you've taught about it and thought about it with kids? 

ROY: I think the first thing that's important is when you self-identify as a feminist--because kids would would say, "Are you really a feminist?" or they would say to each other, "You know, Ms. Roy is really a feminist"--like, "You guys better be careful"--is to make clear that that's not about being anti-male, of course. I mean, you're always fighting that cliché, but when you're teaching English--or any subject, but I taught English--we talk about categories of analysis, and the way we teach kids to look at texts through different lenses. And the well-established lens when I came into the classroom was, I'll call it the "Hemingway lens." We were always interrogating the myths of manhood--which we probably still do, should do--and not just Hemingway. Most of the protagonists were male. There was war literature, and there was love literature, and we were looking at male protagonists. Well, it's very logical and easy to see that that is incomplete. So the first way to deal with gender is adding gender as a category of analysis, so when you're looking at a text you are looking at both men and women, whether the woman is a protagonist or not, she's still in there or she's not. That isn't all one does, but one opens up the classroom to include those. In the classroom itself you have men and women and the American Association of University Women did that quite famous study and follow-up study--the years escape me right now. 

VOICEOVER: I remembered these reports making news when I was in high school, but I went back to check exact titles and dates. The first study was called "Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America" in 1991; the following year was "How Schools Shortchange Girls." There's a link to these and other studies in the AAUW research archive on the show page for this episode. 

ROY: Well they conducted a series of observational tests in classrooms, recording the amount of time that boys and girls, men and women, got to speak, and who the teacher called on, and what got the most attention, and it was not a surprise to me but it was still somewhat startling and they did it from elementary young grades on up, that boys got more attention, for good and bad reasons. They talked longer. They were surer of themselves, etc. etc. It's kind of old news now. But I became very aware of that in my classroom as well, using various strategies--actually talking to the kids about it themselves. That's the other thing: talk to [your students] about what you're working on. You know, make them part of the discussion.

VOICEOVER: I'm popping in here again to underscore this point: Including your students and your thinking about what matters, what concerns you right now, and asking for their thoughts is an organic strategy to bolster their participation as citizens of the learning community you're trying to foster. With luck, and eventually, they will more regularly consider themselves citizens, period. 

ROY: Feminism to me is social justice because the idea that women are equal has to open you up to the fact that a whole lot of women are not white and a whole lot of women are not straight. And so wait a minute you're not just talking about gender, you're talking about the inclusion of people who are marginalized for various reasons in the curriculum, and in the in the conversation, and probably in the community in which you live. To me, that community makes it even more important that you bring in voices from the margins into the center of the curriculum. That is my feminism. My feminism is not separate from my working with homophobia, working with racism, working with any kind of injustice. Because I'm an old-fashioned feminist. I want to take apart the patriarchy. I don't want to replace it with a matriarchy; I want to look at my Senate and see more or less 50/50 representation. You know, women and men need to learn to work together. And men and women of all colors, and ethnicities, and backgrounds need to learn to work together. My feminism embraces all of that.

[31:18]

VOICEOVER: The Last Act. Using poems to make connections. 

HORN: Why don't we riff on poetry for a second, because you are a maker of poems--you are a published poet yourself. But you also used poetry I think more often than the average bear. You know, in some stretches, I think probably daily, but in some ways that I think are different than most people's experience of having poetry used in the classroom. For example, I think it's a common idea from people's high school English experience that they would walk through a poem line by line and have it explained, at least according to the teacher's idea of what it is that "the poet was really trying to say" and it didn't really line up with the surface meaning of what was happening there and certainly wouldn't line up with a kid's impression of how it was supposed to go and so many kids--I know I was one of them in high school--came back with the idea that that's just wrong and I wasn't any good at this, at making sense of it. Will you talk a little bit just about some of the ways that you've thought about and used poems in class? 

ROY: I have been guilty of just what you described when I first started teaching because that was what all English teachers did: We killed the poem. We took it apart, and we had no idea how to put it back together again. There is value in using poetry as a tool for teaching analysis. Poetry has the distinct value in the literature world of being short. Not all poetry, but there's plenty of short poetry. So everybody is sure to have read it because you can read it together. So yes, I have done that and I never completely stopped doing it. There were times when we studied poetry as a form, but the way I used poetry--to go back to the idea of classroom community and transitions--at the beginning of almost every class in my last 10 years of teaching, I would have a home available. And it usually--because this is the other advantage of poetry: there is no topic or "theme," as we like to say in English classrooms, that does not have a bunch of poems about it. So the poem would be related to what we were studying if we were studying a love story. Or let's say we were reading Ibsen's A Doll's House. There are a million marriage poems. So that kind of a poem read twice--once by me, once by a student volunteer--and then three or four minutes of writing in the journal that I asked my kids to keep (that I actually provided for them at the beginning of the year). Just as a way to settle down, get your mind into what's going on in here, what we've been talking about ... How can you remember? You've just had three other classes and you're supposed to remember that yesterday we were asking if Nora should leave or not? You know, it doesn't work that way in the brain! I found it extremely effective. The other backdoor effectiveness thing about it: Every kid does not come to your class with the assigned reading read the night before. So now you have a text that everybody--

HORN: Wait, what? 

ROY: I'm sorry. I don't want to disillusion you, but this is true.

HORN: My word!

ROY: Now you could give a terrible quiz--which of course accomplishes nothing, I don't give quizzes, I didn't give quizzes at the end of my career--or half of my career. So the poem puts everybody on the same page to begin with. And then you get some discussion going and then bring it to what you've been talking about. You help them make that connection. I think what I think is the most important thing in a classroom is to help kids--one of the most important things--see that It's all connected. The high school is all about boxes: English, history, science, whatever! To help them make connections across disciplines, and across ideas, and out into the world. Now how does this stuff all connect? That became one of my mantras: Make connections. What can you connect this to? What can you connect this to in your life? What can you connect this to in any other course you're taking in this school? You're taking foreign languages, do you see any language in here that connects? You're taking history, how does this connect with the stuff you've learned in history? I've had kids say to me after reading Beloved, or during the study of Beloved, Toni Morrison's novel that locates itself in slavery and the resistance to it. Kids loved it. People said, "You can't teach it in high school!" Well, you can teach it in high school. And at some point someone would say, "Boy I never really understood slavery!" Well, when did you study it? Let's go back to what you already know from your history courses-- and you'd have to sort of tease them into making the connections and then I would say, "Take that connection back to the history course." Frankenstein and science! I mean it's not the individual teacher's fault, it's the way we construct school systems, the way we set up learning. And it's now reified you know that's the way it is. You have these different courses in how we do it even earlier; we put the sixth graders in it!

HORN: But there was a very good committee established in 1892 to decide what subjects should be taught in secondary school. Are you saying that those evaluations should be reconsidered just 125 years later? That's what you're saying?

VOICEOVER: The show page has a link to an article on what is known as the Committee of Ten and their efforts to shape the curricular subjects that are still pretty much standard in U.S. education. As dessert for today's episode, Paula reads a favorite school poem.

[Paula reads "In a Classroom" by Adrienne Rich] 

ROY: Perfect poem! Yes, Adrienne! May you rest in peace! She was such an influence on my life! 

VOICEOVER: Amen, and I know what you mean! That's it for today's show. Special thanks to Shayfer James, who has provided instrumental tracks from several of the songs on his album Counterfeit Arcade for use in the podcast. His fierce music struck me as a particularly apt match for the badassery of Paula Roy. If you like what you've heard, treat yourself to the album, which includes his remarkable lyrics, and his own inimitable voice. Big thanks to you as well for listening, for subscribing to the podcast through iTunes, to the Point of Learning YouTube channel, and for spreading the word about this show to everyone you know interested in what and how and why we learn. 

ROY: We were so-- No, I'm not going to apologize for that, because I think kids can understand anything! 

[END 40:04]

Episode 002 Transcript

Schools and Civil Discourse with Bob Petix (6/16/17)

[START 00:00]

GRETCHEN BRAND [bumper]: Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number two of the Point of Learning podcast. I'm Gretchen, Peter's mom. Take it away, honey! 

VOICEOVER (Peter Horn): On today's show:  

ROBERT G. PETIX: There is some special teacher that inspired you to be who you are, and that's  what teachers should aspire to become: that special teacher to each one of those students."

VOICEOVER: And a place for civil discourse in schools:

PETIX: I should be allowed to present ideas to you and you should be able to present your ideas to me.  And if I don't like your ideas I should be able to either defend my ideas and hopefully convince you that my ideas are better than yours or at least worth considering, and your ideas should be equally received by me. 

VOICEOVER:  As you know, this podcast is for anyone interested in getting to the point of learning ... For anyone curious about what and how and why we learn ...

PETIX: What's learning about? What is formal education about? Is it for ourselves? is it for society? is it, do we want to teach kids manual skills? thinking skills?: these are the questions.

VOICEOVER: And we're looking to keep it lively. Today I'll be talking with Dr. Robert Petix, a creative academic leader. At the time of his retirement from Westfield High School in 2006, he was the longest-tenured building principal in the state of New Jersey--26 years. He hired me in 1997, so for nine years he was my boss. He's taught courses in Education Leadership at major universities, as well as classes in French to college and high school students. President of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, as well as Chief Negotiator for his local administrators union. He served on the New Jersey State Board of Examiners. His Ph.D. dissertation: "The Response of Educational Administration to Student-Initiated Revolt" (a case study set in Paris, 1968). He's visited all 50 states, over four dozen countries, including work as an education consultant in Japan, Russia, and Brazil. And this one time, he made me a sweet mix tape. 

PETER HORN: I thought that a fun segue into some of the prepared questions ... I wanted to ask you if you recognize this text: 

PETIX: [Reading paper:] "Pierre, Track 1 blues jazz rock version by Billy Stewart, doo wop version by The Marcels, Lily Pons, Gershwin, Bing Crosby, Sarah Vaughan, 'Summertime.'" Oh yeah. [Singing:] "Summertime. And the livin' is easy!" 

HORN: So you may not, you may not recall the occasion.

PETIX: No I don't.

HORN: But what happened ... you were you were visiting my class. I think it was probably an AP Language and Composition class. You know, probably seniors. And it was in late September, as we were just transitioning into fall. But we had been talking about interpretation and varieties, ranges of interpretation, and so every day to start class, I was playing a different version, a different interpretation of this song [George Gershwin's] "Summertime." And I had Janis Joplin ... I had an Ella Fitzgerald version ... Then I had a more standard Gershwin version ... I don't know if was Kathleen Battle. (It was Cynthia Haymon.)  But I think you were delighted by this and you said, "Hey I've got some versions of 'Summertime'"--

PETIX: Do I have some versions for you!

HORN: "--you might want to check out, you might be interested in." So within a couple days, you had gone and burned this mix for me, which you know I still hang on to. I thought it was a cool thing--it was a way that you showed your enthusiasm for what was going on, but also shared something with me. [Musical attribution: Sarah Vaughan.]  

[ACT 1 begins 06:28]

ACT 1: Establishing and Maintaining a Culture of Learning That Takes Kids Seriously (including Preparing Students to Contend with Controversy, Hard Conversations, and Differences of Perspective. 

HORN: One of the things that attracted me to Westfield High School in the late 1990s was the culture of intellectual openness and academic freedom. I want to give a couple of examples for listeners who didn't happen to be at WHS at that time. There was certainly established curriculum in each subject, but teachers were also encouraged to include materials that they found relevant for engaging students. So, new poems that might be in The Atlantic or an op-ed from The Star-Ledger or The New York Times as a springboard for discussion. The drama department didn't shy away from controversial productions like Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, which dealt with same-sex love during the New York AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The weekly, student-run, uncensored newspaper, which I think was one of seven in the country at the time--Hi's Eye--I remember you explaining lightheartedly to new [high school] staff that you read it each Friday to find out whether and how you had messed up during the week before. Maybe most impressive to me during my first year, which was '97-'98: soon after the killing of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, you established  a Human Relations Committee that was charged with examining the culture of WHS for kids who were not straight, who were gay and questioning ... which led to the formation of the first Gay-Straight Alliance in Union County, a group that opened the doors of the high school to kids from Summit [NJ] to Clark [NJ] and anywhere else--places that had not yet formed similar organizations for their students. Can you talk a little bit about how this culture--that would have been much more typical of a liberal arts college than most high schools--can you talk a little bit about how this culture developed at Westfield High School, and why you believed it was important? 

PETIX: Well, I think the establishment of the culture had been made prior to my arrival. I believed that if you want to have a culture in which everyone is stimulated, in which people can think, in which people can act upon their thinking--a culture in which an exchange of ideas is welcome, a culture in which people feel free to be who they are, and to let others know who they are--I think that was the culture that I wanted to not only establish in the most modern terms, but also to allow to flourish, to encourage to flourish. And I think you needed people like you, teachers who were open to progress ... I will say "progressives" actually, even though I happen to be more conservative, I think, than you!  

VOICEOVER: Bob and I began to talk about civil discourse--that is, the ability to have respectful, reasoned discussions--as an important aspect of citizenship that schools need to figure out ways to teach. Personally, I believe that developing kids' capacity to think of themselves as citizens and not just consumers is one of the most important functions of school. 

HORN: We have plenty of expectations around standardized test scores, and proficiency levels. But this core competency of citizenship--how we equip students/young people to participate in a conversation where the point is to engage people who have different viewpoints than you do. And to not--as we are right now--checking out only our own news sources our own websites that confirm our idea of the world, but actually engage. I have believed--and you supported--that high school provided a place for people to be able to have conversations, believing that this was important. So I wanted to give this other example. I happened to run into a former student on my way to a poetry reading in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago (and she's now an assistant producer for some documentaries and news stories) and she recalled--we talked a little bit about the high school--She was that spearhead in March 2003, that was her senior year, of the Lysistrata project at the high school. 

VOICEOVER: Quick explanation: The Lysistrata Project was a global anti-war demonstration that took place on March 3rd, 2003--very memorably, 3/3/03, 2 weeks before the U.S. began its second war in Iraq. There were pop-up readings and community performances of the play in nearly 60 countries, and all 50 states. Inspired by the ancient comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes, the project drew on the play's feminist critique of war and its heroine (whose name is Greek for "army-breaker") who convinces her female friends and neighbors to withhold sex from their husbands and male lovers so as not to produce any more children who might become victims of the Peloponnesian War or grow up to perpetrate more wars. Now despite the fact that the play was 2000 years old, and that we proposed to used an abridged, much less bawdy adaptation, the project was not something that many school principals would have had anything to do with! 

HORN: And this was something that we asked, "Could we do this at the high school?" You not only supported the idea of a student-led examination of this very important public policy issue, but you actually agreed to participate in it as one of the readers! You supported the right of students to engage in this conversation and have the discussion afterwards, wholeheartedly. That's something that this student that I ran into--alumna--certainly remembers, she said, "This is something that I realized at the time: this is a very different experience than what a lot of kids are getting in high school." 

PETIX: Peter, I'm not certain that this is supported at the universities now. I think one of my greatest concerns is what's going on at the universities. [PH:] Great point. [RGP:] I wish that people on the left, in particular, who have progressive ideas and are of the progressive philosophy would step up and say we need to have all voices heard, regardless of who they are or whether we agree. Free speech is the cornerstone of our country. And I think that in high schools and particularly in colleges, we ought to not only support it but encourage it: We want people to think. I hope that people, being exposed to ideas and having critical minds, will be able to determine whether they agree or disagree with this--but the question as to whether it should be proposed or allowed never even entered my mind. Of course it should be something that is a catalyst for discussion, thought, and hopefully better thinking afterwards. So that's that's the reason I would have encouraged that and anything else that that gets people to think, communicate, or be part of a democratic society! 

HORN: I remember that during a speech you gave in, I think it was 2001, and you asked, "Where does it say that we have the right never to be offended?" or that by saying "I'm offended" in protecting against the idea of offense, or taking offense too easily cheapens or diminishes the conversation. I think part of what happens in in in the university culture right now is that people are so concerned about perhaps upsetting some people in a place where some would say the point is to have a marketplace of ideas and to be able to put it out there and are you so scared of somebody else's idea that you won't even listen to it? Rather than put it out there in the open critique it, say, "What is it based on? What evidence is there? How do you know that this makes sense?" 

PETIX: I should be allowed to present ideas to you, and you should be able to present your ideas to me. And if I don't like your ideas, I should be able to either defend my ideas, and hopefully convince you that my ideas are better than yours, or at least worth considering, and your ideas should be equally received by me. My point is that being offended by ideas should be met with a response as to why you don't like those ideas, or why they are invalid, as opposed to just saying, "You offended me by presenting an idea that I don't either accept or like."  

HORN: Or saying, "That's offensive, and so that's the end of it." Right? You offer the examples of if somebody is intentionally being insulting or truculent, that's one thing, but if somebody is offering an idea that just presents the world in a different way from the way that I see it-- you know, a Conservative essentially looks at the world and says that maybe "Change is questionable. I prefer to preserve things the way that they are!" Whereas a Progressive would look at the world in an 'essentially contested' fashion and say, "You know what? I tend to prefer change!" Well, those things those ideas are opposed but there's a conversation that can happen there. To say, "I'm offended and that's it, so I'm not going to listen to you anymore" or "You can't speak here"--well, that gets into us that gets us into a different place as a culture. 

PETIX: It's against what we have established schools for! I think that the the discussion of ideas generates thinking, and hopefully the Progressive will understand that some of the Conservative ideas, some of the institutions, for example, are worth keeping the way they are, or moving slowly in a direction. Maybe the Conservative will say, "You know, things could be a little bit better. Let's consider this idea. And let's come up with something that we can both live with--" 

[SIDEBAR begins 19:25] 

VOICEOVER: SIDEBAR: Interpretation versus Analysis. As you're hearing, this episode provides an ample dose of George Gershwin's "Summertime," lyrics by DuBose Heyward. If you need more, I've added two playlists on the Point of Learning YouTube channel. (The link is right on the show page.) One playlist is a recreation of the mix that Bob Petix made. The other is my best guess about the sequence of "Summertime" interpretations I might have been using to start class each morning during the week that Bob visited 15 years ago. As I mentioned, I was using the different versions of this classic song with my students to illustrate that there may be as many interpretations of a piece of art as there are eyes to regard it, or read it. Or ears to listen. As a high school English teacher I always preferred the term 'interpretation' to the term 'analysis,' and I always like to explain why. Analysis is a "breaking down," as hinted by that same root "lysis" that begins the name Lysistrata, "breaker of armies," or comes at the end of hydrolysis, the chemical process that breaks water into its component elements. As applied to literature expression with kids who are just beginning to read deeply the idea of analysis can feel cold and clinical, or worse--unnecessary. Why should I do that to a poem? Analysis has its place, later on, in making sense of complex systems, or denser works of literature, or in making sense of data, but maybe not so soon! Interpretation, on the other hand, is literally "a standing between": inter- =  between. -pres = "  standing" or "presiding." And your interpretation is what stands between you and the book. Or you and the world. In contrast to analyzing, interpreting is a profoundly natural, profoundly human act--as human as breathing. You go to a movie, you think about what it means. At the very least, whether it was good or not. The same is true for dinner. Whether you're "Conservative" or "Progressive," whether you are some mix of those, whether you have no use for those terms, a term that serves citizens well is interpretation. Seniors reading Hamlet or The Stranger by Camus bump up against the idea that the universe is without obvious meaning. Which is not to say that it's meaningless; it's just that the meaning you make depends on where you're standing, and what stands between you and everything else. 

[ACT 2 begins 23:37]

ACT 2 of today's show focuses on Dr. Petix's ideas about the Role of the Principal, a title that it's easy to forget derives from the adjective principal, as in "principal teacher" or "lead teacher." Petix was much more a leader than a manager, a distinction he'll talk about in a moment. Because a major part of the job is to support teachers, he begins by discussing the role of the teacher, which he does not believe has fundamentally changed, despite the Internet and the digital revolution that is now part of the education landscape. 

PETIX: The role of the teacher today, as far as I'm concerned, remains the same. You want to be special to that student, you want to keep that student interested, you want to determine what you want the student to learn and you'll use any means. The fact that students are on YouTube so much and that they're engaged with all of the social media? You use that as a as an astute teacher to engage the student in the desire to learn and in and in and ensuring that whatever you want that student to learn he has learned or she has learned. Again there is no reason anymore for the teacher just to stand up there and to to lecture to students because students are not going to hear that as a matter of fact frankly throughout the years the dullest teachers have been those who have stood up in front of the classroom and tried to tried to indoctrinate the students by encouraging them not to think but to hear to absorb and to re regurgitate what the teacher's role is the same as it's always been to get the student to want to enjoy learning to the teacher is able to determine what is needed for each student. But frankly since you can't teach students individually what can you do to get those students to want to learn--

HORN: To kindle a fire.

PETIX: To kindle a fire--exactly, and to hopefully get that fire to become an incendiary blaze so that they'll have that desire for the rest of their lives. That's what I think the teacher can do. It takes special people to be teachers. I have so much respect for teachers and always have because I understand how important they are not only to individual people but to society and how they go into the profession for the right reason. Teachers are not confrontational. That's why you need administrators who are frankly [laughs] because what you are doing is you're protecting the teachers and you encouraging them to do what they have to do and what they should do and what they want to do for students. I always felt that the best teachers are the ones who really cared--the ones who knew their subject, but really cared about me as an individual. And I think most students would say the same thing. There is some special teacher that inspired you to be who you are and that's what teachers should should aspire to become: that special teacher to each one of those students. 

HORN: This is from a former colleague of Westfield High School who was not there when you were there but I was just interested in this idea of a point of focus. And she put it and she put it this way. She said, "How do you get people to focus on what really matters--the core work of teaching and learning, and how do you sustain it?" And she she mentioned some of the pulls on people's time. She said, "We say this every year: 'This year is worse than last year, with meeting after meeting, forms that you don't understand the value of that you might be asked to to complete, email, and I quote, 'Oh God, the email!', standardized testing procedures with the accompanying lost instructional time, data for tracking Student Growth Objectives ...'" As principal, how did you try to pursue an academic vision and not get bogged down in the details of management, or "putting out fires," as some administrators describe it? And what advice would you have for somebody in that position today?

PETIX: To fight, to fight. It's as simple as that. The bureaucracy is becoming almost irreversible at this point. And I think one of the problems that teachers and administrators have is that they don't have a union that's a professional union as opposed to, or in addition to, one that complements the union that says that we have to protect our members--which is by the way, worthy and necessary, so I'm not I'm not against that at all--but I'm saying there has to be a voice that says, "We will no longer tolerate this. We are the educators. We know what's best. You're taking up so much of our time and so much of our resources, and so much of us that you're really not keeping your eye on the prize anymore. You're not allowing us to do what you're purportedly measuring and purportedly want." So frankly we have to stop by fighting at every level. There's not one group that can do that. There's no individual teacher that can do that. It takes the teachers united to say we're not going to do this anymore, not because we're afraid, but because you're not allowing us to do what we need to do for your children. And I think that as principal what I did when I had these things is I would I would try to minimize the time that was spent, try to make it as simple as I could for the faculty to handle these things, and to remind them--that's part of what a leader has to do--what we're really there for. These are parts of the job that we don't like, but we can't let them overwhelm us or to frankly start feeling that we really don't have to do what we thought we had to do. But what we have to do now is to "teach to the test" as opposed to saying that the test is an annoyance that really is hardly worthwhile, if at all. And we have to have our teachers united, administrators united, hopefully parents united, to get to the legislators and get to others and say, "Leave us alone and let us do what we have to do!" 

VOICEOVER: Bob had one more riff on testing that I knew that I wanted to include. 

PETIX: I think we've come up with some some things to measure that are very simple to measure but not necessarily important. And I think we then become we start asking ourselves all these questions about about the tests itself rather then the reason for the test or what effect is it going to have, and what do we want it to measure. And if what we want to measure is real, is it something that really deserves to be measured? I think there's so many more profound questions that are not even brought forth, that we don't ask ourselves and that we should. 

VOICEOVER: I asked him what kinds of things he keeps in mind or he kept in mind as a principal. And if he were advising a principal today what would he advise that person to do? 

PETIX: To make certain that you kept teachers engaged in what they're doing, to understand (again) their importance and their love for students, to fight the battles that had to be fought with people in authority to stand for the right things. I know it sounds silly or maybe even trite but frankly it isn't. Again: keep your eye on the prize. That's what I would say: to keep your eye on the prize, which is to offer to students the wonderful ability to be free thinkers, to engage in what's best for society and what's best for themselves and they can complement each other: What the individual wants in life, which is happiness ultimately, and what's good for society are complementary. You can't and ultimately you can't have one without the other. To remind teachers of what they want for students is a goal that I think that the principal should and can have. I think the simple thing is to start becoming engaged with all the easy stuff which is management, and you can say, "Well what do you mean 'management'?"

HORN: "Well what do you mean, 'management'?"

PETIX: All of the things that divert your attention from the real raison d'être, the reason for the schools, the reason you're there and the position that you've you've assumed. Unfortunately, I think several leaders in schools, of schools, feel that they want to be managers and candidly what from what I'm seeing since I've left the profession on a full-time basis is that they're being encouraged to be managers and not leaders, not leaders in the traditional sense of the word. 

VOICEOVER: So then I asked how he chose the other building leaders that he worked with. 

PETIX: Well the way I picked vice principals is that I wanted them to have the same basic beliefs about education that I did, and have skills that complement mine because I know that the best administrations are those who have different kinds of people, those who appeal to different kinds of teachers, those who are effective with various kinds of students. If you remember when you were in the school I had people who were very different, very diverse, but we had one goal and that was to do the best for students and to make certain that the teachers were aware that there was someone who supported them, even if they felt that somehow they didn't like me or didn't like another vice principal that there was somebody there to support them. So I think you have to have the same values, the same desires, and have complementary skills.

VOICEOVER: At the very end of our conversation, I realized that I had not asked Bob if we could capture the catch phrase that he became famous for as he signed off of the daily announcements each morning. He was not surprised. 

HORN: I just realized while we have the tape going, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you to give us a nice "pleasant and rewarding day"

PETIX: I knew you were going to say that!

HORN: But I just thought of it! That's the thing.

PETIX: You know it's interesting when I meet students, I met someone the other day in the Shop-Rite, a young man, a man now of course, who graduated in 1984 and he said, "Are you Dr. Petix?" I said, "Yeah, I am--" He said, "Have a pleasant and rewarding day!" That's what they remember! 

VOICEOVER: It took several takes, a couple of which I'm having trouble relegating to the cutting room floor, so here you go. You may recognize off-mic the voice of audio engineer Kevin Johnson, my guest in our pilot episode. 

HORN: You've definitely said it a couple times but I don't think that the delivery is the same as if you know we were there-- 

KEVIN JOHNSON: Please rise, proudly salute our flag, and--

PETIX: And have a pleasant and rewarding day!

HORN: You got it?

JOHNSON: Get one more. Wait, hold for sound. [traffic going by]  

HORN: This is good. This is going to put us over the edge, this is gonna put iTunes subscriptions off the charts!

HORN: Have a pleasant and rewarding day.

VOICEOVER: A worthy benediction for us all. Hey there's the guy with the tambourine again, which means we've reached the end of today's show. Thanks to you for listening, to Bob Petix for joining us, to Kevin Johnson for engineering the interview audio. Please check out the many supplementary materials available on the show page as well as the Point of Learning YouTube channel. Spread the word about this show to all your friends and family interested in what and how and why we learn, and we'll be back soon with another episode of Point of Learning. 

PETIX: Have a pleasant and rewarding day! I don't think that was-- That wasn't how I used to say it. 

[END 37:59]

Hi's Eye article on The Lysistrata Project

[from the March 7, 2003 issue of Hi's Eye, the weekly, student-run newspaper at Westfield (NJ) High School]

The Lysistrata Project: WHS participates in global peace reading

by Holly Coleman

     WHS participated in the first ever worldwide theatrical event for peace, with a reading of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata Monday, March 3. English Teacher Mr. Peter Horn and senior Jenise Morgan organized the event, and several students and teachers volunteered to read parts of the ancient Greek, anti-war comedy. All members of the high school community were encouraged to attend the event, regardless of political viewpoint.

     The idea for the worldwide theatrical peace event originated in New York City, co-founded by actresses Sharron Bower and Kathryn Blume. To celebrate the day, many actors and directors read Lysistrata in public places. Approximately 928 plays were scheduled for reading   in 56 countries, and all of the 50 states in the United States. Many of the readings will benefit nonprofit organizations working for peace and humanitarian aid in Iraq. 

     Lysistrata tells the story of women from opposing states in Ancient Greece who come together in a desperate attempt to end the Peloponnesian war. After feeling powerless in their society and not having their standpoint against the war heard, the women decide to use the only tactic they feel is available to them—their sexuality. The women refuse to sleep with their husbands until they agree to stop the fighting.

     The play continues as a back-and-forth struggle between the women regarding their stance on the war, and between the men and women and their series of disagreements. Much of the play contains strong sexual innuendoes, adding a sense of lighthearted humor to the otherwise serious discussion of war. 

     Scheduled readings took place at WHS during periods five and six. Among those who volunteered to read Lysistrata were: Senior Raj Bhandari, Richard Brockway, ,Vivian Futran, David Eisenberg, Ali Jacob, Kate Lechner, Jenise Morgan, Kaitlyn Patella, Trevor Putnoky, and Kathleen Salmon; juniors Hannah Burke and Kim Lam; sophomores Emily Greenberg, Nick Malaspina, Katie Okamoto and Emily Sheehan; with Jacob playing the role of Lysistrata. During period eight, and open reading was held, and any student who wished to read was given the opportunity.

     Eisenberg said, “Lysistrata is an interesting play that hopefully will stimulate discussion in the school about important issues relating to war.” 

     An all-faculty reading took place during period nine. Participants included: English Department Chair Ms. Paula Roy, English Teachers Mr. Corey Walsh, Ms. Aimee Burgoyne, Mr. Marc Silbergeld, Ms. Karen Goller, Ms. Elizabeth Muller, Principal Dr. Robert Petix, Science Teacher Mr. Rudy Scipioni and Latin Teacher Mr. Donal McGay.

     “The Lysistrata Project was an academic approach to opening students’ minds to an important current issue that should be considered and discussed from various perspectives,” said Petix.

     The Lysistrata Project provided an opportunity for members of the WHS community to take a stand for their belief in peace. 

     Said McGay: “I think it’s good to expose everyone to this play. I hope reviving this ancient comedy and its universal themes about war will make everyone think about war in a new light.”

A Brief History of the WHS Gay-Straight Alliance

The pride sign was added early on the morning of WHS commencement 2012 by an alumna identifying herself as a member of the class of 2006. 

By Peter Horn, in honor of the WHS retirement of Emily Style, June 2012

The Gay-Straight Alliance at Westfield (NJ) High School was officially organized in the fall of 2000, but its roots stretch back decades before that. Since before the Civil Rights movement, socially conscious WHS educators and students used social studies and literature discussions to explore problems of equity and discrimination. The school's tradition of intellectual freedom as exemplified by an uncensored newspaper and wide-ranging curricular choices is the legacy of many administrators, teachers, parents, Board members and students. However, two essential figures in the story are Ms. Paula A. Roy, English teacher and department chairperson from 1972 to 1999, and Dr. Robert G. Petix, principal from 1980 to 2006. Roy tirelessly challenged students and colleagues along a gamut of social justice issues, but is most remembered for her advocacy in women's studies. For his part, Petix embraced controversy, envisioning the school's place in a vibrant democracy as a locus for informed, reasoned debate. 

THE HUMAN RELATIONS COMMITTEE (1998-1999)

Paula Roy had recently published an article on confronting classroom homophobia in the spring of 1998 when Bob Petix asked the WHS faculty to consider the experience of gay and lesbian students, charging us to form a Human Relations Committee. (Though sexual orientation was the explicit focus from the outset, the uncertain climate of the time commended a less explicit name for the group.) Chaired by Petix, the committee was initially composed of faculty only, but students were soon solicited to join as members. The group met throughout the 1998-1999 school year, addressing various concerns related to bias discrimination in the school community. 

In December 1998, a program called "Season of Light:  Spirit of Inclusion" included nearly 40 presentations offered by 17 faculty members, as well as guests from PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and the Rutgers Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Alliance. The four-day festival treated topics from social stratification and hate crimes to images of gays and lesbians in literature and film. The range of offerings allowed people with differing levels of comfort around issues of sexuality to get in where they fit in, hearing about a straight mother's initial rejection of a lesbian daughter, for instance, or the relationship of French poets Verlaine and Rimbaud, or a gay student's challenges in a college setting. Positive feedback from students, faculty, and community members persuaded us that WHS was ready for a GSA. 

LIEBERMAN AND ORBACH FOUND GSA  

In September 2000, students Josh Lieberman and Molly Orbach approached a group of teachers about advising a Gay-Straight Alliance. Quickly gaining approval from administration, the GSA made page 1 of the school newspaper after coming out on Club Day with flyers for its first meeting—7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 4th, in the WHS library. Not knowing how it would be received by the larger community, the club advertised a "faculty advisory board" of seven members, rather than a single adviser who might become a lightning rod. The original GSA mission statement has gone almost unchanged for twelve years: "The Gay-Straight Alliance is a group of gay and straight students [revised to "people"] committed to addressing gay and lesbian concerns at WHS, including the prejudice against homosexuality that places people at risk and impinges upon the dignity of every person in our community. The Gay-Straight Alliance seeks to serve as a vehicle for dialogue, support, and education for its members and the larger school community."

WINNING COMMUNITY SUPPORT

As we have advised over a dozen GSAs at schools in NJ, NY, and PA, the key to winning broad-based support is to stress that GSAs make safer environments for all students through upholding basic human dignity and respect for all members of a school community. The reason a "special" organization is required is to serve a group facing special risks: Young LGBT people especially can experience intense feelings of isolation and alienation that can lead to dangerous behaviors (visit GLSEN.org for more information). Though many young people face bullying and harassment, LGBT kids are less likely than racial minority members, for instance, to have sympathetic family members or other readily identifiable sources of support. 

THE DAY OF SILENCE 

Since 2002, the GSA has participated in the Day of Silence, a national event founded by Maria Pulzetti, a student at the University of Virginia in 1996. On average, 100 to 200 WHS students and faculty take a voluntary vow of silence during one school day each April in solidarity with those who feel silenced by anti-LGBT bias. In preparation for the first observation, the GSA built a coalition with the WHS Student Council and members of a peer-mentoring group called WHS Connection, informing these other organizations about the event and inviting them to participate. The first year went so smoothly that since then the GSA has used only PA announcements, advertisements and a customary reminder letter for faculty. Each DOS observation ends with an open meeting for all participants to debrief about the experience. Though there have been at least two incidents in the past decade where a student was struck as a result of participating in DOS, the WHS administration and GSA addressed each case directly and immediately, in the spirit of the two victims' belief that the incidents demonstrate why the Day of Silence is necessary. 

BI-MONTHLY MEETINGS AND OTHER GSA EVENTS

The GSA usually meets 15 to 20 evenings per year, for about two hours. (Baked goods are welcomed, but not required!) The purpose and vibe of the meetings changes with the membership and with what needs to be done—some nights we've written letters to companies urging them to reconsider anti-LGBT hiring practices; some nights we've played board games or watched movies (The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a Halloween season favorite); some evenings are totally given over to discussion. For discussion-based meetings, there are two ground rules:  1. No assumptions about others. 2. What is said at the meeting stays at the meeting (unless it involves harm to self or others). 

In its first dozen years, the GSA has fulfilled its mission of dialogue, education and support through a panoply of programs and activities. From sharing first place for best float in the annual November Homecoming Parade (2001) to the controversial "Gay Pops" lollipop fundraiser (2003) and the annual gay-friendly Gayla dance each June (since 2006), there have been plenty of playful expressions of high school pride. PFLAG members have appeared before various WHS audiences at least six times to address the challenges of accepting gay family members. The GSA twice teamed up with the political discussion forum Iraq Survey Group to discuss legislation including gay marriage.  Guests including Princeton University professor Jeff Nunokawa and actor/playwright Ellen McLaughlin have given college-level presentations on sexuality in the arts.  

We have found it important for the WHS GSA to maintain a public profile through advertising (and in recent years, a Facebook group), because we know that some students who may never attend a meeting during high school contact us after graduating to say how much it meant to them that the group was there, and that there were SAFE ZONE signs throughout the building. 

[Note: Some information may require revision, as this article is abridged from the version published on project79.tumblr.com in 2012.]

Episode 001 Transcript

00:00:01

PETER HORN: Hey everybody, this is Peter Horn. Welcome to the pilot of the Point of Learning podcast, brought to you in part by the letter P. This is episode number one. On this episode of Point of Learning, some ideas about how popular television engages young viewers today very differently than 25 years ago. 

00:00:32

KEVIN JOHNSON: I think what is different now is that it's participatory. Nobody ever asked you when you were watching, you know, Coach to do anything, but John Oliver last Sunday put footage up and asked people to do things in after-effects. That's a very different world that these kids live in.

PETER: And a different take on scheduling high school classes you're not going to want to miss. 

KEVIN: We're very used to this model: One instructor, one section. I don't think that's the best way to teach teenagers. 

PETER: This podcast is for anyone interested in getting to the point of learning. It will often focus on kids or school or teaching ... but I want to keep it lively for anyone curious about what and how and why we learn. This is the pilot episode so I want to give you just a quick bit of background on where this is coming from. This spring marks my 20th anniversary as an educator. In 1997 I had the pleasure of working with Maribeth Edmunds, now Dr. Maribeth Edmunds, who challenged me as her student teacher to bring my best ideas to share with our students each and every day. Every day, my best ideas about what we were reading or writing or discussing. I took that challenge seriously, partially because I loved what it implied: If you're going to bring your best ideas, first you must assume that your kids can handle your best ideas, provided you are clear enough about what you're saying and passionate enough to sell the value of thinking hard, and making and exploring new ideas. Second, you've got to believe your students are worth it. If you're a teacher checking out this show, given everything else you've got to do, I'm betting you believe your kids are worth it. And third, you have to keep discovering. As I said, that was 20 years ago. 

00:02:40

PETER: I'm on a break from the classroom right now so that I can pursue projects like this that I would not have had time to pursue if I were still in the classroom. If you are a teacher, you know what I mean. And God bless you! This show is for you teachers and school leaders, but not just for you teachers and school leaders. This podcast is for anyone interested in getting to the point of learning. It will often focus on kids or school, but I want to keep it lively, for anyone curious about what and how and why we learn. 

00:03:13

PETER: Today for instance I'm talking with Kevin Johnson. Whip-smart and fun to talk to, he's worked for one of America's largest corporations, for a major stock exchange, and for New Jersey public high school students. A sound engineer, editor, director and television teacher with a decade of experience. And once upon a time, as a senior in high school, he was my student in English Lit and Composition. Students, dare I say, are the best part of teaching. So I really like the idea of spending this first episode talking with somebody who used to be a student of mine but has also many times been my teacher, and is certainly a good friend. In our conversation Kevin introduced the challenge of teaching television to very media-savvy kids with the example of framing shots. With today's availability of Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, et cetera, kids often come into an intro TV course having already acquired the ability to frame shots pretty well. 

KEVIN: The thing about framing is, it's the basis, right? So I've seen Quentin Tarantino talk about how "the basis of prose is the word; the basis of cinema is the frame." Right? See, I said that like Quentin Tarantino. And so at this very basic level, modern students, they're so immersed in the medium that they they can create it in a way that we couldn't when I was their age. We had to be taught the basics, kind of the way how people can look at a word and say, "It doesn't feel like it's spelled right." These kids visually, they know what's going on, even if they can't articulate it.

PETER: We got to talking about what accounts for this difference between the current generation and ours. Kevin's just a few years younger than I am.

00:05:11
KEVIN: Americans have consumed about the same amount of television for decades. It's trending up a little if you count other screen time. But basically Americans watch between three and five hours of television every day. I think what's different now is that it's participatory. Nobody ever asked you when you were watching, you know, Coach to do anything, but John Oliver last Sunday put footage up and asked people to do things in after-effects. That's a very different world that these kids live in. Or they watch YouTube and they can post a video response. You don't write to your local station manager ... Remember those ads we used to see? "Write to your cable operator and ask them to carry The Nashville Network!"

00:06:00

PETER: Sure. So I wonder if we're bumping up against the difference between learning and acquiring. Acquisition being based on something that we're immersed in, such as the first language, whereas learning involves certain formal instruction using you know something that would look like a lesson or feel like a lesson, according to most education textbooks. The rule of thumb is that we're better at what we've acquired, but we know more about what we've learned. Learning: there's an accompanying vocabulary, a lexicon. And so when somebody starts to talk about shots in TV1, she or he learns some ways to talk about that, that's formal learning. But you're talking about this kind of acquired skill where kids would come to you in 2015 being quite a bit more adroit in framing something, in some basic visual language, than in 2005.

KEVIN: I think the challenge now is that the students come to you with this basic ability now and that's great--you can work with them. But in some ways it's a little more challenging because they can do something, but they have a lot less understanding of what they're doing, you know when they start. So they're starting at this sort of seemingly higher level but at least 10, 20 years ago when they were starting literally from zero they knew it, you knew it, you're coming up together. Now you're sort of trying to put language to stuff that they've been doing in many cases since they were in grade school. 

PETER: Well I would imagine it necessitates a different approach.

KEVIN: A totally different approach.

00:08:08

PETER: Sidebar: Acquisition versus Learning. Kevin's example nicely points up the difference between learning and acquisition. As I said a minute ago, "The rule of thumb is that we're better at what we've acquired, but we know more about what we've learned." (Oh yes I did just sample and remix myself. I'm in the process of learning and acquiring audio-editing skills for the first time--having a blast.) Back to the example of Kevin's students: these kids who have messed around with video and developed a certain amount of skill with it, have immersed themselves in it. That's acquisition, that's acquiring. They're better at it probably than somebody who just took a semester course on video editing who learned it in a formal setting and may have learned a whole bunch of vocab--tilt up, tilt down, frame, zoom, splice, pans. When Kevin talks about encountering those kids in a TV1 class and you start adding technical terminology to stuff that you've already done, well that is almost exactly like an English Language Arts teacher teaching grammar to students who have grown up speaking English. The grammar seems strange. "We do this already. Why do I need to know what an intransitive verb is? Why do I need to know what an infinitive is?" As we're discussing them here we're using the terms acquisition and learning according to technical definitions that I didn't encounter until I took a linguistics course in college. (For my blog post on this topic check out the show page or visit HornEdSpeak.tumblr.com, then search acquisition.) In a nutshell, I believe that distinguishing these terms is worthwhile for educators and other people who like to learn things because school is usually set up for either acquisition or learning to dominate, and these modes of apprehension get us to different outcomes with students. As I just said, we're better at what we acquired, but we know more about what we've learned. We obtain most skills through a mixture of learning and acquisition. For instance, new drivers usually learn through direct instruction how to operate a vehicle safely, including some specialized language like yield, parallel park, speed trap. But drivers only come to full and effortless control through a process of acquisition, that is to say trial and error behind the wheel, and exposure to different kinds of driving situations. This mix of learning and acquisition applies to many other kinds of skills, like playing a sport, learning a musical instrument, or cooking or parenting or, of course, teaching. We're better at what we acquired but know more about what we've learned is shorthand then for the up- and downsides of each mode. So to go back to language, if your high school French class offered only grammar and vocabulary, you probably did not become as good at French as if you'd spent a few weeks or a semester practicing the language on an exchange trip. Acquirers usually beat learners at performance. On the other hand, learning the grammar of another language provides a set of tools for better understanding one's first language; learners usually beat acquirers at talking about the subject, including explaining analyzing and engaging topics critically. Acquisition and learning lead to different goals, but schools often confuse them. The takeaways for educators, then: 

• If the goal is mastery, that is to say full and effortless control and performance, then acquisition should dominate. What opportunities are provided for students to do whatever skill they are learning about? How close can class come to providing a meaningful and functional setting for this skill? 
• On the other hand, learning inherently provides tools for kids to be able to discuss, compare, and critique ideas--not just important for students, but for citizens. How often do schools ask students to do this? 

00:12:42
PETER: For Act 2 of today's show, which I wanted to be about a thought about a different model for how to schedule teachers with groups of kids, especially in high school. That was a cool idea that Kevin came up with. I was trying to get him to talk about this idea that he had mentioned a couple of weeks earlier in sort of an offhand way. I thought that our soundcheck would be a great opportunity to provoke him to expound upon this. And so I thought that I was artfully guiding him in this direction. And this is the question that I actually asked him: We seem to be asking more and more of classroom teachers, saying, "You should be including these standards in your lesson plans, you should be consulting the resources, you should be getting this kind of professional development on your own time, reading these kinds of things, differentiating for students, using technology, creating engaging learning experiences, and meeting with parents and community ... The list seems to go on. One of the things that we know is important is engaging kids where they are relative to their media landscape and some of the ways that they are engaging with the world and appropriating new information and engaging new ideas is through video, through online platforms. But that's a lot for a teacher take on. You were positing a classroom model that would have a principal content-based teacher but then a instructional support professional who might be able to--

KEVIN: Oh yes. I'll describe that in a second. 

PETER: So you have a sense for how well that went! I was trying to get him to talk about his idea, but he insisted, believe it or not that we needed to talk about Cheers first. Yes, Cheers the show from the mid-late '80s to the early '90s. Nine o'clock Thursday night NBC, that Cheers. We also discussed Alf and Mr. Belvedere and Small Wonder. It was wide-ranging for a certain period of television. This snippet should give you a feel for it and I promise it will become more important in a second. Hang in there. 

00:15:16

KEVIN: When we had spent a week on Cheers ... and I had to memorize a chart of what the characters' names meant. Norm is a normal guy. We're almost 20 years hence I could probably draw you the chart.

PETER: Let's keep going. We got Sam Malone, May Day Malone.

KEVIN: He ends up alone, Sam Alone.

PETER: Sam Alone, Sam Alone. Frasier Crane. A little bit later ...

KEVIN: I actually don't remember.

PETER: Cliff Clavin.

KEVIN: Cliff Clavin: "dumb guy, dumb name." Actual quote from my professor. 

PETER: Dumb guy, dumb name. What? Oh. He was full of factoids though, Cliffie. 

KEVIN: But the thing about Cheers and why I bring it up: we talk about these classroom materials. "Teachers should be using YouTube, or making a blog." This is complicated stuff! The worst show you've ever seen--and the reason I said Alf at the beginning of this is Alf and Cheers were on at the same time. Every single person who worked on both of those spent a lifetime in that business. These weren't idiots off the street making Alf, but nobody gives a sh*t about Alf because it was a terrible show, right? I can make fun of it now. "Oh it was a terrible show." I'm just dismissing a lot of people's work! 

00:16:28

PETER: So there are a couple of fairly broad claims in there, but the idea is that this stuff is hard, even making an average quality television show is really, really hard, requiring the work of a lot of specialized people. But now think about what we do in school ... frequently!

KEVIN: If you are a young teacher, and your vice principal comes to you (or whoever's in charge of you) and wants you to do this stuff, and it's all laudable stuff:  "I want you to create these classroom materials, I want to do all this stuff." Is it even physically possible to produce quality content as basically an amateur and still do your job at the level that the people of your city expect you to do as a professional? I would say No: the current system doesn't allow you to do both things well. You cannot be an effective classroom instructor--doing the assessments, keeping the records, having the relationships that you're expected to have with students and members of your community and supervisors-- you can't do that and also be creating this world-class content that, to be frank, Warner Brothers might create and still fall flat. As consumers of television, film, records, it's really easy to say, "Oh, this is terrible, this is terrible." This stuff that we're calling "terrible"--and some of it is--is produced by people whose entire lives are wrapped up in that project.

00:18:00

KEVIN: As you know, my beginning in public education is a little different than many people's. I was not a teacher by training, but I became a pretty good teacher's assistant. I had two years in the classroom with somebody with experience and I got to watch him teach every day and jump in sometimes and he would delegate things to me. It was a really good experience. I got to see what worked, what didn't work. I got to do things in a very low-pressure environment. And I would want such a thing for other people developing. So imagine, if you will, you're some young whippersnapper amazing vice principal who's been tasked, you're the Master Schedule Guy this year. Even within your current contract, even within your current budget, staffing, everything, I think it's worth looking at how schools allocate their instructional resources. So if you have a department let's say of, you know, five teachers who teach 100 students (trying to use some easy numbers that are made up here). You know, you might have sections of 20 as your goal and they go up or down from there depending on how things shake out. One instructor, one section. We're very used to this model: one instructor, one section. I don't think that's the best way to teach teenagers and I know Peter you've heard this a million times but for your viewers or for your listeners, I think that you can benefit so many things, right? Vice-principals are always on about instructional time and they're not wrong, you don't want to lose a few seconds here, a few seconds there, because over the year they add up. What about acceptable absences? You know you're out for a day because you're ill or because you have to chaperone a trip or because half of your students are out. If you have a system where there's multiple teachers, a partial absence of one of them doesn't have the same deleterious effect. No matter how you feel about instructional time, worrying about 30 seconds here and 30 seconds there, no matter how much they add up to--three class absences is way more than that. So I would love to see a system where instead of five instructors each teaching their own sections, pull two of them out. They will not be the 'teacher of record' or whatever you want to call it for their own sections. Three people are going to teach all of those students and the other two will be assigned for each section and they can--however you want to supervise it, I'm not a managerial genius! The bottom line is I think what administrators need to do is find ways within their current labor agreements to divide tasks in a more sane way. So you don't have 10 people each doing five things, but maybe you have you know five people doing two and a half things, and five other people doing two and a half different things. And I'm not here to prescribe what they might be. I just know from my experience, it works very well if you can have one person planning lessons, being the primary point of contact with students and bosses. And another person who is generating materials, doing preparatory stuff that that person can't do. Right down to as simple as if you want to have a video tutorial for students, who's going to the hang the light? Who's going to set up the mic? Who's going to QC [quality control] the gear? I mean, it's not glamorous stuff, but it has to happen.

00:21:37

PETER: There are several reasons I think that Kevin's thought experiment is so valuable. You know one, of course, he lived it; it's not actually an experiment. It was a version of his own experience, so it's growing out of a tried and true model that he lived in for two years, being an assistant to somebody else who was the principal teacher in the classroom. But also it took me a while to realize how much a school's master schedule is really an expression of what it values. That was abstract to me until about the second decade I was in school. Certainly that was the time that I began needing to schedule a team of teachers myself, so I saw how complicated it was. But it was only then that I began to ask questions like "What does drive the schedule? What classes drive the schedule?" And you know if we say that co-teaching for example is important--you know, working with a special ed teacher and a curricular subject teacher--if we say that's important, but we don't schedule any time for these two teachers to plan together, do we really believe that it's as important as we say that it is? The master schedule is an expression of values. Another reason I think this idea might be important is that it might provide the opportunity for people to try out, in a lower-pressure way, some of the aspects of teaching. It strikes me that it would be ideal for somebody in college right now doing teacher preparation to do, you know, a Junior Practicum, some aspect of his student teaching, in this kind of model where you are supporting somebody, creating some materials for you know much of the time. But some of that time you can be the principal teacher but it could be a possibility of some flexibility here where you could mix it up and give somebody an opportunity to see "Is this something I would really like?"--without all of that pressure that attaches to the standard student teaching experience. Not too long ago I was analyzing some data from a study on paraprofessionals in Washington D.C. and paraprofessionals, as many of you know, are the staff members who used to be referred to as teachers' aides. So several of the paraprofessionals in this study were spitballing. They asked whether their role could be reimagined as a possible entryway to teaching, if desired, rather than a permanently parallel track. I think that's third reason that I wanted to highlight Kevin's example is not for the example itself, but rather the fact that here is an educator coming up with ideas as he's in the classroom thinking, "How could things be a little bit different?" There is tremendous latent capacity, there tremendous ideas that teachers have, that paraprofessionals have, that custodians have, that students have, that people who are in school spending time in schools have about how school could be better that we do not regularly seek out or take advantage of.

00:25:07

PETER: Well, that just about does it for the pilot episode of the Point of Learning podcast. Thanks again to Kevin Johnson for getting us set up here in the studio, and agreeing to be our first guest and to you for listening, for checking it out. Hopefully you'll be willing to subscribe to the podcast, comment on it, Tweet us thoughts @HornEdSpeak, share it with friends. I'll be back soon with another episode of the podcast and more conversations about teaching, learning, kids, leading, and school as we try to get to the point of learning.

KEVIN: Write to your cable operator and ask them to carry The Nashville Network!