Words Matter

            On Friday, I took a moment from my 11^th- and 12^th-grade journalism classes to make sure my students knew of the editorial decisions that newsrooms across the country had been faced with the day before. My students know that news media outlets all have their own style manuals, which includes a guide to which words the outlets consider vulgar and inappropriate for print. But sometimes, those rules must be broken.

            Thursday night, many news outlets decided to temporarily reverse their style rules regarding vulgar language by reprinting some words attributed to the president of the United States. According to numerous sources, the president had referred to certain nations as “shithole countries” when negotiating immigration law with other lawmakers during a Thursday meeting. He also had asked why we would want people from Haiti here in the U.S.

            This was not the first time that President Trump has spoken derisively of individuals from developing countries during immigration talks, according to sources who have attended meetings with him. In addition, the president has used incendiary words regarding other ethnicities and nations many times, particularly during his campaign speeches. His administration’s travel ban was developed to target a particular religion, as he had promised it would during his campaign. And his words after the Charlottesville tragedy revealed, at the very least, a clear concern with offending white supremacists.

            Due to the president’s dedicated track record of demeaning individuals who are not white or European, the news media was aware that it had a responsibility to continue reporting his approach to diversity and immigration. This included coverage of the president’s words. So when he took the shocking step of calling other nations a vulgar term on Thursday, most news outlets decided that reporting the exact words was essential to giving readers the full story. The president’s words serve as a reflection of the country he leads, and it was deemed essential that you and I know our leader is now comfortable with using “shithole” to describe would-be allies. Media outlets felt they owed us that level of specificity.

            I asked my students if they agreed with this choice, politics aside. Everyone who raised their hand said they did. The details mattered immensely here, they said. I encouraged them to keep following this story during the weekend.

            Tomorrow, we celebrate a man whose words inspired a nation and world, and whose leadership led not only to American freedoms but also to worldwide admiration for the promise of America. That promise, of a nation where all men and women are created equal, has not been fully realized, of course. We have seen this on numerous fronts, from race relations to immigration to sexual assault to educational segregation to voting laws. We have so much work to be done, which is part of the reason why Martin Luther King Jr. Day has become more and more a day of active service and reflection. But on that third Monday in January, we also have the chance to listen to King’s words and remind ourselves of just how much potential our nation has.

            And no matter your politics, it has typically been the case that the president of the United States uses words of maturity and dignity when speaking to that promise of American liberty. You could criticize the president’s agenda and executive orders, but you were likely to find no problems with his words when it came to representing the nation’s ideals.

            President Trump has promised, throughout his campaign and his presidency, to be a disruptor. That has involved clear challenges to laws that he disagreed with, but it has also involved a shift in the president’s use of language. He has used spoken word, social media and official statements in a form more befitting a barroom brawler than a chief executive. That is troubling to many, for sure, but in journalism it’s also news. It’s a shift whose impact we can’t assess quite yet, but which we must cover thoroughly. When someone chooses to alter the way in which the most visible country in the world presents itself to the world, that is a news story of the highest order. It means that for nearly every word Trump utters, reporters must share with us the policy details, the politics and – often most of all – the degree to which his words are taking us into unchartered territory.

            So yes, today it’s “shithole.” And tomorrow, we’ll see what’s next. My students get it. The words matter, and they must be covered. 

Through Troubled Times

            We’re living through a moment in which all of us around the nation and world are in desperate need of ways to come together. When leaders are not focused on finding ways to deepen our understanding and acceptance, we cannot wait for them to decide that these things matter. We must step forward and take the lead in whatever ways we can.

            In my job as a teacher, I teamed up this fall with an inspiring colleague to host a “one read” program in which we invited students, parents, staff and community members to read and discuss the book Outcasts United, written by Warren St. John. The book chronicles a soccer team near Atlanta made up of refugee teens and the extraordinary coach who helps them grow and find their place in a new land. At our book discussions, we invited Syrian and Iraqi refugee families to talk at the school, and also heard from one of our school’s teachers who fled the war in Bosnia more than two decades ago. These conversations provided a depth of awareness that many of us did not have. We left one session inspired by with the words of 16-year-old Abdullah, who has been in America for a year after fleeing both Iraq and Syria: “I have something to fight for,” he said, “and that is my future.”

            As adviser of my school’s community service club, I’ve worked with students in volunteering at an extraordinary refugee assistance program hosted in a Jewish temple in town. I’ve also helped my students rake leaves and sell candy to raise money for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico and Texas (our donations to Puerto Rico support a nonprofit that provides solar energy to residents, and it was founded by a 15-year-old). And I’ve joined with these amazing teens on Friday nights as they make lunches and deliver meals to homeless and other low-income individuals in Manhattan.

            As co-coordinator of a peer-mentoring club, I’ve helped train juniors and seniors to lead freshman discussion groups on issues such as friendships, bullying and stereotypes. In their last discussion, the freshmen and upperclassmen discussed the “bystander effect,” and pondered the reasons why we often fail to step in when others are in need. We compared stories of people who have not stepped in with the story of Wesley Autrey, who more than a decade ago dove onto a subway track to cover a man who was having a seizure as a subway car passed above them. The students read and asked themselves: What does it take to find the strength to help someone in need?

            As a journalism teacher and adviser, I’ve steered my students toward a close study of how the words “fake news” have evolved over the past year, and what this issue has meant to our own sense of media literacy. I’ve also advised ambitious student reporters who have taken on meaty issues such as mental illness, gun control, political involvement and sexual harassment for their stories in our student-run newspaper.

            At our annual state teachers’ convention, I attended workshops on Islam, opioid abuse, sexual orientation, gender identity and culturally responsive classrooms. At my church, I’ve joined an anti-racism committee formed by one of our church pastors. At home, I’ve read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ We Were Eight Years in Power to consider the ways in which America’s outlook toward race changed throughout the previous presidency. I’ve started reading Isabel Wilkerson‘s The Warmth of Other Suns to better understand the impact of the Great Migration on our country. And I’ve continued reading Nikole Hannah-Jones’ New York Times Magazine stories on school segregation, to gain a clearer view of how this issue has deepened instead of lessened over the past half-century.

            I know I’m just a teacher, writer and citizen with a few areas of influence, and I can’t change the world. But I can do my part to help. And I’m ready for more. After years of considering it, my wife and I are finally looking into solar energy. I want to read the new John Green novel that delves deeply into mental health. I have a student reporter who wants to do a story in which she gives $10 to a few people with the requirement that they find unique ways to give the money away, inspired by a New York Times story we read. And those service club kids are still raising money for hurricane relief, and they want to spend some time with senior citizens at an assisted-living center before the holidays.

            In his song “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” Nick Lowe asked questions more than 40 years ago that seem more than relevant today:

As I walk on

Through troubled times

My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes

So where are the strong?

And who are the trusted?

And where is the harmony?

Sweet harmony

I don’t know all the answers to Lowe’s questions. But I do know that I’m not giving up. 

Tree Grit

           One of the key buzzwords in American education today is “grit.” It stems from the research of Angela Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose bestselling book Grit and popular TED Talk have helped spread the word about the importance of resilience and determination in kids today. The pushback on standardized tests has led many educators to argue that character – in particular, a strong sense of self and a refusal to give up – can mean more when it comes to success in life than any report card or SAT exam.

            I have always agreed with this philosophy, as I’ve seen it play out in both the successes and failures in my life and in the lives of those around me. I have worked very hard at all my jobs, and I’ve seen that work bear fruit. I also have memories of job interviews early in my career in which I exuded more entitlement than grit. Those interviews did not lead to job offers, for good reason.

            At 46, I’m now old enough to know that the best way for me to succeed is to put my head down, get to work, and let the grit guide my own development as an educator, writer, learner and colleague. In preparation for the school year that begins tomorrow, I’ve taken some time to rest – but I’ve also had some decidedly gritty moments under the summer sun.

This Land of Journalists

            The president of the United States has taken the additional step of calling journalists “sick people” who “don’t like our country.” He has continued to use the term “fake news” to describe the reporting being done about him. He is encouraging supporters to turn their backs on American journalism as we know it.

            This is important to note, and important to refute, no matter what one’s political views might be.

            The role that journalism has played in American history is profound and in many ways as important as the role of government itself. Strong investigative reporting has repeatedly led the government to make critical changes that benefit the American public – at the federal, state and local levels. We would be nowhere near the country we are today without the work of our most skilled reporters.

            There are several biased news media outlets in existence today, especially on TV and on the internet. There also are several examples of fictional news, particularly from the entrepreneurs who are crafting false stories online in order to gain income from the ads sold on their much-read and much-shared websites. These businessmen know that their false, highly partisan stories will be retweeted and shared without many folks checking the facts. This is the true “fake news,” and it’s being created by people with no journalism background.

A Teacher's Take on Charlottesville

           Like most Americans, I have had many thoughts and concerns over the past day and a half, after learning of the violence and murder connected with yesterday’s white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. I pray for those who have died and been injured, and for all who are diligently working toward a country that prizes the acceptance and equality that our Declaration promises.

            But as someone who often seeks out the difficult questions, I have to raise this one: What if I had a student who was one of those alt-right marchers yesterday? Or what if I had a student who was a vocal sympathizer of their cause? As I type these words, I am seeing a Washington Post article in which a history teacher of the young man who ran his car into a crowd yesterday said the young man had expressed white supremacist views in school.

            This is a tough call for any teacher. Teenagers don’t respond well to shaming and being told what to think. So while I strongly hope that those who marched or spoke out for white supremacy will take on new points of view, I don’t think it will happen because they’re told they are wrong. Only through educated dialogue will teens and young adults feel empowered to change their minds, through their own volition. If I started a conversation with a student who had alt-right tendencies, it would be essential that I let him or her know that I was listening.

            But I’d also take steps to ensure that this student – along with all of those in my class – hears and considers other points of view. The decisions teachers make on reading materials, conversation format and class environment all can play an essential role in this. Teens pay close attention to the opinions of their peers, so it’s important that classroom dialogue on controversial issues be thoughtful and respectful. The classroom also provides a kind of structure that social media does not. So while this student would likely have had many online debates with others already, the classroom and a teacher’s own experience facilitating discussions would likely be a welcome change for the student and for those who disagree with him or her.

            Before class, I’d reach out to that student’s guidance counselor to see what was happening in other classes and in the hallways, to try and get a sense of what that student was experiencing in all the other periods of the day. I wouldn’t duck the topic in class if I learned that he or she was being shamed out loud and on social media; I’d just alter the tone of how we discussed it.

            When it came time for dialogue, the goal would simply be for us to read, think deeply, and converse. I would seek out a variety of reading materials, from the Declaration and Fourteenth Amendment to the facts about what happened during the march, to excerpts from different opinion pieces on the issues at hand. I’d seek out diversity in the persuasive writing, perhaps sharing Michael Eric Dyson’s New York Times op-ed piece on repeating America’s history of bigotry, while also selecting The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s piece on the dangers of identity politics. We’d have a lot to talk about, and I’d make sure that students had the chance to read, write down their thoughts, share with a partner, talk in small groups, and eventually discuss with the larger class. Critical conversations like this require teachers to ensure that every student feels heard, and going straight to a full class discussion will likely turn into a debate among the three most extroverted students in class, while the rest squirm uncomfortably.

            I can’t promise that any class conversations will change this student’s mind. I can promise that I would follow up with one-on-one conversations that are respectful and offer another ear as this student considers his or her point of view. I’ll never forget the interview Michael Moore conducted with singer Marilyn Manson in Moore’s documentary Bowling for Columbine. When Moore asked Manson what he would say if he could have a conversation with the two boys who massacred their schoolmates at Columbine High School in 1999 or with the community members, Manson answered immediately: “I wouldn’t say a single word to them,” he said. “I would listen to what they have to say, and that’s what no one did.”

            We want our young people to develop into responsible citizens who care deeply about their fellow men and women. When we sense that this is not happening, it’s of great concern. Educators in particular can feel a heavy responsibility to help make things right. The question they face is how to address a student’s concerning behavior without losing that student’s trust and respect. I can only imagine the guilt that the Ohio history teacher must feel over what more he could have done to help this young man reconsider his views. In essence, he may have done all he could. But he’s not seeing it that way right now.

            “This was something that was growing in him,” the teacher told The Post. “I admit I failed. I tried my best. But this is definitely a teachable moment and something we need to be vigilant about, because this stuff is tearing up our country.”

If there’s one takeaway for teachers, I think it might be to head directly toward those difficult topics. Sure, the class might be less controversial if we avoid it. But our children, our society and our country sorely need respectful conversations about the issues that matter. Teachers have the opportunity and skills to lead these talks. Let’s not waste it. 

A Tree Stump Summer

           We can turn on the cable news channels. We can scan the internet. We can read the papers, listen to the radio, and scroll through the barrage of tweets, posts and snaps.

            In this age of information overload, the messages before us exceed the time we have available. With that in mind, another option beckons: Walking outside, starting an outdoor project, and letting the world come to us.

            For the past few weeks, I’ve spent a number of days standing on the hill in front of my home, trying to take down a tree stump that’s been in place since we had our giant oak tree removed four years ago. The stump was four feet tall from the front, and at least three feet in diameter (I forgot to measure before I started hacking away at it).

            I have pretty bad allergies, so a chain saw was not in the cards for me. And as a teacher who isn’t working this summer, I didn’t want to spend more money hiring someone to do the work. So I gave it a shot, and used all kinds of tools – an ax, a hatchet, a sledgehammer and wedge, two handsaws, a shovel.

            Call me what you wish – stubborn, naïve, a glutton for punishment. Guilty as charged on all accounts. But I can tell you that in my days chipping away at this stump, I learned some cool things about the world, from a different angle.

            Up on the hill that fronts our house, I was visible to all who passed by. As a result, many people had things to say from the road and sidewalk. First there were the people on my block – the next-door neighbor who told me I had no chance of getting that down, then gave me an ax to borrow when he saw I wasn’t giving up. The other next-door neighbor who offered me burgers from her grill. And the neighbor who walked by with his dog and said, “If you need a real ax, let me know.”

            As laborers passed by during the day, some wanted to chat. There was the Verizon man who stopped his truck in the middle of the road and told me I’d be there for 30 years. There was the man walking home from work who shook his head, looked over his shoulder and said, “Three years, man.” The trash collector, public-works truck driver, and landscaper all had advice as well, and the landscaper handed me his business card.

            The mailman would tilt his head, study the stump and give me some feedback each day – “It looks a little different today,” he’d say, or “I think you should carve the presidents into that.” He said if it were his to do, he’d have tied a chain to the tree and the bumper of his car, started the car, then watched the bumper fall off and onto the street.

            My most insightful conversation was with Pierre, a neighbor I’d never met who was born in France in the 1930s and also lived in Italy before moving to America. He told me about harvesting sugar beets in the south of France so that he and his dad could afford a new wood-burning stove. He said that in Italy after World War II, cutting down wood for your stove took a unique twist. Explosives were easy to come by, Pierre said, so his dad would blow up a tree and bring the wood home. I told him about the World War II novel I was reading, All the Light We Cannot See, and we talked about how difficult life was during that time.

            Some passersby just gave me encouragement as they walked with friends, family, or on their own for exercise. After a number of days, drivers started honking their horns or calling out from their cars. The next-door neighbor who had first discouraged me had become a full-fledged color commentator, chiming in about the difference he saw each day while telling me I have a job waiting for me when he finally starts the landscaping business he hopes to get off the ground.

And it wasn’t just people I encountered: The plethora of organisms I saw in the tree and soil, and the mulch I created and used, told me volumes about the environment. The shadows and sun angles helped me tell time without a watch or phone nearby. The glass bottle pieces, blue button and old-school aluminum can tab I dug up from the soil offered a glimpse of consumer product evolution. And the iPod I hooked up to a speaker taught me that outdoor work is best suited to the music of Prince and Queen.

            After more than 20 lawn and leaf bags had been filled, and more than 50 hours had been spent on the tree, I still had the solid core of this stump left. Pierre hopped up on the hill and tried to help me some more, but he could see how hard this wood still was. I dug down below the roots, called the company that had cut down our tree to begin with, and got a reasonable estimate for sawing off the rest of the stump. When the mailman passed by, he said, “I’m just remembering, I was 18 when you started this.” We laughed, and that sealed the deal. Time to stop.

                I’ve got other things to do in the second half of summer. The tree man will arrive next week with a chain saw in hand. But after two years of nonstop educational leadership college courses and a very busy year of teaching and newspaper advising, I sorely needed some time away from the laptop this past month. Manual outdoor labor was a good release, and I enjoyed my transcendental July.

            And while I was outside, I took in more than just the sun and the chirping of birds. I listened to people as they gave me advice, told jokes, and shared stories. It felt a little bit like that oldest form of media – word of mouth. I didn’t learn more about health care or immigration or foreign policy outside this summer. But I connected with others, and learned from them.

            When I had finished digging yesterday, I took a couple of photos – perhaps the first “stump selfie” in history – and put away the tools. I felt good about stopping, but also felt a pang, as though I might miss this a bit.

            But no worries – once the stump is gone, there’s dirt to fill in, and ground cover to plant. I’ll be back out there again. And I’ll be ready to talk and listen.  

Bring on the Books

            One of the best things about summer for an English teacher is having the time to read. A perfect summer afternoon for me involves a few hours of uninterrupted reading on the beach, with the book of my choice in hand. After two years of educational leadership classes, having the time to read whatever I want has been most welcome this summer.

            When I read a summer book, my primary concern is not whether or not this will be a good fit for the classroom. I may find a text that I’d like to teach once in awhile, but that’s not my priority. I choose summer texts that I’m genuinely curious about, because that’s what readers do. And then as I’m reading, I think about the ways in which that text might help me in some way through my work as a teacher.

            After all, the whole point of reading in school is to help us develop our own outlook on the world and ourselves. In addition, positive school-reading experiences can help students develop into adult readers. I’m living proof of that, and I read over the summer in the hopes that I can help inspire my students to be independent agents of personal growth through their own reading choices.

            Earlier this summer, I read two young-adult books, Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Both have been runaway bestsellers, and I read them so that I can discuss the books with students who have also read them. I don’t teach the age group that would read these texts in school, but I teach students who may wish to connect their own learning to them in some way. And now I can help them do that, and we can discuss the text-to-life connections we see in both novels.

            I also read James Baldwin’s classic The Fire Next Time, because its discussion of race was clearly an inspiration for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. Many students are now reading Coates’ award-winning book, which like Baldwin’s is written in the form of a letter to a loved one and is designed to address race in America with complete honesty. Baldwin’s book helps me put Coates’ modern classic in historical and literary context.

            I checked out Sherman Alexie’s new memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, as well as George Saunders’ novel Lincoln in the Bardo and Dave Eggers’ novel Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? All three of these authors dare to write in ways that are radically different from traditional prose – Alexie by mixing poetry and prose, Saunders and Eggers by relying heavily on dialogue and dark humor, and Saunders by also mixing in excerpts of historical texts with his own fiction. I seek out authors who choose to write differently because so many of my students are doing the same today. For them, a day’s writing consists of Snapchat captions, Instagram posts, text messages, emails and traditional homework, both printed out and submitted online. There is no single path for them today, so why should their reading consist solely of traditional sentences and paragraphs? In addition, they take on so many different voices depending on the media they’re using and the audience they’re speaking to. I see value in helping them discuss the different ways great writers do this.

            I read Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air because a memoir by a doctor who is dying of cancer just seemed fascinating to me. And why do we read if not to quench our own thirst for specific knowledge? The same applied to my reading of Harvey Araton’s Driving Mr. Yogi, a book about New York Yankees Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry, and the deep friendship they forged. I like reading and writing about baseball and life, and this one fit the bill. When I assign independent-reading projects to my students and encourage them to choose something they want to learn more about, I can bring up the choices I’ve made to model that process for them.

            I have read more during this past month than I usually do during a summer month, as the list of things to read had built up a lot over those two years. As the summer progresses, I’ve got more on my list – two longer novels, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I anticipate both books will help me view the direction literature is taking at its most influential level. I’d also like to read a nonfiction book by my favorite New York Times reporter, Dan Barry, and an autobiography that addresses baseball and race, written by former player, broadcaster and National League president Bill White. I find it really helpful to lean my humanities-oriented mind into the sciences as well, so I’m eyeing the book I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong. After that, we’ll see how much time is left and what I can fit into the summer.

            When September begins, and I step back into the classroom, these texts will most assuredly be in my mental backpack, and will help me find ways to connect with my students and colleagues. Books help us deepen our understanding of the world and ourselves, and that’s kind of the point of education as well. So yes, I am an English teacher. And yes, I read a lot over the summer. As far as I see it, this is part of the job – and part of a fulfilling life.