Progress

Upon reflection I realize it was an eerie yet pleasant thing I encountered last weekend. Standing outside of what used to be an “all white” establishment, in front of what used to be part of the Indian empire, in what up until just months ago was seemingly in the clenched fists of military rule, I was on the phone busied with trying to organize taxis and directions for friends looking to meet for drinks. While on the phone, a young boy approached my friend beside me—my friend clearly the more approachable of us. This boy was posted with post cards outside The Strand hotel in Yangon. He and my friend shared a conversation while I coordinated and yapped about this and that. The boy left.

I hung up the phone and looked to my friend.

“What’d you guys talk about?” I asked.

“Oh, that was Rav. He’s going to run this ship.”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked him how he got so good at English, and he said his grandma taught him. And then I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, and he said that he wanted to be the captain of a ship.”

“So that’s how he’s going to run this ship…”

“Exactly. Then, I asked him ‘how many post cards do I need to buy in order for you to go home for the night?’--he said six.” Showing me the post cards, “Want one?”

“I’ll take the reclining Buddha.”

My wife is some sort of Southeast Asian expert. While I can read the anecdotal newspaper articles about the region, she can create the reports with the facts that experts like to think they can refer to. However, in my utter naiveté, I was blown away by the resourcefulness I saw in the people of Yangon. It was as if the place had been denied the materials and technology that the US has been unwittingly consuming for the last fifty years. Yet, the place bustled with activity and ingenuity. To have seemingly 95 percent of cars in fine working condition, despite the fact that they were all older than me was marveling. There’s something palpable about the wits that the people of Myanmar have about them. This excites me. I hope and trust the future of this country harnesses the light its individual people already behold.

This week I was buzzing with excitement about the Finnish system, my rereading of Dewey’s School and Society, and a video an elementary classmate sent me featuring Chris Kaman because he said it made him think of me (for more on Kaman see his LA Times article).

I, by most people’s standards, was a horrible student. I can actually recall a number of occasions where my teachers—mind you, I went to a seemingly pious private Christian school—where my teachers audibly called me a “smart ass.” I think this title and their embracement of it were an integral part of my school agenda. However, upon further recollection, I have come to realize the experiential roots of both my struggles and successes in education.

I grew up a complete momma’s boy. And, fortunately for me, my mother was brilliant. And, very much unlike me, she was one of the most humble people to ever grace this earth. I clung, knowingly or not, to her warm and giving spirit. From a very early age my mother taught me how to cook, how to garden, how to sew, how to play the piano, sing, fish, walk knowingly through a woods, and serve others. These were all naturally a part of her weekly routine, so they naturally became a part of mine. When it came to attending school full-time, I really struggled behaviorally. Recess--The one thing I longed for most, was stripped from me on a near daily basis. My mother was perplexed. The hyper-active smart-ass my teachers knew was nothing like the much more subdued child she knew at home. 

It went on this way until I was twelve. It was then that my mother died, and I instantaneously became a better student. Dewey implies that often for the educator, “The attitude of listening means, comparatively speaking, passivity, absorption; that there are certain ready-made materials which are there, which have been prepared by the school superintendent, the board, the teacher, and of which the child is to take in as much as possible in the least possible time.” I became a listener. I was no longer disruptive. In fact, I didn’t even talk and pulled high marks. What more could one want in a child?

For me, maybe not for my teachers, things eventually got better. I began to find myself in music, sports, and theater—all of which focused on contributions and collective ones at that. I firmly believe that our students need to be much more than recipients; they need to be interpreters and most importantly contributors. Recipients, interpreters, and contributors of human progress of human culture. This is what drew me to the tangible fruits of theater, sport, and music.

So, How does this connect to schools as being community based or embryonic? Well, as Myanmar and all countries seek progress, education must be an integrated system which unites rather than disjoins.

Uniting only happens when there’s cause to do so. And, if the rumblings about the state of our current system aren’t enough to persuade one into action, let us appeal to one’s longing for experiences, for learning. I think this is the intrigue of say, the green school initiative, such as that which is presented by Hardy in his green school dream. We desire this sort of connection, and not simply with nature but certainly via experiential learning.

As a teacher of literature, I believe experience is incredibly important. And, though reading is (in part) a secondary experience--it teaches, and at its best it is not didactic but expository, emulating and representing the breadth and depth of human experience.

Take poetry for example. Even the word “poetry” prompts audible sighs to come from the very fibers of my students’ beings. Most are afraid to even comment on a poem. Some frantically peruse footnotes or even attempt to whip out their phones to find a simple commentary so they have something intelligent to say—only intelligence here comes not from within but from some hackneyed editorial efforts. Few take ownership of what they read. And rarely are students taken places--driven by impulse, prompted by feeling. A community would be a safe space for sharing and exploring poetry. Refined commentaries, a now necessary part of my academic field, will only be authentic when most “realize his/her instinct and respond to the poem [make the box], there is plenty of opportunity to gain discipline and perseverance, to exercise effort in overcoming obstacles, and to attain as well a great deal of information” (Dewey, School and Society, p. 55).

Schools, in my opinion, must not be considered as being like communities; they need to be communities. And sure communities necessitate a sort of decorum or even discipline, but within the best communities, the most meaningful ones, discipline does not serve as an indicator of success but rather as a natural part of human flourishing. This is the sort of flourishing I experienced at home and outside with my mom but not in school--the sort of experience Aleksi and Nana Gustafsson’s  students have in Finland.

In A conversation on Waiting for Superman, Linda Darling-Hammond (2010) states that Finland in addition to putting tremendous effort in teachers: two to three years of graduate level education, 15-20 hours of collaboration per week, and higher pay—allows for students to come to school fed, housed, and healthy. This adds to the article linked above which provides that Finland doesn’t even spend as much as the states per pupil. I am, however, almost certain that the country does a better job of supporting communities in ways outside of the communities in schools than our country does, which I think is a rather key component to our societal puzzle. Because, when we in (Dewey’s referenced) isolation fail to treat poverty, to address communities holistically, we then fail to achieve progress for our communities and its individuals.