I think I understand my advisor and my teachers and all my higher ups better today than I did before I was a teacher...

We just had a great conversation/venting session about the problems with the current No Child Left Behind Act...

And just the pressure, generally, to do bureaucratic detail that interferes with teaches' ability to do the work that really matters in schools...

Namely teaching...

It's the major philosophical difference that my advisor, Tom Skrtic, and I had about education, I think...

Tom thought you could pressure your way to results (largely because he had no other really great ideas about improving schools)...

And I knew you couldn't...

And so I left when he pushed me too far...

Do you think he'll mind when I gloat about the clear consensus among teachers on this question?...

It's hard to admit when you're wrong, I think...especially when it's something important...

And he doesn't have to admit anything...

He can just go to his grave an angry, grumpy, ill-tempered post-modernist...

And have the world just pass him by...

Or he can do the honorable thing...

And admit he's wrong...

Something he doesn't do very easily...

The truth is...as one of my colleagues said tonight...

The No Child Left Behind Act is like the Wizard of Oz...

Noone really knows how to get the results that they say they want in that law...

They're just hoping...that if they set high expectations (something I very much agree with)...and then pressure they're way to those high expectations (something I very much disagree with)...

Then somehow people will figure out a way...

And they will...

But it will be despite your efforts...

And you'll get that message, sooner or later...

Hillary Clinton will get the message, hopefully, when she loses that Democratic nomination, absent earning it, which she hasn't done yet...

And something tells me that voters will find a way to let Congress and Presidential and other candidates know how they feel this next election...

Because even if most voters are clueless about processes to get to results...and where the problems on most policy issues lie, this season...

They can see shitty results when they see them...

And they will make those choices as consumers of media, as well, I'm quite sure...

As smart, assertive news organizations...rather than foolish, aggressive media organizations...win their readership...

You see...reality is reality...no matter whether you understand it or not...

So when the reality is shitty...

People will recognize it...whether they understand it or not...

The war demonstrates that...

Most voters have no fuckin' clue what's going wrong and right in that war...most really intelligent people have no fuckin' clue what's going right and wrong with that war...

But they can see when things are going wrong...

And they vote and voice their concerns according to that very basic understanding of the reality...even if they lack more developed understandings of it...

That's why politicians should lead...rather than pander...

Because voters, generally, have no fuckin' clue what they're doing...

But they will turn on you on a dime when the results don't go the right direction...

So you better know how to produce results...

And if not...you better find a way to get there...

Stalin did not actually make the trains run on time, in the metaphorical sense...

Because if he did...Communism would have been a success and there'd be very little debate about the issue...

But Communism was clearly not a success...because it couldn't produce results...

The only leadership that makes sense, then...is the leadership that takes seriously trying to understand how to create results...and honestly facing what's not working now...

And the problem with most voters...politicians...media folks...etc...

Is that they are just too fuckin' dumb and chickenshit...

To face up...to what is not working...

And change it...

And because it takes time to learn, as well...

But they will learn...

And we all will...

Because they'll keep dealing with the same dumbass results...until they do:):):):)LOL:):):)...

Dumbasses..."Uh...we'll just stubbornly stick to the same message and we'll make all those bad situations go away...der, der, der"...

Dumbasses...

You can't make reality go away with a bluff...or even with a punishment...and definitely not by staying on message...

You deal with reality...by understanding it...and accounting for it...honestly...not by bullshitting yourself...and others...

And the nice thing about honest people...

Is that, eventually...they start to recognize...when what they're doing isn't working...

And they work to right the wrong...

I do have faith in that...

No matter how badly we fucked up in our dealings with Germany post-World War I...

By the end of World War II...we had realized that we fucked up...

And we cut it out...and learned to be generous, to boot...

Because...no matter how shitty we can be, in the short run...

We are honest...in the long run...

And World War II, for me...is always a great moment to see that...

To see just how low humanity can sink...

All of us...Hitler at the top of that list, to be sure...but all of us...not just the Nazis...

And to see just how high humanity can raise itself...out of the muck...of it's own ugly rationalizations...

The Marshall plan and the end to imperialism and the rise of international institutions to help resolve matters of war and peace...a clear commitment on the part of democratic nations to ending the anti-semitism that fueled the Holocaust...all the progress Americans made around racial and gender discrimination during that period...the rise of democracy as the preferred form of governance...the opening up of a more egalitarian form of education in the United States, especially with financial support from the G.I. Bill...

And it was a period of progress and remaining legacies around American imperialism and hegemony (the drive for imperial conquest being the driving force behind the war)...Japanese internment...discriminatory immigration policies that kept out Jews and Eastern Europeans after the war...many bad economic policies backed up by ugly power-grabbing court-packing schemes from the Roosevelt Administration...the still remaining legacy of segregation and racial and gender discrimination post-war, despite the best efforts by Harry Truman and the American military to begin to change that legacy in the armed forces, at least...

The Holocaust and World War II demonstrates, for me, humanity at its worst...

And the generosity and forethought of the Marshall Plan...and the progress on a whole list of social issues represents humanity at its best, for me...

We didn't make all that progress by pressuring and lording over the Germans or the Japanese to become democratic and open up their cultures and their economies for growth...

We made all that progress by supporting the Germans and the Japanese...

And letting them make their own decisions about how to run their countries...and to choose how to better govern them...and to be responsible for their own decisions...

And that is the kind of world that we need, generally, today...

A world where we support one another...and give honest feedback to one another...and where we make choices for our lives...and where we are responsible for those choices...

Each of us...

And each group...or institution...that we belong to...

Progressively...and constructively...over time...

I am responsible for the choices in my life...

And I'll take the good with the bad, on that...

And I will hope and work for a better world than the world I live in, currently...

Rather than rationalizing all of its uglier tendencies...

And I will recall the days when I worked to end those legacies...

Rather than answering my grandchildren's questions with rationalizations meant to skirt those responsibilities...

Because I'd rather be Pope John Paul, in my old age...recalling the courage I demonstrated as a young man during the toughest of times...

Than Pope Benedict...trying to explain my cowardice...in the face of evil...

And I can hardly believe the hubris...of cowards like the Pope...trying to claim moral superiority...

When their inferior moral choices are so obvious and clear...

To anyone being honest...

And you want a regime where more force or pressure was used to motivate behavior?...

Try Germany, circa World War II...where Pope Benedict grew up...

Courage matters...

Individuals matter...

And I look forward...to telling my kids...

That when push came to shove...

That I did my part...to do the right thing...

And not the expedient thing...or the easy out...

And I'm looking for a woman...

Who...when push comes to shove...

I can count on doing the right thing...

And not the easy thing...

Brandi's clearly not that girl...or at least she wasn't the last time I talked with her...

But I am learning to appreciate everyone better for all of their weaknesses and their strengths...not just for their strengths...

I am starting to see, better, by looking more honestly at my own weaknesses...

That one of them is not appreciating people, more, flaws and all...not just for their strengths...

I appreciate better, today, how difficult it is to be a good teacher...and a worthy authority figure...and even the best person...

I appreciate better, today...how none of us ever stop growing, hopefully...and all of us are growing, in the meantime...though sometimes growth involves bad choices...and learning that isn't so set on knowing the right outcome or the right direction...

And how...all of the authority figures I've been dealing with...that...for all of their flaws...they are also worthy and decent and intelligent and good human beings...who are all growing and learning, as well...just as I am...and just as we all are...

Maybe if all learned to not try to control one another so much...we might all better appreciate one another...and ourselves...flaws and strength...learning and having lessons learned...

Maybe Brandi...and Jas...and Tom...and everyone in my life that I've had a similar frustration with are all in similar boats...and I just need to give all of them...all of us...more space...and time...and appreciation...for the growth they have to do...

And me, too...

I've got an I.E.P. to work on...

And I'm hungry as all hell:):):)...

Have a good week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

Dreaming of a life I love...

I just got back from a special education district inservice...it was relaxing...to be in a classroom situation, again...to talk with other people dealing with similar challenges as me...to be raising other teachers' expectations with examples of where doing so improves situations...

But the general attitude I've gotten from district folks whenever I've pointed to real limitations on all kinds of great aspirations...not set-in-stone limitations...just more realism in how quickly and how ambitiously different stuff can get achieved...

Is, "too fuckin' bad...do it...or else"...

And the more I get that attitude...

The less inspired and motivated I am to do the work...

It's so fuckin' stupid, really...

And a lot of my solace is found in the same solace that my teachers had with me, as a kid...

Which is...maybe I can learn from what I hate about how my superiors handle things...to improve the way I handle things with my kids...

And maybe they can learn to do it better than me and the rest of their parents and their teachers and administrators and district administrators and politicians and everyone whose decisions impact their lives...

You know what I really dread?...

Is having all the bullshit that goes with this job...and any job, really...

Have me just as frustrated and as lacking in inspiration...that many of the veteran teachers I learn from and look to as mentors and seek guidance from...

The more long-term quasi or not-so-quasi burnout that they experience...

My frustration, yesterday, was that some veteran teachers left me hanging in a discussion with our district supervisor about paperwork...I raised the issue...and even though all of them fret about the issue to me, privately...not one of them talked about it publicly with me...making me look like the first year teacher who just can't hack it...

I felt really betrayed by the whole ordeal...including by some teachers that I really respect and look up to...

And it was just one more in a long line of instances...where I step up to take some big responsibility on my shoulders...

Only to look beside me to find older, more experienced colleagues shirking responsibility that they can get off their plate...leaving more for me to burden...

Things are getting better, I think...

Teachers are engaging in more constructive venting, these days...they're easing up on the kids, which I think is good...though today I was not easing up on kids, since my first and second hours were hell on wheels, this morning...and I just didn't have the patience to deal with them, this morning, or the two hours afterwards...

And what really frustrates me about this whole situation...

Is that if some of unnecessary burdens...the more arbitrary district requirements...the federal regulations...the state mandates...

If some of the more unnecessary burdens were lifted...

I would feel so much more inspired to do a far better job...

And I was feeling more inspired, at the beginning of my school year, before I had hit my head against those same arbitrary requirements...

It's so goddamn stupid...the whole goddamn thing...it's counterproductive...it undermines everyone's efforts...and...in my case...it undermines the efforts of someone who is seriously ambitious in his efforts...in ways that most teachers never are in their wildest dreams, frankly, just considering the scope of my outlook in my work...

It's just so goddamn stupid...

It makes me want to go somewhere where there is more freedom to do good work...

But other than a more laid back university situation (I'm thinking like a Wichita State)...and like Abraham Maslow (who taught at Brooklyn College most of his career) let the chips fall where they may around my ideas...

Where would I go?...

Wichita State is also the last place I went to school that had a serious appreciation for intellectual diversity...meaning that the political science department had conservatives and liberals who peacefully co-existed under the same roof...though a university with active intellectual engagement of different perspectives (like a Harvard or a Stanford) would be more ideal, obviously...

As long as I can care, first, for my primary responsibility...

Being a decent human being...a loving husband...and a really strong father...

I would also like to teach, at some point, after this stint in special education...where the kids need more persuasion, daily and constantly, to care about school...

To work with students who are more internally motivated...without being obnoxious...and with some sense of balance and priorities in their lives:):):)...to care about school...and education...and all the values that come with that:):)...

I would prefer a public university...just because I also very much value a diversity of students and faculty and staff from different backgrounds...and not just overachievers in a more isolated setting, as is often the case, more, with Ivy League schools, I think...

What I'd like...

Is to work somewhere...and live somewhere...and spend time somewhere...

Where my natural enthusiasm...curiosity...interest...commitment...and love for life...and for studying...and for teaching...and for education...

Are supported...

Rather than undermined...

By the arbitrary requirements of people...

Who clearly care far less about education...and people...and living a good life...

Than I do...

I'm going home for Valentine's Day:):):)...I'm having a beer:):):)...I'm working on some paperwork and some IEP's:):):)...

And I'm enjoying the freedom of home:):):)...

Have a nice Valentine's, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

Facing ourselves...or not...

I think I'm finally beginning to understand hypocrisy and adulthood...
We had a really great trip to watch the play, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, today...it's a great story...and a great play...about the insanity of witchhunts in Puritan colonial America...and it was a really great opportunity to hang out with the kids in a more unstructured setting...

Many of the kids are really beginning to respond to me...even as I have many situations, still, where I'm not connecting with kids like I want to and I don't why, always...much of it is likely a quite reasonable suspicion of adults and authority figures on kids' parts that I not only shared, as a kid and even as an adult, still...but which I totally understand given how arbitrary many adults -- who are very much in good faith -- can be with kids...

And I guess I'm just understanding it all better, now, from so many different angles...

Adults want kids to not only grow up...but to not always be pushing their buttons and the envelopes of their more limited patience, in the moment...which leads to all kinds of reactions to kids and their behavior that is often both in kids' best interests...but also a way for adults to deal with their feelings, in the moment, as well...

And adults...live kids...like all people...are not perfect...

And they're doing their best given limited understanding...

Just like kids...

Just like everyone...

It's why our focus should be on ways of dealing with behavior that deal with immediate issues and dangers...but are not damaging, long term, to anyone...not only because it gives people time to understand, better, their mistakes...

But because it creates room for everyone to understand the overall context for why authority relationships are not functioning adequately...

Why does terrorism tend to spring, more often and more dangerously, out of more authoritarian cultures?...in all likelihood as both a reaction to authority...but also as an angry and unreasoned means of trying to enforcing moral or political or whatever codes or rules or norms or agendas that terrorists see as being handled incopetently by authoritarian regimes within their culture...

Or...as in the case of Chechen rebels...as a means of fighting for self-determination from what they believe and often is -- in the case of Russia -- the overbearing hand of more autocratic government...trying to solve problems, ineffectively and often oblivious to their ineffectiveness so stuck are they are poor assumptions about reality, with force...that would be better handled with more thought than with more force...

I'm beginning to see the really tricky issue with authority, though...

You have authority figures that need space to act adequately to deal with immediate situations and to maintain some order with limited understandings of reality and limited emotional resources...patience, namely...and a cool enough head...and some confidence and trust that their efforts will not be blithely ignored by those they are excercising authority with...

On the other hand...you have citizens...or students...or what have you...also with limited understandings of reality...and limited emotional resources...namely, patience...who are subject to that authority...

And the latter are suspicious, for good reason, of the former, because the former has the power to limit their freedom...a power that those without authority don't really have over people with authority, except in really bureaucratic, passive-aggressive kinds of ways...

When...really...what people need...in addition to a larger perspective on life...and more patience, as a consequence...

Is communication lines...and relationships...to vent their frustrations...openly and honestly...with each other...

Our team at school is getting better at that...and are getting stronger, together, as a consequence...

We do have a math team lead who is given to a lot of hyperbole, which is not constructive...

But we're all getting better...

And the reason for using the least possible necessary force...or the least possible necessary aggression...

Is that force shuts down communication...sometimes...temporarily...sometimes more long term...

In the case of my mom and her dad...it was more permanent...though that was a relationship that was both of their responsibilities...

There are so many places in my life where lack of communication is the first most fundamental issue around why there is still lingering frustrations between me and someone else...

And many of those situations are either compounded because of that person is or has been an authority figure in my life...

Or compounded by authority issues, generally...

Do you realize how much communication and understanding overwrought authority reaps in our lives?...

A lot...on so many issues I can hardly even count them...

In fact...if I were to name the number one reason why many areas of life where there is not enough understanding lack it...it would be because of overwrought authority creating a lot of secrecy and repression of honest communication and feedback...and an awful lot of confusion, as a consequence...

That is definitely the case between kids and adults, I think...and teachers and students, generally...

My professors often had no clue what I was up to, in my program...in great part, because I did not feel comfortable approaching them about much of my work...

But also because of lack of patience for a more long term and engaged conversation...that would have led to more openness and communication and understanding...

It's so frustrating to me...that after millenia of progress from more openness and freedom and understanding and empathy and communication and sharing of one another...

That people would perpetually resist progress in that direction...

All to satisfy more foolish fears...borne of ignorance...more than of reason...

Ignorance that would be better alleviated by more openness and freedom and communication and understanding and exchange...than by trying to beat the shit out of problems...which is a perpetually popular and perpetually stupid solution:):):)LOL:):):)...

In fact...what really frustrates me...

Is that we are perpetually looking to authority to solve our problems...

And never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever...

...satisfied with the solutions they deliver up...

...or with whomever we elect or authorize or have to live with to exercise that authority...

It's insanely dysfunctional...

And we've got to face it if we're actually going to make some real, substantial progress on it...

Which progress would seriously open up so many million opportunities that I'm sure none of us are completely aware of, now...

But which we perpetually stand in the way of...stubbornly standing by solutions and decisions and choices and policies...that clearly don't work...to anyone with open eyes...

Government is, as a general rule, rather than the exception, stuck in this situation, right now...

And we can deny it...or face it...

Ultimately...those are our only two choices with something as serious with this problem...

I would definitely recommend facing it, for those still not convinced of the need to do so...

But I'm understanding, today, better, the real trick of making the transition from a world obsessed with rules...

To a world based, more...on conscience...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I never understood the depths of cowardice...

...until I worked among my elders...

I could have hardly fathomed the levels of denial...and pride...and ego...and conceit...and arrogance...

In the human condition...

Until I worked among average people...

I have decided that if things should not work out at this teaching situation...

Then I'm going to get a lucrative job...I'm keeping my mouth shut...and I'm going to be a recluse, like Mr. Salinger (who I understand so much better, now, I think)...

I'm so dissappointed with the human condition that I can hardly articulate it...

I just know that there is literally, without a shadow of a doubt, no way that they are getting anywhere with the prevailing philosophy of forced progress...

It cannot happen...

It is not possible...

And it offends the dignity of people everywhere...

And leaves them all in the same place that they are, today...

Which is completely lacking in responsible for their lives...

I'm just wondering how long it will take people...before a few of them...a few of us...

Have the balls to admit that to themselves and to others...

Because if they don't...if we don't...

We are going literally nowhere fast...

And that is a guarantee...

This political moment...is one of such total and utter failure...in it's ability to achieve its goals...

Through the foolish, stupid, cowardly and ultimately doomed philosophy of forced progress...

That the one silver lining in this generally grey raincloud...

Is that everything that people are trying to achieve with this foolish little philosophy...

Is and will continue to be persistently undermined by it...

Until we choose something different...

Leaving people with the difficult choice...

Between their goals...

And their pride...

Something tells me that pride has to eventually give on that one...

But if I get suckered again...

I'm quitting...for good...

Until someone else antes up...

Pride...or an honest assessment of reality?...

It is the perpetual test that humanity faces...in every generation...

We will pass this test, eventually...

The question...is how long we have to fuck it up...before we face up to our failures...

Have a good week, everyone...

Love,
Ben

I think I'm falling for someone...and coming to terms with Brandi being gone forever...

I'm falling for the psychologist in our school, I think...

There's several women interested, I know...but there's just something kind of special about this counselor...

I want to just be friends, first...I want a shot at the kind of love that I've had before...

And the whole thing is making me come to terms with the fact that all the special memories that Brandi and I had...are in the past...

And I'm balling like a little fuckin' baby in the middle of my fuckin' classroom...

There's so many great memories that I have with Brandi...that I can't quite share with anyone else quite the same...

Stories that we used to tell...over and over again...especially the story of us getting together...

Brandi and I were both so social...and a little competitive at it, at that...I thought it was kind of cute, myself...

We'd tell stories over each other...she'd correct me...I'd correct her...

And I'll never have any of that, again...and I miss it...and her...

This psychologist is smart...and nice...and committed to these kids in a similar way as me...and she's real...

For all of my commitment to the civil rights movement...and its modern successor in efforts to alleviate poverty (did I mention that I once made a failed effort to start a poverty movement?...is it any wonder why Brandi left me?)...

I've never dated a black girl...

This girl is strong...smart...independent...she happens to be gorgeous, though that's not what I'm attracted to, primarily...

Every time I pass her office, I look for her...and when she's there, I want to find a reason to talk with her...

She went to a little school, like me...Emporia State University...

But she...and noone is Brandi...and knowing that that friendship...and that relationship...is behind me...is so sad to me...

I'm so sorry for all the mistakes I made with Brandi...and that led her to want to be away from me...

I've vowed never to do that to anyone...to just be away from someone I love...or someone who loves me...and cut off communication...

...without an open door for them to walk through when they're ready...

I'm so sorry, Brandi...

I miss you, hon...

I miss sharing memories...with one another...and with friends and family...

I miss your family...

And I miss the learning and growing to be the person that I could be with you...

This is a good sign, I think...

In no other relationship that I've had since Brandi and I broke up have I been able to put her behind me...

I just missed her, too badly...and not to insensitive to Melissa or Rachel or Jenny or Anne or Irma...but noone ever seemed to live up...

If you ever meet her, you'll understand...

She is the one who got away...

I've got to get to my 8th hour team meeting...

I've got a lot more still to deal with, I think...

Have a great day, everyone...

Love,
Ben

What we need...is more honesty...

We had teacher-parent conferences, today...

It was a great day, overall...some really great conversations with some folks...getting some kids focussed in much better directions (I had a parent who I think was kind of attracted to me...and I was kind of attracted back, frankly...though I don't know if anything would come of it:):)...

Another teacher and I had a confrontation, today...it was really infuriating, in the moment...I had to vent with three people about this particular confrontation and the general issues around it that I have been having with several teachers resisting my efforts and the efforts of other folks...to...at the core...to believe in students...all of them...and to stop giving up on them...to commit to them...even when they're not sure if they will succeed...I'm not sure if they'll succeed much of the time, either...but I damn well know that I'm committed to their success and will do everything in my power to guarantee that success...

I was really worried, afterwards...and beyond angry...I had listened to this same teacher making cynical comments about kids, generally, and the most difficult kids, in particular, since my very first day here at Eisenhower 3 months ago...

And I was fed up...

The thing that I think creates so much conflict between me and other teachers...and also me and other people...

Is that...

I do not give up on people...period...

And it infuriates the fuck out of people who do give up on kids or people, in one capacity or another...

And they are so used to people in my situation giving up...

They're so used to young people, in particular, like me, just rolling over and letting them spew their cynicism like it should be taken more seriously than it should...

And I just don't...and I won't...and if you haven't spent enough time with me the thing you will learn is that I am stubbornly hopeful...and if people don't like that then too fuckin' bad, whoopty-fuckin'-do for you and everyone else who would talk me and everyone like me down...

Now...this teacher clearly cares about kids...I mean, why else would she do this work...and she's a good woman...in a serious way...and I very much appreciate her presence here...and her commitment to teaching these kids...

Some of the kids are right...she does have something of an attitude...and everyone knows it...and noone talks with her about it...and this was probably the first time she'd been called on it in a long time...

I did not set out to call her out, at all...I was just tired of hearing her complaining and whining about kids for three months, now, and hearing her say, in essence, that my kids were going to jail and we were just a holding tank in the meantime, just was over the line for what my patience could manage in the moment...and so we had a confrontation about it...

We seem to be ok, now...and that seems to be the trend...which is good...

Because who needs a workplace where you have to tiptoe around speaking your mind, really...I mean, what a fuckin' load of shit is that?...and teachers have to do that shit quite enough as it is, thank you very much...so the least we can do is talk openly and honestly around one another (I don't cuss this much, as school, by the way...which is a burden because I'm having to be careful about my language all the time...our conflict was on the substance of whether we should bet for or against kids, no matter who they are, sans cussing)...

And the whole thing made me realize...

That the reason why there's so little trust in this world...in addition to us not being able to be ourselves with one another...our total selves...warts and all...

Is that we just aren't honest enough with each other, most of the time...

Much of the time we create that...by punishing the shit out of one another for being ourselves...warts and all...

Rush Limbaugh and ESPN is an excellent example of that, I think...

Rush makes what I think was probably a racist comment in good faith...he says that Donovan McNabb is a media darling because he's black and because the liberal media want a black quarterback to succeed even when Donovan is not...

Now...I don't follow football careful enough to settle this matter with authority...but I do know that Donovan McNabb is one of the more respected quarterbacks in the league...and that my friends who do watch football say that he puts up the numbers to back that up...

But...right or wrong...I didn't want Rush fired for that comment...Rush made a stupid comment...and as far as I'm concerned that's where it should end...he makes stupid, racist comment...people disagree...it gets criticized...and we all get on with our small little lives without trying to make people be something they're not just because we don't like they're warts...

And that's who we all should be able to be around one another, I think...

Ourselves...

For better and for worse...

I do think we sometimes need breaks...particularly when many among us are being recalcitrant and just can't take responsibility for themselves...

But that happens better, I think...when they've got adequate room to do it...

And when they have reality checks from enough sources...when they aren't always been enabled and reinforced for bad behavior by everyone around them...

But that should be the end of it...we fuck up...we get feedback and reality checks...and we move the fuck on...and we learn to take that feedback better and better over time...

We all have limits for what we can handle, emotionally...

And we all learn to enlarge those limits and our emotional capacity and our patience for one another and our perspective on what really matters in life...

By forgiving one another...and practicing it...again and again...over and over...as long as it's needed...

We don't ignore hurtful or bad behavior...we just give each other better and more honest feedback...so that we can learn to make better and better choices, over time...

And...patiently...

We will get better at being better human beings...

And we will also get better at having more patience for ourselve and others while we and they become better human beings...

You know what I think about my friendships where we aren't talking, right now (and have thought for some time, without an avenue to do anything about it, since communication has been shut down on the other ends of each friendship)...

That we need more openness...and honesty...and discussion...and open sharing of feelings as much and as well as thoughts...

After these conflicts at school...

I can see, now...

I can't stop believing...

I have to have hope...

I just do...

And you know what we need more of, in this world...

More honesty...

More being ourselves...for real...no bullshit...

We need more openness...we need more sharing of ourselves...warts and all...

And we need all the bullshit with people trying to punish and fight and fire and otherwise hurt one another for being ourselves to go away...for us to put it up...and to leave it alone...

And to learn to trust one another, better, as a consequence...

It would be better for us...all of us...

I know this has everything to do with all of the situations I'm troubled by...

And the truth is that I've tried, on my end...an awful lot, really...

And my friends have each lamed out, frankly...and shut me out...not vice versa, at all...my door has been wide open...

I'm sure...in all their own ways...

They've done exactly what this teacher was doing...

They gave up...

Which has everything to do with why we're having conflict...

Because I just refuse to give up...

I just won't do it...

My last therapist thought it was what causing all the trouble in my life...

And he right...

It's just that I was right, too...

Not giving up on humanity is the right thing to do...

Most people just don't want to do the work that's involved for keeping hope alive...

And so I'll do some of the work for them, is my thinking...

But...similar to my philosophy of teaching and people and life...

I can only do some of the work...

Ultimately...you...they...everyone has to pick up the ball with me...

And I won't play ball any other way...

Except at my best...

And others can follow along...

But we will all be playing at our best as long as I'm around...

And I'll keep raising the standard...for myself...and for others...

Till the day I die...

And one day...I hope...some kid...or kids...will come along...and kick my lilly fuckin' ass at this stuff...and I will follow them...because they'll have more than one or two things to show me:):):):):):)...

And that's the way the world should work...

But...too often...it doesn't work that way...

The way it works is that people wanting to change the way we do things to make them better...

Face all this resistance...from people who are pretending or defending or excusing how the fucked up parts about right now...

And a whole truckload of other people...often young people...but also often just all of us...against one another...

Are pushing each other too hard...when people aren't ready...and they do tend to push back...

And...like this historical moment...

They each push back and forth...back and forth...back and forth...not accomplishing a goddamn thing...and everyone digging in their heels even further...while people push...

Rather than think...

All this hurt I've been through...

It's got me all broken, inside...all kinds of hard edges...all kinds of distrust...

I've got a girl in the building that I really like, now...every time I see her, I can hardly concentrate on what she's saying...I just sit and admire how vulnerable she is...how sweet she is...how much she loves these kids...how confident and strong and independent she is...a lot of same qualities I found in Brandi when I met her...

Except that I'm more rough around the edges, these days...

I'm stronger, too, to be sure...

But I don't like how scared I feel, these days, as well as strong...and I want to let it all go...

But I still feel it...

Like my body is full of broken glass, as Annie Lennox would say...

It's been bugging me in a major way, the last couple of days...

And I want to let it go, so bad...

I want to ask this girl to go hang out...nothing heavy...just friends...just get to know one another...a movie...working together...it doesn't matter to me...

I just want to chill a little with her...and get to know her...

And maybe have someone to talk with, honestly...about what I see during the day...about hopes and dreams and aspirations...about life...and about who were are, for real...on our own...and with one another...

I want someone who I just be myself...and not be all scared...and feel confident that they will be learning and growing with me, too...

And that they're tough enough...to stick out the hard stuff...and to not go running...when things aren't working out, as well...

I've done it...I've had it done to me...

Generally...I've kept the door open longer, in those situations...

Because I just work at it more...I forgive more...I love more...and I work harder at it...and a lot of people...most people...kind of lame out...when the going gets tough...I'm learning...

I just want a friend...

Someone I can be completely honest with...

And someone who will understand...

I've never met anyone completely like me...

And truth be told...I'm not looking for someone completely like me...

Just someone enough like me...that we can learn together...where the burden is shared, more...and not one that I'm constantly carrying on my own back...

The broken places are all those places inside me...where I still have to forgive...

Tom...Brandi (and Greg)...Jas...the guys at Amarr, still, some...Lyle...CLO and Andrea Devlin...my mom, still, some...and my dad, more recently...

And every place where someone else decides that they don't want to forgive...and want to put it on my plate, instead...

And all the places where people decide that being a dick is a better option than being thoughtful...

You know why young people are so much more idealistic than older people...

Because we haven't treated them enough like shit, yet, to backload their capacity for working to forgive us...

That could change if we can't get off of it...

Perhaps we do want a world where we aren't forgiven for how shitty we treat people...and where we don't forgive people for how shitty they treat us...

Places like Palestine...and North Korea...and Iraq...and China...and Syria...and all kinds of places where force is more the rule than the exception...because they've just given up on being decent to one another, altogether...and because they treat each other so terribly that they just can't tell the difference, any more...

The difference between being good...

And looking like you're being good...

Rather than creating more freedom...for us to be honest with ourselves, as much as with one another...about how good or bad we're being...

Freedom...and the democracy that makes that freedom possible...is the context for that kind of honesty...

A free world to be who we are...and to deal with the natural consequences of our behavior...and we learn the lesson...and move on with our lives...

That is more possible in a place like the United States...

Because there's more freedom, here...and, thus, more genuine moral responsibility...and, thus, more of the most important responsibility that, frankly, makes all of the other responsibilities possible...

More forgiveness...

And the love...and compassion...and decency...that flow from that forgiveness...

The Muslim world, at this very moment in history...with the insane reaction to these cartoons out of Denmark...

Is illustrating what the world looks like...when fragile, oversensitive, bullies have their hand at things...

And the stronger path...

Is more love and forgiveness and openness...to all of ourselves...our strengths and our flaws...the good with the bad...

We can forgive those Muslims killing and hurting others because of their inexperience with the norms of free and democratic peoples...

But there is no reason that we need to lower our standards of civilization...just because a few bullies want to pressure and threaten the world into cowing to their demands about free and democratic dialogue...

You know what I say about that whole mess?...

Fuck 'em...they need to grow up to our higher standards of freedom and thought...and not us bow down to their lower standards of fragility and narrow-mindedness and bullying to get their way...

And that's the same way I feel about the whole fuckin' world, frankly...

And if anyone thinks different...they better have a coherent argument for it...and not just another complaint about how it upsets their tummy...and certainly not just another creative excuse for why they're such an ass...

Because whining...just makes you a fragile little bitch, in my book...

And I won't take you too seriously, frankly...until you've given it it up...

All of the best literature and music and movies and theater and art of our civilization...has pointed us, always, in a more liberal (small "l" liberal...meaning, broad-minded and open-minded and thoughtful and freedom-loving and tolerant and inclusive) direction...it's taught us to be more loving and forgiving and accepting of others and their differences...it's encouraged more freedom to make more and better choices...it's enouraged education to make more thoughtful and smarter choices...it's encouraged us to always see one another in more universal and empathetic terms...to understand one another, better, as like ourselves...rather than different...

That is the greatest legacy that humanity has to offer us...

And the greatest part of that legacy...

Is the responsibility for us...to enlarge...constantly...forever...till the end of humanity...

There will never be a time when that is done...except when humanity doesn't exist any more...which I hope is a long way off if ever a possibility...

And that legacy has withstood the test of time...because it enlarges us...individually...and culturally...and as a society...it has us always getting bigger...and wiser...and more commitment to our humanity and the humanity of others...

It is hard goddamn work...that's for sure...

But it's work well worth it...

It is the most important work that we will do in our lives, frankly...

Most everything else is either minutia, by comparison...

Or counterproductive or destructive of this more central principal of life...

And our failure to make that commitment...

Makes us smaller people...

And hardly worth people giving too much mind to what we say and think...if it makes it more difficult for bigger people...to get the important work of life done...

My therapist was wrong...

My determination...my persistence...is my biggest strength...it's just frustrating...for people who don't want to face the broken places inside themselves...

That stand in the way...of their free and full commitment...to playing their part...in a larger humanity...

I do want to thank Desmond Tutu...and Pablo Freire...and Martin Luther King...and Mohatma Ghandi...and Henry David Thoreau...and the Buddha...and Jesus Christ...for pointing me in the direction of forgiveness, as the better direction for humanity...

To help me see, better, the patterns of retribution and ugliness, and, at times, oppression, and, at the extremes, aggressive militarism and genocide, that people engage in, far too much of the time, when they fail to make that kind of commitment to their humanity...no matter how much they cloak it in legal or political language that makes them and their intentions look better than they really are...

And the need, persistently, for a higher standard...

No matter how much too many people settle for a lower standard...

Just one higher standard, the example of Jesus of Nazareth taught me...can change the world...

And I believe that:):):)...

And Jesus never had to hurt me once to teach me that lesson...

And he suffered an awful lot...because people of his time could not...

I'm gonna head home and get some sleep:):):)...watch a movie, or something:):):)...

I hope everyone has a great night:):):)...

Love,
Ben

I need a sympathetic ear...

I had a great day, today...

But sometimes I have evenings like tonight...and I jsut need someone to talk with...and not try to steer me away from where my heart is in the moment...and just listen to me...

Here's the line of thinking that got me to where I'm at, right now...

My colleagues were so supportive of me while I had to finish an I.E.P., today, for a kid I work with...it was a great I.E.P. meeting...I bonded with the mom and with the kid...and I'll write all about that later, I promise...

My the special ed teacher who's been helping me with bureaucratic requirements of the I.E.P. process was driving me crazy...she's getting better...but she was still driving me crazy...

I had to leave early, today, I was getting so frustrated with the way that she was applying subtle pressure through the whole meeting to get what she wanted and to move the meeting at the pace she wanted...even though I had a great day...

And how she badly she made me feel through the whole process...so completely contrasted with how supportive everyone else was being...

That it totally reminded me of my grad school days with Tom...how he'd do the same, but much more overtly...and how it literally drove me crazy, for a time...and how it helped tear apart the only and most important thing that's ever mattered to me in my life...my relationship with Brandi...

I want to say, up front, that I am totally and one hundred percent responsible for everything in my life...for all of my mistakes...in grad school...with Brandi...with everyone...

Having said that...Tom was a terrible mentor, in retrospect...and he really made life miserable for me, and by proxy, for Brandi, through the whole process...

And it had everything to do with us breaking up, in retrospect, now knowing just how supportive good teachers can be of students and fellow teachers...

Tom was just kind of an asshole, much of the time...and he treated me like shit, much of the time...and I didn't know any damn difference, at the time, because I was so young...and it was a good program...and there were all kinds of reasons to invest the kind of trust that I invested in Tom and that program...much of which was overwrought, in retrospect...

Anyway...as I've thought about it, tonight...I've been so angry and hurt...thinking about how I took that relationship, the one with Brandi, for granted...and threw it all away for some stupid fuckin' Ph.D. program that I didn't even end up finishing...and that fuckin' son-of-a-bitch...who didn't care about a damn thing...except for his fuckin' grants...and his little fuckin' name in a little fuckin' field...and not even contributing much, substantially, to the field, to top it all off...

It was the dumbest and most serious mistake of my life...fucking up that relationship under the really pretty overwhelming pressures of grad school...

I was just young and stupid and I just didn't know any goddamn better...

And I miss her so goddamn much...

I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry...I'm so sorry...

I'm so sorry, Brandi...

I tried so hard...and I just fucked it up...

I just want one person to understand...and to not mock me...or want to get past it...or whatever stupid fuckin' advice that so many people give without really understanding, at all, I don't think...

I just want a friend...one...who will listen...who knows how to listen well...to just listen...

Someone I can be myself with, totally and completely...and never have to hold anything back...

I've not met her, is the truth...there are many women interested...there was awkward moment, today, I think, between two girls who I think are both interested and me, when we all bumped into each other in the office, today...

There's just noone who is my best friend, yet...

Do you know what that's like?...

To have a best friend...someone closer than you've ever been with anyone in your life...

And to just totally lose touch with them...with no possibility of getting in touch with them...

Do you know terrible that feels?...to have the one person who you shared the most of this huge and one of the most important chunks of your life with...

Just disappear off the face of the earth?...

It's fucked up, is what it is...

When will this finally leave my heart?...

Surely there's got to be a statute of limitations on pining for an old flame/old friend...

I don't even care, truth be told...

I just want one friend who I can share it with...who won't give me all kinds of shitty advice...and just listen...just like Brandi did...when Jenny and I broke up...

I'm an atheist, as a technical matter...though faith and religion and spirituality and morality are central to my life...

But if there is one thing that would make me believe that I am being punished by God...it is that I had that friendship...and I don't have even a superficial one with her, anymore...

Do you know how rare some people are?...

Do you know how fucked up it is to find out how rare they are until they're gone?...

And there's not one goddamn thing that I can do about it...

I may be going on a Washington D.C. trip to the Holocaust Museum this summer on a district grant...

And the one person that would be most excited to hear about it...

I can't even talk with...

This is fucked up...

Goddamn it, Brandi...

Do you know how awesome it is...to talk with just one person...who understands you better than anyone else...and who understands the world more like you do than anyone else...and to just be able to talk with them...about anything...about politics...about friends...about family...about life...and know that they understand more like you than anyone you know?...

Do you know how great that is?...

And how fucked up it is to lose it...forever...

It's so cliche, isn't it?...it doesn't even seem special to a lot of folks, I'm sure...

But those people can fuck off...because it was damned special to me...

And now I don't have anyone to share it with, anymore...

Maybe God does punish us forever for our mistakes...

Or maybe just Brandi does...

I've been talking with people, lately, about Bill Bradley...and what a great guy he is...how he's the last greatest Presidential candidate that America has had...

And every time I do...I think about Brandi and I going up to Iowa during the 2000 Democratic primary...

And I think about talking about Bill Bradley...

With someone who cared...

And goddamn if I don't miss it...

Goddamit, Fisher...

Why'd you settle?...goddamn it...

God...if you exist...and I can have just one thing in this world...and I'll forego the rest...

It's just one person like Brandi...maybe someone who can stick it out a little better...but other than that...she'll do...

It was the last, deepest love I ever felt in my life...

And I'm just so sad that I can't replicate it...no matter how hard I've tried...

Goddamn you, Fisher...

How horrible is it...to be doomed...to a life where you're constantly saying to yourself...

The last time I really connected with a human being...

Will just never be replicated, again...

Because no one can fill those shoes...because they're too goddamn big...and I know anyone with smaller feet just won't do...

I would have, then...and I would now...

Give up everything for that feeling again...

Everything...

All I need is a genuinely sympathetic ear...

And the last one I knew...won't talk with me, anymore...because she wants to leave me behind...

I need to change and have one night to relax...

Have a great night, everyone...

Love,
Ben

Our fundamental natures (and the honest and scary fact of our humanity)...

I'm grading papers today...I think I'm going to have to skip the Superbowl party I was invited to in Wichita with a 3 hour drive putting me back in Lawrence around midnight and me having to go in early on Monday to finish an I.E.P. that I was unable to finish Friday night because of technical difficulties and and some other problems...

Melissa and I rented six great movies, this weekend...two -- Happy Endings and Forty Shades of Blue -- were terrible...

Nobody Knows...a Japanese movie by director Kore-eda Hirokazu and true story of four children abandoned by their mother with an eldest young teenage son trying to raise his brothers and sisters with no money and no real connections to the outside world (the mother discourages them from going to school and the only people who even seem to know they exist are a landlady and her husband and a girl who befriends the eldest son)...

Sexo por Compassion...written and directed by Mexican director Laura Mana...a story of a married woman in a small, rural Mexican town abandoned by her husband who makes love to the men of the town to bring color back into their bleak lives...a really terrific exploration of the virgin/whore dichotomies of more traditional, chauvinist Mexican culture...

And Saving Face...written and directed by Alice Wu...an exploration of contempory Chinese-American life embedded in the more traditional Chinese community of Flushing, New York...a gay love story of a girl finding her own way amidst the pressures of traditional Chinese society to find a way more to the liking of her elders...

The Beat My Heart Skipped is a French film starring Romain Duris that tells the story of a French real estate businessman and thug learning to play concert piano and falling in love with his partner's girlfriend, slowing discovering a better life for himself outside of the ugly and heartless world of big money thuggery that he inhabits...

Four really beautiful films about people whose lives don't conform to traditional scripts of how they should...in four different cultures which, like our own, put often overwhelming pressures on them to do so (to see how cold and uncaring those pressures can be, I would definitely check out Nobody Knows, a really beautiful movie about survival against incredible odds, on the one hand, and The Beat My Heart Skipped about the pressures on a thug to remain a thug, even as he searches for something better)...

I've been spending time, this weekend...coming to terms with just how self-centered most people are...how most pressures have nothing, at all, to do with being good or moral or doing the right thing...

And have everything to do with everyone trying to look good (or what they think will mean looking good) for everyone else...and to provide some cover...for just how self-centered they really are...

Everyone...

Politicians...parents...teachers...professors...
journalists...businesspeople...lawyers...soldiers...

Everyone...

It's so fucked up, too...

Because it's so obviously counterproductive and bullshit to actually being good people...

In order to have people conform to my idea of how they should be...

I'll just pretend that they aren't who they are...that they aren't in the circumstances they're in...that I Know -- with a capital K -- how others are supposed to be...and they're input is just not that important...

And I'll just apply enough pressure...socially...personally...financially...
politically...legally...

To get what I want...which is what my life is all about, anyway...

And all the while...my thinking about the matter can be just as stupid and self-centered as I want it to be...as long as I can apply means of pressure to get what I want...

And the irony is...

That noone respects me as long as I conduct myself like this...

Yeah...we are one big fucked-up family, aren't we?...

The human race, that is...

We're all far lesser human beings than we pretend or think ourselves to be...

And meanwhile...we make so few efforts to really be better...

Because there are just so many pressures...to be worse...

What is wrong with us?...that we can't learn to treat each other decently...with respect for one another's autonomy and freedom...that we constantly bullshit ourselves into thinking that we are better than we really are...that the freedom to be ourselves really is the same thing as being pressured and pressuring others to be who we want them to be...

All I know...is that I don't want to be around people who treat me like that...especially the recalicrant assholes who, like the Godfather or the Emperor in Return of the Jedi or Joseph Stalin or Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il, are constantly driven to hurt others enough to get their way...

If you try to control me...pressure me...or otherwise force me to be something that I'm not...

I don't respect you...or like you...or think anything of you...except that you're a shithead...

And then I just want to be out of your presence...

I won't follow your example...and one day you'll die...and I'll thank goodness that I have one less
shithead in my life...

Until you can learn to be a decent human being...

The better a person you are, the more you respect others' freedom and autonomy...because, as a person of strong character and conscience, you understand that free will is critical to the development of a strong conscience...

And everyone else...which is most people...have weak consciences...and character structure...with little respect for conscience...which is why they pressure for what they want, so goddamn much...because they have so little interest in being really good people...

Lord Acton's aphorism is so true...but it's not just politics where power corrupts...

It's schools...and families...and communities...and businesses...and in the financial world, generally (especially the financial world, actually)...in the military...

And it means never having to say you're sorry...for fear that taking responsibility is the same as weakness...because taking responsibility is for pussies...real men...tough women...make things happen...by by putting their foot down...on whomever's neck needs to be stood on to get what they want...

It's kind of creative excuse for being a controlling prick, isn't it?...

And it happens everywhere...

And, right now...there's just a great big bandwagon of people eating it up as a means of making the world better, supposedly...

But really..it's about trying to feel better...about what controlling pricks we all can be...

I do wonder, sometimes...if we'll break the cycle...

If we'll ever learn to treat each other as we want to be treated...do unto others, and all that..

Or if we're forever condemned to this futile, fruitless, counterproductive, and disrespectful cycle of fantasizing that if we can just apply enough pressure, punish enough, hurt people enough, fuck them over enough, force their hand enough...

If we just make people do what we want them to do...

Then the world will finally be the kind of place where we want to live...

We are so fucked up...

Humanity, that is...

And the big question...is whether it's terminal or not...

Whether we can learn to stop being such dickheads, all of the time...

Or whether we're condemned to be such assholes...

And thus hardly worthy of our children's trust, each successive generation...

Because...realistically...those are our choices...

Learning our lesson...learning to be better human beings...and respecting our and one another's fundamental nature...our freedom of thought and conscience...

Or forever being unworthy of the trust of each successive generation...

And of the people in our lives...

The more I've learned about the worlds of money and power...the more I distrust both of them...to offer anyone anything...except for money and power...which can be used for ill as much as for good...and with little reason to value for their own sake outside of what good they can actually accomplish, and not just wish for...

And the more I learn about them...the more people's success at navigating them...impresses me less and less...

My father's strongest qualities...are what kind of human being he is outside of money...and the ways that his money can serve those ends...not the money, as an end in itself, as my dad is so fond of touting, these days...

Because the world of money and power just don't impress me, at all, anymore...

The only thing that impresses me...is the wise and fair and decent use of money and power...of the genuine service that money and power can be to our lives...rather than their abuse...which is probably more common, unfortunately...

Which so many...most...people in those worlds...lose track of...so lost are they in chasing money and power for its own sake...as my father seems to be doing, more, these days...

Here's a good question to illustrate the point...who would you rather be?...

Mary Wolstencraft?...or the overwhelming number of less intelligent and thoughtful men of her day who would keep her from voting, nevertheless having more substantial impact on the policies of her day?...

Frederick Douglas?...or his would-be wealthy slave-owners or the many very powerful politicians who fought so hard to maintain a world where men like Douglas were treated with so little real dignity?...

Henry David Thoreau?...or the millions of less independent-minded people who lived lives of quiet desperation that Thoreau so pitied?...

Adam Smith?...or one of the many wealthy, politically-connected, mercantilist class of his day and even more independent businessmen whose avarice Smith was so suspicious of, even as he believed that its free exercise was better accomodated to the needs of people than the self-righteous legal declarations of governing classes of his day?

John Stuart Mill?...or the thousands of emerging greed and power-driven capitalists and slave-owners and members of parliament regularly infringing on the very freedoms that Mill celebrated, rightly, as central to human nature and human progress?...

John Dewey?...or the emerging monopolists or the less thoughtful or profound democratic leaders of his day, with, generally, far less concern for the lives of average people and the poor and the pragmatic aspirations of a growing and diverse modern society?...

Abraham Maslow?...or the millions of men and women of more petty and small-minded values Maslow contrasted with the purposeful and meaning-driven values of higher-minded leaders of public thought and action?...

Would you rather help to more thoughtfully enlighten the world?...or more mindlessly follow its less enlightened ways?...

Ideally...by my lights...we would do both...enlightening the world...and accepting and embracing its less enlightened ways...

What all these people have in common...is that while the world operated under whatever the conventional logic of their days were...right or wrong...good or bad...more or less decent and humane...

These people were critiquing that logic...to help us rethink how we might live better lives...shaping the deepest currents of history...with that rethinking...

What I think is the strongest rethinking for this generation of new ideas and living...is the need to both become better, more thoughtful, and more enlightened people...by embracing our baser and more smaller-minded selves...

To integrate our B-values -- as Maslow describes them...our higher, more enlightened, more confident values -- with our D-values -- or our lower, more base, more insecure values...

To become better people...by openly acknowledging and embracing our baser selves...

We can all aspire for the better examples of our past and our present...and we are all better for aspiring more thoughtfully...rather than giving in to our baser reactions to the world...even as we thoughtfully accept and embrace those reactions...

The scary part about humanity...is that...ultimately...our fundamental nature...our progress...lies, as John Stuart Mill powerfully argued...in our freedom...

And our improvement...our betterment...must be freely chosen...whether we like it or not...

All of the most consequential areas where the baser elements of our humanity stand in the way of our higher purposes...

They must be embraced...and we must choose higher callings...for our highest purposes to be realized...

For us to be worthy of our ideals...we need to work, fundamentally, at actualizing those ideals...a respect for a free conscience being the most fundamental of those ideals...rather giving into the lower instict of bullying one another, self-righteously, into submission to our more reactive, less thoughtful whims...

The law and policies can enlighten our consciences...but only by their ideals...and not (and certainly not primarily) by their use of force...

And the law and force can also undermine our consciences...Dred Scott undermined the higher calling of freeing slaves with the lower calling of enforcing slave contracts and recapture laws...Nazi Germany passed laws that required Germans to turn in Jews not reporting to the ghettos and engaging in Jewish Resistance movements...

The law, like science, is the ax in the hands of the ax murderer, Albert Einstein said...

The law...policy...rules...can be used to inspire more enlightened thinking about difficult issues of our time...anti-slavery laws within the British Empire long before the outlawing of slavery in democratic America, for instance...

But they can also be used to enforce our uglier and more self-centered whims...the legal segregation of blacks and whites in the South and elsewhere, for instance...or rules prohibiting women and African Americans from voting...or rules against the Irish from being employed with certain businesses...or policies forcing Native Americans to live separately from other Americans on reservations...

Einstein's point about science...was that it was easy to romanticize science...to see it as more than a tool to be used by the better or worse judgments of human beings...

The ax is a form of technology used by the ax murderer to kill his/her victims...or to chop wood and other needs it might fulfill...not good, in and of itself...but good based on its purposes...

And the law and policies and rules work similarly...they are tools...that can be used to enlighten and inspire the world in better directions...

Or they can be clubs...to beat people into submission...to Imperialism...Nazism...Communism...
Facism...Socialism...mercantilism...and even more protected and subsidized capitalism...

Or liberalism...or conservativism...

Those laws and policies and rules are being romanticized, right now...with fantasies of them being synonymous with justice and fairness...which they are most clearly not, to anyone with any kind of serious, thoughtful study of law and policy...

The romanticism of laws and rules and policies...is far more dangerous than the romanticism of science...

Because the romanticism of law and rules and policies...is the romanticism of tools to infringe on freedom...which naturally leads to serious and important encroachments on freedom...

Democratic and republican power arrangements can only, at best, check power...

But the only way for power not to be abused...is for free individuals to develop a commitment to using it, only, for high-minded purposes...to not abuse it...

And that is the honest and scary fact of human nature...

That unless people with power...or money...or the use of force, military or otherwise...or any similar tool...which is all people, at some level...choose, freely, not to abuse power...and to only use it for high-minded purposes...it can and will, perpetually, be abused by those who have it...

And the hope of humanity...is found in our free will...and our capacity...and our more fundamental natures more suited to...a world where we choose not to abuse our power...to use all forms of power...hard and soft...for the most high-minded purposes...for the benefit of humanity, ourselves and others, equitably...for each person's benefit...and not for the benefit of some at the expense of others...

The hope for humanity is found, only, in our highest ideals...our aspiring...and our actualizing them in our lives...

Our cynicism is not an alternative...it is a baser instinct to be embraced...and transcended...

I've got to get some sleep...I have a long day, tomorrow:):)...

I should probably check to see how the Steelers and Seahawks are doing...

Have a good day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

The letter of the law...and the spirit of the law...

I have a teacher I'm working with, right now, who, more clearly than anyone I've ever met, reflects the important distinction between someone who lives by the spirit of the law...and someone who -- tediously -- lives by the letter of the law...

The teacher I'm referring to is the special education teacher who is mentoring me, currently, around matters of paperwork and school bureaucracy...

She's getting better...a lot better, some days, when I think about it...

But the major difference between our outlooks...on life, nevertheless on teaching...

Is that this teacher lives her life, often, by the letter of the law...no matter how ridiculous and horribly out of touch with the lives of the kids she teaches...

And I live my life...and I do serve my kids...by the spirit of the law...knowing that the law is far too crude an instrument to understand or serve the interests of anyone, nevertheless of a learning, growing, and developing child...

This teacher is convinced that if she just has the right IEP/legal leverage...if she just gives the right command...if she just finds the right punishment...if she just asserts control in the just the right way...that she will, somehow, shape up kids that have never been shaped up by this approach, even though it is, by far, the dominant approach to dealing with kids, their educations, and in their interactions with adults in a school building...

The irony is that she is kind of a push-over, really...and she has had some of the lowest expectations for kids in the building...she's gotten better...but, for a while...the entire time while I was first teaching at Eisenhower...there was no worry...no fear...no insecurity...no boogey man lurking around the corner...that she did not warn everyone was following her and her efforts every day I worked with her...

This teacher operates the way she does (and she's recently changed from a policy of wimpy low expectations to a policy of tough low expectations:):):)...out of fear, primarily, I think...

And...other than my advisor...who I swear is this teacher's mentor-in-waiting...so alike are these two...

Her whole orientation is survival in the educational bureaucracy...with fear and insecurity driving much of that survival...very much, in fact, like her university counterpart in my graduate advisor...

This teacher is getting better...and I feel much better, today, than I did in grad school, leading people with more age and experience than me...who just have all the wrong priorities operating in their lives and in the lives of the students they serve...

But she has been the best evidence, for me, of why I am not someone who lives my life by the letter of the law...afraid of some ax swinging my way...rather than with purpose...and by the letter of the law...caring more about kids than about laws...

Every chance that she gets to use an IEP (which is a legal document) as a billy club, she uses it...and I think it's been a long time before Linda has really thought about whether it really serves the kids or not...

She's getting better...I think we've persuaded her, for instance, to just ignore an IEP requirement of "negotiation" with one kid we have who manipulates kids and adults as a regular course of life...with whom negotiation would not only not serve him, but would feed every impulse that brings him our direction in the first place...

It took some doing...but she is developing a sense of humor about the whole thing...

Which is good...because the last thing I wanted to do as a teacher...was relive my experiences as a student with my graduate advisor...

Seeing this teacher...what I can now see...is that my advisor was, really, for all his huff and puff...kind of spineless, much of the time...he was kind of a weasel, often...just trying to keep his tenured full professorship at a prestigious university and graduate program...

So incredibly sad, I think...not just what a distortion that kind of thing is of everything that universities should stand for...

But so incredibly sad for the people who live that life...

For my graduate advisor...and for this teacher...

My Ph.D. advisor, especially...who worked 7 days a week at that job...

All just to keep a shitty and not-terribly well-paying job...

So sad, to me...

Anyway...

When I meet people like this...no matter how much I want to help someone like my graduate advisor and this teacher to learn to have some backbone...and have some sense of self-respect...

I realize just how much I appreciate being me...no matter happens in my life...

And the more I encounter people...who I don't always understand...nor need or want to earn respect from, necessarily...

The more I'm proud to live a life that I'm proud of...regardless of what others think...

Though...if my academic peers don't take up my scholarly ideas (my teaching colleagues are taking up many of my ideas...but they aren't terribly intellectually astute or honest about the whole thing...which is kind of tedious, sometimes...though, at least it serves the kids better, I think)...I think I'll just give them up...give up the jig...and do something else...

A life lived by the letter of the law...rather than the spirit of the law...

Is a life of cowardice...and fear...and a loss of a sense of purpose, I think...

It's been a long time since this teacher did this job for the kids, first and foremost, I'm afraid...which is sad...for this teacher, most of all (though, as I said, she's getting better)...

I'm proud not to live a life by the letter of the law...which seems like a pretty bleak and purposeless life, really...

I'll be and am inspired if and when either I:

1) discover or come across ideas that persuade me or inspire me as much as the ones I work on, including least possible neccessary aggression, or...

2) my ideas are thought useful by practioners and/or scholars in the fields that they touch...

If not...I'll wait for someone else to develop ideas or otherwise inspire me in a direction that either persuades me that I'm wrong...or builds on my ideas...or others' ideas in ways that are as compelling to me as these are ideas are to me, right now...

Sometimes I wonder if I would have become a teacher... or even a policy thinker...if I had known just how little people really care about the work...how little teachers care about their work and kids, sometimes, as surprising at it sounds...at least by my standards...and how little policy and political folks care about taking responsibility for good policy, rather than getting access to power, exercising it, and deflecting responsibility for anything that goes wrong...and that goes for politicians, journalists, activists, and even too many policy thinkers, unfortunately...

But I also don't know what I would do where people would care more about doing a good job...

All I know...is that if this job is all that this particular teacher and too many teachers in this building have been acting like it means...and too many teachers and folks that I've encountered in the last 3 years or so...

It wouldn't mean much, at all, frankly...

In fact, it would mean so little...that I can hardly imagine staying in the job...unless I was just too afraid to go get new one that might be something to take seriously...

I've got an IEP to finish before I make it home, tonight:):)...

I hope everyone's having a great Friday night:):)...

Love,
Ben

You ever inherit a piece of wisdom that totally changes your perspective?:):)...

I had a great day, today, again...despite some issues with some kids...

And the best thing about today...was having reinforced for me the same bit of wisdom that Katherine had to share the other day...

We had a meeting about our behavior system...it's called B.I.S.T. (Behavior Intervention Support Team)...

B.I.S.T. -- Behavior Intervention Support Team

And Marty...our B.I.S.T. coordinator...reinforced the same lesson that Katherine had to share...

We want kids to grow up...because they're so fuckin' annoying, frankly, often, as long as they're not grown up...as long as they're acting childish...as long as they're acting like kids...and some kids acting far worse than others...

And I feel this frustration all the time...with kids...with adults...with everyone...

But Marty's wisdom about kids is the same as Katherine's...

We have such high expectations for kids...that it is heartbreaking...and disappointing...and often they can be hurtful with us...as long as they are not meeting our higher/highest expectations...

We want them to grow up today...

But they can't...

And sometimes...that's really disappointing...

And some of us hold onto that disappointment...

And some of us let it go...

And letting it go definitely is better for us...and is a more realistic way to deal with children...and with life...

Sometimes we want people...kids and adults...to grow up...to deal with life more responsibly...to be more constructive...to deal with the tough stuff...without whining...or making excuses...

And sometimes they don't...and sometimes that's frustrating...and sometimes that's destructive and hurtful to us and others around them...

And that is most people...not the minority...

I want that from some old friends...Tom...Brandi...Jas...

But the peace I've made with it...is that people do grow up...they often just don't do it as fast as we might like...

Me too...

I realized, today, talking with another teacher...that if I met a woman like me...which I haven't...but if I did...I would tell her to give up the idea of trying to make people happy all the time...I'd be really impressed with her, frankly...and if I met a girl like me, I'd think I'd fall in love very quickly...and I want someone who can support me in the same way...

I don't want to whine, any more, about my life or things that aren't totally fair...or things that are less than ideal...

And really appreciate the life I have...being critical is not only fine, it's the only responsible thing to do...but whining wastes precious life...that I want to appreciate and enjoy...

I want a girl as strong as me...and Brandi -- at least the girl I knew the last time I heard from her, and as great as she was and hopefully is -- is not that girl...it's not that she couldn't be that girl...it's that I definitely want someone stronger, smarter, more open-minded, more genuinely and unconditionally loving and loyal...I want someone I can count on...and I'm sure she's out there, somewhere...

And I want to enjoy more of my life...as I am now...and be wrapped up in what I don't like or want much less...

And the wisdom of the past two days had opened up my horizons on that note in a serious way:):)...thanks to Katherine and Marty for reinforcing that for me:):)...

I've got to get something to eat so I can finish some school work:):):)...

Have a great weekend, everyone...

Go Seahawks...

Love,
Ben

Thinking about what the future might look like...

I'm still finishing up an I.E.P. (Individualized Education Plan), tonight:):)...

And I had a thought about the future...about what progress might look like for my children's generation...

I've thought about it, a lot...wondering what's over the horizon...as some of the issues of my generation start getting some resolution...

And one of them...that has impact on me...

Is the idea of more inclusive wealth...

Meaning...perhaps...as I become an old man...

Perhaps wealth will begin to wither as an exclusive concept of humanity...and be something that is more genuinely shared...

And that people like me...can freely choose to give up wealth...because they just realize that there's such a thing as too much...or enough...

I'm sure I'll face that day in my own lifetime, I suppose...

But I also wonder if maybe young people won't have to go through the awful legacy of young poverty that we impose on young people getting started in the world...if maybe we will begin, by the time my children are coming up, have a world where debt is a matter easily resolved, rather than prolonged, unecessarily, by efforts to punish and otherwise take advantage of people's difficult financial situations...

I have to think that we can learn the lesson...and create a more genuinely dynamic economy...where financial failure or difficulties can be more easily resolved so that people are active participants in the economy in more substantial ways -- investing and saving and making better choices because of their active engagement in such activities -- rather than the pretty fruitless and pointless hardship that we put people through in such situations...

For that to happen, there would need to be a much more proactive commitment to wealth inequity...which is why I want wealth inequities to get resolved within the market, since free and active efforts have much more potential to not only resolve matters of health care and wellness, child care, vacation and rest, wages and benefits, and other matters of need associated with poverty...

But also to much more substantially address issues of investment, saving, and other efforts that would create a much more active investment in a dynamic economy that would lead more and more people to identify with a dynamic economy and to avoid undermining it out of their outrage with greed and decisions made around profit-margins that impact other areas like the environment and social issues that they care about...

It's a pretty obvious virtuous circle to me, if people would pick up on and support its possibility...including poor, middle class, and rich people, many of whom don't always show the strongest inclinations towards wiser investment and savings...

Better education is key to and underlines all such efforts...since better and more substantial commitments to education help create bigger and longer worldviews that encourage more long-range thinking associated with both taking education and all of the opportunities -- like investment -- more seroiusly...and with making wiser investments and engaging in more forward-looking savings, in the first place...

But what a great world that would be...

If we could get kids and adults in schools on the same page, better, around matters of education...so that they are more likely to support such virtuous circles:):):)...and deserve the trust involved with such an effort...

Just thinking:):):)...while I finish this I.E.P.:):):)...

Have a great night, everyone:):):)...

Love,
Ben

One of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard in my life...

If you haven't heard Dar Williams' February...

It is one of the songs in your life that you should listen to, at least once...

To get an idea of what beauty sounds like...

There are very few songs that touch me like this song does...

The Crash Test Dummies' Superman Song...U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (the Rattle and Hum album's live version)...The Indigo Girls' Closer to Fine...Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World (the 1970 live version)...Sinead O'Connor's You Do Something To Me off of Red, Hot, and Blue...and Annie Lennox's Every Time We Say Goodbye, off the same album...Clint Black's Something That We Do...The Dixie Chicks' Top of the World...Rascal Flats' These Days...Diamond Rio's Beautiful Mess...Darryl Worley's I Miss My Friend...

...and a million others...

But Dar Williams' February lives in a special part of my heart...

It captures, better than any song I've ever heard, the tragedy of true love lost...

It takes me back to Kansas City, 2001, when Brandi and I were living together...and falling apart...

"And February lasted into March...and found us walking a path...alone together...

You stopped and pointed...and you said, 'That's a crocus'...and I said, 'What's a crocus'...and you said 'It's a flower'...I tried to remember, but I said, 'What's a flower?'...

You said, 'I still love you'..."

It's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard in my entire life...

And I thank Dar Williams from the bottom of my heart...for creating and singing such an gorgeous piece of music...

I'm going to be listening to it all night...

Have a good night, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

An amazing day:):)...

These kids love me...

And I love them...

And today went great...

And thanks to Katherine for giving me the perspective to have a day like today:):)...

Love,
Ben

Being too hard on the kids...

I'm working the after school program, tonight...we're listening to some U2 (they're choice:):)...and doing some classwork...I have an I.E.P. to work on...but I wanted to take some time to write about an important idea I took in over the last day or so...

I had this really great discussion with our technology coordinator about the kind of practice assessments to do with my first and second hour special education resource room math class...

I was wanting them to be able to do both a modified assessment that is geared more towards their level of performance, currently...and do a regular assessment...so they get a sense of how they match up with their peers...

It was a great discussion...about remembering that while we want to have high standards for kids...

That these are still kids...

And there are plenty of places in my life where life is too hard for me as a pretty confident adult...

Finances constantly overwhelm me, being in debt...and depress me, since the expectations of creditors constantly outpace my abilities to do what they want me to do...they want me to pay money that I just don't have...I'm in totally good faith...and want to pay off all of my debt...but I can't do it...and they're constantly trying to pressure me to make commitments that I know I can't keep...and that will just end up being interpreted as a lie or as rebellion or whatever by cynical credit folks, later on...

The financial world is so fucked up, I swear:):)...

Anyway...this conversation was about remembering that these kids are all 11, 12, 13, 14 years old...they're kids...thinking that I take for granted at 32...they've never likely even imagined, nevertheless considered seriously...

And it really isn't fair to hold them accountable for thoughts that are difficult enough for me, a pretty thoroughly educated and ambitious 32-year-old...nevertheless a 11 or 12-year-old...

It's hard to balance that with a recognition that I'm the adult and the one to be trusted, more often than not, to know what is best for a kid...

Especially when...many times...I have no clue...

I wish I did...I try my best...I know a lot...I get to know kids...I have a fair amount of experience, at this point...I listen to others with more experience all of the time...I read a lot...I talk with adults and kids, a lot, about what kids might be thinking...I keep up with pop culture circles...I enjoy a lot of the same music and movies and just normal stuff of life that many kids enjoy...I know more about that stuff than your average 6th grader, nevertheless your average 32-year-old...and I keep my ears to the ground...

I'm far from naive about the average 6th grader's life, though I'm in the dark about a lot of things, too, as most adults are...which constantly concerns me...and which, at some level, is why I have to trust kids that they will aspire big and be responsible for their own lives...because I know that no matter how informed I am, there will always things that I will be left out of the loop on...

Most 32-year-olds, nevertheless most kids, don't keep as open or honest or public a journal as I do...so there is so much of everyone's life, nevertheless young people, that we don't get to see...and every little bit we get to know is more information to be of some help for a young person or young people, generally...

So I will never really know how much a kid fears me...or is afraid of adults or teacher or whatever, generally...how much they are angry with me or at the world...how much they like me or admire me or anyone in their lives...or are afraid or angry or hate other kids or adults in their lives...

There's so much that I will never know...unless they trust me enough to be share their lives with me...and even then...if they're anything like me...or anyone...there's still things that they will hold back...

Today I was realizing...again...that perhaps I am too hard on kids...and adult friends and colleagues in my life, as well...even as I want them to get better...

I know I was too hard on Brandi when we were together...it's one of my biggest regrets...she was hard on me, too...and probably harder on me, in the big picture...but I was really hard on her, too, when we were together...something that I've spent a lot of time taking responsibility for with her since we've been apart...

And I know I was hard on Jas...though Jas was far harder on me...so I feel far less guilty about that situation...I suspect, sometimes, that he doesn't know why he pissed me off so bad...and he's just too afraid to ask...and other times, I think he knows...but he's just playing the games of a bullshitter...trying to weasel his way out...it's hard to know, sometimes...all I know is that I couldn't have him keep treating me the way that he was...and that he works/worked hardly at all at that friendship, relative to me...and I was getting fed up with the whole situation...

And I know for damned sure that Tom was far harder on me than I was on him...and he was a teacher...and in a position of more responsibility...I understand why Tom was hard on me...I just also know that he was wrong on so many of the bigger issues, it's hard to count them all...and that his being hard was so incredibly counterproductive, much of the time...and had much to do with Brandi and I succumbing to the pressures of grad school, many of which came from Tom's direction...and that I had already recovered from some pretty serious burnout that Brandi watched unravel...which basically involved me unraveling...and that no matter how much I told Tom it was too much, he could never let up...his ego and his intellectual conceit had him convinced that he was responsible for all of my accomplishments...though he was more than happy to let me be responsible for all the problems I faced...

And, in the end...I think he convinced himself and others that I just couldn't hack it...

A misjudgment that he will regret, at some point, I think...if he lives long enough to see my career bloom...though I've promised myself to make that as easy a process for Tom to go through as is absolutely possible, on my part...

Tom did a lot of good for me...he basically paid for my grad school, with grant monies...he taught me a lot...and he gave me some though not enough of a free hand, as a student...he shared his passion for the field with me...though I doubt he's ever known passion like mine...nor as deep or as meaningful of thought...and he was loyal in many ways that I appreciate...

But he was also wrong...about a lot...and he just had the damndest time admitting that...which was/is his Achilles heel as a scholar...

The last thing anyone wants in their life...as a scholar...or as a human being...

Is the stupid, ugly, terrible conceit...that they've already got it all figured out:):):)...

It's just damned foolish is what it is...

And it doesn't allow or create the opportunities for life that genuine humility allows for or creates...

And it is all too human and all too common among academics as well as far too many average folks:):)...

And it was/is an Achilles heel for Tom...that I was not going to repeat...

With the same results...of being a scholar noted in my field...but not the strongest scholar, in the biggest picture...and one who really misses the boat in even my own field...lost in too much ivory tower conceit...and lacking in enough courage to work at resolving problems that remain unresolved...rather than trying to find new and creative ways to avoid responsibility for them...

Which is essentially what post-modernism (as well as much conservativism and liberalism) is...one long excuse for why the post-modernist hasn't done anything to make the world better around those things that they endlessly critique...

I've got an I.E.P. to work on...I hope everyone is having a good night:):):)...

Have I mentioned how much I love the Crash Test Dummies?...The Ghosts that Haunt Me is their best album, I think, if you ever get a chance...it also happens to be my Jenny Burrington break-up album (along with Tracy Chapman's Smoke and Ashes:):):)...

Check it out, when you get a chance:):):)...

Love,
Ben