Ideas...

I was just perusing Time Magazine's readers' poll of influential people and ideas...

http://www.time.com/time/2006/time100/walkup/

And I'm becoming clearer and clearer that I plan on writing over the course of my life for the sake of sharing thoughts and reflections and ideas...not for influence...

It's funny...I've lamented, at times, that stronger thinkers aren't consulted about important matters of policy...Francis Fukuyama rightly shows up on the list of those who pollsters consider for their influence...but Joe Nye and Benjamin Barber and Amartya Sen and a whole slew of others don't...

And I'm just clearer, now, that it really doesn't mean anything since most people, generally, have no clue who has better ideas to offer...though the inclusion of Fukuyama is hopeful (if not temporal, since Fukuyama came out with a book more recently than any of those other folks I cited)...

The whole thing...watching the spectacle of Washington and international politics...watching the spectacle of the national and international media...and even having a more inside look at scholarly ambitions for career success and influence...

It's all led me to want to write and teach with very little thought given to profile, at all...

I want to write the way I hoped that folks like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, Friedrich Hayek, Charles Darwin, and even Joe Nye and Amartya Sen and Francis Fukuyama and Benjamin Barber wrote...it's probably just a hope...but I always hoped that these folks would write with some detachment from the insanity and popular passions of their day...

And just write from their hearts...and minds...

I don't know what I'm going to do with this book...

I just know that I have no interest in a high or any other kind of profile...I want to write...I want to teach...I want to have a family and raise my kids...and I want to have a grounded, down-to-earth life where I write and share my ideas...and live my life in peace, as much as possible...

And I want to write about what's on my mind and heart...about deeper truthes that so many ignore in their quest for short terms advantages...I want to write from conscience rather than from personal calculation...

And as much as possible...I want to live a fairly peaceful life...with people I care about and who care about me...and to myself, much of the time, since I can so rarely rely on people to be as thoughtful and decent as my own company about the things I care about...

I've got work to do, to be sure...

But I'm much more clear, now, that there is no hurry...that there is so much interference in the marketplace of ideas around what ideas really matter...that I can make this a labor of love and wait to see if others find the ideas to make as much sense and have as powerful effect as I have...

The most important ideas are the ones that influence far beyond the moment...and unfortunately that means that many serious mistakes and with sometimes tragic consequences have to occur until the most powerful ideas take root...

Iran and what it says about America's international policy...

Due to technical difficulties with Blogspot, check out my other blog for today's latest installment...

http://benfrankln.tripod.com/bensutherland/

Iran...

(Please see my Tripod blog -- http://benfrankln.tripod.com/bensutherland/ - to get a copy of this post with links in tact:)

The Bush Administration has not only kept military options on the table around Iran, but Charles Krauthammer is explicitly asking Europeans to get out of the way should the Administration decide on a military route...

Say No to Tehran's Gambit...Charles Krauthammer...

The Economist encourages world leaders to "be tough now to avoid a nuclear conflict"...

Last ditch diplomacy to stop a nuclear Iran...

And offers what it thinks are the lessons of soft power in European dealings with Iran...

Playing soft or hard cop...

Krauthammer is just wrong -- as the May 12th, 2005 editorial by the Economist illustrates...

Iran and North Korea: Return of the axis of evil...

There are many, many problems in the analysis of the first three of these articles that the last Economist, in part, understands better...

The reason why threats of military action are so wrong, as the Economist editors illustrate in their May 12th article, is because those threats -- along with the invasion of Iraq which no doubt intentionally gives credence to them -- have clearly accelerated Iranian nuclear ambitions (and accelerated North Korea's nuclear ambitions, before the South Koreans stepped in with their more successful diplomatic efforts) for any objective observer...

Meaning...North Korea and Iran didn't pursue their nuclear programs -- as ambitiously, anyway -- until the United States started threatening them and Syria with similar action as what occurred in Iraq if they didn't concede to American demands...

And what is bothersome about the swagger on this issue by hawks like Krauthammer is the almost zero ackowledgement of any serious responsibility in this way...

It's as if Charles' conceit that hawkish efforts are always better can always dismiss bad consequences from those efforts as the fault of someone else, while folks like Charles simultaneous preach responsibility to the world and to Americans and never seem to take any...it's very much like watching Roy Cohn go after Deep Throat actor Harry Reems with the threat of a five year prison sentence for his role in the movie all the while simultaneously hiding his secret of homosexuality and all of the hypocrisy that goes with it...

Take responsibility, says, Charles to his fellow Americans, but don't expect me to...

And that really is the rub...

As long as Americans continue to rationalize their more hawkish and forceful and brutish efforts to solve all of their problems, international and domestic, rather than more thoughtful, proactive, and less threatening approaches when immediate danger is not eminent -- though it does seem that the more hawkish amongst us can always rationalize eminent danger whenever it tickles their fancy -- then we never have to be responsible for when those efforts fail...if I don't acknowledge responsibility, the theory goes, there's no responsibility for me to take...

And it's bullshit...

The Economists' article on the lessons of soft power ignores the earlier lessons it draws from the threat of military force on North Korea's and Iran's nuclear ambitions, seems to argue for something akin to "let's not go too far with the hard power threats," and then rationalizes the Administration's threats of military power -- which the Economist acknowledges is likely responsible for so much of the mess that we find ourselves in at this point -- by offering up a compromise with no real principled direction that our diplomatic, economic, political, legal, or military efforts should take...

Thus allowing the Administration to keep the most serious threats on the table to leverage for tougher action, whether such action is constructive or counter-productive or not...
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fisher makes a very sensible case for this very kind of thinking in today's Washington Post...

The Case for Bargaining with Iran...Joschka Fischer...

What we need is more of the discussion that Joschka Fischer offers up in this article and that the Economist offered up in the 2005 article about whether these efforts might actually be creating the current crisis in many ways, rather than curing it...

Noone wants a nuclear Iran to bully it's neighbors, especially Israel...

But neither should we want a nuclear America to bully it's neighbors when imminent danger is not present, no matter how much hardline conservatives in America may persistently rationalize all of their worst fears...

Bullying a bully does not work if your goal is to persuade a bully to stop being a bully, and not just the short term opportunity to scare one, very temporarily, into submission...

The Economist's article on the lessons of soft power are too simplistic to be useful...anyone interested in studying soft power should reads Joe Nye's book of the same title...
Joe is not just talking about diplomacy, though diplomacy is an important part of dealing with the current situation in Iran...he is talking about American culture, education, entertainment, and liberalizing values...the American economy and free trade values, generally...all of such values and opportunities that allow for exchange and learning between cultures and for mutual appreciation between cultures...he is arguing, rightly, that they are attractive to the peoples of many developing countries even as they are similarly easily scared by hardliners in their own country afraid of the decadence and un-Godliness that they fear that such values and elements of freer Western cultures demonstrate...just as hard-liners in our own country treat the outside world with fear and dread...

And what angers me most about the whole deal is that it is all such people who are so hostile to more freedom and more liberalizing values -- in America, in Iran, among Al-Queda, and all over the world -- that keep fucking it up for everyone else...

Everyone wants a bully on their side to protect them against other bullies...

And I, for one, have no interest in rallying any bullies to my side...

Joe's work is has far more depth to it than the Economist article gives him credit for...and even Joe could dig deeper, I think, and my work is an effort to do so...

The least possible necessary aggression means that we consider objective efforts to deal with such situations with a presumption for less aggressive efforts, first, and aggression is only justified when danger is clearly eminent and not rationalized by our perpetual fears of its eminence...

Anyone who has ever worked with gang members and school bullies knows that they are perpetually rationalizing fears as being more eminent than they really are...and our international policy efforts, right now, are very similar...and need much grounding in less heat and more light to understand them as such...

The principles of least possible necessary aggression lead me to believe that the fundamental problem with the way that the situation with Iran is being carried out is that the most serious threats have been made up front in a way that has seriously distorted the conversation...there is no room for disagreement in this conversation on the part of the Iranians, a pretty important element of democratic discussions that the Administration professes to want to better emulate for Iran -- isn't the reason that the Administration believes, implicitly, that America should be trusted, more, in this entanglement is because it is more democratic and respects basic freedoms more than the Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government? -- and there is very little serious room for such discussions to occur without the threat of miltary, economic, or political action that is ultimately undermining such efforts, right now, I believe...

If you are having any conversation with someone for any purpose -- diplomatic, business negotiations, political discussions, personal discourse and/or disagreements -- and you put a gun on the table while you are discussing, you must assume that there will be a change in the tone of the conversation...and when you do so and the conversation turns sour, at what point do you take responsibility for how the presence of the gun affected the tone and effectiveness of the conversation?...

This is the question that the Administration needs to answer for itself, right now...and that honest conservatives, liberals, independent, political, and non-political folks need to be asking the President, right now...it is a question that the Economist and Joschka Fischer have put to the Administration, but neither the Administration nor its apologists, like Charles Krauthammer, have bothered to answer, too sure are they of their own correct worldview with no need for questioning or challenge or correction as they face these terribly complicated issues...it's a conceit that undermines the goals that America and the world shares of a world with less nuclear proliferation, especially among governments that are often hostile to democratic freedoms and responsibilities...

What is so terribly frustrating about this conceit is that it so ignores so many of the very important lessons of the cold war...there is not much of an argument at all, I don't believe, that the Soviet Union let go of its very forceful hold on Russian and Eastern European peoples because of nuclear weapons pointed at it from the United States...the capacity to defend oneself in case of attack is an important capacity to develop, to be sure...

But the most serious histories I have seen and read on the matter point to the impressive diplomacy between Ronald Reagan and Mikhael Gorbachev, as the two negotiated arms and discussed more generally the various merits and problems of communism and capitalism and democracy...it was Gorbachev's announcement of plans for perestroika and glasnost which began to open the Soviet Union up to more democratizing and decentralizing and self-determining forces, not threats of nuclear war from the West...it was internal changes in the Soviet Union, with the breaking down of the Berlin Wall and the breaking away of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and the democratic election of Boris Yeltsin which helped to democratize and open up the old Soviet Republics, not threats of war from the United States...

And the Soviets, then, represented a far more credible threat to American strategic self-interest and self-defense than Iran does today...

But American hawks just can't seem to let go of their fears of world that is outside of American control...

And, ironically, it is American control that much of the world -- including Americans, like myself -- has much reason to fear, as much as Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons...
International security has clearly been undermined by so much of the breast-beating, hypercharged, far-too-forceful international policy by Americans and the Bush Administration...which is having all kinds of consequences for Americans on the world stage...

Not the least of which is that the American dream and promise of democracy and freedom is parodied by an international policy that seems to respect neither, much of the time, except on terms that a overzealous Administration believes that it can leverage to its advantage...
It's not the ideas that matter, so the thinking goes...it's the power...

And that really is the problem...

Last day of school...for me...

I've still got tons to do today to get cleaned up and checked out...I still have to enroll for classes this summer and some other important deadlines in my life, right now...

But I did want to post something until I get a moment to reflect on my first year of teaching...

So I'm offering out my end of the year Scavenger Hunt which I gave to the kids for the summer that reinforces all kinds of great school stuff while offering the kids some fun for the summer, as well...

It's kind of geeky, I warn you:):)...but if you have kids or know people who might be interested in doing some fun/educational activities this summer, this is an opportunity:):)...

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

Love,
Ben

Scavenger Hunt

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to complete all 3 parts of this very exciting and dangerous hunt.

First, is to find as many of the materials listed below from various institutions in your community that have something to teach either about valuing education or about having fun over the summer.

Second, is to read one great book. And watch a great movie of that book, as well, if you’d like. At least one. Librarians, teachers, and other such adults are usually really good about helping you find the really good ones. Sponge Bob is a fun time. But I also want you to find one great book that has something important to teach about the world. Attached is a list of such great books.

Third, to complete the interview with the adult in your life that you respect the most about what it means to achieve excellence in life and in school. If you completed it before the end of the school year, spend some time with that person getting to know them and how they do those things that they do so well and what kind of person they are, as a consequence. And if you haven’t completed the interview, complete it. And spend time with that person getting know what is it that makes them great and what qualities you may want to emulate.

Scavenger Hunt
Find 10 of the 20 items below. And spend some time in the places where you find them either for purposes of fun or to learn something about the opportunities they offer for our learning and for our futures. All students who collect and present 10 items for inspection will receive a candy bar of their choice.

A library card from the Kansas City, Kansas Public Library, any of its branches, the UMKC university library, or any local or out-of-town public, university, or other lending library.

A brochure from Science City.

A ticket stub from the Kansas City Zoo.

A bookmark, book, or receipt from a local or national chain book store.

A ticket stub or brochure from the Negro League Baseball Museum or the Jazz Museum.

A ticket stub or souvenir from the Natural History Museum or the Spencer Art Museum at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.

A ticket stub or souvenir from the Kansas History Museum in Topeka, Kansas.

A signature from a professor after visiting a class (with your parents, of course) at University of Missouri, Kansas City, Rockhurst University, or any of the universities in the Kansas City metro area; the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas; Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas; Baker University in Baldwin, Kansas; Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas; Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas; Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas; University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri or any of the University of Missouri schools; University of Missouri, St. Louis, St. Louis University, Washington University, Webster University, or any of the area universities in St. Louis; Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas; Bethel University in Newton, Kansas; Pittsburgh State University in Pittsburgh, Kansas; Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas; Kansas City Community College in Kansas City, Kansas, or any of the various community colleges in Kansas, Missouri, or wherever you happen to be this summer.

A brochure from the Harry Truman museum in Independence, Missouri; Abilene, Kansas’ Eisenhower Museum; Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill gave his famous Iron Curtain speech; or any other such Presidential or head-of-state museums, landmarks, or places of significance.

Some evidence of having visited your parents’ place of work and what you learned there.

Any evidence of attendance at any museum, library, school, university, science center, or other exciting learning adventure that you may take this summer.

…and for fun…

An in tact set of swimming rules from a local or not-so-local swimming pool.

A receipt or report on a movie rented from a local video store.

A signature from a local recreation center.

An game or advertisement from a local video games or other games store.

A CD, tape, album, receipt, or free literature from a local music store.

A code of honor or behavior from a martial arts school.

A brochure or other evidence of visiting a local motorcycle or car shop.

A hair styling picture, comb, or other evidence of visiting a local hair salon or barber shop.

A receipt or advertisement from a local pizza shop.
Great Books (and Movies) List

The Great Gilly Hopkins

To Kill A Mockingbird

Charlotte’s Web

Lord of the Rings

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (the Chronicles of Narnia)

James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
The BFG, or anything by Roald Dahl

The Best Christmas Pagent Ever

Mary Poppins

The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

The Little Prince

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Dear Mr. Henshaw or any book by Beverly Cleary

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Matilda

Black Stallion

Where the Red Fern Grows

Fudge-a-Mania, Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, or anything
by Judy Blume

The Indian in the Cupboard

The Mouse in the Motorcycle

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

Stuart Little

The Best School Year Ever

Brother Eagle, Sister Sky, a Message from Chief Seattle

Encyclopedia Brown

How to Eat Fried Worms

Go Free or Die, a Story about Harriet Tubman

Ramona Quimby, Age 8

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Amelia Bedelia

The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, or anything by Shel Silverstein

Anything in the Juny B. Jones series

Anything from the Winnie the Pooh series or by A.A. Milne

Anything from the William Allen White lists from any year

…or visit: http://www.educationworld.com/summer_reading...

…or various summer reading lists that you can find at your local library or on the internet…


Interview

This interview is for you. So ask the questions you want you know. Interview the person you respect most in your life and find out something about them.

What are the people who you respect the most in life excellent at?
How did they get excellent?
What values or habits or thinking or practice was/is involved with being excellent?
Who were their heroes or mentors or teachers or models? Why is excellence, doing your best, being the best possible at your work important?
What qualities are most important to excellence? Leadership? Loyalty? Passion? Determination? Education? Commitment? Courage? Responsibility? All of the qualities from our survey (the kids and I gave out a social science survey to teachers and adults in their lives to rank the most important qualities of excellence in school and in life).
Who are good examples of excellence in life?How does school fit into excellence in life?
What qualities are important for excellence in education?
Why is excellence in education important?

Munich...

Melissa and I rented Munich tonight...

It's a remarkable movie...for anyone wanting to understand terrorism and counterterrorism efforts, our efforts and their consequences...this is an excellent tutorial...

You also might check out one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, One Day in September, which documents the same events with real life commentators and more historical analysis than dramatic representation as with Munich...

But Munich is remarkable, in its attention to historical detail, it's terribly powerful script and performances, choices around softer characterizations and soft lighting and modest costuming that I think, like Capote, very much focus audience members on a very powerful story of Israeli assassination policy after the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics...

I must say that before this film, I felt much more agnostic about the Israeli policy of assassination largely because of the complications of bringing people to justice in a militaristic environment with those responsible for terrorism being protected, often, in lands and by people sympathetic to terrorism...

This movie made me very much rethink that agnositicism...

Spielberg's goal is to promote discussion and he introduces the film on the DVD with an express purpose of wanting audience members to engage in dialogue about the Munich killings, the assassination of the terrorists, and Israeli, American, and other policies about counterterrorism, generally...

But the story is clearly one of not only assassinations where operatives are very unclear about the guilt or innocence of those they are assassinating...but where their efforts are clearly counterproductive by any fair observation of the responses and consequences of their assassinations...many more Israelis are killed in response to the assassinations than Palestinians assassinated by Israeli operatives...and the security situation is clearly made far less safe by the policy, in terms of civilians killed, in particular, than a reconsidered strategy...

A recommitment to the peace process is the only realistic way out of bloodshed in Israel and Palestine, today, even with a Hamas leadership that there is much reason to mistrust, including and especially their rationalizations of recent suicide bombings in Israel...unilateral withdrawal has clearly not achieved its objective...and military options have been terribly counterproductive up until this point...

Palestinians must hold their leadership accountable for its failed leadership, domestically -- as Palestine grapples with critical capital and resource shortages prompted by the failure of Hamas' leadership -- and for its failed leadership in promoting a violent and hostile relationship with Israel rather than the stumbling but real path to peace that Mahmoud Abbas continues to lead along with Israel, the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia and those committed to the road map for peace...

And Israelis must do the same, expecting a genuine commitment to a peace process from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or voting for a leadership that will bring to the peace table a genuine commitment to peace...

Revenge -- the title of George Jonas' historical novel about the assassinations of Palestinians following the Munich murders from which the screenplay of Munich is drawn -- sums up much of the problem with the assassination policy...the desire and rationalizations for revenge...and its all-too-tragic and counterproductive consequences...

Though work by people like Joe Nye around soft and hard power, Amartya Sen around universalizing democratic values, Benjamin Barber around decentralized participatory democratic engagement, and Francis Fukuyama around multi-multilateralism all have important roles to play in this on-going tragedy, Munich will play a unique role in providing a broad-based opportunity for dialogue, discussion, and reflection on terrorism, counterterrorism, and the pursuit of ideas and polices that will deal most effectively with each...

I do sincerely hope that my ideas around least possible necessary aggression will also contribute to those ends...or that if my ideas are wrong that my thoughts and ideas might help contribute to the all-too-important end of developing effective policies to end terrorism, bring terrorists to justice, when possible, and kill only in self-defense over the course of that effort, and any and all proactive peace efforts that might effectively end terrorist campaigns...

Peace is an option in Palestine as it was in Northern Ireland and other pockets of terrorism where self-determination and therefore sovereignty and democratic representation are at stake, I believe, but not possible with Al Queda where such issues are not at stake, though Al Queda members must be brought to justice, I believe, when possible, and killed only in self-defense in the course of that effort...

We need far better collaboration between military, intelligence, and law enforcement efforts to make that possible...we make moves in that direction, though the persistently failed effort to create stronger authority within and among those organizations rather than better collaboration and coordination between them along with flatter, less hierarchical organization -- very smart advice that policy researcher Paul Light has been offering for quite a while -- will need to be faced honestly if we are to make our efforts effective...

Each terrorist campaign must be addressed independently insofar as they act independently, I believe...maximum force against all terrorist activities is a good faith and still unrealistic, foolish, and failed effort that must be rethought for our efforts to be effective, I believe...

And Munich provides a look at why and how policies of blunt force without a commitment to peace, democratic justice, and thoughtful reflection on each are both rationalizations for revenge and why such rationalizations and policies based on revenge fail as a matter of realpolitik as much as a failure of our strongest values and thought...

Munich was the best picture of 2005 that I've seen, thusfar...Capote was my pick up until tonight...but Munich transcends the remarkable humanity, beautifully subtle acting and and equally subtle movie-making (with nods to lighting and costuming, in particular) in Capote to touch on an on-going and important issue of policy and the human heart with remarkable clarity and an invitation to open-ended discussion...

Crash was sensationalistic, sentimental, myopic, liberal propaganda around the issue of race that never should have been nominated for Best Picture nevertheless won, as far as I'm concerned...that fifth slot should have gone to Walk the Line, I think, though there are many other really terrific movies from 2005 that could have been nominated well before Crash, I'm sure...

But Munich offers us something that films would do us well to do more of...which is provide us with an opportunity to discuss and debate and reflect on important policies like counterterrorism and international policy, generally, with a realistic portrayal of the consequences of policies past...

I highly recommend Munich to anyone who cares about terrorism and its impact on humanity...our individual humanity as much as on the lives that it ravages and impacts...

And for those responsible for the development and carrying out of counterterrorism policy in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere...I highly recommend that we begin to take seriously the very thoughtful recommendations of the most esteemed international policy experts -- people like Joe Nye and Benjamin Barber and Francis Fukuyama and Amartya Sen -- and the rest of the most thoughtful among the scholarly and practicing international policy, practicing and retired military leadership and military historians, intelligence and law enforcement officials and scholars, and the general scholarly and practicing policy community...to take seriously the idea that careful thought is far more necessary to develop more effective counterterrorism policies than simply more force...

That thought matters...and that the deepest thought matters most...even when we might doubt that reality...out of hubris and unthinking...

I guess I better get to bed...I'd see the movie when you get a chance...to clarify the human issues involved with our responses to terrorism and difficult policy issues, most of all...

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

Love,
Ben

Jack Handy's Deep Thought for the Day...

Do you know why a realistic idealism is the only and best form of realism?

Because it's the only thing that lifts our sights to envision something better than the current situation...

And everything else is just one long cop-out for why we didn't take up that all-too-important responsibility...

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

Love,
Ben

A better day...

Today was a much more laid back day...

It's the end of the year and most teachers just want to make it through quietly and peacefully to the end...there's a quiet effort to get kids to take Monday -- the last day -- off so that the last day is as quiet as possible...

And I'm learning to make some peace with the fact that adults are just kind of foolish, much of the time, when it comes to kids...

Most adults, myself included, I'm learning, completely forget what it's like to be a kid...how complicated growing up can be...how different it is for each kid...and how much they are often very much like ourselves when we were their ages, if we would take the time to reflect and remember our own experiences at their ages...

Most adults want kids to grow up far too quickly, as many teachers and adults commented today to me...which is so, so, so true if you've ever worked in a school before...it's sad and crazy all at the same time...we often want kids to be things that they cannot be...at least as quickly as we want them to be it...

And we forget, often, what's it's like to be in their shoes...

I have a kid in 2 classes I work in who refuses to do work for me and for all kinds of teachers...often he will do far more work for me and when he competes with his peers than we will when teachers and adults want him to do independent work...

But today I think I may have just been pushing him a little too much...I was just honest with him...if he decided to fight me and his teachers and refuse to do work -- as he's been doing, of late -- then he would just take the grades he gets...

I would bet that he's scared that he can't do the work...and that he just gets discouraged easily, much of the time...and that he's being kind of snot, probably because of too much pushing of him at home and at school...and it's just his quiet, passive-aggressive protest against the far too aggressive adults in his life who push him to do work that he is not ready to do...

I've been modeling for the kids to just learn how to manuever around their teachers' shortcomings rather than always making it a fight...

But I have to admit that I get frustrated with their (teachers') shortcomings as much as the kids do...

And then I remember that though this kid definitely dragged his feet working with me, today, as well...he definitely works more for me than other teachers report...but I have my own shortcomings to overcome:):)...

One of my biggest shortcomings -- though it reflects a conflict of priorities, much of the time, that I think I have a better handle on -- is accepting teachers and students for all of their shortcomings, lack of serious thought about the biggest picture being the bigger one for many of my colleagues and for the kids...

But today was a good day for me to see that...because the teachers were not driving themselves or the kids as much, today...which was good...because they're much more decent people when they do that...even when it's not quite exactly up to my own standards (I want the kids to be working more seriously, right now, than many of the teachers are doing...but working seriously in my class involves a lot of games and fun, too, so it's a little different in other teachers' classrooms, I imagine)...

I'd much more appreciate if teachers would accept themselves and their own strengths and weaknesses a little more and not be so driven to try to make up for what they feel that they lack and so aggressively push themselves, me, and the other kids...

But teachers are constantly afraid that they're not smart enough or tough enough or so many things enough...and then they end up going so overboard (like so many people in politics and life) trying to prove themselves to be what they are afraid they are not:):)...

It's so funny...genuinely tough guys can sometimes be far too aggressive, I have to admit...but often guys who are more comfortable and confident about their tough side aren't nearly as aggressive because they don't have anything to prove...

I'm very much like that...I feel fear in the moment, like anyone else...but I face any challenge, physical or otherwise that comes my way...

I'm definitely one of the more ballsy teachers on staff here at Eisenhower...as one of my students says, "Mr. Sutherland doesn't punk out to anyone"...which is true...I don't scare easily...which was my ill-gotten reputation at my warehouse job at Amarr Garage Doors before I started teaching, since I backed down to no fight, no matter how much it might have looked like my little ass might have gotten beat...we were all dealing with far too much pressure on the warehouse floor there at Amarr...so our conflicts were totally in the context of friendship...every guy who I came head to head with at Amarr was a close friend and we were just proving our worth in a tough guy department...

But I don't go around looking for a fight...and I avoid petty and unnecessary conflicts as much as possible...and all conflict I engage in is as constructive and civil and decent as possible...I don't like losing my temper with people...but I'd rather lose my temper with them than keep it all bottled up inside or spend my life afraid of confrontations...I'm a lover more than a fighter...but I'm not a scared little bitch, either...

But so many teachers are so afraid that they're not tough enough...or we're not tough enough...or society isn't tough enough...very much like politicians and political commentators and news people and just everyday citizens...

We're all just a bunch of scared little bitches...wetting our pants and wanting the world to be perfect in a way that is not possible...not doing enough to proactively, constructively deal with problems in front of us...and counterproductively creating so many other problems in front of us...and crying all the fuckin' time about just how much more we need to get tough...it's pathetic, really:):):)...we really need to stop being such fuckin' babies is the truth:):):)...

And teachers are no different:):):)...in fact they're often worse than other folks...but school is a much more humane place, overall, than are most other places I've worked and spent my life...and they and the world should get more humane and decent and kind and more laid back and less stressed out...not more tough and stupid...

As I told Ms. King, our science teacher, today...I'll never forget my 9th grade teacher, Mr. Fluke, who was hard as nails and ignorant as the day is long...he knew then and probably knows today chemical bonding and valence theory better than I did and do...but he didn't know shit about people...and he was teaching people...he was only teaching about energy levels in molecules:):):)...

And today was a day when more teachers slacked up on the kids and themselves...and you can just feel how much easier it is to learn in that environment than in a tense, threatening one...we -- meaning adults -- are often just too afraid to create the kind of environment that will really make learning easier, funner, more effective, and more likely for kids to learn in...because we all get so wrapped up in our constant and perpetual fears that we're not tough enough...which we only believe because the truth is we're just not smart enough to let that fear go...

What we need in schools is many more days like today...

Days when we remember that it is kids and students and people that we teach...and only academics that we teach about...that the people...the kids...the students...come first...and that learning about them is as important if not more than learning our subjects...

And the people who don't believe that are people who just don't know enough about kids and people, frankly...and who need to get on the schtick and stop making excuses for their sorry asses:):):)...

So many of the world's problems -- now and since the dawn of humanity -- are caused by our stubborness and foolishness and stupidity and our lack of understanding of people...because of so many personal defenses and social barriers that we've often put up, ourselves, that undermine such an understanding...as well as just lack of motivation and ambition to get underneath what it is that makes each of us tick:):)...

It's time for us to move on from that too sad, too needlessly tragic, too stubborn legacy...and to affirm one another and what is fundamental to all of our natures...

Our freedom...

Including and especially our freedom to learn and discover about one another and about ourselves...

I've got IEP's to do:):):)...

I hope everyone has a great week and a great weekend:):):)...I have 2 more school days and a few more work days before I get to look forward to taking classes with the district and with the university to finish up my certification...I'm so looking forward to taking classes again I think I could wet myself:):):)...I'm thinking I might audit a poli sci or history class, in the meantime:):):)...I've got to take all education classes this summer, as far as I know:):):)...but I figure I can make some time for checking out a political science class, I'm sure:):):)...
The book has a third part, now, as well, by the way...

Section 1 is the namesake for the book, The Limits of Power...it's an empirical review of case studies in domestic and international policy where force and aggression are useful and where they are counterproductive and undermine our goals...

Section 2 will now be a work of political and moral philosophy, exploring the fundamental nature of humanity -- free will -- and the means and functions it serves for our lives, our survival, our growth, and our learning as human beings...

And Section 3 will be the theoretical exploration of the principles of Least Possible Necessary Aggression (I only capitalize the terms to make sure that people know which 4 are the most important...I promise not to do that throughout the book or this blog...I find it kind of pretensious, really...I just want people to be clear about which terms are the important ones and why I chose these 4 terms, in particular, to capture the essence of the idea:):)...

...the theory behind the principles and applications of them in practical contexts...and the legacy that they build on in such ideas as Joe Nye's Soft Power, Benjamin Barber's decentralized participatory democracy, Francis Fukuyama's multi-multilateralism, Amarta Sen's development as freedom, Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of values, Adam Smith, Alexis DeToqueville, Fredriech Hayek, E.O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, John Dewey, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jacques Rousseau, Alexis DeToqueville, Mary Wolstencraft, Paul Peterson, Terry Moe, John Chubb, Carolyn Minter-Hoxby, Bruce Biddle, David Berliner, and so, so many more...

And some references, I'm sure, to Ice Cube, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, Metallica, Dar Williams, U2, The Crash Test Dummies, Arrested Development, Dixie Chicks, Toby Keith, Indigo Girls, Tracy Chapman, Stephen Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Nora Ephron, indies of all kinds, maybe some political folks and some historical figures...

And much, much more:):):)...

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

Love,
Ben

A life non-political...

My principal just announced a new get-tough-on-drugs policy she's adopting...an issue on which I am completely, without a shadow-of-a-doubt clear getting tough is unequivocably counterproductive for all the things that people say that care about...

And I'm thinking about maybe choosing a non-political life, of some kind...

Teaching is definitely one of the more political careers I've been a part of...

And I'm thinking that maybe I should get into a scientific career of some kind...something meaningful but more low-key... I just get tired of the disappointment in watching us constantly taking backward steps on issues...without much thought about what takes us forward...

I have much to write on important policy issues...but I'm just not all that convinced that anyone agrees or is terribly interested...and there's just not much use in being an obscure academic if you're wrong...it only makes sense to do that kind of work if you're right...if you know what you're doing...I think I do...but if it's all just for naught because we stubbornly cling to policies no matter how counterproductive they might be or if somehow someone has some persuasive arguments for why they are productive that I've just not heard yet, then I begin to think that it might be better to just do something where I can be more productive...

I'm tired...it's been a long week...

And I'm tired of fighting battles where no meaningful discussion takes place...where the constant refrain is "Getting tough is good because it's not soft" or "not naive" or whatever stupid fuckin' new excuse people have for why it hasn't worked up till this point...

I'm tired of having a discussion where people can't be honest about the failures of their policies because the policy has become more of a sacred cow than the solution to the problems the policy was meant to create...

Maybe I can find something cerebral where I can stay away from people...who really kind of fuck up their own and each others' lives plenty enough to need my help, I think, most of the time...

I've got to get some sleep...

Have a good week, everyone...

Ben

Exhausted...

It's the last week of school...and maybe the most exhausting weeks in my entire life...the kids have been out of control (though they've been better today)...I'm tired and sore and out of patience, right now...

And I'm wondering why I do any of this work, today...

Why do I take a stand of conscience and out of just being more seriously thoughtful for the use of the least possible necessary force or least possible necessary aggression around a whole host of issues that is so unpopular in so many circles?...

Why do I work on behalf of kids and parents who are perpetually ungrateful and take the opportunity of education so for granted the way they do?...

Why do I set myself up to be thought of as "soft," which is code for "unmanly" or "not tough enough," neither of which is there any satisfaction for and neither of which are genuine concerns about anything except how people are perceived...

When I think about it, the biggest reason is because the idea that arguments would be won by intimidation and muscle rather than by a genuine concern for truth and better ideas is just repugnant to me...and should be to everyone...except many if not most people would rather get their way, often, than subject their opinions to a more genuinely open-ended discussion and debate about whether they are good or the best ideas or not...

And because that way of engaging arguments and ideas just seems cowardly to me...and I just can't stand for cowardice...no matter how tired and worn out I might be...

I can hardly believe, really, that such cowardice gets confused so readily with more genuine courage...

But then Melissa and I rented Lord of the Flies, last night...
And I was reminded of just how easily people are fooled into believing that tough equals good...

And I just look over the course of history...to see all the places...where force justified by the need to be tough rationalized all of the worst attrocities of the 20th century, alone, if not the history of humanity...

And I think...someone has got to have a conscience amidst that kind of rationalizing...

But right now I just want some sleep...and for this first year to be over with as soon as possible:):)...

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

Love,
Ben

My team comes through...

I've had a really shitty day...

The kids have just been outrageous today...disregarding teachers...disregarding school...just out of control in a major way...

And I am just so exhausted with everything, today...

And I'm wondering why I do this work...

And then I have this really great meeting with my team...

A really strong sense of belonging...for all of us...

After a really shitty day of nastiness and exhaustion for me...

I need some serious sleep tonight...

And just a couple hours away from spoiled, ungrateful bastards that are my students...

God bless 'em:):)...

Love,
Ben

The last days of school...

These are the days when you wonder why you took up the education profession...

It's the end of the school year and kids don't want to work at all...

We've got two sets of parents threatening legal or political action if we don't accomodate their really pretty whiny demands for their children...

And all the while all of us have been forgiving all sorts of disrespect and insults and all kinds of nasty behavior from the kids...

And it all does make you wonder why you do it...

I guess the only answer to that, for me, is that it's the only work I know where I feel like there's the strongest hope for resolving all kinds of issues that persist in our communities and societies...in a world where we constantly ignore efforts that fail or are counterproductive to our goals...education, generally -- meaning K-12 and university and post-high school education -- is the one place where there is such substantial hope that people can be better...

Because it's the one place where they do the thing that is most likely to make them better people...

Learning...serious learning...

I want so badly to get back into a college course...and just study, again...for its own sake...completely independent of work I may do in the world...

It's one of the most satisfying feelings in the world...
And I just feel so sad and angry and frustrated that so many kids and so many adults never have that feeling because they so persistently take for granted the institutions and opportunities that make that experience possible for them...

I've got a meeting I have to get to...

Have a good week, everyone...

Ben

Learning to love and be patient with folks not quite giving their all to life...

I had a great Mother's Day weekend...

My great aunt Katie, my grandmother's sister, had a major heart attack last week and I went down to Wichita to make sure she was ok...she seems to be doing better, which is good...and it's always nice to get down to see the girls...my grandma, my Aunt Kathleen, my Aunt Katie, Kathy (a family friend), and Kathy's mom, Ruby...they're a great bunch to hang out with and to get to know better:):)...

My grandma still frustrates me every time I go down...I love her to death, but she does seem to have a fetish, sometimes, for telling me what to do all the time and controlling my movements which was tedious when I was a kid, nevertheless as a 32-year-old...

But it was a great weekend to have a greater appreciation for the fact that though I get really frustrated with how foolishness dominates so much of mine and everyone's life...professional life...political life...personal lives...that I still love people despite the foolishness...and just wish they'd stop trying to control me all the time...and wish they'd take deeper thought more seriously...though I'm learning much more patience for the fact that they don't...
I so appreciated coming home at the end of the weekend...because Melissa, for all of her faults, has one really important thing going for her...she doesn't try to control me, as a general rule...and I very much appreciate that...

I vented for at least an hour about my frustration that institutions with such low standards for thought and reflection dominate so much of American and democratic life...mass-audience magazines like Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and lowest common denominator TV like Primetime Live and 20/20...as much I also find much in each of these news sources that I very much appreciate and learn from, as well...they're just not that terribly thoughtful or deep-thinking in their analysis...

And my perpetual frustration that smarter news and entertainment -- C-SPAN (though C-SPAN does have a really big and broad audience, thankfully), the Economist, the Washington Post (the best American daily, as far as I'm concerned), Foreign Affairs, etc. -- and other elements of the culture are not treated more seriously by more people...

And then I was ok...

I'm just making some peace, I think, with the fact that so many people neither take serious thought seriously nor aspire...and with the fact that such people have much to share that those of us who do can learn from...

But as my Chinese fortune cookie this weekend said:

Wise people learn much more from fools than fools learn from wise people...
That pretty much sums it up, I think...

And that's how most serious policy questions turn, I think...

My participatory dialogue work would seek to include many more people in a much higher level discussion, featuring people who are strongest at having those discussions and everyone else having a place in the dialogue, though with substantial respect for those who know best what they're doing and what they're talking about...scholars, people working in the field, citizens with relevant experiences or understandings in an open-ended, constructive, and as on-going as possible participatory discussion of major policy issues...with education for everyone being a central focus of all discussions...

The bottom-line is that all people need to get more involved...

But some people just know what they're doing better...and those discussions need to facilitate that highest level learning among those who know, best, what they're doing, as much as include and educate and give lay people an opportunity to voice they're own opinions, as well as teach a thing or two to their more expert colleagues...

And this weekend gave me much more patience for such endeavors...

I love my family...they frustrate me when they talk about any important policy matter because they have these terribly strong opinions about issues that they know so very little about:):):)...
But I'm learning more patience for their's and my learning as we engage one another about important matters of public policy and just every day life:):):)...

I'm learning that though I think I have a more mature and serious outlook on most policy and just life issues than many if not most of the people I work with and live my life with...
That we're all on this ride of life, together...so we might as well learn to live it and work at it the best we can with one another...and all get better at it, together...
I've got an IEP to work on:):):)...

But that was an important bit of work and reflection from the weekend:):):)...

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

Love,
Ben

Building a Better World

Yesterday was a terrible day...

And then I have a great day like today...when a colleague who's been simultaneously a stickler for rules and authority...and someone who frequently chaffes at authority...

Talked about the need to follow the spirit of the law...rather than the letter...

And colleagues I work with being much more humble, lately...
I have these really awful days...when kids...or colleagues...or the world at large...just seems to resist every value or idea that makes any sense to me, at all...

And then I have these really incredible days, like today...

When I really feel like I make a difference...

And every time I have a day like this...

I miss Brandi...

I guess it's because she was the last person who shared all these moments with me more fully...experiencing the lows along with the highs along with me...

Melissa listens...patiently...but she's not so terribly enthused about the work as Brandi was...part of the reason, I think, that Melissa and I are better as friends...because I have this passion for life and for purposeful work that she's still working on getting some fire from...

Maybe there just isn't anyone who would want to share all this passion with me...given all the lows that come with the highs...the moments of weakness that come with the strength and love...

But I gotta believe that that isn't true...

She's out there...

We just haven't made that connection, yet...

I would asked out my principal long ago, had she been single...

But, alas...she's married...

So it's me and When Harry Met Sally...until some greater love affair comes along...

All I know is that if I meet a woman with even half of the passion I have for being a great teacher for these kids...and working to strengthen communities and institutions and democracy and thought with better ideas and thinking and engagement as I am...

I'll fall madly in love, I'm sure...

And if it's half as magical as before...

I know I'll have found a soulmate, I hope...

Only this time, with lots of study and the school of hard knocks, I'm far better prepared to be a better man for her...
Now that I'm getting all indications from everyone that they'd like me to stay next year...

And I watch us change lives, one at a time...and a school at a time...

It'd be nice to live out this dream with someone who shares similar commitments...

And who can help develop more and better ideas for doing so for as long as I have during this too short life...

I have work to do:):)...

Hope everyone's having a great week:):)...

Love,
Ben

Remembering why I do this work...

Today was definitely one of the shittier days of my short career, thusfar...

And then, tonight...at about 2:30 in the morning...

I was reminded why I feel so strongly about this work...

It's because of 8 little kids at a school called BRIDGES -- a school for kids who are most at risk of serious behavior problems and some not so hot futures (some of them facing lives in and out of jail without some other intervention, likely) -- and how they changed my life and the way I look at it...

Most of my kids at BRIDGES lived in foster care agencies...many of them were hateful and nasty and very aggressive to teachers and with one another...

And many of them had no significant adults in their lives to look after their interests like most of us take for granted...they're parents were serious drug addicts...or not in the picture, at all...or just terribly harsh in their dealings with their children...

I tell most people who are enamoured with hurting children to change their behavior that they should definitely visit BRIDGES...you definitely won't find any children, there, from households that treated them too lightly...most of them had been hit quite enough, thank you very much...

But the saddest part for many of these kids...

Was how lonely it must have felt to go through life feeling like noone really cared about you as if you were their own child...

Most of their parents were too selfish or too out of it to, for all kinds of reasons, to take care of their children...

Teachers...social workers...

These were all adults who cared...

But it was only the rarest of teachers who cared about these kids as if they were their own...

And I just couldn't imagine how lonely a life that must have been...

How that would likely raise my defenses to what would seem like a too cold world for a 10 or 11 year old, if I were in that situation...

And yet so many teachers...just want to get those kinds of kids...or my own...out of their classrooms...out of their schools...out of their lives...

That's one of the more powerful reasons for why I believe in school choice...

Because such children...

All children...

Deserve adults around them...who want to be with them...

Who choose to be with them...and to serve them...

The truth is that my 8 kids at BRIDGES were a microcosm of what is wrong with the world, really...

None of us think that anyone really cares about us, for real...meaning we'll stick by each other no matter what...and we're all afraid of someone or many someones fucking us over and hurting us and working against our interests...

So we got these serious defenses up to a world that seems cold and ugly, much of the time...

And then we all go out and create that world...

That same world that we're so afraid of...

And the only way through it is to stop creating that world...

To create a different one...

And to be responsible for the one we've created...

To stop pretending that we haven't created it...that we aren't responsible for the one we're stuck with now until we get about the business of building a better one...

And when you spend a summer...with 8 kids that the great majority of adults in their world act as if they are doomed to go through life that lonely...that absent of the love and care and concern that you and I totally take for granted...and that angry and hateful against a world that seems to be constantly dropping them on their heads without comparably sticking by them -- for real, not just out of institutional obligation -- and seeing that they grow up to be better kids...

Or...as they get older...sticking by them...while you let them make not so hot choices...like leaving school and trying to raise themselves...

With an open door to having them rejoin school and polite society when they've had enough of the far less decent and caring world outside of school beating them over the head...
I don't know why more people -- and definitely more teachers -- don't take all kids' interests seriously, like that...

But we don't...

I don't even do it, some days...days like today...when I just wanted to be as far away some of the little shitheads I work with...as I possibly could...

But they need us to...

They need us to care about them like they were our own children...

And all children need us to care about them better than we have our own children...

Because we still have a long way to go...before we've everything we can to be the best parents...and teachers...and committed neighbors and citizens...that we can possibly be...

And I have to say...that the people in the system that I regularly encounter with the shittiest attitudes...

Are the ones who seem like they care, for real, the least...

And who are just doing this work, anymore...to make their way to retirement...

Because somewhere along the way...

They lost track of what it means to be a child...

And to need adults to care look after you...and to let you grow up...and to learn to be your own person...

Because they got so lost in covering their own ass...

At some level...we all make those decisions...

The ones that have consequence for a child or a family...that can either look after their interests, genuinely...or cover our own asses...

The latter kind of decision is a cynical one...that too many people in all kinds of fields and situations make...

And the world will only get better...for these kids...and for all of us...

The more we start making decisions that look out for others' interests, genuinely...rather than just covering our own asses...

And that is a dilemna that no government...no corporation...no God...no religion...noone can make fix for us...

It will only be changed...

By our choices...

And by us getting more responsible for these kids...and for the world around us...

I've got to try to get some sleep...

Have a great week, everyone...

Love,
Ben

That time of year...

Staff morale is at an all-time low since I've started at Eisenhower...lots of grumbling...lots of the time...with very little affirmation of positive attitudes going into our last couple of weeks, here, for the year...

The teachers are tired of nasty attitudes from kids...which are frequent...and on days like today seem more frequent than more decent attitudes from kids...this is why they say middle school is such a critical time for kids, I suppose...because this is a period that is more challenging, developmentally, for teachers to deal with -- kids transitioning from being responsible for very little on their own to greater independence and maturity...but being little shitheads along the way, frankly -- and it's just an overwhelming time...

I usually have one of the stronger attitudes...

But today and this last week I've been dealing with both poor student attitudes and poor teacher attitudes...and it's just been a little overwhelming, lately, frankly...

And until both students and teachers see it...I'm kind of stuck in between...I'm generally the go-between...but I've definitely been taken for granted lately...and the kids are catching the brunt of the consequence of my shittier attitude, today, from taking me for granted on that one...

One of the tough things about dealing with kids is that they are, generally, satisfied by nothing, expect the world, and often have the most galling sense of entitlement to not have to do anything while they demand everything...I imagine this is particularly true in an inner city school where so many families live with a greater sense of entitlement, generally...

But it's just really wearing on me, lately...

I'm definitely reconsidering my career, right now...

But it's not just the kids...it's the district...and other teachers...and the Feds...and everyone who has a demand on my time and energy...

I just don't understand why people would stay with this work with this attitude of entitlement and demanding without concern for real limits from everyone...

It's shitty like this for everyone, I'm sure...

I just don't understand why we have such a hard time understanding that this doesn't work as a way of dealing with one another...it makes more work for all of us...

And one thing I'm totally becoming clear about is that noone is ever satisfied with anything, when they operate like this...

Which makes it doubly overwhelming and discouraging...

It'd make a lot more sense to just chill out and not push each other so much...

But that would require thinking about someone else other than ourselves...

And that's the one we all struggle with so much...

Ben

The Notebook...

...James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Joan Allen...

I've never seen a movie capture unrequited love quite so well...

Definitely one of the most beautiful stories about true love that I've ever seen...

An unqualified affirmation that a life of love is a life of freedom...which is run by noone...but one's own heart...

It makes me regret what an ass I was when Brandi was faced with a similar choice...and how little I respected what she wanted/wants...

And it reaffirms my belief in true love...in a world that often acts like it doesn't exist or doesn't matter...

When really it matters most of all...

Love,
Ben

When hearts grow together and grow apart...

I'm working on grading...and I've got 5 IEP's I'm working on tonight in some capacity...

But I did want to take a break for a sec and reflect on some close relationships where distance has grown between us, especially between me and Brandi...

My last post on the topic expressed the very deep anger and hurt that I've felt about how Brandi has pulled away as a friend in a way that I am totally left in the dark about and have very little control over at all...

I've been having strange dreams, lately...

I had a dream last night about meeting Brandi in public, somewhere, randomly, and striking up a conversation...

Brandi had this thick, fake southern accent -- I'm sure because of my concerns that Brandi has kind of sold out a lot of larger concerns that we both used to share, largely because the most important among them was friendship and I've experienced not really much at all from her in quite a long time...even though she promised after we broke up that she wouldn't do what she has done, as of late...which is stop talking just because we were in other relationships...like a lot of Brandi's and my promises, this one isn't panning out...

She and I talked...though it was pretty superficial...and like the last few times I've talked with Brandi, I was just kind of disappointed in who'd she'd become...it's very possible that we just kind of grew apart in some very different ways...but I wasn't really impressed with Brandi as intelligent social-activist changing the world the last few times we talked...I do think that it's important to note that I was hurting pretty bad about our break-up, though...so everything I say has to be taken with a grain of salt, I think, given my being a jilted boyfriend...but that was just kind of how I was feeling at the time...but I don't even trust my own feelings on this because of how much other baggage I was carrying at the time and perhaps still am...

In the dream, her husband, Greg -- who've I've never met -- was being a real dick to me...I was being friendly...and he was acting like it was burden to deal with my friendliness...

Melissa traded on the internet for When Harry Met Sally for me, recently...

Which was really bittersweet to watch since so few people have that kind of relationship, I'm learning, and since Brandi and I had one pretty similar in a lot of important ways (the fact that we fought so much was the one most serious difference between Brandi's and my relationship and Harry and Sally's...but other than that it was definitely better than the movie in a lot of ways, especially in our mutual political idealism to match our falling in love...I don't know how much of this was shared or how much of it was me with rose-colored glasses, at this point in my life...but it was shared enough that I think it was a comparable if not closer romance...except no wedding at the end)...

I worked through those difficult feelings...and began to better enjoy the movie about half-way through...

I still wait for the day when I can sing Surry With a Fringe on Top to her...

But I'm actually wanting to just have some kind of mature closure on the whole deal...

I've been working through an awful lot of very bitter feelings toward Brandi in the last 6 months or so...how she's cut off communication...how senseless it's all seemed...how she's never even really communicated about why she's handled it like this...

She protests that Greg hasn't forced her hand, but something tells me that it didn't happen randomly and she insists she's not pissed off at me about anything, so then I'm left just feeling hurt and with no real decent explanation why I've had to go through all of this...
My dreams have reflected my more suspicious, hurt feelings, I think...

And I really don't want to think of Brandi in this light...

I just don't know what to think at each juncture when she's communicated less and less with me...

It's just kind of this dark hole in my life, right now, that is only balmed by good memories that I share with Melissa or on my blog or with whomever I'm talking with and they come to me, in the moment...

I had an inservice, today, and I ended up at 83rd and Metcalf, where Brandi and I used to live in Kansas City, looking for J.C. Harmon High School(which I'm still totally clueless about how to get to)...

It's so hard when you're as close to someone as Brandi and I were...and your most recent memories are all kind of darkened by fighting and jealousy and deep anger and disappointment...

But absent all of the good memories, that's all I'm left with...and they're just too painful to bear on their own without some good reason for all that pain...and the good memories are the good reason...

I honestly think that even if I fell in love, again, here sometime in the near future, I hope...that I'd still feel all this...just because it's a whole other relationship...one of my closest...and with no real resolution...

I have people in my life that I've been really close with with whom I don't have resolution with about bad situations between us...

But this one kind of sticks out in a major way, I'd say...

I don't talk to my mom, much, right now, just because I don't really identify with her, at all, anymore...I don't really understand her and I don't think she really understands me and I just don't trust her for advice about anything important at all, anymore...she wasn't there from about 12 years old on...and it took a while for me to forgive her for that...and more for her still insisting on so much of me with so little real involvement in my life...I understand better, now, that she's like so many adults who never really completely grow up...my mom's no wild child, in the least...but she's her own self-righteous, risk-aversive, less than grown-up version of a parent that you just don't feel like you can rely on very much...

My youngest brother and sister haven't talked much, lately...totally of their choosing, since I just haven't received communication back...though the two older sisters and I are on pretty good terms, lately...

I have some friends in Lawrence who handled a situation between us really badly, I think...and were so very terribly unsupportive for me during some really difficult points amidst one of the toughest periods in my life -- the time I spent working between grad school and this job -- that we haven't talked in quite a long time, as a consequence...

And I'm still going to make one more try to patch things up with my advisor and professors in grad school, here soon...

In all of these cases, I have either proactively worked to correct problems...asked explicitly about concerns that people might have had...or, generally, made far more proactive efforts to care for the relationship than have been reciprocated...or all of the above...

But the situation with Brandi stands out...because we were closer than any of the other relationships...including my relationship with my mom, by far...as much as I would wish for something better with my mom...

And because, as such, I trust Brandi more to offer me advice about life questions...
Perhaps that trust is misplaced, given that I haven't heard from her, on her own initiative, in several years...and hardly at all even as a response to some communication I've initiated...

But it was a trust I once placed in Brandi...and she's definitely one of the more quality people I've known in my lifetime...

And the dreams just remind me of what I am reminded of every day whether I care to be or not...

Which is that I miss her...and I hate this feeling of such total distance and unhappy mystery between us...

I just want the bad dreams to go away...

I have a kid in class who is having nightmares about really terrible abuse that he suffered under the care of his previous guardian...abuse that's been confirmed for me by other sources, so I'm more sure that he's not making it up...I've never really suffered that kind of abuse...but I can identify with the terrible feeling of wanting the bad dreams of some painful situation in your life to go away...to just leave you alone...or else resolve themselves...

Or give you some opportunity to resolve them on your own...

I just don't have that opportunity with Brandi or with far too many people, these days...
And I don't really know what to do about that, right now...I wish I did...

I'm going to be talking with some folks at KU about getting some resolution around bad feelings between us...I owe some apologies...and I'd at least like some mutual understanding, rather than the stand-off between Tom and I that we had the last time we talked...

But most of the situations I've mentioned either involved issues on the other end that I'm totally clueless about, despite making efforts to resolve (I'm thinking of my brother and sister, right now, which may be based on how young they are and where they're at in their young lives, right now)...

Or they involve hurt, on my part, that I haven't known quite how to get resolved with those people...and with very little effort on their part, at all, frankly...my mom stands out on this one since she's my mom, after all...though our last conversation, at Christmas, was nice enough to be fair to her...I just get frustrated that, like with my father and to a much lesser degree, my step-mother, there is this limit on mature conversation we can have where tough discussions can be had and we all come out together on the other side...

I don't know...I just wish all of these situations were resolved...and I wish I knew what I could do to resolve them...

Maybe I can brainstorm some ideas on how to get us closer to that point...

I've got to get back to work, here...

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

Love,
Ben

On bigness and pettiness...

Today is a great day, in the sense that...

On a day when one of my older colleagues basically tried to tell me that I didn't know what I was doing because I was too young and not because he was just kind of dumb...

I had several kids and parents and one meeting with a parent, in particular, that reminded what an outstanding teacher I am...no matter how jealous and petty my older colleagues can be...

I have this girl in my first and second hour class...who has just come out of her shell and really turned on her academic burners this semester in a way that she does, to some degree, in other classes, but doesn't always do in ways that even approach how much she has been excelling in my class...

This kid is really on fire in my class...but she lacks the confidence to act similarly in other situations where she is much more shy...

She is the one most serious prospect I have of a special education student with potential to compete in the big leagues of school with much higher achievers because she just takes class that seriously with me...

And noone else appears to get to experience this really marvelous thing happen in their class in the same way...
I have another parent, tonight, who said that she called because her daughter really looks up to me...and she wants me to both help her daughter and to look out for her in this conflict that she's having with another girl in school...

And this mother just thinks that I am the greatest thing since sliced bread...

And on a day when an older colleague of mine was just being kind of dumb, frankly...and arguing that I shouldn't help a kid who might get identified because we just might raise her achievement out of the roof (which would be a good thing, right, if that were possible?:):):)...but it's not because she really needs the help...this guy's just kind of a moron, really)...and unwilling to face just how much stupid limits his thinking about teaching and his own teaching ability, as a consequence (every time I have a conversation with a teacher where they imply that smart doesn't matter in teaching, I think, "You're in school, you moron...and you think smart doesn't matter?")...

After a day of utter and complete denial from one of my more foolish colleagues...

It was nice to remember how good I am at this business...and how it just must eat him the fuck alive that I would be this good in my first year of teaching, while he still struggles so much well into his career...

Too fuckin' bad, I think...take smart seriously...and stop trying to hold me back so you don't feel so bad...fuck you and your feeling bad about your teaching and reasoning...get on the schtick, follow my lead, and become a better teacher, you old geezer...

Or be left behind...

Far behind, at this point...

I've got some IEP's and some grading to do...

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

Love,
Ben

On being stupid...

I have decided after a discussion with some teachers, today...
That stupid is the most serious problem we face these days (and always, really)...

I don't mean slow...

I mean stubborn, recalcitrant, unaccountable, bullying stupidity...

If you're stupid...and stubborn about not taking smart seriously...

You're in the fuckin' way...and your making life difficult for people who know better what they're doing...

And I don't want to hear any more excuses about this one anymore...

Cause the excuses...just make people look dumber...

And dumb we have quite enough of in the world...

Love,
Ben

This is why you don't play games with absolute power...

This is why you don't assert your right to do whatever you want to achieve a goal...

Iran threatens Israel if U.S. attacks...

Military options should come off the table...The Economist editors made that case more than a year ago, now...they were right, then...the Administration was wrong, then...

And if the Administration can't take this option off the table...

They could likely escalate a situation that only escalated, remember, after the Administration made threats against Iran and North Korea...

Does anyone ever take responsibility for bad decisions in politics?...

Love,
Ben

Why I don't have time, right now, to write about immigration reform...

I want to write about why more secure borders against terrorism and violent crime are not mutually exclusive with amnesty for most decent illegal immigrants...

And why they actually reflect a very smart prioritization of limited border patrol resources...

Meaning why focussing limited INS resources on terrorism and violent crime rather on kicking out illegals who raise families and do valuable work in America is pretty smart way to patrol borders...and more realistic, by far...

But I've got an IEP to do:):):)... I'll try to remember to come back to it another time:):)...

Love,
Ben

Got to say it was a good day...

I have an IEP to work on...but I thought I'd share about a really great day in my little special education classroom and my little inner city public middle school here in Kansas City:):)...

We have a quiz that we're reviewing for, right now, in my 1st and 2nd hour math class...

I've told the kids that we'll review as long as they like, to reinforce a work ethic indendent of how well they do on the quiz...but also reinforcing that the more they work and practice, the better they do (many of my kids have really been resisting doing any work, up until this point...so this is a big deal that they are so willing and prepared to do work in class:):)...

We've been practicing with math relays where the kids choose teams and compete against each other using our warm-up problems to practice...

And the kids were just on fire today...it was amazing...
I have one girl...who was so shy when I first met her...and who is not only out of her shell...but she is my smartest, most active, most engaged, most confident student...even as she's gotten so much more confident socially, navigating between teacher expectations and peer expectations, which are often at odds...

And all of my kids...even my typically worst behaved kids...were engaged today and Friday...even students who teachers said they had very little hope for, academically...
I have one girl who every teacher I'd talked to sounded like they had given up on her...and she is doing something that she wasn't doing in any of her other classes...she's trying...she's working...and she's getting better, as a consequence:):)...

The big deal, though, is that all of my students are involved in our little math relays, right now...I've sent one student out of my class in two weeks...and even then, I skipped a procedure that I probably should have taken that would have kept him in my class for that day...just in a safe seat, which is a consequence that keeps him in the classroom...

Noone's getting sent out, as a rule...and the kids are doing the work...

And they're having fun:):):)...

They're enjoying it:):):)...

It's so exciting to see them get so excited about math:):):)...

And I'm just so goddamn proud of all of them:):):)...

Either tomorrow or the next day, likely, we will take this quiz...

They are steadily improving, generally, on their quizzes (I do have one student who went from an A last quarter, decided to blow off the class for awhile this quarter, and thus a D on her progress report, to a C or B with potential for an A on this next grade card...and even that was, generally, progress, since it involved her freely committing herself to the class and school and getting over the attitude that math and school didn't matter)...

And after this last week and today...I expect much better performance on this next quiz...

The biggest deal of all, though, is that many if not most of these kids are ones that everyone has told me that they couldn't do the work...because they had given up on them, not because the kids couldn't do it...

And I just wouldn't give up on these kids...

And they are responding to the expectation to achieve...

And I'm so goddamn proud of them...

For next year, I have so much planned (assuming my contract is renewed)...more formal math relays, where they would compete against other schools...a field trip to various workplaces where adults can talk with the kids about why education matters...looking into the Urban Debate League here in Kansas City to involve them early in debate competition and research...possibly taking on a newspaper extra duty to get my kids involved in academic extracurriculars (I've advised many of them to do debate, forensics, drama, etc. for similar reasons)...

But for now...I'm just really proud of my kids...

That they're taking school seriously...

Some of them for the first time in a long time...

It's very exciting...

And I'm really proud of them...

And I hope that after this quiz...

They'll have something to be proud of, themselves...
And really begin to understand why earning your way through life...is so much more satisfying than bullshitting your way through life...

The irony being that, at some level, bullshitting is what so many of the adults in their lives -- all of us -- do every day...

But good people want to earn it, I think, even if they are bullshitting...

And our little special education math class is raising the bar for all of us to earn it...for real...

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

Love,
Ben