The most important thing I learned from life in the real world...

We just had a team meeting, this last hour, to discuss kids in trouble...

And something I gathered from that meeting...despite all of my concerns with how often teachers repeatedly make mistakes in their tendency to want to be harsh when being honest would better do the trick...

Is that the one thing that I think I've learned most from my most fortunate period out of school and in the real world and on the job...

Is that I am much more committed to listening to people and their experiences, today, and taking them seriously than I was out of grad school...

I get frustrated with so many people because of their low tolerance for disagreement and honest discussion and argument...

But dealing with that frustration on the job has meant that I am learning, better, to just listen to people...to learn from them...and to let them make their own mistakes without always intervening...

I've been angry with my father and, by proxy, by step-mom, ever since Christmas, this year because of an argument that we had about a political issue that we were both pissed off about, them from experience and me from watching it unfold...from very different perspectives...

The issue was Hurricane Katrina...they had a hotel in Dallas that had absorbed many of those displaced by Hurricane Katrina and were very angry with FEMA and the Bush Administration (my parents are liberals, to be fair to the Bush Administration) for what they saw as a slow and incompetent response...

My father said amidst that conversation, "They didn't even have a plan," or something to that effect...

And as someone who was more frustrated with the reaction to FEMA's response and the way it undermined that response -- putting on pressure that was highly counterproductive leading to more death and hardship than was necessary -- I responded, "But they did have a plan"...

Which they did...I had read about the details of that plan amidst the crisis...and FEMA, under the Clinton Administration, had made promises to state and local emergency groups in Louisiana that it turned out couldn't be kept amidst a real crisis...

It wasn't bad faith that had led the Clinton Administration FEMA officials to make big promises...it was just human fallibility in a crisis situation (or any situation, really)...and the biggest problem amidst the Katrina crisis was our intolerance of that fallibility and the subsequent reactions to that fallibility which were at times constructive -- when we were communicating unmet needs -- but far too often unconstructive -- when we were pressuring, threatening, and otherwise undermining constructive efforts by putting on more pressure in already high-pressure situations that need a lower, more functional anxiety level to accomplish common goals...

And my parents were part of the problem, in this situation by adding to all of the unconstructive whining and bitching and moaning about the problem...

My stepmom was convinced in subsequent conversations that my dad's and her response were inconsequential in the big picture...

Which is definitely not true...it was the accumulative effect of many different responses just like my parents which helped to undermine so much good that was trying to be done with that response (while simultauneously developing better ideas for future responses, as Newt Gingrich and Fareed Zakaria both did on a This Week with George Stephanopoulos the week of the hurricane)...

I get frustrated with this lack of thoughtfulness...and with people acting like their lack of thoughtfulness doensn't matter...because they've not only failed to think thoroughly about the matter at hand...but about the consequence of their unthinking attitude...

But I'm also learning, better, to just let people think how they will...make their own mistakes...and learn from them...

I would definitely prefer a more rigorous situation...where people could learn how to have a vigorous discussion and not take it or the constructive criticism and suggestions out of it, personally...

But I walk lightly on that ice, these days, given how immature I've found most people to be around such matters...how foolish they often are, trying to avoid criticism or challenge or questions or suggestions or anything they may not like...

So I'm learning to just let the more fragile folks fail without the feedback...

And to be more open with stronger folks...who can have tougher discussions...

My parents and my colleagues are both among more fragile folks, much of the time...though I'll keep testing the waters and see just how strong they migth turn out to be...if they gave themselves a chance...

But I've learned my lesson from kids as much as anyone else...that everyone gets to choose just how much they will or will not be challenged...and, as a consequence...just how much they will or will not learn...

And I'm learning to listen to people, better...to trust them more, for what they have to offer...

And to let them fall on their asses all on their own without any input from me, if that is what they so desire:):):)LOL:):):)...

I'm also learning to appreciate just how much experience has to offer far beyond schooling, alone...how Ms. Simmons, my paraprofessional twice my age and with much wisdom about the world has made clear to me...that experience is its own education, quite apart from what schools might have to offer...

The problem, of course...the problem my stepmom and father are missing, right now...

Is that experience without adequate thought to integrate it into more meaningful understanding...can easily lead us astray...

As watching my older colleagues make the same mistakes over and over again reinforces for me every day...

And the beautiful thing about a strong education...an open, freer, more rigorous and responsible education...

Is that it teaches us how to integrate our experiences, better...to yield wisdom and understanding that helps us avoid those mistakes...and pass that wisdom down to future generations...

Why we would settle for less, I have no clue...

And yet, regularly, most people do...

I, for one, will not...and I would be completely psyched to meet far more people who will not, either...

And the more people who take that kind of commitment, seriously...

That kind of commitment has more power to make the world a far better place than probably any other commitment that any one person or 5 billion people might make...

I've got IEP's to write...my brakes are going out on me and I need new ones...so I have to ponder on the outrageous price I was quoted while I work on IEP's at my local Lawrence Public Library tonight (I had to get home to get the car to Meineke, and our computer is still on the fritz:):):)...

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

Love,
Ben