Getting inspired...

I've got paperwork I'm working on, right now...bureaucratic nonsense that inspires me not at all...

I'm pretty sure, now, that I couldn't live my life doing anything but something like teaching or writing something substantial or something that inspires me in some way...

Something I really care about...

Because I'm just so utterly bored and uninspired by anything of such little substance of the stuff I'm working on, right now...

It's so crazy...the stuff I'm doing I think actually serves a secondary but important purpose of ensuring financial underwriting for this job and the special education department in the District, generally...

But I've kind of figured that out more over time than I was really told up front...and I'm just not someone who is motivated by tangible rewards hardly at all, really...

I'm much more interested in a sense of purpose and in a life that moves me...and money is just so secondary among priorities that I might have that it just doesn't motivate me at all, really...

I don't know why I'm so much more internally motivated than most people...I suppose because I just know better...that nothing else will ever make me genuinely happy...other than a relationship with a woman who feels similarly...and having a family where I can hopefully inculcate similar values...

Also...I got spoiled...

I had a life of idealism and intense romance very early in life...right after college...that no reward would ever be able to match in a million years:):):)...

I'm being feeling kind of blah all weekend after I got back from the forensics tournament (which was a blast, by the way...totally reaffirmed for me why I loved competing for 7 years)...

And the reason is because I've got this certification issue hanging over my head...that I've been working on, steadily...

But, which, at some level...deep in my gut...just kind of flies in the face of so much of why I do the work I do...

I definitely am committed to this work in a way that is very rare, I think...I sincerely love/like these kids in a way that none of my colleagues do, I don't think...largely because the kids I work with are so damned hard to like and love, they're so damned obnoxious...

But I think about them like they were my own kids...and I love them despite their laziness and stupidity, much of the time:):)...

I suppose that should inspire me to work all the harder on this paperwork...and, at some level, it does...

It's just kind of frustrating to have this paperwork take up so much of my time...when it serves no substantive purpose for my job...and when it takes away time from doing the work I love to do...or even compelling me to take classes which I sincerely love to do for their own sake, completely independent of whether they are required or not...

And it just gives me an icky feeling I have to work through every time...of being compelled to do something that I value doing for its own sake, in the first place...

And the irony is that if it weren't for me loving this work and loving education and school, generally, independent of the requirements...

I wouldn't do it at all...

I'd go find something else that I could love like this...

The irony is that if my district level boss had said, "You know, Ben...we need you to take care of this certification issue because it guarantees funding for our program...and we need funding for our program to hire teachers and to buy all kinds of stuff that are useful for classrooms"...

I probably would have said, "Sure, no problem...that sounds like a great reason to get this stuff done...I'm right on it"...

But she didn't...and because I had to divine it from the endless emails I received on the matter...and because she just said, "Resolve the certification issues or lose your job"...

I went from angry and depressed...to not really giving much of a shit...

To finally putting together the pieces on this one so that I feel a stronger degree of responsibility on this one (though I've felt a strong degree of responsibility on it, the entire time...I've just felt an employee's sense of responsibility to his boss, rather than the responsibility of someone who has to accomplish something because others depend on him)...

I just realized that what makes me such an ideal match with a life of public service is that I'm completely uncorruptible...there's just no way that I could be bought off...because I just don't value money that way...I'm completely clear it doesn't buy you happiness...and I have two rich parents to confirm that as a matter of concrete reality as much as a matter of faith:):)...

And I'm just not motivated by the stuff, at all...in fact, I feel something of an aversion to it because I'm just not interested in having it compromise my integrity on anything I really do care about...

I'm sure I'll earn enough money in my life...

But a life centered around making money just seems like the most sad, bankrupt, dull existence to me that I couldn't imagine living that way:):)...

And I suppose that's why I see the world so differently that so many people...

Because I'm just not externally motivated...by money or by laws or by whatever...as so many people are...

I'm completely motivated by a love for my work and my life in way that very few are, I suppose...which does me a pretty lucky person, when I think about it:):)...

But which also makes me pretty uninspired by putting too much effort into anything that's centered around money...

But I suppose we all have to make money to pay our bills...and schools are no different:):):)...

I don't want to take that for granted...

That I have a life I love...and that I get to do something I love...and that paying the bills is just a part of that life:):):)...

Part of the reason I left grad school was because I was growing concerned that, in a very similar way, our program was just too centered around money...

But if someone would have explained it to me this way...I think I would have had a different reaction...and I might have stuck around longer...that and not having people press me all the time...which drives me crazy...since I am someone who is in such clear good faith around getting the job done if I understand it's purpose...which is clear to anyone who has bothered to find out or the get to know me, at all, I think...

Because I don't understand the purpose behind something...I'm so unmotivated by coercion that it just does so little good for the person trying to coerce me...I'm just not scared like most people are...

And I just have no interest in living my life like that...

I'll either live a life I love...

Or I'll spend my life looking for that life...

Either way...there's no way anyone could intimidate or force me to live my life by their terms...

Because I just won't...

I'd move on, first:):):)...

Which is what I've been contemplating all weekend...

But which won't be necessary, I hope...because I'm finally putting together why I have to do this bullshit, all the time:):):)...

Reason...purpose...understanding...

It's by far, without a doubt, and without any real competitor a better motivator than coercion...it's just that too many fools in the world can't get clear about that...and they deal with the consequences of that foolishness in the meantime:):):)...and will until they do get clear:):):)...

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

Love,
Ben

The fact that we're behind means that we have to work that much harder...

I had a great conversation with a dad, today...

This father has a daughter who is in my special education math class...

Who I think literally every teacher she has had that I had talked to had given up on her...

They were convinced that she was retarded...or just too stupid...or otherwise hopeless...

And this father was just greatful to talk to one teacher who hadn't given up...

And who had some expectations for his daughter...

And she was responding...

The reason for my call...was that this kid was beginning to do work that she, previously, would not do...she offered very little effort in class, at all...

And I made clear to her that if she didn't give me any effort...then she could take her F's and there wasn't a thing I was going to do for her...

But if she worked with me, then I would work with her...and she could learn a lot...

And as I told her father...maybe find herself in general education classes at some point in the future...

If she could get a fire underneath her...which she has gotten, in very small part...

But significant enough that I thought her father should know...

You know what pisses me off most about the world, right now...

How many people have given up on the most important priorities we have...like committing ourselves to every child's future...no matter what obstacles we face...

And then acting like somehow their giving up and cynicism should be treated equally or better than the kind of hope and clear commitment that someone like me brings...

It makes me kind of sick, really...

And message I have for every single person...who believes that their cynicism should be treated with the same kind of seriousness with my realistic and clear-headed idealism...

Is fuck you, you bullshitting mother-fucker...your cynicism is a dishonest attempt to get yourself off the hook for the most serious responsibilities...

And either get yourself back on the hook...and commit yourself to finding solutions rather than always rationalizing failure...

Or sit down, shut the fuck up, and get out of the way of committed people like me...

Because there is not one fuckin' whine or moan or complaint that I will listen to, anymore, on this, that doesn't have some constructive focus on changing or solving serious problems or improving serious priorities...

We are not cavemen...we cannot look at every problem and say, "Well how the fuck can I beat the shit out of this problem and make it go away?"...

We have to think our way through problems...include people in on decision-making...account for peoples' different ideas, persectives, disagreements, etc...expecting full and responsible participation...

And otherwise stop being such assholes trying to club our way through problems that need more thought...

We need more light and less heat to solve most problems, today...during a hopefully brief era when we have rationalized more heat than could possibly ever be useful for solving most problems...

But...like imperialism...or legally-sanctioned morality...or religious or racial bigotry...or sexism...or slavery...or autocracy...or a million other bad habits that humanity has gotten itself into...

This habit has been a hard one for us to break...

Largely because people with power very rarely like to either part with it very easily...or take responsibility for their failures, when they have it...

Largely because human beings, as a rule, rather than as an exception...can be such pricks...who just don't like to admit what pricks we can be...

How do we escape the cycle?...

We take responsibility...

And we live better lives...

It's painful...it's difficult...it's a far harder row to how than the one we follow now...

And it's the only way out...

And future generations will remember what fools and pricks we were...just as we do of past generations...

Until we get past it...

And begin to think a whole lot more...

And bully a whole lot less...

I've got some work to do...

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

Love,
Ben

Forgiving our collective foolishness...

I'm wiped out...

I have a national qualifying forensics tournament that I committed to judging this weekend...it will be a weekend of grading and IEP's and getting my brakes changed and finances and cleaning and other kinds of stuff after that (actually I have to get the brakes changed before I head down to Wichita)...

But...at some point...I also got a get a beer in there, somewhere:):)...

Because this week has been insane...

I don't just mean that it's been busy...but it's surely been that...

I mean insane...I mean people lost in stubborn irrationality about what they can get done by demanding, bullying, pressuring, and otherwise undermining their's and my ability to get the work done...

And I'm finding that the only way to tolerate this persistent stupidity...

Is to have that beer...and to just keep forgiving what stubborn dumbasses we are around this issue until we figure out what people are so resistant to admit on it...that they're wrong...that there really is a limit to what you can bully to get your way...so they have to learn how to choose battles better and differently...and if they're really thinking about it...to use the least possible necessary aggression...so that the pushing things too hard doesn't slow you down too much...which it does, as a rule (is there any other lesson to take from our dealings with Iran, right now?..."Hey Iran, stop developing nukes"..."Hey U.S., fuck off"..."Hey Iran, stop developing nukes or we'll really put the pressure on you"..."Hey U.S., watch us pursue nukes faster and more persistently in the face of your pressure, you morons"..."Hey Iran, now we're really going to put the pressure on"..."Hey U.S., now we're going to get far bolder in our open pursuit of a nuclear weapons programs and even declare ourselves a member of the nuclear club before we are")...

I mean how fuckin' obvious does it have to become?...are Americans going to pay $10/gallon a gas before they figure out what a fool-hardy path it is to bully our way through every issue?...

"We really could have gotten so much more done in North Korea if South Korea hadn't gotten in the way with all that diplomatic nonsense" dumbasses in the Administration who advocate this approach must be saying, these days...even as South Korean totally saves our ass on the nuclear issue, because we're just too stubborn to see our failure...

Bullying your way through an issue is something that must be done as little as possible...and even then, it only works temporarily...

And...eventually...your credibility is undermined...

You have to really live in a world of self-delusion, I think, to somehow think that I'm not a really pretty damn good teacher...

Or just really stubborn...

And the latter means that if the district were to let me go...then you just become one more footnote in my books and discussions of how irrational bureaucracy is in dealing with important decisions based on substance...rather than based on institutional inertia...

The latter suffocates itself, eventually, without fresh air from people like me...to help people see how they keep tripping over the same goddamn mistakes...

But...at some point...you got to finally see the mistake...you can't just keep fighting me, mindlessly, on it...

And not seeing a mistake doesn't mean that you're not making it...

It means that you'll keep making the same mistake...

And I'll be moseying my way along...waiting for you to finally catch up:):):)...

But probably helping someone else...on some other team...

I've got stuff to do before the end of the day:):):)...

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

Love,
Ben

Making peace with a world of irrational demands...

I've got a certification issue that I've been working on, today...I've done everything that I can do, today, to get it resolved...

It's been hanging over my head for awhile...I thought I was further along on certification issues when I left grad school than I was...and I've been taking care of them since I got the job...

You know what the craziest thing about these issues and most of the bureaucratic hassle that I've dealt with in the school system is?...

It has almost nothing at all to do with taking care of the concerns and problems in schools and among kids that we say we want taking care of...at best, it guarantees that people who get my job have an education background, which is a mixed bag, really...

And at worst...it becomes the pain in the ass that it's become for me...

And I can't think of a better case scenario than mine to demonstrate just how irrational the whole process is...just how foolish it is to get so wrapped up in regulations that often have little to do, substantively, to achieve the goals we say that we want -- namely, getting qualified teachers in classrooms...

And do very much to undermine those goals...

I've said that if I end up not being renewed next year, I may just quit teaching altogether...

Which would be the most clearly counterproductive result of the whole process...but I just figure that if district officials get to that point, they might as well rest with that issue on their consciences...which I doubt would let them rest well...there's very few criteria -- except for the need for more experience -- by which you could judge me a poor teacher, I don't think, objectively, intuitively, intellectually or otherwise...

You just have to be kind of stubborn fool, I think, to not recognize what a stupid, foolish decision that would be...and one that would so disillusion me, I don't think I would be interested in teaching for quite a while (I don't know if I'd ever go back) if it were to happen...

Sometimes I wonder if we just want important efforts to fail, we so often bullshit the consequences of foolish policies and decisions...

I actually think the matter will resolve itself fine...

In the meantime...I'm left wondering just how stubbornly wrong-headed we will be in our pursuit of a world where rules dictate to a reality that is perpetually on its own terms...

We have to stop this nonsense at some point...because we won't be able to function at all, otherwise...

But in the meantime...

We live in a world where everyone is perpetually just trying to get what they want...and the rules are perpetually a function of that...

Or more perversely...we keep maintaining a world where bureacracy obstructs our ability to achieve important goals...

And we all abdicate responsibility to abstract rules that serve no purpose...except to give us the clearly false sense of accomplishing something that it is not accomplishing...

We're just kind of a foolish lot, I think...people...

We just get committed to all kinds of positions...good and bad...and then staying stuck, no matter how foolish the consequences are...

The saving grace being that you can only be a moron for so long before people start to point it out...

And stupidity begins to give way to reason...

To do otherwise is to try to maintain an irrational worldview in the face of all kinds of evidence to the contrary...

Being wrong is the everyday term for that situation...but soon it becomes damned foolish...and clearly controlling...and at the far end of the spectrum it becomes psychotic and destructive...

Surely I can have more faith in people than that, don't you think?...

I hope so...because I have a feeling that you would have one pretty upset faculty and administration and staff, and perhaps some students, as well, here, if the case turns out to be otherwise...

I have stuff to get done, here...

Have a good week, everyone...

Love,
Ben

A heart to heart...

I had one of the most heart to heart conversations I've had with anyone in the building, today...about a kid...it was the strongest I've ever felt in making sure that a kid's interests were taken seriously amidst a serious situation...

The kid was being kicked out for the remainder of the school year...for distributing marijuana...which is a very serious thing for a student to do on a school campus...especially a middle school campus...

He's a good student...who I like a lot...and who made some very bad choices...

And he might not be back at school this year...

My heart went out to this kid, immediately...because he's such a good kid...who just made some bad choices...in a world that's a little crazy, right now, I think, around facing uncomfortable realities around drug use, abuse, and -- in this kids' situation -- distribution...

I had a heart to heart with the administrator involved around making sure that a conversation takes places that communicates effectively...and which the kid can believe, with good reason -- because it's true, I hope -- that the action taken is being done as much for him as for anyone else...because we're concerned about where this might lead, down the road...so he can take genuine responsibility for the situation...and we won't -- hopefully -- see a situation like this, again...

There's a whole lot around drugs that we, as a country, need to start accounting for much more honestly...that we don't do, right now...

I'm not a drug user...I've smoked marijuana in my lifetime...and I don't, today, more because it is unhealthy than because it is illegal (the prohibition of alcohol arguments related to drugs are pretty dead-on, as far as I'm concerned...and the end of prohibition of alcohol happened as much because people faced up to realities of the extent of how many people drank alcohol, in their own times, as much as because they realized what fuddy-duddies they were being around the whole issue...in fact, the former reason was the most serious reason to end prohibition, as is true of drug prohibition, today)...

My concerns are bigger than how this issue gets resolved, in the big picture, which I'm quite confident will end in the legalization of drugs, at some point in the future...when people start accounting for this more honestly and thoughtfully...

My concern, today...was with the welfare of a very young kid caught in the crosshairs of this reality and our debate about it and who made bad choices that he is responsible for...

Something clearly needs to happen to deal with this situation...distributing drugs on a school campus is a very serious matter...

But a relationship needs to be built with this kid, too, that makes clear how much we care about him...and how important it is for him to take responsibility for this situation, so that it does not escalate and this kid ends up getting into much more serious trouble down the line...and so, as much as possible, we don't have drugs circulating around our school...

My concern is that over the course of dealing with this situation...that we are committed to this kid, for the long haul...meaning we seek genuine responsibility -- not a bullshit, "I'm sorry"...and certainly not a bullshit, "We've punished him therefore our hands our clean" pseudo/fake resolution -- that doesn't resolve the underlying issues, here, for the long term...

I had a good friend in high school...a really smart guy...my best friend...who got lost in the drug culture from my sophomore year on...

He got caught for it, at one point, at least, that I know of...and I have no confidence whatsoever that his getting caught or others getting caught in any way is equivalent to taking responsibility...none...

And in the meantime...all of the issues that my best friend was facing that led him in this direction...went unresolved and undealt with...the entire time I knew him in high school...

The gap between adult responses to kids' problems...and the problems themselves...is so huge so much of the time...that we -- meaning adults -- almost begin to fool ourselves into thinking that we have solved problems...or dealt with them adequately...that we clearly have not...

Drugs is one of the most obvious failures by adults in their relationships with kids, if they would have the guts enough to face that honestly...

They generally don't...

And many young people...who have very little experience navigating that world where adults' accomplishments fall so dramatically far from their aspirations...and where adult behavior, as much as kid behavior, is responsible for so many issues...

Get caught in the middle of so much our bullshit about where we're doing well and where we're not...

This is an issue where our efforts have pretty dramatically failed, if we would face that honestly...

But we don't...

Because we don't have the courage to...

And young people live with our failures...as much as with our more noble aspirations...

This kid is responsible for his behavior...

And so are we...

And if we make decisions that lead this kid to take a bad turn...

We are responsible for that...

As much as him...

Whether we want to face that uncomfortable reality or not...

As much as anything...I am the kid who stayed out of trouble, for the most part, when I was in school...

Who feels a powerful sense of loyalty...to my friends who made worse choices, in this respect...

Because I genuinely cared about my friends...and about even the kids that very few people genuinely care about...

I've made bad choices in my life, too...and I am responsible for them...

And I know that threats of punishments had no effect on me, whatsoever, except when the threat of getting caught was immediate and eminent...and then, only short term...

Like it or not...we make choices in our lives...out of conscience...or not at all...

Because when we don't make them out of conscience...

They aren't our choices, at all...

And that is what leads to the sad, embittered nature of the lives of far too many adults...after they survive the slings and arrows of youth...

As much as anything...

Because of what open, unrepentant hypocrits and self-centered assholes we become covering our own asses...

We can choose to not be those things...

But we can't choose to be those things if we aren't more honest about our failures...

The drug war is one of the most powerful failures that adults need to account for more honestly when it comes to the welfare of children and adults who we care about...and whom, if we don't, we should...and certainly we can take no moral high ground, in the least, if we fail to care about the interests of everyone we deal with...there is no moral code I know of that makes qualifications on whom is regarded our love, concern, and respect...and any that do are long rationalizations for what assholes people choose to be in the face of higher moral callings...

I have no interest in rationalizing that kind of self-centeredness and failure of humanity...

And those that wish to will be remembered by future generations as they always are...

As the smaller-minded of their generations...resisting the efforts of bigger-minded people...to care for the interests of all people...not just the ones they decide to include for whatever random reasons...and exclude, for whatever unsavory reasons...

This kid is a pretty easy kid to advocate for...

Because he's such a great kid...smart...nice...likable...generous...decent...

...good kid...

Who made a choice that he did not understand the gravity of, I'm quite sure...

So many very smart...very good...very decent kids and people...

Give up...

On school...on their idealism...on the highest values in life...

Because they give into the cyncism...on this issue and a whole host of issues...

And I'm just not interested in seeing that happen with this kid...for anyone involved...him...or the adults who are making decisions on this one...and who will hopefully take responsibility for any and all consequences that follow...good and bad...

We owe our kids better than to cynically ignore our failures...around drugs...around education reforms...around the use of jails and prisons to solve many, many problems that would be better solved with stronger relationships and with more honesty...

And having the conversation I had, today, about this kid with this administrator...reminds me of why I do this work...despite all of the insanity...and the denial...and the lying...and the bullshit...

The people who have positions of responsibility who often don't take genuine responsibility...meaning that they face up to their failures...as much as they have their successes acknowledged..

The kids and the families with ultimate responsibility for their lives who fail to take genuine responsibility for their welfare...meaning that they face up to their failures...as much as they have their successes acknowledged...

And the people...which is most people...

Who fail to genuinely take responsibility for the world around them...meaning facing its and their failures...as much as having their successes acknowledged...

And who, most importantly, fail to face their own failures...their personal failures...their individual failings and shortcomings...

As much as having their successes and strengths and virtues acknowledged...

We deserve a world where people live like that...

We deserve lives where we live like that...

And more importantly...

If we fail to create a world like that...

It is our failure...and noone elses...

So if and to the extent the cynicism wins out...it our failing...our own personal cynicism...that makes that possible...

And we do not want to be remembered as people who maintained that cynical reality...

Then we must take responsibility for that failing...and for all our failings...

As much and far, far, far more...

Then we ask 11, 12, and 13-year-old kids to take responsibility for their own mistakes and failings...

To do otherwise...is so clearly morally wrong...that I can hardly believe that we could live with ourselves...to rationalize it otherwise...

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

Love,
Ben

The fire...

It's a Friday night...I just got done with an IEP...

And I've nothing better to do...than clean my office (which desperately needs it)...and blog...

I probably should just get my ass out of here...

It's funny...

Carson and I were just talking about not wanting to return to the grueling schedule of debate and forensics competition from our high school and college years...

But tonight, I'm really missing them...

I'm missing them because I miss the thrill of testing my wits with really smart folks...I miss the passion that people felt for excellence in something that really mattered (thinking and empathizing -- in the case of dramatic events -- that is)...

And I'm missing being with people who really took these things seriously...

I've been frustrated, lately, because I really love these kids...and what I do...and I love engaging people about how the world could be better, given our willingness to invest the time, energy, and thought into doing so...into letting go of stupid ways of thinking about the world...and working to develop better ways of thinking about all kinds of things...

But I miss working on these things with people who share my passion...

I have many colleagues who share some of that passion...and I love working with them, especially on those days when they're really feeling it...

But a lot of folks seem to settle in their expectations for kids...or expectations for their own lives...

That are far lower than what they actually have to offer...

And it just seems like such a sad choice to me...

I'm getting worried that I'll never meet a girl with that kind of passion, again, because only one has ever ran with me in that way...and I don't even get a hi from her, anymore...

I miss the challenge...I miss someone challenging me even if they think I'm too strong for them...I miss the give and take...and I miss almost as much the push and pull...I even miss the fighting in Brandi's and my relationship, just because at least it was something real between two people who felt something real about things that really mattered...our relationship in particular...at least I think Brandi cared about our relationship and/or our friendship...I can't tell anymore...the clear indication, at this point -- only obscured by the fact that she regularly visits the site -- is that she doesn't...

Adults become so incomparably boring, from a kids' perspective, I think, because they become such pussies...they get so afraid of being themselves with one another for fear of offending one another, all of the time...and so it's refreshing, even when I disagree with someone, when they feel free to be themselves...to say things that offend me...and to just speak up...

We obviously have to learn how to have strong opinions and reconcile that with a realistic means of engaging people to accomplish our common ends...

But goddamn if I don't want to have some tough conversations with people who don't get all squeamish about ideas or attitudes that they don't like...

I really enjoyed that in talking with Carson, the other night...because I can trust Carson on this one...that I can talk freely...and I like it best when he talks freely...and still have some level of expectation of open-mindedness and engagement and not just getting all hung up on self-righteous posturing...

Brandi was pretty amazing about this, too...she could get self-righteous, some, as could I...but she was fairly humble when she was challenged, too...and she always had something interesting and thoughtful to say...

Maybe it's that people get afraid of the passion...or that they get too self-satisfied...or that they just don't care...

I don't know...

I just know that I miss the fire amongst my friends when I competed in debate and forensics...and from discussions and just friendships in college...

I miss the passion of my relationship with Brandi...

So many older people seem to give that passion up...

And maybe what I've been seeing lately amongst teachers is them finding that fire again...whether I or anyone else agrees or not from where that fire springs:):):)...

I want that kind of fire in my life...and I want it more often...and, ideally...and as soon as possible...I want it in the form of a relationship with someone who knocks my socks off...and who reminds me of what mad, passionate love is like, again...

I want to be around people...and a soulmate, in particular...who make my blood boil for all of the right reasons:):):)...

The one great thing about porn, I suppose, is that at least people are feeling some real...even if it's not love...and even if often it's not so real:):):) (my only one real concern with porn is that I want my sexual partners to enjoy themselves and not have to do things that they don't want to for ulterior reasons other than enjoying the love/passion/fun/whatever of a sexual encounter)...

Yeah...I'm getting the fuck out of here...

But where I'm gonna find that kind of passion or fire or connection or whatever, I have no fuckin' clue...

I think I need to get laid (but something tells me that's not gonna do the trick...although it may not hurt to try:):):)...

But what I really want is to share some passionate discussion with someone who really gives a shit about the world:):):)...

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

Love,
Ben

Reap what we sow...

I have this colleague I work with...who is the strangest hypocrit I've ever met, among the teaching profession, at least...

He's a friend...so I say this as a friend who just doesn't have the freedom to have this conversation with him, personally, given the limitation of me wanting to not piss off this colleague and lose my job over something so stupid as why he has such bizarre attitudes towards sexuality:):):)...

He's someone that we're always running subtle interference for because he's always saying offensive sexual shit without really being very sensitive to the people around him or their reactions...

I love offensive shit, personally...generally when it is in jest...

But not only does this guy just not pay enough attention to whom he is offending...but the places where he does offend me, at least -- and I'm pretty hard to offend...though...I want people to feel free to speak freely around me, without regard to what I might get my panties in a twist in the moment about or not -- are generally out of moral self-righteousness that just doesn't square, at all, with his behavior otherwise...

He said, today, that part of the reason he quit the Orthodox seminary -- which is where he first studied -- was because he wasn't ready for ordination of women and homosexuals...

And this coming from a guy who makes sexual and often not very funny sexual humor all the time in a profession dominated by, luckily for him, some very easy-going women...

It's funny...because this guy is almost a case-study in sexual repression...

Meaning...that he often obsesses about sexuality in conversations where it doesn't seem like the most appropriate place or time to be having such lewd conversations...and then gets upset, simultaneously, about the very open sexual attitudes that allow someone like him to speak so freely about sex...

Strange, huh?...

I see this all the time...

People have strong sexual feelings and reactions to sexuality that they don't know what to do with...and that luckily they feel free, at least, to talk about them in a way that doesn't leave them and the guilt and shame they often feel about them all bottled up inside of them...

And they, simultaneously, fully embrace the very sexual mores that keep such obsessions, and the most unhealthy versions of them in the form of sex crimes and other sexual violence, in place...

Our freer and more open attitudes around sexuality are clearly more healthy than in periods of humanity when we've had less free and open attitudes...and less sexual repression, paradoxically, leads to healthier attitudes around sexuality...because their expression gives people better opportunities to make better choices around sexuality...

So why people with less healthy sexual attitudes would want to simultaneously impose their less healthy attitudes towards sex on everyone else AND take advantage of the freedom that, luckily for them and all of us, allow for healthier forms of sexual expressions and fewer forms of unhealthy, dangerous, and often violent forms of sexual expression, I will never know...

And it just reinforced for me...that when our mean, nasty, vindictive, repressive impulses reap what they sow...the meaner, nastier, more vindictive, and more repressive we are...the worse a world we create out of our ugliness...meaning more sexual violence and unhealthy sexual activity...

Individually...as much as for all of us...

And the more healthy and open our attitudes are...and more responsible freedom we exercise around sexuality and life, generally...

The better world we get...

The question, really, is which one of those impulses are we going to choose...

And in the meantime...

Why in the world does the larger world take more seriously the very kind of fucked up views of my colleague?...

And not take more seriously the more intelligent, decent, and healthy views of sexual therapists and other thinking people whose sexuality is not wrapped in the shame and guilt that is the legacy of our past failures to deal with sexuality more healthily and effectively?...

Because the truth is...that no matter how much people like my colleage might be defensive otherwise (and to his credit...he did say that he was not quite ready...not that he was staunchly opposed)...

The world has been a major fuckin' mess when it comes to sexuality for much of its history...and it's only been with the advent of modernity and more sexual freedom and openness that we've gotten healthier and more honest about the lies and terrible consequences of repression, generally, and more repressed sexual attitudes, specifically...

And make no mistake about it...men deciding if they are going to let women and homosexuals be ordained in the Church --has everything to do with sexuality...and its repression...and men who don't know how to handle all those bottled up sexual feelings they have...

It's a sad legacy, that's for sure...

But more sad is the shame and guilt and repression and denial and the unwillingness to face reality that both maintain it...and that is imposed on the rest of us, so the scared, small, and mean among us don't have to face the boogeymen in their closets, so to speak...

In the meantime...it makes me so sad to think about all the people who get hurt -- so many people -- and who live such unnecessarily unhappy and tragic lives...

All because we just can't see reality on this one, so lost are so many of us in our fears and cynicism about the very human nature that we're responsible for maintaining with that same cynicism and the repression that is the outgrowth of that cynicism...

The only way out is more freedom, more responsibility, more openness, more decency, more humanity, more compassion, and more forgiveness...

Which is the most serious and important way to mark humanity's progress and growth, anyway...

But the consequences of that kind of growth...would, above all, involve more people making better choices...fewer people hurt, around matters of sexuality and violence, more honesty and openness, less shame, and a more responsible and enjoyable sexuality for everyone...

I don't know...

It seems so strange and dysfunctional to me...that my colleague's attitudes are so prevalent...and that more healthy attitudes are treated as so alien by so many people in the world...

I don't know why we keep fucking this one, up...except that this kind of hypocrisy and repression and unhealthy thinking doesn't feel a responsibility to challenge itself until it is challenged...

And challenged it will be in a society that takes seriously the very kind of freedom and openness and decency that bring more light and less heat to such difficult issues...

Love,
Ben

Our insanity around children...

It's the end of the semester...and the insanity has set in, I think...

For the kids...and for the adults...

Here's how the insanity works...

Adults want the best for kids...they don't want them to make mistakes...and they don't want them to fail...

Both of which are necessary -- necessary...meaning not an option -- for learning...

Adults oscilate between two extremes, persistently...

On the one hand...holding them responsible for mistakes...and treating them -- and everyone, really -- harshly...

Which generally just gets peoples' hackles and defenses up and generally -- meaning as a rule rather than as an exception -- is counterproductive...

Or on the other hand...finding excuses for their behavior...to get them out of harsh consequences...

Rather than just letting kids deal with the natural consequences of their behavior...and treating them decently and real -- meaning, if you're angry, let them know that you're angry...and develop perspective about life and the things that make you and all of us angry, in the meantime -- and as kind as possible...

Adults constantly want to protect kids...and then to bring down the hammer harshly when they don't want to protect kids...

Rather than just chilling out, some...and learning to let kids deal with the natural consequences of their behavior -- like grades...as a reflection of what has been learned or not been learned -- rather than adult consequences, except to deal with immediate situations in a temporary way that can never replace the learning, no matter how much we might wish otherwise:):):)...

But instead...so many adults...teachers...parents...counselors...etc...

Want to protect children and young people from the natural consequences of behavior, on the one hand...

AND...want to impose unnecessarily harsh consequences, on the other hand, no matter how counterproductive they might be...

And I just feel constantly caught in between these various and often random and wildly oscilating moods of protecting kids and kicking the shit out of them...

And many times, I'm just like...

Can't we just think about this more...and develop better understandings of why we engage in this insanity...the range of our own moods...and just let kids deal with life and all of its more natural consequences without always trying to protect them or knock them down?...

Enabling isn't caused by being too nice...

Enabling caused by not deal constructively with problems...meaning not confronting problems in a way that will deal with them effectively...

And the most important problem that most adults who are responsible for young people need to have confronted is their tendency to try to control them and their choices, too much, in ways that just stunt their growth and maturity, rather than promoting it...

One of the best things my dad did for me as a kid was give me plenty of freedom...and to not always have my every move controlled by him...as a teenager I had far more freedom than most of my friends, largely because I had earned it, obviously...and many kids have not earned it...but we can presume trust until they violate it, and then give it back once it's been earned again...

But so much of the insanity of schools and child-rearing, generally, is both trusting kids, not at all...and then wanting them off the hook all the time because we didn't do the hard work...of teaching them...and modeling for them...how to be more trustworthy people...and how to deal with the natural consequences of being a less trustworthy person...

And much of this has to do with the fact that many people...and the people who demand the most, in particular...don't work nearly hard enough at being trustworthy models for our children, ourselves...and are not nearly trustworthy, ourselves, in our judgments about such matters...because the children who make the most excuses about their lives...generally come from families with adults who make the same excuses for themselves...

And in the big picture...

That means all of us...

Because we're all fucking it up...whether we want to face our failure around this one or not...

I had 2 spoiled brats, today, who goof off all the time when we work together...who do very little work, at all, on their own...and who are constantly complaining and demanding the energies of others...

Who really need to eat some low grades, right now, to get the message that they must earn their way through life...and that they can't and shouldn't be able to demand their way through a life that they work to little at earning their way through...

And who have parents...who simultaneously sit on top of their children, clearly counterproductively if you'd just look at the results of their efforts, in the maturity, or rather lack of it, in their children...

And..at the same time...demanding that teachers make all their failures as parents go away...

Without ever having to lift a finger...

To take responsibility...

For what shitty-ass parents they've been to their spoiled little brats...

I love these kids...I care about them...

And I care about them enough to be honest about what a total disservice this way of raising children is for them...what a disservice it is for the kids and their parents, much more than the teachers involved -- though we certainly have a powerful responsibility on our shoulders, as well -- not to have to face their failures...

Parents who kick the proverbial shit out of kids have consequences to face around that stupid, foolish way of raising children in the form of their kids' behavior, down the road...

And I have no interest in letting those kids' off the hook for their failure to take learning and earning their way through school and life seriously...

And I think perhaps the parents need a reality check, too, that fucking up with your kids for years and then expecting schools to make it all go away, overnight, is not only foolish and impossible...it's obnoxious...and it's that very attitude why those folks' children are such shitty students...and until that attitude is given up...they'll never succeed...no matter what we call the grade we give them...

I'm smarter and more responsible than most people my age or any age, really...because I had a dad who often succeeded despite himself, much of the time...to give me the freedom...to choose being smart and responsible...of my own accord...which is the only way that such qualities and any important qualities in life can be internalized for a lifetime...

Free will isn't just some luxury...or some fantastic notion...as a matter of practicality...it is the only way that people become better or worse kinds of people...

And if people think they can force kids to do what only free will and learning can do...

Then they will deal with the consequences of that foolish choice for as long as they maintain such foolishness:):):)...

I've got to get something to eat...I'm famished:):)...

Love,
Ben

The big picture...

Today I learned a lot about why so much of the world is in its sorry shape, in so many places...

Why so much greed...or laziness and momentary living...why so much fatalism...and why so many problems persist in places like public schools like the ones I've talked about...or private businesses, which get so many headlines...and noone really does anything about them...

The biggest reason...

Is that there are just not nearly enough people who take responsibility for the big problems...and prefer to keep their minds on the smaller problems, instead...to avoid the bigger problems as much as anything, I suspect...

Most problems are somebody else's responsibility as far as most people are concerned...or unsolvable...or doomed...or incapable of escaping the cynical cycles in which such problems persist...

And the reason for all of this...

Is because most people either never take on the challenges of life...

Or because they give up...

Luckily...there are many who don't...

As Margaret Mead said...it's a small group of people, compared to the overall population of the living...but luckily...once those few demonstrate that something can be done...most people follow, I think...eventually...

What most people called selling out...

Is really just people who give up...

It's kind of sad...a little lame...and foolish all around, since the problems people give up generally affect everyone, whether we give up on them or not...

Most problems require thought at a level that most people do not want to give to them...because they're so goddamn focussed on the little picture...that they just can't/won't get their heads wrapped around the big picture...

Today was not the first day that I heard a teacher describe some kids as "doomed"...but most people get lost in this kind of cynicism, I think...because it seems easier in the moment...than believing...that something not only can be done...that something must be done...or else problems persist...

I was telling Carson last Saturday...the reason why I take the most idealistic path...

Is because it's the only way out...

Because all of the other paths are futile...

And the reason is because cynical paths are not about solutions, at all...

They are about making excuses for not giving enough of a shit...or for giving up...

And I'm not interested in making excuses or supporting excuses for not giving a shit...or for giving up...

I'm interesting in getting problems solved...

Most people aren't interested, enough...because it means caring enough...and so many people are just afraid that if they really care...then they might get disappointed...

Which they might...

But...as I have written for my kids on my chalkboard...they is no paths to success...except ones paved with plenty of failure...

Not for people who are really interested in solving problems...and not just in moaning about them...

And as I look around my school...at teachers who take the biggest picture responsibility for kids...and those who are constantly laming out, languishing in the little picture...

I know that there is no way that I could wake up...and look at myself in the mirror, every morning...if I were one of those teachers always laming out of the big responsibilities...

Because in my heart...I would know that I really was just giving up...

Cynicism...which is so much of the bullshit that passes for political and otherwise wisdom in the world, now and since time eternal...

Is really just giving up...

It doesn't mean shit, really...

And I don't care where it comes from...

Left...right...politics...churches...schools...
businesses...the smaller-minded...or relatively bigger-minded folks...

Cynicism is just quitting...and it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously as anything else other than that...

Maybe that's what I've been going through, lately...this weekend, in particular...and the week before, as well...

I've been contemplating the logical conclusion to cynicism...which is quitting...

And I'm just not willing to do that...

Higher ground is found with higher ideals...and bigger ideas...

And that's the only place to go if you're clear...

That you're not quitting...and that you really give a shit, at all...

I'm clear...and I want others to get clearer, as well...

And I guess what gives me that clarity...

Is the freedom...to make whatever choice I want to make...without guilt...or any other sense of obligation, at all, really...

I have scholarships that obligate me to teach special education that I decided long ago I would walk away from and pay back once I found a more lucrative career if I was convinced that the cynicism would will out...

But it won't...

Because I have no plans on giving up...

And I'm learning that cynics generally follow bigger and better ideas...

Because bigger ideas and higher ideals are the only thing that can solve problems that others have given up on, in their cynicism...

Because cynicism offers no real solutions...

Just excuses for why it quits...

Cynicism or realism or whatever foolish name you want to give for giving up...is not strength...

It's quitting...

And quitters just pretend to have strength that they lack...

Because it's easier to doing the thinking...and the hard work...

To get stronger...and to tackle challenges that seem overwhelming...absent a stronger understanding of them...

And that's what I love about this work...

The opportunity to take on challenges...

That so many people have either given up on...or are on foolish paths to solve...because they just can't get their heads out of the small picture...and wrapped around the biggest picture...

It's the biggest problem in the world, today...

Too many people...with too small an outlook on the world...

And it is the biggest challenge of humanity...and education...right now, I think...

Getting more people focussed on the biggest picture...

And getting people with the smallest picture outlook focussed on a bigger picture than the one they carry around, right now, in the meantime...

Who would you rather be in 17th Century Europe?

A rich monarch...with plenty of money and power...but plenty of enemies, too...exploiting religious divisions for your own power base...and whom noone remembers...except to deride what you represented for your age...

Or Thomas Hobbes...imagining a world...where secular thought gave legitimacy to governance...rather than religious propaganda and civil war...

A rich plantation owner in 19th Century America?...or a rich industrialist in late 19th, early 20th century Great Britain?...

Or John Stuart Mill or Fredrick Douglas making the most persuasive cases for ending the ugly practice of slavery?...or John Dewey or Jane Addams constructively criticizing those arrangements and imagining better ones and working to support people to create better futures for one another, in the meantime?...

There's a reason why we remember people with the biggest picture outlooks...

Because everyone else is just too small-minded to give much attention, really, by the standards of their progeny...

The real question for people today is...

Would you rather work to impress your friends and family with your new purchases or power?...or your sure plans for retirement?...

Or would you rather impress your grandchildren...with your thought and courage...for the sake of future generations, as much as for your own?...

I'd rather work for my grandchildren...

But most of all...

I'd rather earn my own self-respect...

Doing the right thing...whether anyone else recognizes it or not...and learning from and teaching others along the way...

I've got some work to get done before tomorrow...

But I'm convinced, now, that there's no way that I can face any more tomorrows...

Without getting clear that I'm committed to making tomorrow a better day...meaning tomorrow morning...and the future, generally...

Because without that kind of clarity...

My life lacks the purpose...

That makes it so worthwhile...

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

Love,
Ben

Outlining the book...

Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying, this morning, has me thinking that I better get on this book while I'm still guaranteed life to do it...

And talking with Carson completely inspired me to get to work on it because Carson talks like how I like to talk...about everything...and with everything connected, at some level, with everything else...or at least with potential...I hate stuffy intellectual conversations where I've topics off-limits to discuss important and not-so-important stuff...and Carson's brain works the same way...but also in ways that help me see my blindspots, better...and which highlight differences that offer me strengths that he has to appreciate and emulate...

The book I'm writing is going to be in two parts, at this point...

The first part is the namesake for the book, The Limits of Power...it's an empirical collection of case studies to make arguments about the limits of power, both in particular cases and generally...when the use of force is effective...when it is ineffective...and, as often as not, when it has limited, immediate effectiveness and long-term counterproductivity...

That last point is probably the most important, because it is the place where people miss the problems with the use of force, the most...they calculate for the short term...and end up with unintended and counterproductive long term consequences that, of course, noone wants to take responsibility for...blowback -- the CIA term for such unintended political consequences -- is one example of this problem in international policy circles...

But the truth is that it happens everywhere...in domestic and international policy...as well as in organizations and interpersonal situations...its more common than not, really...and those with smaller worldviews do it more often than those without...because they just don't know what's good for them in the big picture, is the truth...and it is the failure to account for this problem by people far too enamoured with the use of force and far too little thoughtful about its use that gets everyone in trouble...and for which noone seems to want to take responsibility (though they are quick to take credit for any short term advantages it might yield)...

So the first part of the book is a empirical review of evidence from case studies...my point will not at all be to prove my case...I'm genuinely exploring case studies...and those that contradict me, I will cite and buttress contrary cases so I'm taking on the strongest counter-arguments, rather than strawmen...if I'm wrong, I want to know it...and I want to make whatever case seems strongest to me, no matter what...

It doesn't make any sense, really, to want to buttress your own case for anything without considering how and why you might be wrong...because if you're wrong, you're wrong...truth is just thinking about reality, which doesn't give a shit whether you don't understand it or not...it just is...and my job is to deduce it better, given what I know and what more I can learn over the course of this book...

Drug laws...gun laws...economic and environmental regulation...regulations on speech...death penalty...military force...diplomacy...education policy...criminal sentencing...violent crime...anything and everything that I have even the slightest -- and by the end of the book, the deepest -- understanding and familiarity with, I will tackle...I want my best cases and I want my hardest cases...I want those cases that pose the strongest counterarguments to my general theses, up to this point, and I want to make those arguments as powerful and credible as possible...

I don't give two shits about being right if I'm wrong...doing so makes no goddamn sense if you really care about getting to better answers rather than getting to answers to reinforce your own biases and assumptions...

And I will make arguments, of course, as I consider the evidence...I am very keen on a Gordon Woods' approach of just outlining the arguments as a narrative, up front, and then making the case...I also appreciate Joe Nye's and Amartya Sen's and Stephen Jay Gould's approach of organizing arguments by relevance to support an overall case (and Gould's penchant for teaching about logic as he takes you through his case)...and I love Abraham Maslow's style in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature of just doing what I've tried to do with this blog which is just write as stream-of-consciousness as possible and to show his human side, as much as his thinking...but I'm not sure, yet, what the best way to write this will be...so I'm thinking about it openendedly...but this blogging experience has convinced me that perhaps a more organized means of presenting ideas would be more helpful for people in understanding them, better, than just this sometime stream-of-consciousness style on this blog...

The second part of the book will be a theoretical discussion of least possible necessary aggression as an alternative to our far too simplistic discussions about force and the use of power, thusfar...permutations...cases and examples...alternative scenarios...implications for all kinds of fields...

I have several books in me, really...I have at least one book on education and its role in cultural develoment, alone...I have a book on truth and reconciliation as a part and, at times, as a substitute for criminal procedure...the empirical record of its success and failings...and a discussion of how criminal, civil and other sanctions undermine more genuine healing for people involved...I have several books on international policy and understanding psychological variables that undergird attitudes in various international arenas which are the basis for international politics...

But the book on the limits to power and the reason why a more constructive and limited mindset about the use of power would accomplish many, many more of our international and domestic policy aims is the big one, right now...and the place where I want to spend my time, right now...

I need more people I can have these conversations with...we all do, is the truth...because many of the places where things are fucked up is where people don't have enough appreciation for the limits of capacity and how to generate important results rather than just demanding them or wishing for them without knowing what goes into creating them...

I have to say that no matter how much I'm doing in my career, though...as a teacher...as a writer...as a professor...as whatever...

I will always feel an emptiness as long as I don't have a family to share it with...

For some crazy reason, all of the insanity of this job makes me want to be a father all the more...finding the right woman to share that with is the trick, right now...someone who can challenge me, would be nice...and someone who cares about others comparable to me...I've not met that woman, I don't think...and certainly not a single one...

It's been a long time since I've had sex...and a lot longer since I've made love...

I watch lovemaking in movies, now, with the same longing as I used to watch porn with (OK...I guess they aren't really the same thing, actually...but you see where I'm going with this)...I miss sharing passion with someone...I miss loving someone that fully and longing for them that desperately...I've only really had it two times in my life...and even then, only really one time in my life where it was more like mature love...

And I have no plans on taking it for granted, this time, in the least...

I do need to find a woman who doesn't want to live her life scared...or with her life centered around money...I'm sure I'll plenty plenty of money in my lifetime...but I have no interest in having a relationship with someone who confuses this priority with the much more important priority of love totally for its own sake and totally independent of anything more base...

I want to make love with someone who I know loves me because...not because of money or prestige or anything else...just for love's sake...

I'm sure there's a woman out there like that, somewhere...

And the truth is that there is no book or research or class or any other work that ever could replace that in a person's life, sadly...if I outlive my spouse, that is a heartbreak I will have to live with until I meet someone new...if I meet someone new...maybe its not such a bad thing to belong to the gender that, on average, poops out, first...though I'd still rather live single than be dead alone...

I better get home before I fall asleep here in front of my computer...I was up late grading and buying fruit for my lesson on least common denominator, last night...

Have a great week, everyone...

Love,
Ben

Old friends...

I got a chance to catch up with an old friend from college this weekend:)...

He was my old roommate and debate coach...we had a falling out in college that was just kind of foolish, really...and it was really good catching up...

He has a daughter now...and a wife...and it was really great seeing him all grown up...

And talking about everything under the sun...including if he might be willing to help me with finally getting my first book/articles written...

I've tentatively decided on a title...The Limits of Power...with an empirical discussion, up front, about the use of power...and a theoretical discussion in the second part about the use of the least possible necessary aggression...

Talking with Carson finally presented the opportunity to have someone I trust -- because he's just so goddamned smart -- critique the ideas...

Seeing Carson's pictures of his little girl -- who he is clearly proud as punch of -- gave me food for thought that really matured me quite a bit yesterday and this morning...

I started thinking about meeting Brandi with her children...it's pretty humbling...that thought...I think...

Makes you wish there were so many things in your life that you could go back and change...even though you know you can't...

We all take each other for granted, so much, when we have each other in our presence...too often not realizing that the relationships we have now may not be relationships that are easily or as a practical matter so available in the future...

I'm hoping to spend more time with Carson...to keep fetting ideas...and just to catch up and meet his family...

Makes you really appreciate the moments you have...an experience like that...when you think about all the moments that are behind you...especially the moments you loved...

I've got to teach here in a moment...

Hope everyone has a great week:):)...

Love,
Ben

Why we should handle kids, and people, above all, with much love...

A girl, today, got suspended for suspicion of something serious...but which her main teacher and I believe, given her reaction, she likely did not do...

This is a girl that has been in a lot of trouble, in the past...and has earned some mistrust...

But her reaction reminded me why, as much as possible, I try to err on the side of trusting kids' word, even if I get burned, sometimes...

I had a boy, this morning, whom I followed to class after I watched him twirling around in the hallway, knowing that I was watching...he ducked away, in the process, and I wasn't able to find him...

And all of this takes me back to a time in my school career...

When I had done something wrong...

And when people had thought much worse of me than was the case...in ways I never would have imagined...

And how bad I felt at the time and later felt for what I'd done...how betrayed I felt that they would hold such grudges...over something I never thought would provoke the reaction that it did...

How much it left me feeling betrayed by people and an institution that I trusted, most...

And what a terrible and difficult lesson it was to learn about a world far too full of suspicion and fear and pain and hardship...

I hadn't realized just how unresolved a lot of that pain was for me until I heard that girl react to her suspension...just how much mistrust in school...and in the world...that one bad decision by teachers had engendered in me...

That reality...far more than poverty...weighs on my conscience when I work with the kids I see everyday...

A world far too harsh and punitive...for far too little real purpose...and definitely with far too little positive results to show for it...

And watching that kid...it reminded me just how important this trust is...teaching...

And just how clumsily we all play with that trust...

And how we are all worthy of forgiveness for that clumsiness...

Not only because there is really nothing else that will get us all through it...

But because we will all need forgiveness...by future generations...who look back with grave disappointment...as they always do...at how awful we treated one another...

Let's hope this student's story does not end up being one of those stories...

Most people grow weary and cynical and jaded about the world...because at one point in their lives...or maybe many points...their generosity was taken advantage of...

And while being taken advantage of certainly can be heartbreaking...especially when our hearts are open at just the time when someone abuses that openheartedness and our trust...

I would in a million years rather have my kids abuse my trust...take advantage of my generosity...and leave me feeling disappointed, while they learn about that trust...and how it works...than I would have them fearful of losing my love and trust and generosity and grace and forgiveness forever were I not to show it to them at all...or hold back...for fear that my love and compassion and forgiveness and openheartedness...

...are weakness...

Rather than the strength that they clearly are...

Have a great weekend, everyone...

Love,
Ben

When to take kids' bellyaching seriously...and when to ignore it...

It's probably the hardest part about teaching and being a parent...

When do you take their frustrations seriously?...meaning when and how do you best appreciate how differently they see the world without the benefit of maturity?...

And when do you ignore the bellyaching of kids who have never been seriously responsible for themselves or anything in their lives, up to this point?

It's been a good week, this week...but a tough week...

Two of my more academically ambitious students...have been behaving poorly all week...

And I finally put both of them in safe seats today (our middle school equivalent of a "time out")...and one of them in recovery (a separate classroom for a more extensive time out)...

Many of the kids clearly hate me, right now...and it's hard to tell with kids at this age whether you've earned it...or whether it's just bellyaching...

Because if you haven't earned it...it can be a pretty ingenious method of manipulation, I'm quite aware...

But if you have...it's just going to get worse until you see your mistake...

And I just don't see it, at this point...

I've been manipulated enough in my life from some pretty ingenious manipulators...more adults than kids, really...and I've manipulated enough in my life...both as an adult and as a kid...to know to not go down this path easily, anymore...

And there's a lot of stress at this time of the year...for everyone...teachers...and kids...that just sort of boils over on itself, too much of the time...

That it's something to think about over the weekend...

In any case...I'm definitely doing my best...and I think...I hope...that I'm doing a pretty good job...

And now I definitely see why many adults fall back on the awareness that their parents were imperfect, too...and they still turned out fine enough...

I wish my parents and teachers had done all sorts of things, better...

But they did the best they could...

And that's all any of us can do...

There are a million things...that adults could do for one another...that would make it easier to raise responsible children...if we'd be willing to be more supportive of our needs as people and as people responsible for children...rather than lost and ungrounded in a million responsibilities distant from the needs of our children and our families...and ourselves...

I've got some kids to inspire this afternoon...we've been reading and talking about Bill Bradley's Values of the Game, together...a really great book for inspiring all kinds of kids to live with more maturity and gravity and appreciation for what really counts in life...

Have a great weekend, everyone...

Love,
Ben

Freedom and learning...

There's a lot of important consequential reasons to prefer freedom and free societies and freer arrangements between people to more closed, repressive, controlling relationships between people...

But the most important one, I'm convinced...

Is the learning...

Whether we like to admit it or not...and we don't...so that's the reason why we need reminding:):):)...

We tend to learn best under freer conditions...

That doesn't mean anything goes...

It just means that freedom offers us the best conditions to explore and learn and transcend our limitations...and to learn which limitations to internalize...rather than living subservient to external controls from others...

Freedom is the only route to self-discipline...rather than repression...

And this week I've been learning why...

Special education is a lot like...the problems in Palestine...

Repressive means of dealing with some pretty hard cases combined with a lot of pity and self-pity for people involved when our efforts to create greater security fail, and noone wants to take responsibility...

Special education has two major categories...

People with clear and significant disabilities that limit their functioning...that can either be corrected (like with hearing aids)...or improving marginally with less expectation of normal functioning (as with many students with severe multiple disabilities, including clear cognitive disabilities like Downs' Syndrome)...

The second category is a lot of kids who could do all kinds of things...who have no real limitations present...often a lot of behavior problems and bad attitudes...and all kinds of excuses...from themselves...from family...from teachers...for why they aren't succeeding in school like their peers...

My strategy...that has been more successful, thusfar, and that I have much confidence will yield exponentially more successful results, in the long run, is to put success or failure squarely in the laps of students...no matter how far behind they are...while remediating and giving extra support on all kinds of skills...

Right now...two of my classes are doing a social scientific study into excellence...

We developed a list of excellent qualities, people, activities where excellence can be demonstrated, etc., that I will type up into a list that they will take to 3 teachers and 3 other adults in their lives to rank what qualities they think are most important to achieve excellence...in school...and in life...

The data we collect, we will examine with our newly acquired skills with percents, decimals, and fractions...

And do math work for the rest of the semester with self-generated data...

Then each student will do an interview with the adult in their lives who they respect the most...

And build a relationship with a significant adult in their lives...around what it takes...to achieve excellence...in school...and in life...

I'll do a lot of work where I don't think they'll realistically do the work...like developing some basic questions for their interview...

But...for the most part...this will be on them...and an individual and group effort...

And the whole point...is to get beyond the tried and failed efforts to remediate kids' skills on a small scale...

And to get all of them to start thinking bigger...for themselves...and around the biggest issues of humanity...

And to learn about the qualities that might get them and all of us there...

The kids in my 1st and 2nd hour classes have been real shits, lately...even my good students...

And we've spent a lot of time talking about the relationship between attitude, practice, hard work, and learning...and how their efforts will likely reflect in their grades...

And I'm learning to just let the kids hang on their grades...

Meaning...letting them earn them...good or bad...and to use their grades as a learning opportunity...to take responsibility for their learning and for their lives...

Teachers, as much as students, have been somewhat resistant to this idea...

Because everyone's gotten so used to expecting so little from these kids...

But I think we're all moving in the same direction...

And the kids are definitely learning more...I'm confident of that...

And as I tell each of them...as often as possible...

They are all capable of doing whatever they want to do with their lives...for Black History Month, we studied David Harold Blackwell, the most reknowned black mathematician...as just one example of the horizons they can scale, if they set their minds to it...

I just won't settle for pity as some kind of substitute for education for these kids...

No matter how much they bitch and complain along the way:):):)...

And for some odd reason...the whole experience...no matter how rotten it can be, sometimes...like being in love...makes me look forward to more of it...to being a father...and to working with kids for the rest of my life...

Schools...and adults...as with every generation...will need to learn how to better handle and deal with kids and other adults than they do now...

We treat each other...and kids...still far too harshly, generally...and have still far to unrealistic expectations for them...in ways that dampen many of their hopes and dreams, unnecessarily...

All so we do not have to face our own failures...as parents...and teachers...and adults who care about children...

And as people...

But I do look forward to guiding us in a better direction...in whatever capacities I end up doing that...

The sentencing of Tom Delay, this week...Mr. Delay's failure to take responsibility for his role in shady campaign finance fundraising...and all of our failure to recognize that such efforts perpetually fail (Jim Wright's prosecution seems to have had little effect, almost 20 years later, when Democrats controlled Congress)...

All demonstate to me the total insanity that so much of the country lives with, right now...how totally out of touch with reality so many people are...

There is almost no indication that anyone has learned any lessons from Mr. Delay's prosecution...except Democrats around how to get rid of a House leader who's been kind of dick, to be honest, for the last decade...

Republicans have defended Mr. Delay...and I've heard almost literally zero acknowledgement by anyone that anything needs to change in campaign fundraising...

And Democrats will no doubt go on to do many of the very things that they so aggressively pursued Mr. Delay for...using the issue, cynically, to score electorally, in the meantime...

And so many people...will go on...ignoring the clear and present reality...

That forcing our way through issues that don't require force does not work, long term...and many if not most issues are better handled through democratic discussion, inquiry, thought, debate, and otherwise engagement...

Listening to those same Republicans talk about ways to kick out 12 million illegal aliens in the United States (have any of them even considered the magnitude of sending away 12 million illegal immigrants?) just makes all the more clear to me just how far people will go...to avoid reality...as they develop ideas, generally poor ones, for how to improve it...

Freedom...and the responsibility that it better allows to develop...is the best way for a mature society to deal with most of its most serious issues...

And when aggression and force must be used...because no other alternatives exist...the least possible neccessary aggression and force is the most likely to accomplish our aims...

I have very little doubt about that, any more...I've just seen it work too many times...

And more importantly...I've just seen the alternatives fail to many times...a fact that I have no need nor interest in ignoring...

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

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

Love,
Ben

One of those days...

Today has been one of those days that I remember why I love teaching...

I spent a lot of time this weekend forgiving the strong-arming that I experienced from my administrators, recently, on something I was in good faith on...and forgiving the strong-arming that I experience, generally, in a whole host of situations...recognizing, especially after our tutoring situation at school, that many people do this in good faith, even if they also act far too cynically much of the time...

And forgiving it even when it is in bad faith since I have no interest in being miserable my whole life being angry about things that I can't control...

And doing something about the things I can...

So today I came into work...after very little sleep (Melissa and I got into this really stupid, really foolish fight, last night, and we were up half the night with it)...with this really wonderful sense of peace...and so much love and appreciation for my kids and my colleagues...

And today went amazing...

After the last half of last week having the kids acting worse than ever...

Today...the first day back from the weekend...the kids were really amazing in every class I taught or worked in, today...it was really quite the sight to behold, really...being quiet...working hard...taking school seriously...it was really an amazing day...

And then, I volunteered for the After School Program, today...and I got to spend some quality time with two of my more difficult kids...doing work with them...and asking them about their futures...and what they want to do with them...and giving them so many opportunities that they could access with their respective strengths of math and social studies...

And I found myself wanting to spend more time...with even my most difficult students...and thinking about being a father...and how much this job really has prepared me to be a pretty outstanding father, I hope...

Which was my most important goal when I turned 18 and left my family's home for college...

I think I'm over my bout of recent cynicism...two weekends of resentment and anger about the whole ordeal has helped me move past it and to embrace myself and the world for all of my and its faults...even the most ugly and vindictive and inhumane...there just is no perfection in the world, I've learning to accept better and better...

There is only better and better...

Last night's fight with Melissa did get to me reflect on how good a friend Melissa has been...how she's stuck by me through a lot of thick as well as thin...how she's listened to so much that I needed to share with someone -- live, not just written -- and experienced my ugliest moments as well as my better moments...and how I've done the same...how much I love her...and how I much I want the best for her, even if that doesn't mean a love connection for the two of us...

I heard a really interesting analysis of why so many many people defend the rule of law, today, that I thought was its most persuasive argument...

It's the argument that Thomas Jefferson made so many years ago...how we are a nation of laws rather than men...because the rule of law ensures that a world where the strong cannot oppress and exploit the weak...where might does not make right...

Unfortunately...despite that very decent sentiment...the reality of law is that it too is used by the strong to oppress and exploit the weak...codified child marriage in Iranian law comes to mind, here...as does the laws that allowed the Nazis to slowly decimate Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe...and the numerous laws that have oppressed and repressed and imposed the will of some group or some majority on individuals and minorities throughout the history of humanity and still today...

The guy who was making the argument...in a report on a smaller country taking on the U.S. around internet gambling...

Was right...that might should not make right...

But he was wrong...that laws make right...

They do not...unfortunately...and very often, they make wrong...

Too many laws and too often...are yet another way for might to swagger as right...

When the only thing that makes right...

...is right...

Period...

Law...or not...

Today was a day I wanted to share with Brandi...all of our dreams being realized in just one school day...and the hope and potential for more...and the world very much working in the right direction...even despite itself, much of the time...

Today was a day that made me proud to be a teacher...and reminded me how important this work is...even as my policy work waits in the wings...
even as there is other and perhaps more important work in the world...

Then again...perhaps there is no more important work in the world...

Perhaps we just need more people taking it more seriously...

That's my dream, at least...a world where more people take education...schools...thought...important action...more seriously...

And where more people feel more apart of those worlds...and where the world feels more comfortable with those who have not felt as comfortable with school and the world of serious endeavor, in the past...

A world where everyone is included...

Because...because it's good for all of us...to care about one another...no matter who we are...

That is the commitment of my life...

And I'm pretty damned clear that there's no work more important than that...

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

Florida and UCLA in the NCAA Finals...

We saw Crash again, last night, which I liked better this time, even if I'm clear as a bell that it was not in the least the Best Picture of 2005...so many better movies...and a movie that cynically exploits the issues of race and poverty and crime, in so many ways, with so much cynicism directed, irresponsibly, at the LAPD, in particular...not a bad movie...but definitely not the Best Picture...

Benny and Joon, on the other hand, is a really beautiful picture from the 90's that I hadn't seen until last night...whatever happened to Aiden Quinn?...and Mary Stuart Masterson?...beautiful movie...not the deepest story of humanity, necessarily...but a beautiful movie, nevertheless...

I hope whatever you spend your time doing this week enlightens and fulfills you as much as my day has enlightened and fulfilled me:):):)...

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

Love,
Ben

Cynicism...

I've been dealing with a nasty bout of cynicism today and I thought I'd blog about it...I have these three really great articles by Francis Fukuyama, Brent Scowcroft, and Amartya Sen that I have half-completed posts on...but I'm not feeing inspired at this moment to comment on brilliant thought...

I want to take a moment to reflect on recent bout of cynicism for the moment...

The most serious period of cynicism I ever went through was in grad school...there was a period when I was keeping up far too much with TV journalists and commentators and other half-ass policy thinkers who are full of cynicism and have plenty to share with the rest of the world...

It was bad...for both Brandi and I...

Cynicism is like a disease, I've decided...when you get lost in it...you bring down everyone else around you, as well...and it solves nothing...it accomplishes nothing...and then it congratulates itself that it predicted that nothing could be done, anyway...it's a pretty courageous stand, let me tell ya...

Anyway...

The world is not changing as quickly as I would like it...even though the most recent demonstrations around illegal immigration and the fundamental principle involved -- where the law or people should be taken more seriously -- is one that very much signals a recognition of some underlying principles around the law and reality for people...which is that people only follow laws and rules, generally, and specific laws and rules (thankfully) that they understand and agree with (I very much doubt any of us would want Germans complying with laws to turn in Jews during the Holocaust or laws mandating death to Muslims who convert to Christianity in Afghanistan...most people just don't really think about these things very much, is the truth)...and that they otherwise resist, fight, and ignore laws or rules that they don't understand or agree with...and no amount of enforcement will make that go away...and nor should we expect anything different...

Maybe it's watching the hysteria about Barry Bonds every day in the newspapers...watching journalists who couldn't get 400 hits in a season if they wanted to commenting on Barry Bond's ability and his steroids use as if they really could if they could just get the steroids that Barry had (we bullshit ourselves so much, I swear to God)...the truth is Barry Bonds is one of the greatest hitters in baseball history and little league also-rans are biting at his heels because they demand a pure game that we could certainly have better if we would approach the issue reasonably and less cynically, but which we will never, ever, ever get by trying to boot one of the games greatest hitters from the game and from the Hall of Fame...

But what I know is responsible for my funk, today, is that we keep taking the cynicism so seriously when it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously...including my own...

Cynicism is not realism...cynicism is a romantic image of a perfect and pure world that is confronted with a less pure and perfect reality and lingers endlessly in perpetual disappointment about the world, as a consequence...

Cynicism is responsible for nothing...when asked why ideas are not working to solve problems, cynicism only has to respond "Nothing ever was going to work"...

And cynicism parades around like an answer for something when coming up with ideas and making them reality takes so much more time and energy...that don't always create solutions as quickly as we'd like...

And that's what I'm feeling, right now...

The world is definitely getting better...Melissa and I watched The Squid and the Whale, last night, which I highly recommend and reminded me of just how much better we, people, have gotten, generally, at recognizing and dealing with reality rather than leaving up emotional defenses to avoid it...

And politics is yet one more place in life where we are learning to do that, more...the current effort to basically legalize illegal immigration is one example of that kind of progress when people look at reality, first, rather than just at their expectations...

I'm frustrated, today, because I'm upset that the world is taking so long to catch up...because I don't like being threatened...by bosses...by friends...by anyone...to accomplish goals that, if worthy, I would help much more readily with if I was persuaded of their worthiness and which I am thoroughly uninspired by when I am forced to do them...and which, if unworthy...are not worthy of anyone's compliance, nevertheless active collaboration that is better promoted by discussion and persuasion than by force...

I'm upset...because as I watch the media go after Barry Bonds...and as I listen to pothead friends hypocritically advocate going after Bonds...sometimes after a recent hit off the pipe...

I think..."Are we just going to forever pretend that our cynicism has no consequence?...that having no solution or having a solution that clearly will not work...or having a solution that will only make things worse...that this kind of bullshit really isn't the problem that it is?"...

Are people just going to keep pretending that the drug war has worked when it clearly hasn't if you have any familiarity with the drug culture, at all?...

Are we just going to keep pretending that we'll somehow vindicate those efforts as we fruitlessly go after steroids use in baseball?...

Are we just going to keep pretending that if we just create the right rules, develop the right policy, mete out the right punishment, that we will somehow make problems go away that require -- require -- active collaboration and cooperation from the people involved, whether we fuckin' like it or not?...

Are we just going to keep pretending that this works when it so clearly doesn't to anyone looking without ideological blinders on?...

I'm trying to get some inspiration, today...but I have paperwork to do that I just have no interest at all in doing because I've been strong-armed on it...

I'm scared that I'm becoming an adult in all the ways that I've always hated about so many older people...

That I'm getting kind of resigned to a world where we are just too foolish and resigned to be honest about our failures...

Investigating steroids will not make them go away in baseball any more than investigating drugs makes them go away in a "drug-free" workplace or in the culture, at large ("drug-free" workplaces, in my experience, have everything with promoting the images of companies that do not want to face the much more disappointing realities that people find plenty of ways around drug testing)...

And putting pressure on Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions has clearly led them to pursue them more, as they sense a threat to their sovereignty and strategic self-interest (will America step in an protect us if Iraq attacks us again, Iranians must be asking themselves...and of course the answer to that question is no...even as I think it is a very good idea to persuade Iran to not develop a nuclear program and just up the ante of antagonisms in the region that need diplomatic and political resolutions rather than military conflict that will resolve nothing...Brent Scowcroft has a very good article on this problem in the most recent edition of the National Interest that I very much appreciated, even as I disagree with Brent that "the right" rules-regime will finally accomplish the goal of dissuading Iran from adopting a nuclear program)...

But...the saving grace...

Is that we can only avoid reality on this for so long...avoiding it perpetually would have us in a state similar to Palestine or North Korea or Cuba or Syria which we are far too free and thoughtful to allow to happen...

Democracies, thankfully, foster enough openness and freedom that we can eventually overcome denial about festering problems in a way that closed societies do not...

The big saving grace for humanity, right now...

Is that despite all its stupidity...and laziness...and cowardliness...and decadence...and excuse-making...and its failure to take responsibility for problems...

All of these experiences, generally, become learning experiences for us...

As we learn from our failures...our weaknesses...or shortcomings...our faults...

As much as from our successes and our strengths...

This shortcoming...our failure to forgive...our failure to give up our romantic disappointment with a world that doesn't live up to our expectations, always...

And my failure, in particular...to accept that the road to a better life...is paved with our failures as much as with our successes...mine and everyone's...

Is the most important and glaring of our failures, right now...

But we can't avoid it, forever...

Because it doesn't serve us...we don't function well, this way...it is, as Abraham Maslow might say, a neurotic and insecure stage in our individual and general development...

We can't function without forgiving it...each other...and ourselves...

I know I can't...and I'm crystal clear about that, at this point...

I need some time to walk and think...

I hope everyone has a good weekend...Florida and UCLA in the NCAA finals...should be an interesting game:):)....

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

Love,
Ben