Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Trayvon Martin, Ponyboy Curtis, & Robert Frost






The last two days, I am thinking of this poem:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
---Robert Frost
Unlike Stephen Colbert, who said on air in 2011 that it was the first poem he ever memorized, this was not the first poem I ever learned to recite (my elementary school teachers had a long list of others that I was forced to memorize & recite formally.) However, it was the first poem I ever really cared about--and that's all because of S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. One of the most popular books for my generation, it was later made into a movie with an all-star cast that included Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell....some of the biggest heartthrobs of the 1980s and a precursor to the later so-called "brat-pack" flicks.
However, I didn't learn the poem because of any adolescent longing or stereotypical teenage crush. I actually knew the poem long before the movie came out, and long before my generation experienced the thrill of that famous cast all on one screen. Because I was a bookworm, I had stumbled across Hinton in my local bookstore. I quickly became fascinated with her tales of adolescents struggling with real-life issues. Her characters' lives were so different from mine--adults were largely absent and drugs and violence were ever-present concerns. And yet, their fears about belonging and dreams about the future were just like my own.
In The Outsiders Ponyboy's love for literature rivaled my own and his admiration for that particular poem fascinated me. At that point, I didn't like poetry (thanks to all of that recitation in elementary school combined with the ridiculous teaching of counting syllables and finding ryhme patterns). I became mesmerized with the idea that someone so "cool" could find poetry alluring and understandable. So, on my own, I made myself memorize the poem---I wanted to be like Ponyboy.
And in my perseverance, I discovered that the poem actually made sense. For the first time, even though I didn't know the rhyme pattern and hadn't counted the syllables, a poem had meaning and value to me. I realized that, like the sunrise, good things don't always last forever. The poem also seemed to point to the fleeting nature of those things which are only built on illusions--the perfect combination of light and atmospheric elements mixing together at just the right time to create a beautiful image that will only last for a few moments. One might spend an eternity searching for that same wonderful moment, only to find that it can never be recreated in just the same way because the concept of its perfection is pure fantasy.
Flash forward to the present. Yesterday while teaching Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay," I got the sudden brainstorm of playing the scene from The Outsiders where Ponyboy recites the poem to Johnny as they watch the sun rise. Many of my students were familiar with the book and the movie and watching the clip really seemed to help them get the poem. In the midst of our discussion (and I'm not sure exactly how this came up), we had a quick side discussion of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. And then we went back to Frost, and then onto other poems.
But all day long it plagued me. I kept seeing images of C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy and Ralph Macchio as Johnny with their young, sweet faces intermixed with that angelic face of Trayvon Martin. All day long. And then I thought, is there really a connection with Trayvon and Hinton's 1960s' misunderstood greasers? After a day of contemplation and the nagging sounds of all those boy actors screaming "Let's Do It for Johnny!"--I finally came to the realization that, yes, the connection was not only there, but as significant to us now, as the problems of the greasers were to us in 1983.
In the book, the poem foreshadows the loss of innocence of the main characters. In the movie scene, the recitation is clearly foreboding and ominous (remember that Ponyboy & Johnny discuss the poem right before they run into the burning church). But, historically for literary critics, the poem has had other alternative meanings. In 1953, Alfred R. Ferguson wrote "perhaps no single poem more fully embodies the ambiguous balance between paradisiac good and the paradoxically more fruitful human good than "Nothing Gold Can Stay." Here, Ferguson was discussing the ways in which Frost uses the metaphors of Eden and Original Sin to point to the idea of felix culpa (this is Aquinas's concept that God allows evil to happen in order to facilitate greater good).
In The Outsiders, the greasers seek to revenge the wrong done to Johnny by the socials, by his father, and by society. They are sick and tired of the inequities of a society that paints them as bad because of their lack of money and social status. They are misunderstood, abused, and cast aside because of factors outside their control. Yet, as Hinton shows us---good never comes from more bad. The greasers' determination to seek revenge ends in more violence and more devastation. This is surely not what Aquinas meant when he talked about a greater good coming out of atrocities. By the end of the greasers' story, a few of them have died and none of them (outside of Ponyboy) have much of a future.
Judged by outside factors. Misunderstood. Victim of circumstance. Ostracized. Hurt. Maimed. Killed. And most heartbreaking---further victimized by the society's elevation of small infractions to indefensible violations in order to act as justification for the crimes against them. Sound familiar? I am describing Hinton's characters; but I am also describing the real life Trayvon Martin.
We should all be sad. And we should all be as angry as those greasers were when they stood in Johnny's hospital room screaming in unison, "Let's do it for Johnny! Let's do it for Johnny!" We need to act. We need to gather together and do something. The atrocity against Trayvon Martin is real. And it's wrong. And it means something because it tells us that 50+ years after the Civil Rights Movement, we are still a country plagued by racism. We have to stop it.
But this time, let's follow the basic idea of felix culpa. Let's make a greater good out of the evil that took Trayvon. If we truly are to be "the land of the free" we have to make real, lasting change. We cannot be the "sunrise" nation. Ideal, beautiful, and alluring, but built on nothing more than the fleeting illusion of a perfection that was never designed to last. We must change the destiny of this country and that starts now. There are no simple solutions to racism. But there are things we can do. Every single one of us must make individual changes in how we think and how we act. We must dedicate ourselves to ensuring that others also refuse to participate in racist thoughts and racist actions. The time is now--"Let's Do it for Trayvon!" And let's do it for ourselves, our children, and our future as good, moral people united by the idea of liberty and justice for all.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Prologue
Back in November, at a gathering at my house, one of our (younger) friends suggested that I should get on Twitter. When I explained that I didn't "get" twitter, the friendly conversation quickly devolved into a tense discussion about the merits of abbreviated statements as a substitute for lengthy prose, which futher devolved into an argument about the younger generation's inability to read thoroughly and critically, which ended with a lot of hurt feelings about the generational differences between those born in the 70s and those born in the 80s and later. I tried to explain that the "millenial generation" often struggles with an ability to process information in larger quantities and that this was a result of changes in education, changes in the media, and the accessibility of various technologies.
In the end, I was the person with the most hurt feelings--I had been putting a lot of thought & research into why my younger students were becoming increasingly harder to reach and I didn't feel like my friends were giving me my "rightful" consideration as an educator with firsthand experience. The following blog is a re-vamped facebook note that followed the heated argument from the night before. Months later, I can see that I was probably way too sensitive and yet, I still believe that every word I said that night (and in this diatribe) was right on the mark.
Generational Differences
People are shaped by the major events and innovations of the time period in which they grow up it and live. Although that does not mean that everyone born in the 1930s is exactly the same; it does mean that people that grew up during the Great Depression will likely be influenced by the feelings that accompanied that time period. That is why we name generations in the first place. I don't think anyone can dispute that those growing up in the 1930s share similar values and experiences, just as those growing up in the wake of WWII share similarities, just as those who were young during the 9/11 attacks see the world differently than we did at their age. Does it make them exactly alike? Of course not! But it does shape them in a way that they experience the world with some similar approaches.
Although it might seem that people who were born in the 1970s should all be a part of one generation, it doesn't exactly work that way specifically because of the technological advances that happened during that time period. There is a great book on this that might be interesting to read. It is Generation Y: Surviving and Thriving with Gen Y at Work. In the book, Peter Sheahan differentiates between those born in the early 1970s and the later parts of the decade. He outlines various reasons for the differences and they go way beyond whether people had a home computer or cable tv. It is an in-depth look at the entire sociological spectrum--all aspects of how we are shaped as human beings. Again, this doesn't mean that people born in the 1970s are not in the same generation; it means that people born at different times in the decade might be separated in world approaches b/c of the rapid changes that were happening during that time period.
The News
The idea of my not "getting" Twitter is based on my own personal preference and my complete identification with people growing up in the 1970s in the type of household in which I grew up. That is to say that not only were cable news and home computers not a part of daily life, but I was conditioned in a way that might have negated their impact, even if they had. I read books voraciously and I was surrounded by adults who read newspapers and newsmagazines and discussed the news in a full, in-depth manner. In other words, had I only read a headline and tried to get in on a conversation, my parents, my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles would have demanded that I have a full grasp of the situation before attempting to enter a conversation. This forced me to read news in its entirety, thus disallowing me from being satisfied by quick "sound-bytes" of news. Along these same lines, during my childhood USA Today was not a major news source. In fact, when it started to get widespread distribution in the 1980s, there were many naysayers who claimed that it was ruining the newspaper by only giving the basics of the story and not the full explanation.
Although the inverted pyramid has been widespread since the invention of the telegraph, it has always been a source of controversy among journalists and continues to be to this day. If you do a quick google search, you will find that the inverted pyramid was never intended to be a substitute for full documentation of news; it was, as I said last night, a way to get the headlines out there quickly so that people could have access to the important stuff immediately, and return to the full information at a later time. (Remember this was in the days when people did not even have telephones in their homes, much less tvs, internet, or cell phones.) If people were only reading the first few paragraphs, then the advent of USA Today would not have caused the kind of uproar that it did amongst journalists and newsies.
"Brainwaves"
The entire thrust of my assertions about differences in generations and the thirst (or distrust) of attaining news through outlets like Twitter is based on the idea of the neuroplasticity of the brain--what I was calling "brainwaves". This is the way the brain reorganizes itself based on different developmental experiences. Neural pathways are MOST significantly affected during the first few years of life (this is why Ripken's brain surgery at 7 months old was much less problematic for him than had he received the same surgery at 2 years old). During this time period, the pathways can regroup when they find resistance (as they did for Ripken). This is also when a 2nd language is easier to learn, and this is when the pathways are most sensitive to external stimuli. As the human being gets further and further away from the zone of proximal development, the pathways become less and less adaptive. This doesn't mean that they cannot adapt; it means that it takes longer. However, they can still be affected---they continue to reorganize and restructure based on input (however slowly that might be).
Ripken at age 7 months a few weeks before brain surgery
So, you're right--I could like Twitter if I wanted to. BUT, because my brain is not conditioned that way, it would take a considerable effort for me to do so. Just like it is going to take a considerable effort for those who have excess stimulation to sit still long enough to read past keywords. Stimulation can be such a negative thing. In excess, it reconditions those pathways so that they require more and more of it instead of being content with limited excitement. It is for this reason that many child advocates are warning parents against large amounts of tv and computer usage prior to the age of 3 because of the heightened risk of ADHD. This is not a fictional idea that I came up with but one that is well-documented and researched throughout many texts on neuroscience.
Kids & Books
In 2003, the Kaiser Family Foundation did a study on the use of technological stimulation, i.e. television, computers, videogaming, on children under the age of 6. What they found (and this is before internet usage was widespread) is that kids were getting per/day less than 2 hours of outside play, but engaging in 1.58 hours of screen time. By the age of 21, those kids will have spent on average hundreds of thousands of hours doing video games, reading e-mails, and watching tv, but only 5,000 hours of reading.
Those kids in that study are now approximately 14 years old and those are the kids that educators need to start preparing for now. The students I am seeing this year are obviously less affected than those in the study, just by virtue of the increase in technological domination that has ocurred since 2000. However, they are still products of an age that is very different from one that I grew up in. I am seeing the results of limited book time and increased technological stimulation and those results are not compatible with our current educational system.
Kids & Rapid Fire Information=Not Much Reading
And that leads me to the basic point: by and large, the generation known as the millenials (some say it starts in 1980; others say it starts as far back as 1976) have grown up with the stimulation of rapid fire information and images that did not exist in my childhood: newspapers like USA Today, headline news (whether it was in the home or on tv screens in public places), video games, computer screens, televisions in multiple rooms in the house, televison programming that went beyond the three major networks, tv shows with beautiful pix rather than the fuzzy pictures produced by fickle rabbit ears, etc.
This puts them in the position where unless they work hard to access information in a more traditional way, they are hostage to the neural pathways that have already been developed i.e. information in short, quick doses unecumbered by extraneous words or distractions. People in my position must make changes to our education system or we are going to only reach the top 10% of this generation--those whose pathways are not as severely affected or those who are determined to fight their way in an educational system that was designed for people who were born before the invention of immediate and brief information.
Admitting There's a Problem is the 1st Step
In the end, my comments were not designed to disparage one generation or another. It is simply the way that it is. The time period in which we grow up DOES affect us; there will always be mitigating factors for every individual that either ameliorate or intensify those effects. However, nothing can completely eliminate them(unless one is completely isolated from society). If we truly want to function as a society whose workforce is composed of both extremes--60 year-olds who likely had one tv in their home as a child and 20 year olds who don't remember when phones were plugged into walls---we must acknowledge that the differences in world approaches are a result of a combination of factors outside the locus of individual control.
Afterword:
All of this hoopla just from one comment about social media as a viable medium for information! And yet, I did end up joining twitter afterall. But not because I suddenly "get" it...I still don't. However, I joined because I knew it would be a good way to reach my students--you know the ones--they quickly skim through follow-up e-mails containing clarifications about assignments. The next class, when they realize that their lack of attention resulted in incomplete (or just plain wrong) work, they have the audacity to complain that the instructions were too long for them to follow on their phones. Twitter (no matter how much I despise it) protects me from having to fight that battle, too...

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

I started this blog almost five years ago and made one post. One post! Now that's sad...I feel like I should be beating myself up, but I have to admit that I really wasn't ready to blog in 2007. My boys were still really young (3,3, & 4), I was starting my first real teaching job, and I was just overwhelmed with a new house, a new city, and a new life. I simply did not have time to think.

Ahhh..but here I am, 5 years later. Same house, same city, still teaching (at a different school), and my boys require a lot less of me.

So...I guess that means I need to do a quick wrap-up of the last five years. I taught Language Arts and Humanities at a private school for two years, but left when the parental interference became too suffocating (more on this some other time). I started teaching English as an Adjunct Professor at two local community colleges. At 40-something years-old, I finally feel like I found what I should have been doing all along: teaching people how to read and write.

Of course, I would love to be full-time, but those positions are hard to come by in this economic environment, so I am biding my time, just waiting for the right faculty position to open up (by "right" I mean--"they want me because I definitely want them.")

Although I love working with college students, last fall I started seeing some disturbing trends that I found greatly concerning. Unfortunately, I started realizing that the kids graduating from high schools in 2011 were not as prepared for college as the ones who graduated in 2009. I know it seems like two years shouldn't make that much of a difference, but it really does. I'll be getting into this more in-depth at a later time, and although there are a lot of factors at play, there are two major reasons for this divergence in learning styles & needs, study habits, and classroom behaviors.
The students who graduated in 2011:
  • Were subjected to the pressures & education mandates of "No Child Left Behind" since the 4th grade
  • Were 7 and 8 years old when the internet started becoming a standard fixture in classrooms and homes

The combination of these two factors, along with some other noteworthy cultural and educational environs, has produced a totally different college population than the one we as educators are prepared to teach. The challenges of trying to meet this breed of 21st century student in a way that engages, energizes, and excites them, while still educating them and requiring them to full meet the standards has been the biggest hurdle of my professional career.

Having said that, I am more motivated than ever and much of my blog will be dedicated to my observations of this population as well as my insights and ideas for ensuring that this generation does not continue to get shortchanged educationally.

Over the course of the next few days, I will be posting some blogs that are slightly revamped versions of some previous notes I have written about this subject. Some of the stories are about my own education while others are pontifications about the experiences and needs of the millenial generation. I am doing this as a way of "catching up" to where I want to be when Spring Break ends: using this blog to document my observations of current situations in my classrooms, in the world, and how the two are interacting.

Eventually, I hope to develop some successful teaching strategies that can be shared with other educators.

Until then, please feel free to access my website, share experiences, and offer feedback----

KIM