Apart-Hate

In the Fall of 1977 I went to a beautiful old church in South Berkeley, Ca. to see a film and presentation about Apartheid in South Africa.   The film concerned itself mainly with international investments in this openly racist country that just happened to be the world's largest producer of gold and diamonds.
I had been teaching about South Africa for a few years; the same amount of time I had been teaching, actually.  I knew a bit about the political system of cruel and complete segregation.  I knew about Nelson Mandela and the ANC, but was just beginning to learn about recent uprising like Soweto.  That evening I learned about a burgeoning movement to disinvest in South Africa.  The film shown was available to teachers as a filmstrip that night.  I paid the $25.00 gladly as the funds were used to support similar showings.  "Banking on South Africa" served me well over the next15 years.  But it was something else I chanced to find for sale on the folding tables in the church foyer that proved even more lasting.                                          

It was a calendar for the upcoming year 1978.  Each month featured a brilliant painting or photograph detailing the depth and anguish of Black South Africans.  One picture memorialized the victims of the Soweto uprising, another showed a close-up of a person's passbook assigning the owner to one of several "homelands" and denying basic human rights like the right to move freely in one's own home.
By 1980, most of the pictures in that calendar were hanging on the wall in the front of my classroom.  When I was involuntarily laid off one year and subsequently re-hired, they returned to the classroom I occupied for the next 22 years.

Many semesters of International Problems followed.  My students did many problem analyses of South Africa, displaying and representing their knowledge on various projects from pop-up art to dyoramas, to new flag designs and portraits of Madiba himself.  All under the banner of these "posters" as they came to be called.
     Students from English classes asked about them.  Parents at Back to School Night asked about them.  Students and Parents of my Psychology classes asked about them.  Exchange students fro all over the world, and even South Africa, asked about them.
     In the early 90s, when it became apparent that Nelson Mandela was going to be released from prison after 27 years, a student in International Problems asked, "Are you going to keep those up if Apartheid comes to an end and Mandela is freed?"  I hadn't thought about it, but the possibility of a free Mandela would certainly be cause for some celebration.
     "I don't know," I replied.  "Let's see what the class thinks."
After a good discussion about the likelihood of Mandela's release, I asked the class, "How will we know when Mandela is free?"  "When he votes," came the response.  That settled it.  When Mandela votes the posters come down.
     In 1994 with Mandela's election as President of the country that had once held him prisoner, the posters came down.  My students were excited.  The local media sent a TV crew and a few other print journalists did stories on the "ceremony" we conducted that day.  We just happened to have a South African Exchange student that semester too.  He would have been classified as "Coloured" by the Apartheid system.  He was the logical choice to help with removing the posters.  In the end, we left one poster on the wall.  It was a red pair of handcuffed wrists on a white background with two words in large red letters: NO MORE.

Open Up

Between the time the John Kennedy was murdered while riding in a Dallas motorcade on a Friday and the following Sunday when the nation watched his flag draped casket carried through the streets of the nation's capital, two other significant events of that three day span took place.   The murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin took place LIVE on national TV and, of course, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the next president all happened within hours of each other.
I recall wanting to stay in front of the TV every second but my stern father wouldn't allow that.  It was Saturday, the day after the assassination and there were leaves to rake, lawns to mow, and with no football games (at least college games) time to complete some tasks that had long been overlooked.  Maybe it was because my parents had seen the death of a president before, even an assassination attempt on Truman's life, that they tried to avoid the 24/7 media coverage.  I, however, could not.  I kept sneaking into my room and turning on my transistor radio to listen to any further developments in this ongoing tragedy.
When I heard the bulletin that Oswald had been shot, I rushed out to the rest of my family and boldly announced, "Oswald's been shot, we gotta turn on the TV, it just happened."
Even my sometimes tyrannical father couldn't prevent the Packard Bell from showing us the latest incredulous event unfolding.
They showed the scene over and over.  The name Jack Ruby surfaced.  It sounded like something out of the wild west and being Texas, it certainly figured.
We all knew something big was going done, but as Bob Dylan would later sing, "You know something's happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?

In the last few days, on this 50th anniversary of the events that taken together comprise what we call the Kennedy Assassination, I've followed and heard many stories, recollections, and versions of how those days have impacted and informed the years and culture that followed.  I would agree with the PBS newscaster Jim Lehre who simply noted that the big take way for him was the fragility of it all.  Just how fragile our lives and world view can be.
Sure it was a right of passage, a loss of innocence, and wake up call.  It was any other cliche and personal experience you can name.  For me, it opened the door to mistrust and fear of my own government.  In the years that followed I had an opportunity to see Bobby Kennedy speak about a month before the night he won the California primary and was assassinated himself.  After marveling at the entire Kennedy clan and hearing some opening remarks, a noisy disruption broke out behind me in the large crowd that had assembled at Cal State Northridge.  They were chanting something inaudible but I got a glimpse of a sign one person held.  It was Don Costello, a boisterous character from my high school years.  He's apparently traded in his cheerleader outfit for political theater.  The chant and the sign all said the same thing.  "Open Up the Archives"  They knew there was more to the story.  Somehow if they encouraged Bobby Kennedy, as President, to review the assassination of his brother and tell the truth to the American people, we would all be better off.  They certainly didn't think Lyndon Johnson would do it; he was out of the picture now.  I can't help but wonder how many young men and women in that crowd that day went to Vietnam.  How many never came back alive?

Passing Period

Mr. Carpenter walked slowly toward the speaker on the wall.  He hopped up on the small stage in the front of his classroom and waited for the tinkling xylophone intro to stop.  The sound, similar to the NBC station identification was a calm way to get attention.  But announcements had ended in period 2.  This was period 3 and from the look on Mr. Carpenter's face, something unscheduled was about to go down.  After a few microphone clicking sounds, we heard the voice of Mr. Taylor, our beloved Principal.  Uncharacteristically, he stammered, cleared his throat, and began.
"This morning, the President of the United States has been shot while traveling in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.  He has been taken to a hospital in critical condition.  Further details are not available at this time.  We will keep you informed as the day progresses."

Mr. Carpenter's face drained white.  He said nothing.  We said nothing.  Then we slowly went back to our grammar books.  More sentence diagraming.
 Nobody was prepared for this moment.  Blindsided would be an understatement.
With 20 minutes left in the class period, some of my classmates began to think about the Friday evening that was less than 7 hours away.  Big football game with North Hollywood High.  Beyond that, Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation were on the horizon.  Other topics swirled in our minds to avoid thinking about Mr. Taylor's announcement. Who just got their driver's license?  Who just broke up with whom?  Would Senior Prom be as fun as Junior Prom?  My own thoughts included:  Should I run for Senior class President?  Could I win?  Would my new girlfriend, who went to a Catholic school be allowed to go to my prom with me?
 Oh, and then this thing we just heard about in Dallas.  Scary, but our president is young, just about the youngest ever.  He'll recover.  Right?
With five minutes left in the period we began to close our books.  Mr. Carpenter, usually chatty in those remaining minutes, was still off by himself.  A minute or two before the bell was to ring,  Mr. Taylor interrupted classes again.  His voice was noticeably subdued.  He told us that the President was dead and that the bell would soon ring for period 4.  "Please proceed to your 4th period class," he said.  We will resume our regular school schedule unless instructed to do otherwise.  Busses will run at normal times."  He said something else, I think, but nobody really heard it because all was silent.  If silence can be deafening, than this silence shattered ear drums.
My school, Francis Polytechnic High was one of the largest in L.A. City Schools.  With an enrollment of nearly 3,000 students, noise was just part of the campus.  During that passing period, nobody spoke.  Students moved like zombie robots to their next class.  Henry Ford would have salivated at the efficiency of how so many adolescents could move swiftly down the line and be in position to resume work in five minutes.

People were waiting.  Waiting to hear something more.  Waiting to hear who did this?  Waiting to hear how and why we were without a President.  By mid-afternoon someone mentioned that Lyndon Johnson was now the President.  A Texan is the President and Kennedy was killed in Texas?
What does this event do to the Cold War?  Does it rear up like it did the previous year when we were all sent home from school as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded.  Things could change very quickly; before the brinksmanship that sent those missiles back to the Soviet Union, I saw how fast bread and other staples disappeared from the local supermarket.  We were waiting to see if the world would explode.
It did not then, but on this day, November 22, 1963 the explosion was happening slowly and quietly.  Questions cascaded like rain and sentence diagraming suddenly meant very little.  At 2:55, Mr Taylor made one final announcement.  "The football game tonight has been cancelled."  Everybody just wanted to go home.

Diagram This

Mr. Carpenter was my 11th grade English teacher.  Actually, it's wasn't called English that year.   The official name for the class was Language Skills.  We did very little writing and reading in favor of diagraming sentences.  We seriously diagramed sentences.  there was a little portable chalk board on a small stage that was in the front of the classroom.  Mr. Carpenter would step up on the little stage after taking roll at his desk off to the left.  He'd roll the little chalkboard out so the class could easily see it and have a sentence already written for us to dissect.

The only other thing I recall about that class, save what I'm about to write now, is that we worked out of a grammar book most of the time.  I had my book covered with brown paper that had once held groceries.  Homework and classwork came out of that book.  It was language skills incarnate.
Mr. Carpenter was the Junior class sponsor.  He was fairly popular, youthful, probably gay, and for the most part very serious about his subject.  He could control our class because he knew how to get the environment he wanted and he knew his subject well.  He could diagram the hair off a sentence and we were all impressed.  Once he gave us the sentence:  "The private laid out his bedroll over the Sergeant's objection."  A trick sentence to be sure, but we all rose to the challenge.  The prepositional phrase "over the Sergeant's objection" was the problem, because it wasn't literally what the bedroll was laying on.
I don't remember how the issue was solved and I don't really care.  So far as I know, it has not made a difference in my life.  It was good fun at the time even if we were all a bit confused.  Mr. Carpenter must have had a good laugh adjusting his lesson plan that day.  I hope he did, because, except for the time I said a swear word in front of him while decorating for the Jr. Prom, the thing I remember most about Mr. Carpenter was his demeanor and appearance on November 22, 1963.

That Year

The programs are starting.  Small nightly pieces in the national news and major documentaries on everything from Public Broadcasting to CNN.  I can't even imagine what Faux News will do.  It's the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.  Time to re-set the conspiracy theories, the shortcomings of the Warren Report, and complete the "where were you when" statements.
One think I've noticed is that every year there are fewer and fewer people who recall the moment.  That's natural, but I did see an interview with the Dallas cop that was escorting Lee Harvey Oswald when he was intercepted and killed by Jack Ruby.  The guy looks great for his age and even admitted he gave little thought to the fact that people would remember him or the event they way they do 50 years later.
I'm in the process of recalling that day as best I can.  In doing so, I've begun to look at the year 1963 itself.  What jumps out for me so far is how many remarkably significant things preceded the actual assassination itself in that pivotal year.  Many crucial events in the Civil Rights movement from the assassination of Medgar Evers to the Birmingham Church bombings and death of those 3 little girls.  There was a young man, too that year who began to get some airplay for a song that rose to number 1 in England.  A timely little ballad called "The Times are Changin'" brought Bob Dylan's name to the lips of man 16 year old kids who wanted a bit of relief from the British Invasion that so captivated the mass media.  Dylan's second album came out in 1963 as well.  "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," with it's iconic picture of Bob and Susie Rotolo walking in the New York snow.  That VW micro bus in the background did not go unnoticed.  Before the end of that tumultuous decade, I too would walk those streets having arrived on the East Coast in a similar van.

By then Kennedy was long gone, and with him most of our illusions about what this country was all about.  Though we looked for answers, and still do, the only one was, as Dylan noted, "Blowin' in the Wind.  Still is I guess.
---More to follow---

Inevitable

As this century progresses, I see various vestiges of the last one drop away every day.  More and more electric devices replace every interaction.   I'm not sure it's all gloom and doom, but I do worry about how human interaction is diminishing.  The irony, of course, is that as we get more connected, we actually don't.
If my experience today is any indication of this brave new world, then I've seen the future a bit more and possibly a bit clearer.
I like t read a newspaper in the morning.  I could go online, but I actually like to hold it in my hands, fold it, do the crossword with a pen, look at the sports page and letters  to the editor.  In my town it's even more difficult to get a newspaper.  It's down to 3 days a week for home delivery, and the number of boxes on the street is dwindling.  When you do find one, pray that it works or that there is even one of the few they put inside daily left.
I decided I'm going down with that ship.  I'm going to put the quarters in the slot for as long as it's possible.

I use a debit card on occasion, but I would never buy a cup of coffee or anything for that matter less that $20. with it.  I don't like to leave paper trails, and cash is faster.  But cash is fast becoming a ting of the past for many folks.  I see them swipe a card for everything from a candy bar to a latte.
In the education world I inhabit, the love of data and the use of computers for everything from curriculum to grading is changing the teaching profession.
I fear what is about to happen to human interaction.
Today I went through a brief training session to learn a new online assessment program.  We will soon point and click in neatly organized rubrics for an evaluation that ends up being 1,2,3, or 4.  I actually asked about the comments that could be made.  Answer: 300 characters.  That's about twice the size of a Tweet.
I may not like all this, but I know that it is all inevitable.  No going back.  In about 100 years, it'll be interesting to read what someone says about the latest technology and what it holds for the future.

Model Lesson

It's been 7 years since I've taught a high school class from beginning to end.  There have been a few teacher writing workshops at conferences, and a couple of co-teaching moments in the classrooms of the student teachers I've supervised, but nothing bell to bell.
That might end in a few weeks.  In my role as a mentor teacher, I occasionally have an opportunity to model a lesson.  Trouble is, most of the first year teachers I mentor don't live close enough to me to make that possible.  One is in Alaska, another in Montana.  Still another is on the Oregon coast in a small town, and a few others have been less enthusiastic about seeing the old man in action.
This year might be different.  I've been mentoring a first year teacher close to home.  Well, fairly close to home.
A recent study I read revealed that mentor teachers modeling a lesson and then possibly co-teaching it with the beginning teacher was rated one for the most useful things a mentor could do.  It provides a chance for the mentee to see the mentor as a teacher not just a giver of advice.
There are some considerations before jumping in and taking over a class.  The mentor shouldn't necessarily teach the best lesson ever.  It's important to be vulnerable, perhaps take a risk and fail, struggle a bit so that the beginning teacher is not upstaged in any way.
Problematic?  You bet.

So, I've been thinking about what I might do that meets all the criteria and still would be useful.
My mentee has 3 10th grade Language Arts classes in her day.  I'm thinking of teaching the lesson in the first so she can observe and critique.  Then co-teach the lesson in the second class, finally she could do the lesson solo and I could critique.  Ideally it sounds fine.  We'll see.
Now comes the what to do.
I'm toying with and tweaking a lesson on writing voice that just might fit the bill.  It's fun, it's useful, it's something I think I can still do effectively.
But this time, I want to do it somewhat effectively because it's taking on another level of usefulness.  If I'm successful, I'll make a mistake or two along the way; my pacing will be a little off, and probably some of my schtick will seem stale.  If I'm really successful, this lesson will survive in someone's classroom for years to come.