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Showing posts from September, 2011

The Best Medicine

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I have no doubt in my mind that I could make it as a stand-up comedian. In fact, there is ample proof. In my 30 year teaching career, many's the time I did a routine or two. You get a lot of practices with 5 audiences a day. Timing can easily be fine tuned. Bad jokes eliminated (though I rarely did that) and new material is constantly falling all around. Anybody who can't find humor in a public high school isn't breathing. More proof that I could survive as a comedian comes from the couple of years I had one for a roommate. I met many others in the burgeoning Bay Area comedy scene of the early 80s and often socialized with them. It was a heady time. To say they are "always on" is an understatement. This is the class that produced a few Sat. Night Life alum and one or two of the comics I knew went to work for one of their number who really made it big...Ellen Degeneres. Success for a comic is to go the way of Ellen or Seinfeld or Larry David. F

Ancient Perceptions

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An educational research colleague of mine once referred to "ancient perceptions of the self." It's a particularly apt description of how learners in a classroom deal with all the emotional baggage of who to be as a student. I recall students asking me not to put them in a group with___ because "back in 2nd grade something happened..." We sometimes cling to outdated beliefs and unconsciously confirm their power and accuracy. Educators see this all the time. I saw it last week in a classroom when a student could not see a link between creativity and the study of anthropology. He truly believed that an anthropological perspective, the subject of the lesson, could only be expressed one way. This kind of resistance often takes root in an early experience that sustains the perception, "I am not creative." That theme seemed to predominate a number of events this past week. Those images of how things are seem to peek over the edges of our thinking f

Variant

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It's one of those small community spaces that's not sure what it wants to be. Like many in that vein, it's located in what is euphemistically termed a "transition" neighborhood. But last night, as I attended an event at the Variant Lab, in Portland, I was struck with a most stunning thought. What if these places became increasingly significant in the years to come. What if, and it's not all that far-fetched, these spaces were the only ones available for people to experience live poetry, avant-guarde ideas, freedom of speech, in all its manifestations, and the opportunity to share artistic expression across generations. What if? Maybe it was the fact that the polarization is this country seems to be reaching new heights. In a recent piece I heard on the radio, Speaker of the House John Boehner was asked about his relationship with President Barack Obama. "Sometimes it's like we live on different planets," he said. To which, I thought, so
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Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade’ By SABRINA TAVERNISE Published: September 13, 2011 New York Times The aforementioned article spells it all out. The Lost Decade is a good description for the reality most Americans face today. 1 in 6 of us now live officially in poverty. That's about 47 million people. Very close to the number with no health care. Lost... What happened along the way. 40 years ago I became a VISTA Volunteer after reading Michael Harrington's book The Other America and seeing the CBS news documentary Hunger in America . Back then the median income was well below $10,000, today the poverty line is about $22,000. Do the math and see how a family of four can live on 22k in the U.S. today. I particularly like the use of the term "Lost" because poverty largely remains invisible. People expect that because someone wears an expensive pair of shoes or has a fancy electronic device that they aren't poor. They often argue t

Re-Member

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9/12.  We have reached beyond the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.  Millions of words written, hundreds of songs.  Thousands of poems,  a myriad of art forms, presentations, interpretations, explanations, and exultations. For me, what remains is Paul Simon's haunting rendition of Sounds of Silence .  I read somewhere he was going to do Bridge Over Troubled Water , but changed it at the last minute.  I get that. My hope is that as a country, we have learned to ask the tough questions, the over-arching ones.  Hardly seems like this nation is a united one at all.  One look at the current political debates or the achievement  of Congress tells that tale.  So many non-parallel lives and belief systems under the 13 stripes and 50 stars these days. New York's Mayor Bloomberg has requested that the term Ground Zero no longer be used.  I get that too.  It's become a memorial now.  people etch names and leave all manner of things on, near, attached to, or on top of the inscr

Helping Hand

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"...expressing anger rarely solves anything. It makes us feel powerful but draws a line between people subtly reinforcing one's own "correctness" at the expense of others. We often possess the same noxious qualities (expressed differently) as we target in others." This quote came from Peter Coyote in a recent Sun Magazine response he made to a letter critical of something he said in a featured interview. It's problematic. It begs the question, aren't some things correct? What if someone expressed anger about being held in slavery? What about anger over being victimized? Or getting in touch and finally expressing anger over being scammed, or dismissed with condescension? Are we that sensitive to the word correct that we can't allow the expression of anger? I know that anger is not an end in itself, but I think it's a step toward mental health if handled appropriately and without vengeance. Yes, I agree with Mr. Coyote that we do te

See what Develops

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I spent some time this morning talking to a student teacher of mine about ice-breaker activities for high school students. A few tried and true things came to mind. It occurred to me, also, that it's possible to combine something enjoyable and that gets students moving around with a traditional diagnostic activity. Just stand back and observe the behavior and then read the responses and you'll have a fairly good idea of who you are dealing with. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, but often, the first few days of a class, like other new experiences in this lifetime, can be very revealing. A therapist I know once told me that often the days where someone says, "things are fine, I really don't have anything pressing to talk about" are when the most significant things surface. Not surprising, it takes time to reflect to see what surfaces. Writing is often like that too. It can start out in one direction and then something takes over. Somet