Friday, December 18 2009
Children ask - Why?
The Rich - The Poor...
The Powerful - The Powerless...
Why is one child born into prosperity, comfort and opportunity,
while another is born into poverty, suffering and despair?
Has it always been so?
Must it always be so - rich and poor, powerful and powerless?
Why?
Children ask why, why, why? We give children answers that deny reality.
Sometimes we tell them there is no answer - or the equivalent - "It's God's will".
Or, some offer "Karma" as the cause and explanation for these terrible inequities.
I believe we give empty answers, not because we are evil, or wish to mislead them, but because we cannot accept the truth ourselves.
I believe there is an honest and accurate explanation... I believe that the truth is so unspeakable, that we dare not acknowledge it to ourselves, or God forbid, reveal it to our children.
To even think the truth causes too painful a realization. To even think the truth wreaks havoc on our ideas of who we are. It tears apart our individual and collective self-images. The truth spotlights the results of our complacency and "self-service" as our prime objective.
In answer to an innocent child's inquiry "Why are those people poor and suffering, and dying, and we are not?" What parent could utter these words:
"Darling, it's because I allow it".
Friday, December 18, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Forgive me, but....
Ok... Right up front, I admit to being less than enthusiastic about "holiday" cheer. Having said that, let's take a look at what we're about.
A well meaning soul sent this to my e-mail.
http://www.sparkleball.com/intro.htm
You've just gotta see this to believe it. I don't know how to enable a link here, so please copy and paste it - look it up before you read any further, so that what I'm going to address, and why, might make sense.
Thank you, I assume that you've now seen the site on "Sparkleballs". I just don't seem to be able to avoid feeling the sad irony of this. I've come to define the condition/disability I suffer from as DIS "Denial Impairment Syndrome". Sparkleballs with their giddy distraction value, won't be the cause of our species' demise. But, they are yet another of thousands of examples that represent our persistent commitment to the inane.
In our world today there are many, frankly overwhelmingly relevant issues that need our direct and immediate attention. I find the "Sparkleball" phenomenon so sadly reflective of our times and the condition of our consciousness...
First. Note the quote at the top of the Sparkleball page...
"Making a light ball out of plastic cups won't change your life, but it will make everything a little sparklier."
Well thank god, yes! We wouldn't want to change our lives. That's hard. That requires self-examination, humility and the "C" word - Change. Our predominant, collective choice is to ramp up the level of sparkliness around us - to maintain our ever escalating commitment to making everything "a little sparklier". Yes, please... Sparklier is the secret to success, to happiness, to fulfillment. Sparklier is the key to a consciousness that might save our ignorant species from extinction! Sparklier! Yes! Gotta have it! Can't afford it? Put it on the credit card.
So, making our lives a little sparklier, requires a commitment. To embrace this enhanced level of sparkly meaning and purpose requires only that we acquire and consume more fossil fuel based plastic cups (and all that it implies), strings of electric lights designed to light up our robotic response to Hallmark Holidays, and use up more electricity to build and drive these symbols of our insanity.
If you follow along the Sparkleball page... the people involved in this amazing contribution to the human experience have also found a commercial niche. Apparently people who don't have the time or dexterity to build them, can buy them from the sparkleball wizards. There seems to be no shortage of humansdes who share a deep hunger for a sparklier sense of lifes' meaning. Please check out (if you haven't) the Global Sparkleballers Map (yes it's really there) at the bottom of the website. You'll discover, (I'm shocked!) that Americans are leading the world by an enormous margin, in Sparkleball wisdom.
Ok, so call me a scrooge. Call me what you will, but again, the opening quote says it all...
"Making a light ball out of plastic cups won't change your life, but it will make everything a little sparklier."
Maybe all that's left for us. Our noble destiny is to sit and stare at the sparkely lights. Perhaps sparkelballs are the symbols for our deliverance from the pain of realizing what we've done with our species, our planet, and our helplessness to correct it. Maybe a sparkelball would be the kindest, most effective distraction for a frog - while we boil him. Or someday, perhaps the human population will awaken to another way of thinking - a reexamined focus of resources and consciousness - perhaps something along the lines of:
"It won't make everything "sparklier", but it'll sure change your life".
A well meaning soul sent this to my e-mail.
http://www.sparkleball.com/intro.htm
You've just gotta see this to believe it. I don't know how to enable a link here, so please copy and paste it - look it up before you read any further, so that what I'm going to address, and why, might make sense.
Thank you, I assume that you've now seen the site on "Sparkleballs". I just don't seem to be able to avoid feeling the sad irony of this. I've come to define the condition/disability I suffer from as DIS "Denial Impairment Syndrome". Sparkleballs with their giddy distraction value, won't be the cause of our species' demise. But, they are yet another of thousands of examples that represent our persistent commitment to the inane.
In our world today there are many, frankly overwhelmingly relevant issues that need our direct and immediate attention. I find the "Sparkleball" phenomenon so sadly reflective of our times and the condition of our consciousness...
First. Note the quote at the top of the Sparkleball page...
"Making a light ball out of plastic cups won't change your life, but it will make everything a little sparklier."
Well thank god, yes! We wouldn't want to change our lives. That's hard. That requires self-examination, humility and the "C" word - Change. Our predominant, collective choice is to ramp up the level of sparkliness around us - to maintain our ever escalating commitment to making everything "a little sparklier". Yes, please... Sparklier is the secret to success, to happiness, to fulfillment. Sparklier is the key to a consciousness that might save our ignorant species from extinction! Sparklier! Yes! Gotta have it! Can't afford it? Put it on the credit card.
So, making our lives a little sparklier, requires a commitment. To embrace this enhanced level of sparkly meaning and purpose requires only that we acquire and consume more fossil fuel based plastic cups (and all that it implies), strings of electric lights designed to light up our robotic response to Hallmark Holidays, and use up more electricity to build and drive these symbols of our insanity.
If you follow along the Sparkleball page... the people involved in this amazing contribution to the human experience have also found a commercial niche. Apparently people who don't have the time or dexterity to build them, can buy them from the sparkleball wizards. There seems to be no shortage of humansdes who share a deep hunger for a sparklier sense of lifes' meaning. Please check out (if you haven't) the Global Sparkleballers Map (yes it's really there) at the bottom of the website. You'll discover, (I'm shocked!) that Americans are leading the world by an enormous margin, in Sparkleball wisdom.
Ok, so call me a scrooge. Call me what you will, but again, the opening quote says it all...
"Making a light ball out of plastic cups won't change your life, but it will make everything a little sparklier."
Maybe all that's left for us. Our noble destiny is to sit and stare at the sparkely lights. Perhaps sparkelballs are the symbols for our deliverance from the pain of realizing what we've done with our species, our planet, and our helplessness to correct it. Maybe a sparkelball would be the kindest, most effective distraction for a frog - while we boil him. Or someday, perhaps the human population will awaken to another way of thinking - a reexamined focus of resources and consciousness - perhaps something along the lines of:
"It won't make everything "sparklier", but it'll sure change your life".
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Making Amends
Making Amends:
The Tao Te Ching says:
A great nation is like a great man,
when he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
Every person, every nation, makes mistakes. Making amends can be a noble act, and is ultimately a necessary one. Noble, if no one is forcing us to do it. We choose to recognize our mistakes and correct them. Ultimately necessary, because the universe simply doesn't support imbalance for long. It just doesn't work that way. Making amends is a pro-active measure toward balancing our universal books before the universal IRS, with icy, non-negotiable indifference, does it for us. The magnitude of a mistake influences the difficulty of correcting it. We have some very difficult amends to make, and thus far, we're failing miserably. I intend to examine some of the reasons for that.
Born in the USA, post WWII , we perceived ourselves as the most righteous, most powerful, and most noble people on earth. We were the “Good Guys”, the “White Hats”. As we grew, we learned that our wealth, power and comfort was afforded us by imposing oppressive poverty, suffering, indignity and death upon billions of less fortunate people on every continent. We came to recognize that we weren't so very “White Hat” after all. For many of us, the need to make amends is a persistent, unavoidable awareness. Unfortunately, for internal and external reasons, making these amends seems virtually impossible.
One powerful obstacle is the inertia of our deeply internalized sense of entitlement. We may care about the oppressed billions, past and present, but to make any significant correction calls for sacrifice. It calls for broad, unconditional sharing of the wealth - genuine generosity. We're not much good at that. We're willing to care, we're willing to share, but generally, only if it doesn't disrupt our personal comfort groove. We instinctively resist any interference with the lifestyle we've come to believe we're entitled to. Making amends may impact our level of convenience and comfort. That concern alone justifies setting our responsibility on the back burner. With further consideration, we to turn the burner off.
Another potent and legitimate obstacle, is the ineffectiveness of charitable organizations. Charitable contributions are frequently mismanaged by the organizations who claim to serve the needy, but primarily serve their own boards, consultants and vendors. Additionally, contributions are frequently stolen by the leaders of the most desperately impoverished peoples. Adding salt to the wound, these are commonly leaders that our government have or do currently support. This knowledge dissuades us from contributing and further disables our efforts to terminate our complicity in the our governments intentional and systematic abuse of humanity.
And what of the needy and the suffering in our own neighborhoods, in our own country? We know that the poorest of our poor are better off than the poor of other nations. Additionally, we know that laboring within our economic system, binds us (through taxes and tacit acceptance)to actively and passively enabling the very system that's responsible for the wrongs against humanity at home and abroad, that we're attempting to remedy. We increase the number of poor - we prolong and exacerbate the harm. We're putting out fires with gasoline. So, in our genuine pursuit of making amends, that door too slams shut in our faces.
Understandably frustrated , with no apparent way to correct our wrongs, we can only deny or suppress the instinct to make things right. But, that pesky instinct doesn't go away. We live with it everyday. It manifests cyclically in small reminders followed by attempted repression of the feelings. We suffer from feelings of wrong doing and hypocrisy. We suffer from our apparent helplessness to correct it. As our options for redemption are systematically eliminated, guilt, shame, grief and anger grows within us. Unable to effectively withdraw from the creation of the suffering, we default to salving our spiritual distress in the best ways we know. Ironically, those “ways” reinforce the problem we feel helpless to address.
For example, we often dive headfirst into a distraction fueled, self service frenzy. We redouble our efforts to make and keep more money. We work desperately to attain and hold power, status, and righteousness. We deny the suffering we create. We simply stop paying attention. We rationalize our choices. With sufficient denial, we can temporarily mask the symptoms of gnawing guilt. But it tends to resurface. We treat the dis-ease we feel with distraction, denial and self-medication – all of which are self-punitive, self sabotaging and ultimately self-destructive. Sometimes we default to the perverse paradox of minimizing, dehumanizing and demonizing those we wish we could help, but can't. If we can deny their humanity, we can deny our obligation to help. We even deny something so obvious as our own deep, inner dis-ease. The problem with denial is that it doesn't work. Denial doesn't solve the problem. Denial doesn't make amends. It doesn't relieve our dis-ease.
Perhaps the most damaging long term effect is that for "denial as remedy" to be effective, we must dumb down. We must ratchet down our awareness of self and others, mute the voice within, blind ourselves, ignore our conscience. We must deny that we have the power to stand for what's right. We force ourselves into a state of helplessness. Effective denial requires that we become less conscious, less aware, less compassionate and less connected.
This leads to atrophy of the prime motivator, the innate drive to expand our comprehension of reality, including ourselves as part of humankind. We cannot simultaneously expand and contract our awareness. Consciously or unconsciously we choose - we expand, or we shut down. If we shut down, we acquiesce to accepting a small and impotent version of life. In choosing helplessness, we guarantee that we'll soon occupy the hell we've created for others. In dumbing ourselves down, in denying our responsibility we increase the depth and breadth of the destructive panorama. Paradoxically, we somehow manage to simultaneously accept and deny, our freakish commitment to self destruction on the personal and global stage. We become internal wells of denial, indignity and suffering. The internal toxicity expands within and around us. This testifies to the veracity of the timeless adage – As within, so without.
In our endeavor to “balance the universal books” we encounter overwhelming resistance. We must accept overwhelmingly uncomfortable self-examination . If we choose to dumb ourselves down, to entertain ourselves into oblivion, if we fail to confront it, the results will be almost unthinkable.
Yeah, it's right about now, that denial and distraction start sounding pretty good. We can just pretend we never think about these things, and neither does anyone else. We can just have a drink and some witty, distracting dialogue about the “important” stuff . Your place or mine? We can plop down in front of the electronic narcotic, share a soothing big plasma mind melt and have another drink. A good solid alcohol brain bath will help us pretend it isn't there. It'll go away all by itself. God Bless America., or God Help Us. We must find a way to correct the suffering and the grotesque, murderous inequity we've visited upon the rest of humanity. If we don't, rest assured that soon we'll hear our own collective, desperate, shrieking plea “God Forgive Us” emanating from beneath the crushed white hat of a shattered America, on a devastated planet.
The Tao Te Ching says:
A great nation is like a great man,
when he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
Every person, every nation, makes mistakes. Making amends can be a noble act, and is ultimately a necessary one. Noble, if no one is forcing us to do it. We choose to recognize our mistakes and correct them. Ultimately necessary, because the universe simply doesn't support imbalance for long. It just doesn't work that way. Making amends is a pro-active measure toward balancing our universal books before the universal IRS, with icy, non-negotiable indifference, does it for us. The magnitude of a mistake influences the difficulty of correcting it. We have some very difficult amends to make, and thus far, we're failing miserably. I intend to examine some of the reasons for that.
Born in the USA, post WWII , we perceived ourselves as the most righteous, most powerful, and most noble people on earth. We were the “Good Guys”, the “White Hats”. As we grew, we learned that our wealth, power and comfort was afforded us by imposing oppressive poverty, suffering, indignity and death upon billions of less fortunate people on every continent. We came to recognize that we weren't so very “White Hat” after all. For many of us, the need to make amends is a persistent, unavoidable awareness. Unfortunately, for internal and external reasons, making these amends seems virtually impossible.
One powerful obstacle is the inertia of our deeply internalized sense of entitlement. We may care about the oppressed billions, past and present, but to make any significant correction calls for sacrifice. It calls for broad, unconditional sharing of the wealth - genuine generosity. We're not much good at that. We're willing to care, we're willing to share, but generally, only if it doesn't disrupt our personal comfort groove. We instinctively resist any interference with the lifestyle we've come to believe we're entitled to. Making amends may impact our level of convenience and comfort. That concern alone justifies setting our responsibility on the back burner. With further consideration, we to turn the burner off.
Another potent and legitimate obstacle, is the ineffectiveness of charitable organizations. Charitable contributions are frequently mismanaged by the organizations who claim to serve the needy, but primarily serve their own boards, consultants and vendors. Additionally, contributions are frequently stolen by the leaders of the most desperately impoverished peoples. Adding salt to the wound, these are commonly leaders that our government have or do currently support. This knowledge dissuades us from contributing and further disables our efforts to terminate our complicity in the our governments intentional and systematic abuse of humanity.
And what of the needy and the suffering in our own neighborhoods, in our own country? We know that the poorest of our poor are better off than the poor of other nations. Additionally, we know that laboring within our economic system, binds us (through taxes and tacit acceptance)to actively and passively enabling the very system that's responsible for the wrongs against humanity at home and abroad, that we're attempting to remedy. We increase the number of poor - we prolong and exacerbate the harm. We're putting out fires with gasoline. So, in our genuine pursuit of making amends, that door too slams shut in our faces.
Understandably frustrated , with no apparent way to correct our wrongs, we can only deny or suppress the instinct to make things right. But, that pesky instinct doesn't go away. We live with it everyday. It manifests cyclically in small reminders followed by attempted repression of the feelings. We suffer from feelings of wrong doing and hypocrisy. We suffer from our apparent helplessness to correct it. As our options for redemption are systematically eliminated, guilt, shame, grief and anger grows within us. Unable to effectively withdraw from the creation of the suffering, we default to salving our spiritual distress in the best ways we know. Ironically, those “ways” reinforce the problem we feel helpless to address.
For example, we often dive headfirst into a distraction fueled, self service frenzy. We redouble our efforts to make and keep more money. We work desperately to attain and hold power, status, and righteousness. We deny the suffering we create. We simply stop paying attention. We rationalize our choices. With sufficient denial, we can temporarily mask the symptoms of gnawing guilt. But it tends to resurface. We treat the dis-ease we feel with distraction, denial and self-medication – all of which are self-punitive, self sabotaging and ultimately self-destructive. Sometimes we default to the perverse paradox of minimizing, dehumanizing and demonizing those we wish we could help, but can't. If we can deny their humanity, we can deny our obligation to help. We even deny something so obvious as our own deep, inner dis-ease. The problem with denial is that it doesn't work. Denial doesn't solve the problem. Denial doesn't make amends. It doesn't relieve our dis-ease.
Perhaps the most damaging long term effect is that for "denial as remedy" to be effective, we must dumb down. We must ratchet down our awareness of self and others, mute the voice within, blind ourselves, ignore our conscience. We must deny that we have the power to stand for what's right. We force ourselves into a state of helplessness. Effective denial requires that we become less conscious, less aware, less compassionate and less connected.
This leads to atrophy of the prime motivator, the innate drive to expand our comprehension of reality, including ourselves as part of humankind. We cannot simultaneously expand and contract our awareness. Consciously or unconsciously we choose - we expand, or we shut down. If we shut down, we acquiesce to accepting a small and impotent version of life. In choosing helplessness, we guarantee that we'll soon occupy the hell we've created for others. In dumbing ourselves down, in denying our responsibility we increase the depth and breadth of the destructive panorama. Paradoxically, we somehow manage to simultaneously accept and deny, our freakish commitment to self destruction on the personal and global stage. We become internal wells of denial, indignity and suffering. The internal toxicity expands within and around us. This testifies to the veracity of the timeless adage – As within, so without.
In our endeavor to “balance the universal books” we encounter overwhelming resistance. We must accept overwhelmingly uncomfortable self-examination . If we choose to dumb ourselves down, to entertain ourselves into oblivion, if we fail to confront it, the results will be almost unthinkable.
Yeah, it's right about now, that denial and distraction start sounding pretty good. We can just pretend we never think about these things, and neither does anyone else. We can just have a drink and some witty, distracting dialogue about the “important” stuff . Your place or mine? We can plop down in front of the electronic narcotic, share a soothing big plasma mind melt and have another drink. A good solid alcohol brain bath will help us pretend it isn't there. It'll go away all by itself. God Bless America., or God Help Us. We must find a way to correct the suffering and the grotesque, murderous inequity we've visited upon the rest of humanity. If we don't, rest assured that soon we'll hear our own collective, desperate, shrieking plea “God Forgive Us” emanating from beneath the crushed white hat of a shattered America, on a devastated planet.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Here It Comes Folks
The Chicago Model of Militarizing Schools
Monday 29 June 2009
by: Brian Roa, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening.
Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities. The facilities and resources are better on the RNA side. RNA students are allowed to walk on the Senn side, while Senn students cannot walk on the RNA side. RNA "disenrolls" students and we accept those students who get kicked out if they live within our attendance boundaries. This practice is against Chicago policy, but goes unchecked. All of these things maintain a two-tiered system within the same school building.
This phenomenon is not restricted to Senn. Chicago has more military academies and more students in JROTC than any other city in the US. As the tentacles of school militarization reach beyond Chicago, the process used in this city seems to serve as a model of expansion. There was a Marine Academy planned for Georgia's Dekalb County, which includes 10 percent of Atlanta. Fortunately, due to protest, the school has been postponed until 2010. Despite it being postponed, it is still useful to analyze the rhetoric used to rationalize the Marine Academy. Many of the lies and excuses used to justify school militarization in Chicago and Georgia may well be used in other cities as militarism grows.
Not for Recruiting?
A favorite lie used to defend the expansion of military academies is that they are not used to recruit for the military.
"This is not a training ground to send kids into the military," Dekalb Schools' Superintendent Crawford Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March. Those same words could have come straight from Col. Rick Mills, director of military academies and JROTC in Chicago, who explained away recruitment in a similar fashion.
"This is not a recruiting tool, but a way to help students succeed at whatever career they might choose," Mills told the Chicago Tribune.
Yet military academies receive money from the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD would be derelict in its responsibilities were that money not spent as an investment in future soldiers. Accepting the claim that there is no recruiting in military academies makes about as much sense as allowing gangs to fund and operate within schools, on the assumption that they won't recruit on school grounds.
Moreover, since military academies are staffed with ex-service members (many don't even require valid teaching certificates), students are likely to receive career advice that favors a military path.
There are more blatant examples of recruiting at RNA. The cadets - the label applied to students at military academies - have taken a school-sponsored field trip to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Furthermore, last year the school hosted Adm. Michael Mullen, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen told the cadets that the Navy was a "great career choice." RNA has hosted ten admirals in their short four-year history.
In addition to these direct tactics, the academies use more insidious approaches. A military culture permeates these schools. Students dress in uniform, receive demerits, and are introduced to the military hierarchy and way of life. For example, I have witnessed students marching with fake rifles. This cultivation of a militarized mind is the best explanation for why 40 percent of all Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program graduates wind up entering military service. This statistic is especially telling, considering that less than one percent of the population has served in the military at any given moment since 1975.
The Choice Argument
Military academies are promoted as an option within the public school system for parents. We heard it from Arne Duncan (ex-CEO of CPS and current secretary of education) and we hear it from Dale Davis, public information officer for the Dekalb County School System, who calls the military school "an addition" for parents to consider. Compare that with what Colonel Mills said in December 2007 in the Online News Hour: "The purpose of the military academy programs is to offer our cadets and parents an educational choice among many choices in Chicago Public Schools and to provide an educational experience that has a college prep curriculum, combined with a military curriculum."
We must dissect what kind of "choice" parents are given. If one's only choices are a school in desperate need of repair or a shiny new military academy, parents will often "choose" the "better" school.
The unbalanced funding presents an incredibly difficult decision for many parents, as Marivel Igartua, mother of a cadet inside the Naval Academy, told me. She didn't want to have to send her daughter to RNA, but she felt squeezed into the choice because her area school was in such bad shape. The unequal allocation of resources, which favors military academies, can serve as a form of economic coercion upon parents.
If public schools were given the resources they need to improve, then we could offer parents a more real choice.
Military pushers also argue that the academies are a popular option among parents. According to Mills, quoted in In These Times in 2005, "These kinds of programs would not be in schools if there weren't kids who wanted it, parents who supported it and administrators who facilitated it."
Arne Duncan claimed there were waiting lists filled with children hoping to attend a military academy. However, CPS has never released the so-called waiting lists, and concrete numbers tell a different story. RNA's goal for student enrollment for this year was 500-600 students. RNA finished the year with 376 students. Where's the demand?
Military Academies in the Context of Dismantling Public Education
Viewing militarization in the broader scope of "school improvement" can provide a helpful lens. In Chicago, military academies often represented one offshoot of a general plan to break down public education and replace it with charter schools and contract schools, siphoning public money to business people and "nonprofits." However, these "chosen" schools don't perform any better than public schools. A recent Chicago study compared ACT scores between charter schools and neighborhood schools, and no statistically significant difference was found. There was a difference in the number of English language learners and special-needs students accepted. Charters received fewer of both students. We see the same dichotomy with Senn and RNA.
What may be more problematic is that sometimes the charterization movement masks hidden agendas Sometimes the hidden agenda is union busting. Sometimes it's gentrification. Sometimes it is militarization. We have seen all of these hidden agendas in Chicago. We all agree that public schools are in desperate need of renovation and repair. But simply demonizing public schools as failing without giving them the resources to succeed - and replacing them with experimental schools - is unjust.
The push to destroy public schools and replace them with military academies and charter schools was further facilitated under the mayoral control of schools in Chicago. Mayoral control means that a city's once publicly elected school board is replaced by mayoral appointees partial to the agenda set forth by the mayor. In Chicago, it also meant replacing the school superintendent, who was legally mandated to have public education experience, with a CEO, who is only mandated by his scruples. Duncan served as the CEO for several years. He helped administer and finish off the largest militarization of a school system in the US, under the banner of "school improvement."
If we look at the history of Chicago's "school improvement" plan, we can see the hidden agenda pushed by the charter movement. According to Pauline Lipman, writing in Substance News in 2005, it is a plan whose blueprint was ripped from the Commercial Club of Chicago, a conglomerate of Fortune 500 companies in Chicago. Schools are closed and reopened while students are shuffled around to other schools, which are often performing worse than their original school. Little regard is paid to the education of the majority of students, almost all of them poor, black and Latino/a. Simply put, Chicago's plan is not a school improvement plan. It is the dismantling of a public good for the benefit of a chosen few. School militarization was accelerated as this plan was being implemented in Chicago.
The pushing of similar plans can be expected throughout the US now that Duncan is secretary of education. With the stimulus bill's $100 billion in emergency aid for public schools and colleges, Duncan is in an incredible position of power. He could use it to promote renovation and increase resources to existing public schools. Or he could spend it on costly privatization and militarization, squandering our tax money and endangering our children's futures.
--------
Brian Roa is a science teacher at Chicago's Senn High School and a member of CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators), a caucus in the CTU which works for equitable education for all students and against the charterization schemes in Chicago.
Monday 29 June 2009
by: Brian Roa, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening.
Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities. The facilities and resources are better on the RNA side. RNA students are allowed to walk on the Senn side, while Senn students cannot walk on the RNA side. RNA "disenrolls" students and we accept those students who get kicked out if they live within our attendance boundaries. This practice is against Chicago policy, but goes unchecked. All of these things maintain a two-tiered system within the same school building.
This phenomenon is not restricted to Senn. Chicago has more military academies and more students in JROTC than any other city in the US. As the tentacles of school militarization reach beyond Chicago, the process used in this city seems to serve as a model of expansion. There was a Marine Academy planned for Georgia's Dekalb County, which includes 10 percent of Atlanta. Fortunately, due to protest, the school has been postponed until 2010. Despite it being postponed, it is still useful to analyze the rhetoric used to rationalize the Marine Academy. Many of the lies and excuses used to justify school militarization in Chicago and Georgia may well be used in other cities as militarism grows.
Not for Recruiting?
A favorite lie used to defend the expansion of military academies is that they are not used to recruit for the military.
"This is not a training ground to send kids into the military," Dekalb Schools' Superintendent Crawford Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March. Those same words could have come straight from Col. Rick Mills, director of military academies and JROTC in Chicago, who explained away recruitment in a similar fashion.
"This is not a recruiting tool, but a way to help students succeed at whatever career they might choose," Mills told the Chicago Tribune.
Yet military academies receive money from the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD would be derelict in its responsibilities were that money not spent as an investment in future soldiers. Accepting the claim that there is no recruiting in military academies makes about as much sense as allowing gangs to fund and operate within schools, on the assumption that they won't recruit on school grounds.
Moreover, since military academies are staffed with ex-service members (many don't even require valid teaching certificates), students are likely to receive career advice that favors a military path.
There are more blatant examples of recruiting at RNA. The cadets - the label applied to students at military academies - have taken a school-sponsored field trip to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Furthermore, last year the school hosted Adm. Michael Mullen, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen told the cadets that the Navy was a "great career choice." RNA has hosted ten admirals in their short four-year history.
In addition to these direct tactics, the academies use more insidious approaches. A military culture permeates these schools. Students dress in uniform, receive demerits, and are introduced to the military hierarchy and way of life. For example, I have witnessed students marching with fake rifles. This cultivation of a militarized mind is the best explanation for why 40 percent of all Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program graduates wind up entering military service. This statistic is especially telling, considering that less than one percent of the population has served in the military at any given moment since 1975.
The Choice Argument
Military academies are promoted as an option within the public school system for parents. We heard it from Arne Duncan (ex-CEO of CPS and current secretary of education) and we hear it from Dale Davis, public information officer for the Dekalb County School System, who calls the military school "an addition" for parents to consider. Compare that with what Colonel Mills said in December 2007 in the Online News Hour: "The purpose of the military academy programs is to offer our cadets and parents an educational choice among many choices in Chicago Public Schools and to provide an educational experience that has a college prep curriculum, combined with a military curriculum."
We must dissect what kind of "choice" parents are given. If one's only choices are a school in desperate need of repair or a shiny new military academy, parents will often "choose" the "better" school.
The unbalanced funding presents an incredibly difficult decision for many parents, as Marivel Igartua, mother of a cadet inside the Naval Academy, told me. She didn't want to have to send her daughter to RNA, but she felt squeezed into the choice because her area school was in such bad shape. The unequal allocation of resources, which favors military academies, can serve as a form of economic coercion upon parents.
If public schools were given the resources they need to improve, then we could offer parents a more real choice.
Military pushers also argue that the academies are a popular option among parents. According to Mills, quoted in In These Times in 2005, "These kinds of programs would not be in schools if there weren't kids who wanted it, parents who supported it and administrators who facilitated it."
Arne Duncan claimed there were waiting lists filled with children hoping to attend a military academy. However, CPS has never released the so-called waiting lists, and concrete numbers tell a different story. RNA's goal for student enrollment for this year was 500-600 students. RNA finished the year with 376 students. Where's the demand?
Military Academies in the Context of Dismantling Public Education
Viewing militarization in the broader scope of "school improvement" can provide a helpful lens. In Chicago, military academies often represented one offshoot of a general plan to break down public education and replace it with charter schools and contract schools, siphoning public money to business people and "nonprofits." However, these "chosen" schools don't perform any better than public schools. A recent Chicago study compared ACT scores between charter schools and neighborhood schools, and no statistically significant difference was found. There was a difference in the number of English language learners and special-needs students accepted. Charters received fewer of both students. We see the same dichotomy with Senn and RNA.
What may be more problematic is that sometimes the charterization movement masks hidden agendas Sometimes the hidden agenda is union busting. Sometimes it's gentrification. Sometimes it is militarization. We have seen all of these hidden agendas in Chicago. We all agree that public schools are in desperate need of renovation and repair. But simply demonizing public schools as failing without giving them the resources to succeed - and replacing them with experimental schools - is unjust.
The push to destroy public schools and replace them with military academies and charter schools was further facilitated under the mayoral control of schools in Chicago. Mayoral control means that a city's once publicly elected school board is replaced by mayoral appointees partial to the agenda set forth by the mayor. In Chicago, it also meant replacing the school superintendent, who was legally mandated to have public education experience, with a CEO, who is only mandated by his scruples. Duncan served as the CEO for several years. He helped administer and finish off the largest militarization of a school system in the US, under the banner of "school improvement."
If we look at the history of Chicago's "school improvement" plan, we can see the hidden agenda pushed by the charter movement. According to Pauline Lipman, writing in Substance News in 2005, it is a plan whose blueprint was ripped from the Commercial Club of Chicago, a conglomerate of Fortune 500 companies in Chicago. Schools are closed and reopened while students are shuffled around to other schools, which are often performing worse than their original school. Little regard is paid to the education of the majority of students, almost all of them poor, black and Latino/a. Simply put, Chicago's plan is not a school improvement plan. It is the dismantling of a public good for the benefit of a chosen few. School militarization was accelerated as this plan was being implemented in Chicago.
The pushing of similar plans can be expected throughout the US now that Duncan is secretary of education. With the stimulus bill's $100 billion in emergency aid for public schools and colleges, Duncan is in an incredible position of power. He could use it to promote renovation and increase resources to existing public schools. Or he could spend it on costly privatization and militarization, squandering our tax money and endangering our children's futures.
--------
Brian Roa is a science teacher at Chicago's Senn High School and a member of CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators), a caucus in the CTU which works for equitable education for all students and against the charterization schemes in Chicago.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
National Service
This is the one to watch for folks...
As unemployment figures skyrocket in the coming months, watch for the development of "National Service" programs...
During the "Great Depression" FDR created "works projects" to employ millions of Americans.
These projects:
The Civilian Conservation Corps - CCC
The Works Project Administration - WPA
The Tennessee Valley Authority - TVA
These government sponsored programs enabled millions to escape the devastating unemployment and poverty of the times and accomplished great infrastructure development in our country. These "camps" were largely commanded by ex-military officers and structured and operated by military standards and procedures.
While these programs succeeded in employing so many and accomplishing so much, their accomplishments were achieved at the expense of deepening the deficit. The American economy only truly recovered from it's deficit and vast unemployment when the nation geared up it's manufacturing and recruiting for the military and engaged fully in World War II. The stock market that crashed in 1929 (for the same reasons it's crashing now) only returned to it's highs of the 1920's after the war.
While campaigning for the office, our now "President" Obama made on several occasions, references to "National Service".
It may seem an odd coincidence. The government's "non-response" to the housing crisis, and completely mis-directed bailout policies for banks and other financial institutions, have not eased the stress on our economy nor the accelerating free-fall in job losses.
Could it be that the intent of our benevolent corprastocracy is to allow/generate enough hardship, fear and despair that Americans will "volunteer" by the millions for the as yet undefined "National Service"? If creating such a dynamic is not our corporate driven government's intent, then at best, they're failing magnificently at their purported commitment to righting the economy and saving/creating millions of jobs.
In a world where those who control the levers of power, create what serves them best, my argument is that we're being led toward a National Service Program.
In some civilized countries, "National Service" is a requirement that's generally positive and accepted. Unfortunately, it was also utilized as a primary recruiting tool for organizations like the Nazi Party during the depression that followed WW I.
Will it be a volunteer program? Will it be the form of "unavoidable volunteerism" spawned by the choice between eating and starving - between being homeless and having a cot in a barracks? Or will it become a mandatory obligation that all of us will, by law, be required to fulfill? Will this form of "National Service" create a standing (or kneeling) labor reserve for direct and indirect support of the US military?
During the Great Depression, tens of thousands of those employed in the military style New Deal Works Projects Camps, segued directly from the camps into the military.
Does this sort of malevolent manipulation seem unlikely? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
So, National Service? Watch the trends and directions that government policies encourage. I urge you, for your sake, and the sake of your children and grandchildren, to remember your history - connect the dots - keep your eye on this one.
As unemployment figures skyrocket in the coming months, watch for the development of "National Service" programs...
During the "Great Depression" FDR created "works projects" to employ millions of Americans.
These projects:
The Civilian Conservation Corps - CCC
The Works Project Administration - WPA
The Tennessee Valley Authority - TVA
These government sponsored programs enabled millions to escape the devastating unemployment and poverty of the times and accomplished great infrastructure development in our country. These "camps" were largely commanded by ex-military officers and structured and operated by military standards and procedures.
While these programs succeeded in employing so many and accomplishing so much, their accomplishments were achieved at the expense of deepening the deficit. The American economy only truly recovered from it's deficit and vast unemployment when the nation geared up it's manufacturing and recruiting for the military and engaged fully in World War II. The stock market that crashed in 1929 (for the same reasons it's crashing now) only returned to it's highs of the 1920's after the war.
While campaigning for the office, our now "President" Obama made on several occasions, references to "National Service".
It may seem an odd coincidence. The government's "non-response" to the housing crisis, and completely mis-directed bailout policies for banks and other financial institutions, have not eased the stress on our economy nor the accelerating free-fall in job losses.
Could it be that the intent of our benevolent corprastocracy is to allow/generate enough hardship, fear and despair that Americans will "volunteer" by the millions for the as yet undefined "National Service"? If creating such a dynamic is not our corporate driven government's intent, then at best, they're failing magnificently at their purported commitment to righting the economy and saving/creating millions of jobs.
In a world where those who control the levers of power, create what serves them best, my argument is that we're being led toward a National Service Program.
In some civilized countries, "National Service" is a requirement that's generally positive and accepted. Unfortunately, it was also utilized as a primary recruiting tool for organizations like the Nazi Party during the depression that followed WW I.
Will it be a volunteer program? Will it be the form of "unavoidable volunteerism" spawned by the choice between eating and starving - between being homeless and having a cot in a barracks? Or will it become a mandatory obligation that all of us will, by law, be required to fulfill? Will this form of "National Service" create a standing (or kneeling) labor reserve for direct and indirect support of the US military?
During the Great Depression, tens of thousands of those employed in the military style New Deal Works Projects Camps, segued directly from the camps into the military.
Does this sort of malevolent manipulation seem unlikely? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
So, National Service? Watch the trends and directions that government policies encourage. I urge you, for your sake, and the sake of your children and grandchildren, to remember your history - connect the dots - keep your eye on this one.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Humility
How elusive is humility?
One thing I have learned in a long life, that all our science,
measured against reality, is primitive and childlike.
- Albert Einstein
One thing I have learned in a long life, that all our science,
measured against reality, is primitive and childlike.
- Albert Einstein
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)