Heath Care, Individual Rights and the Common Good

I must admit I am mystified by the vehemence and the vitriol that appears to be getting stirred up over the proposal to develop a universal health care system. Providing access to health care for everyone in this country seems like a no-brainer, and something long overdue. It seems to me that the debate should be how we are going to change the current system, not whether or not we should change it. However, I seem to be mystified a great deal these days because I also can’t figure out the logic that would resist a ban on the sales of assault rifles, or limit sales of handguns to one per month or require that people report when a gun is lost or stolen.

However, like the debate in this country over guns, emotions and perceptions rather than logic seem to be at the forefront of the health care debate, which point to some deep tensions and some nefarious manipulation beneath the surface in our culture. I saw a CNN video of a man screaming at a town hall meeting with PA Senator Arlen Specter and he was accusing Specter of taking lobbyist money for supporting Obama’s health care plan, when it’s the lobbyist money that is being poured into fight his plan. I saw another Fox News clip where O’Reilly was criticizing Obama’s body language as “defensive” and “angry” at a town hall meeting when he was joking about his critics. Well duh, you’d be pissed off too, if you were being falsely accused of things you never even dreamed of. All sorts of rumors such as people not getting treatment or being forced to euthanize themselves or their loved ones are being put forth as “truth;” the whole thing is bizarre to me.

At a deeper level I suspect two things are going on. First, the critics of the universal health care proposal seem to be playing up the tension between individual rights and common rights, or what is sometimes called the common good. There are somewhere between 45-50 million people without health insurance today. With rising unemployment, and tighter employer budgets those numbers are only getting higher. There are also millions of people who are “under-insured” meaning the health insurance they have is woefully inadequate. At the same time there are lots of people, like me, whose health insurance is very adequate, and provided in part by my employer. Eight years ago when I had hernia and prostate surgery, I was well cared for. Likewise my wife has had outpatient surgeries twice this year, and has been quite adequately cared for by her employer-provided plan.

Personally, like the majority of Americans we don’t need better health care. However, my individual plan will probably have to change in order to make it possible everyone in this country to enjoy the right and benefit to the health care I enjoy. I might have to pay more, or even have my taxes raised (although this has not been proposed for my tax bracket). On the other hand, my daughter has just graduated from college and was booted off our family plan; she has no health insurance and neither of her employers are providing it; with universal health care, she would not be left exposed. The individual plans available to her are ridiculously expensive and inaccessible to her.

As her father, I am hoping she stays healthy, but am quite aware I may have to “cover” her if something happens. Now I suppose I could protest and say that I have no obligation to my daughter since she is an adult, but what kind of parent would I be? What kind of person would I be? Expand this tension to the entire country and we see this tension between the health care haves and the have-nots.

At play is my individual right to health care versus the common right of all to health care. A focus on common rights (rather than individual rights) says that it is the common right of all people to have access to health care. The pundits will stir up emotion by calling it “socialism” and developing scenarios where people with serious health issues won't be able to see a doctor for months on end, but in the end, it is really about community and common decency. However, this tension plays out in so many ways in our society over things like taxes, driving gas-guzzling versus hybrid cars, and regrettably even so called “gun rights.”

However, nefarious corporate forces seem to be stirring up this tension and creating the kind of chaotic circus atmosphere I saw at the Specter town hall meeting. Recently (July 17) Bill Moyers reported that the health insurance industry, including companies like CIGNA and Aetna are spending a half million dollars a day in advertising, political contributions and lobbyists to defeat the president’s proposed changes to the health care system. We like to think we are a democracy where people get to have their say. However, those with money get access that the rest of us don’t have, and spend millions of dollars to confuse people, so that you get a man screaming at a supporter of health care reform (like Specter) and accusing him of taking lobbyist money, when it is the lobbyists efforts he is trying to overcome. Despite our efforts to expand democracy over the world (however ineffective), we don’t really have a democracy in this country, we have a money-ocracy, where big money supports corporate interests, drowns out common sense and stirs up tensions that should be manageable.

Back in the book of Genesis, Cain asked God if he was his brother’s and sister’s keeper. God’s silence implied that yes, he was, and we are. What good is the most advanced health care system in the world if 50 million plus people can’t access it? How can other countries far less “advanced” than us (we could have a whole discussion about what “advanced” means) have resolved this tension. My individual rights do not eclipse the common right of all to have access to health care. I only hope that common sense can prevail. Given the current confused and politicized state of affairs, that will be a tough sell.

The Option for the Poor and the Long Defeat

The term “preferential option for the poor” is a term bandied about by theologians and educators alike, especially those who have an interest and commitment to bettering the life conditions and opportunities of those who benefit least and suffer the most in our society and world at large. I have often used that term, and see myself as one committed to the addressing the issues of poverty, injustice and oppression in our world. However, when I read about Dr. Paul Farmer, the subject of Tracy Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains, I gained a deeper understanding of just what saying I am committed to helping the poor really is committing me to.

As Kidder portrays him, Dr. Paul Farmer is an infectious disease specialist with both an MD and PhD in anthropology, who has committed his life to serving the health needs of poorest of the world’s poor. His home base is rural Haiti, where he has served as a clinician for decades while sharing his experience and expertise regarding AIDS, TB and other infectious diseases at the highest levels and some of the most desperate localities in the world. The organization he founded with a few other like-minded individuals, Partners in Health (PIH), has a record of addressing some of those most pernicious diseases in some of the world’s poorest and oppressed places.

Farmer’s accomplishments alone cause him to stand out, but his radical commitment to the poor has translated into an approach to life and work that puts all of us who consider ourselves to be progressives and social justice activists on notice. For Farmer poverty is not an “issue,” but real individual people to whom he has made himself a servant. Even after gaining international renown for his breakthrough work on medical diseases, Kidder describes how Farmer walked 11 hours through the rough Haitian terrain to check up on one patient and his family from his clinic in Cange, Haiti. When asked if that was time well spent when he could be consulting around the world, Farmer replied “I am a doctor, he is my patient, that’s all that matters.”

More than that Farmer has not gathered to himself the material advantages of being a doctor and of being a globally-renowned figure. He often travels to meetings around the world with one rumpled suit bought for him at a thrift store. Wherever he goes he seeks out patients who may be in need of his services. Moreover, he judges the effectiveness of his program and of any national or international health policy, on how well it benefits the poorest of the poor. For that reason Farmer regards the Cuban health care system, with lower infectious disease rates than the United States to be one of the best in the world despite it supposedly Communist leanings. Poor people are served as well others – that system works. One can only wonder what he must think of the current debate in the US around universal health care, and whether or not we can “afford” to make sure 50 million uninsured Americans are covered. My guess is that Farmer would be extremely critical of the capitalistic assumptions underlying the debate and suggest that the health care system itself is bloated at the top by insurance companies, drug companies, physicians, and lawyers all fighting for their big piece of the pie, while the poor go untreated.

While Farmer has been successful at one level in providing insights into ways countries can address the infectious disease problems in their countries, serves on the faculty Harvard Medical School, and regularly consults with international health organizations, he recognizes that taking the option for the poor or the “O for P” as he calls it, is a long and frustrating struggle. Near the end of the book, Kidder quotes Farmer saying:

“I have fought my whole life a long defeat…I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don’t dislike victory…You know, people from our background ….we’re used to being on a victory team, and actually what we’re really trying to in PIH is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our back on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat” (p. 288).

To work on behalf of the poor requires personal sacrifice and a commitment to the long defeat with a few victories scattered in. Fighting the long defeat is not just volunteering or doing “pro bono” work every once and a while. Rather, it is to see one’s well being and destiny tied directly to real people with real needs who have been beaten down and neglected by the very systems that purport to help them. I thank Dr. Paul Farmer for helping me see that the option for the poor is a meaningless idea without putting my life behind it, and taking time to consider ways in which we may have allowed our lives to undermine our own rhetoric.

Climbing Mount Katahdin

Every summer one of my goals is to climb a mountain. In some years I have had to stretch the meaning of the word “mountain” to achieve that goal, by climbing a hill that for some reason had been given a “mount” in front of it. However, the last two years I have climbed real mountains such as Croagh Patrick in Northwest Ireland two years ago and a peak in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina last summer. This year I took on the ultimate test: Mt. Katahdin in central Maine (although central Maine feels like the edge of civilization). While only 5267 feet tall (by Rocky Mountain or Alps standards that is only a hill), Mt. Katahdin rises straight up from a valley basin. The only way up is to climb incredibly steep grades for 2 miles or more.

First, I had to hike 3.5 miles up a trail with a slight grade just to get to the base of the mountain at a basin called Chimney Pond. From Chimney Pond I began my ascent on the Cathedral Trail, a nearly vertical climb up huge granite boulders stretching for 1.7 miles straight up. Not only was I challenged physically, but I felt tested mentally, as if often did not appear to be any place to grab with my hands or push up with my feet. After 4 ½ hours (two hours hiking in and 2 ½ hours climbing up), I made it to the top.

When I got there about twenty other people were also there having come up from a variety of paths: two Canadians who came up Cathedral trail ahead of me, a bunch of teenagers and middle-agers, a family of 5 (including a seven year old girl), and group of four women who had completed their goal of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail in chunks over a period of 17 years (Mt. Katahdin is the northern end of the AT). From the peak I looked over the valley from which I had come and on the other side to the valley to the west. I saw the infamous Knife Edge, a 1.5 mile narrow ledge leading across to another peak. I saw Chimney Pond two miles below and I saw the lakes and valleys bond. I was tired but ecstatic.

After I had been up on the peak for about 30 minutes, a rain storm whipped up (some later reported the rain had even turned to small pellets of hail), and I began to feel my temperature drop. Not wanting to get hypothermia, I started what for me is the more difficult dimension of climbing, the descent. I headed down another way called the Saddle Trail, so named because of a broad plateau between Baxter and Hannigan peaks that looks like a saddle from below. After crossing the plateau, I began going down a run of loose rock, which the forest ranger said was easier than going back down Cathedral Trail.

Easier, yes, but easy, not at all. Loose rock made slippery by the rain made for a slow and at times treacherous descent off the mountain. Fortunately, there was no one on the trail above or below me because often loose rock cascaded down the run when I stepped on it. After two hours of slipping, and sliding, I was off the mountain, and then began a 4 ½ mile trek and slow descent back my car. In the valley the rain was falling much harder and what had been a trail going up was largely a mud bath coming down. Eventually, 9 ½ hours after I had started that morning, I arrived back at my car.

I have often wondered what it is about climbing mountains that attracts me; my college roommate who lives in Montana, writes for hunting and fishing magazines and spends days at a time in the wilderness, would call me an “Oh wow, the mountain guy.” I know that part of what attracts me is the mental and physical challenge of it. Several times while climbing the boulders of the Cathedral Trail, I thought to myself, they should never let an amateur like me on a trail like this. Mountain trails ought to be rated like ski resorts rate their trails (Easy, Difficult, Most Difficult, Expert). Yet in spite of my obvious limitations, I pushed past them, achieved something I was not sure was possible, and proved something to myself.

Part of what attracts me also is the total focus that climbing requires. Going up I had to think about every hand hold and every place I was going to put my foot. Going down, I had to think carefully about every step I was going to take lest I twist a knee, sprain and ankle or take a fall. When I got back my room, I noticed I had scrapes all over my leg. I had not even noticed them or my blistered toe, because my mind was so completely focused on the task of climbing up and then down.

Also, there is something concrete about climbing mountains that is refreshing. I spend so much of my time in the realm of ideas and speculation; it is nice to have something tangible to point to as an accomplishment. While ambiguity and critique is a big part of what I do in my work, a mountain is something I can say, “See, there it is and I climbed it.”

I suspect that perhaps part of what drives me to climb mountains is because overall I have lived a fairly privileged and comfortable existence, and I find exhilaration in pushing myself to the edge of survival. People I know who grew up poor, or are poor, generally don’t do things like climb mountains, even though it is a relatively cheap form of exercise, because they have had to scrounge out life to survive each day. Yet for me, climbing mountains pushes me to a place I don’t often go. As I was climbing up the boulders of the Cathedral Trail, I thought, you know, I could die up here. Weird, I know, but somehow it fills a deep need within.

No doubt there is something deeply spiritual about mountains for me. The psalmist wrote: "I lift my eyes to hills, from whence comes my help” (Psalm 121.1). Mountains in some mysterious way remind me of my humbleness and the grandeur of God. Thomas More (Care of the Soul) says that there are inner drives and longings that emanate from deep yearnings within our souls. For me, climbing mountains does something for my soul.

Frankly I am not sure why I get off on climbing mountains. All I know is that when I got back to my car, I felt a huge sense of relief and satisfaction, having tackled one of the most challenging climbs I have ever attempted, and having lived to climb another summer.

The Case for More, Not Less, Religion in Schools

A recent conversation with my daughter and a possible pending Supreme Court case have gotten me thinking about the need for more religion in our public schools. Donna Kay Busch’s case initially caught my attention because it happens to involve the Marple Newtown School District my children attended. Apparently, in 2005 Ms. Busch’s son wanted to have his mother read from his favorite book during “All About Me” week at his local elementary school. However, when his mother came to read out of the Bible, the principal and the school district said no, basing their argument on the separation of church and state. Ms. Busch took her case to court, which she lost at both the District and Appeals court level. She and her lawyers have until August 31 to decide if they will appeal their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. I hope they do.

Now given the fact that Ms. Busch is being represented by the Rutherford Institute, there may be more in the details of this case than meets the eye. The Rutherford Institute is a Christian legal organization that has its roots in the writings of Samuel Rutherford and Rousas J. Rushdoony early proponents of the Christian Reconstructionist movement. Christian Reconstructionism’s stated goal is the implementation of theonomy, the application of Christian Biblical principles in the policies of government; in my view they represent the worst of religion-controlled government the Christian faith can offer. They are the “Puritans - take 2.” Thus, I grant that this case may not be the case to make the case for more religion in school.

However, on the surface I see no justifiable reason why this mother, and any mother or child, should not be allowed to bring their religion to school. Moreover, I believe schools should encourage and promote discussion about religion rather than stifle it. My daughter, Esther, a recent college graduate who majored in religion, made a strong argument to this effect. She expressed frustration that her degree did not enable her to teach religion at the public school level, when a deeper understanding of religion is critical to understanding and addressing many of the problems our nation confronts around the world in places such as Israel, Iraq, Iran, India and many African countries. Her point was that religion plays a huge role in the way people think, make decisions and interpret the world, as well as how governments and nations choose to operate. The current crisis in the Iranian elections is only the most recent example.

In the United States we operate in a schizophrenic manner when it comes to the role of religion in our lives. On the one hand, our presidents finish their speeches with an obligatory “May God Bless America,” and our children pledge allegiance to a “one nation under God,” yet we dare not try to actually talk about what such phrases mean once the school bell rings. Our politicians must walk this tightrope of affirming that they have some sort of religious faith and then pledging that that faith will in no way influence their decision making. In his most recent book, Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama made exactly that point. After taking a chapter to share his own spiritual journey, he finished by saying that a political leader’s religious perspective should not influence one’s policy making. How could that be? If religious faith is that which shapes our worldview and personal values, how can it not affect our decision-making? Who are we kidding? Doesn’t it make more sense for us to be open about our values and the religious systems that shape them, and examine them just like we might examine the evidence from a science project or an historical event?

Perhaps in this regard former President George W. Bush was more honest. He regularly referred to the influence his religious faith had on his decision-making and sought to make federal funds available to religious organizations promoting the common good through his faith-based initiative project. In Oliver Stone’s depiction of Bush in the movie “W.”, Bush’s conversion to Christianity, his sense of “call” to run for president, and his practice of ending White House meetings with a moment of silence were clearly portrayed. Regardless of one's view of Bush’s theology or his politics, Oliver Stone makes clear that religion played a significant role in the way George W. Bush saw the world and to understand George W. Bush one had to understand his religious worldview.

The same could be said of many world leaders. The same could be said of cultures around the world ranging from Iran to Japan to South Africa to Brazil and even the United States. Shouldn’t students be exposed to all the major religious faiths, and even atheism, as a way of understanding the different worldviews from which many of the world’s peoples operate? If students only learn about religion in their place of worship, how will they ever come to a wider appreciation of the diversity of religious views? Expecting an evangelical church to present a credible case for Islam, is like asking Ford to explain all the benefits of a Toyota; it ain’t going to happen in a church or a mosque, but it could happen in school.

Now I am quite aware of the difficulty making religion more a part of public education in a fair and equitable way. The question of who decides what should or should not be taught becomes quite tricky. The ongoing debates over whether or not creationism or evolution ought to be taught in biology classes is a case in point. However, when the framers of the Constitution included the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of religious expression, it was aimed at keeping the government from regulating religious expression and not aimed at keeping religion out of the public square. The First Amendment was designed to keep the government out of the church, not the church (or mosque or temple or ethical society) out of the school. Given the increasing religious pluralism of our society (e.g. there are now more Muslims than Episcopalians in the U.S. and Los Angeles is one of the most diverse Buddhist cities in the world), and the increased need for all people to know and appreciate various worldviews, it only makes sense to encourage study and discussion, and yes, even reading religious texts in schools.

As a starting point secondary school history and social studies classes ought to incorporate a study of religion into their curriculum. In many cases it would simply be a matter of including what has been “cut out” of the existing story. For instance, how can one talk about the European exploration and conquest of North America, or the American Revolution or the Civil War or the Civil Rights movement or 9/11 without talking about the significant influence of religion in those events? Certification for history and social studies teachers should include at least one course in world religions. Local religious leaders could be asked to speak in classes about their particular brand of faith. (Ironically, 15-20 years ago this was the practice in the Marple Newtown School district where the Bible reading case is being contested.) At the primary level religious holidays and events like “All About Me” could encourage families to share their cultural traditions, including those that are religious. Parents who object to such events could have their children “opt out” just as they can for sex education classes. Altogether, these kinds of common sense moves would create an environment for dialogue and mutual understanding rather contention, suspicion and fear. Spirituality and religion has a huge influence on the lives of many people, even those who consider themselves non-religious. Attempts to honestly examine belief systems, values and worldviews can only help create citizenry more knowledgeable about the people and world around them.

Hope and the Culture of Violence

Over the last several months leading up to my arrest in front of Colisimos gun shop and then the five months after that leading up to my trial, I have been made acutely aware of how deeply embedded violence is in U.S. culture. While I was already quite aware of the role violence plays in our culture, being involved in an effort to stop the flow of illegal guns has shown me how irrational the arguments of the NRA and the gun lobby can be. I have come to see more clearly that the struggle in which we are involved has touched a nerve deeply rooted in our cultural DNA. J. Denny Weaver (Anabaptist Theology in the Face of Postmodernity, 2000) has shown how from the very beginning of our nation there has been a clear belief in the link between freedom and guns. A simple search on Google or YouTube of “Freedom and Guns” reveals how prevalent such a belief still is today. In a recent NY times op-ed piece Bob Herbert even suggests that the recent shootings in the Holocaust Museum, Pittsburgh and Wichita, are linked to the NRA-inspired surge in gun purchases since Obama’s election, out of fear that Obama will impose stricter gun control laws.

However, I think the issue goes far deeper than guns or the NRA. We on the progressive end of the political spectrum are as culpable the conservatives we like to lambaste. While the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller was an expression of violence gone wild, so too are the daily abortions he and others like him commit. While the violence on our streets is a concern, so should be the thousands of murders we witness on our favorite TV shows and movies. While we rightly decry violence against police officers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other major cities, what about the violence against innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan that is unfortunately (we say) a part of our military strategy? What kind of culture makes it more attractive for poor inner city kids to choose the military and the possibility of dying in war to the staying in their neighborhood and facing the possibility of dying in that neighborhood? While we are not alone in the world as violent, dangerous place, how many weapons large and small are manufactured here and sold to be used in those other places? We wonder about how certain criminals can be so inhumane, and then we put them into a criminal justice system that is so violence-saturated that often people come out more violent than when they went in.

Sadly, religion, especially Christianity, has been a contributing factor to this culture. The pogroms against Jews, the enslavement of Africans and subsequent systematized racism that followed, and the virtual elimination of millions of Native Americans – all by Christian (Protestant and Catholic) Europeans – testify to the debilitating and denigrating role religion has played in the perpetuation of violence against others. A simple YouTube or Google search of “God and Guns” reveals how alive that link still is today. The absurdity of this link was taken to an extreme recently in a Kentucky church that actually had a worship service dedicated to allowing people to openly carry their handguns.

This culture of violence is literally killing us directly and indirectly. We are painfully aware of the direct cost of violence as we watch the evening news. However, Dan Groody (Globalization, Spirituality and Justice, 2007)illustrates the indirect cost by talking what military spending could be used for. If the world redirected its military spending for one day, malaria in Africa could be eliminated. Two days spending could provide the health services to prevent 3 million infant deaths a year. A week's spending could provide education for 140 million children in the developing world. When we examine these costs of violence, we have to ask: what must change?

While the United States is not alone in its addiction to violence, it is too easy for us to either rationalize it, feel overwhelmed by it, or try to simply deny it. Professor John Horgan routinely confronts fatalism in his students regarding the inevitability of war. My guess that a poll of most Americans would reveal that while they favor limits on gun purchases, they are resigned to the fact that the laws probably will never change, and that those of us who try to fight the NRA and the gun lobby are like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Certainly there is good reason for skepticism when common sense laws get thrown about courts, as happened in Philadelphia this week. There is reason for despair when a “one handgun a month" law can’t get passed in PA, but the Congress can pass a law allowing people to carry concealed weapons into national parks. There is reason for frustration when those in the pro-gun lobby continually create confusion and fear by stating that attempts to control the sale of any guns, is tantamount to control the sale of all guns.

There is no question that our cultural addiction to violence remains strong, and yet I remain imminently hopeful not only that gun laws will change, but that we are at a time when the futility of violence and the absurdity of the gun lobby’s arguments are showing them for what they are. I am hopeful because there are many countries in the world, especially Europe and parts of Asia, where societies carry on quite civilly without the need to show bravado through violence.

I remain hopeful because a change in our culture’s addiction to violence will either consume itself or we will change.

I have hope because I believe in a God of Justice and a God of history.

I have hope because I I believe with Paulo Freire that change is difficult, but it can happen.

I remain hopeful because as I study the movements for social change such as happened with civil rights and against nuclear arms, I can see there was a time when it seemed that things would never change. And yet today we have a black man as president who talks about his commitment to abolishing all nuclear weapons; who would've thunk it?.

I remain hopeful because our cause is right and just, and stands on the side of Truth and “Truth crushed to earth is still truth and like a seed will rise again” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).

The Widget Effect - Take 2

My last blog responded to Jonathan Alter’s article on a recent report of The New Teacher Project called The Widget Effect. I got curious and decided to read the report myself. I found that Alter fairly summed up the report accurately. Essentially, the New Teacher Project notes the lack of viable systems for evaluating teacher effectiveness in public schools. As such one finds that the overwhelming majority of teachers (90+ %) are given “satisfactory ratings. This practice not only fails to weed out ineffective teachers, but also neglects to recognize and reward truly good teachers. Furthermore, administrators are not adequately trained and equipped to determine which teachers are doing an effective job in the classroom and which ones are not. Thus, teachers are regarded as interchangeable “widgets” which can be equally effective in all situations. This “widget effect” simply perpetuates a sub-par educational system

As far as it goes, the report identifies a realistic concern. As a parent, I was quite cognizant of which teachers seem to “get through” to my children as students, and which ones seem to miss them altogether. While over all I was pleased with the education my children received, there were a few teachers I would have loved to have seen sent their “walking papers.” Likewise I have worked in and with schools, where teacher effectiveness has been a valid concern, and there did not seem to be an easy way to separate the good from the bad, or to get rid of the bad. So as far as it goes, the report makes a good point.

The problem is that this study is narrowly focused on a politically attractive symptom (teachers), and in the process completely ignores the wider context in which the problem of public of education must be discussed. As I read through the report, I saw nothing about the wide range of social and economic circumstances affecting student performance. I read nothing about wide disparities in per student funding created by the antiquated system of funding schools through property taxes. There was nothing included about the total ineffectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act, in which “learning” is equated with test taking. I read nothing about our culture’s misplaced priorities that pays professional athletes, lawyers, doctors and corporate CEOs on one scale and teachers, social workers and childcare workers on another. I also did not see a word about developing curriculum that honors the diverse cultures from which today’s students come.

I share The Widget Effect authors’ concern for raising the bar for our nation’s educational system. However, it is both irresponsible and misleading to assume that teachers operate in a social, political, economic and cultural vacuum. The legendary Brazilian educator Paulo Freire stated that all education is political, and that effective teaching must help students to “read the word and read the world” around them. In other words effective teaching is that which enables both teachers and students to address the major issues and challenges of our world, by treating knowledge not as a commodity to be measured, but rather a problem to be solved. What is needed is not simply a better teacher evaluation system, but rather a whole scale reorientation of values and perspectives on what the meaning and purpose of education truly is. By simply focusing on one aspect of that challenge, The Widget Effect oversimplifies a complex problem, and makes teachers a scapegoat for a failure that all of us in U.S. society have contributed to.

The Problem with the "Teaching Effectiveness" Argument

This brief article was prompted a recent Newseek column by Jonathan Alter (June 15) in which he urges President Obama to push his agenda for teacher effectiveness by funding those programs with “good track records at turning around poorly performing schools and training teachers better.” At the same time he urges Obama not to give into teachers unions and “educrats” who like to spread money around evenly across a wide range of programs, even if some of them show no distinguishing marks of being “successful.”

As far as Alter’s argument goes, I agree that there needs to be greater teacher accountability and greater emphasis on looking for effective models of education outside the current norms of public education. However, Alter, like many of his ilk, is short sighted when it comes to the complexity of the teaching-learning process. While he criticizes “the widget effect,” which suggests that all teachers are equally competent, he seems to assume a corresponding “widget effect” when it comes to students. Moreover, he makes the assumption that everyone knows what “good teaching” is and how to measure it: with the results of a standardized test. These are two assumptions I do not share and must challenge.

My oldest daughter teaches in an alternative school for students with behavioral and emotional problems. These are students who have been removed from their regular public schools because of disruptive and incorrigible behavior. Some days she can spend a better part of her teaching time simply trying to get her students to focus on their lessons. Fortunately, in her school there are a whole host of support services that can help her when a student gets out of hand. She is there to help students not only with math, English and so on, but with managing their lives. Her goal is that after a year they will be able to return to a regular classroom. Apparently, her school has a good track record on doing that. Even so my daughter has often said that if her effectiveness was judged on her students’ test scores, she would be out of a job.

However, one of the political reasons these students are sent to her school is that their test scores bring down the sending school’s average, thus depressing their overall “success” as a school. Her students, once they are in her school as “special ed” kids, aren’t factored into the overall average.

Another young teacher I know is not so lucky, because he teaches math in a Philadelphia public middle school. On a recent visit to the school he confided that nearly half of his students don’t live with their parents, but instead are in foster homes or with relatives because mom and dad are strung out on drugs, in jail, or participating in any number of self-destructive behaviors. As I watched him perform a simple lesson, I could see he was not only teaching them algebra, but also basic concepts like courtesy and respect. However, unlike my daughter, his school did not have all the support services, and thus he was on his own. At the end of the year the standardized tests will reveal him to be an “ineffective teacher” because most of his kids will score well below acceptable levels. While he would agree he has much to learn, in my book he is a hero for teaching on the front lines of difficult school, a place where many “successful” teachers dare never tread.

Having been a teacher myself for nearly 12 years, and having helped many others as a faculty developer, I have had my share of great teaching moments where students really got the subject material I taught them. Yet, I have also bombed. While, I always ask myself how I could have done better, I also recognize that often my “success” is determined by not only by my teaching methods and the academic preparation and motivation of my students, but also a whole host of factors outside the classroom such as family, health, finances, job, and so on. Not only that, each student learns in different ways, bringing in different experiences, and processing information in their own special way. Moreover, there are socio-political factors such as class, race, and social power that enter into the subject matter that is taught. My point is simply students are not uniform “widgets,” and success is far more elusive than most policymakers and columnists would care to admit.

If the Obama administration wants to raise the effectiveness of education, the focus cannot just be on teachers, nor on schools. The problems in education today, are much wider and broader than that. Columnists like Alter and many politicians want simple, sure fire solutions to problems like education. They want simple measures like standardized tests to determine “success" and ‘effectiveness.” However, the task is far more complex and therefore does not lend itself to “silver bullet” answers.

Instead of berating teachers and their unions, the policymakers need to draw on the expertise and passion of the many dedicated educators in our schools. By and large teachers go into their profession because of their love of their subject and of students. Yes, there are bad apples that need to be weeded out. However, by and large teachers offer a valuable service for which they are grossly underpaid, and vastly under-appreciated, no thanks to people like Jonathan Alter.

Recognizing the Lens Through Which We Experience the World

Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh made fools of themselves this past week when they called Supreme Court judge nominee Sonia Sotomayor “racist” for her comments that her background as a Latina from a lower income background might reach a better judicial decision on matters affecting poor people “than a white male who has not lived that life.” Gingrich later retracted labeling the judge herself as “racist” and instead said it was her “words” that were racist. Either way a lot of conservatives (and probably a lot of white people in general) still miss the point of her statement.

Most of us who have grown up white in this country were led to believe that with practice and critical thinking we could reach “impartial” and “objective” decisions on matters of consequence; and so we ran the world that way. The irony and problem was that all the impoverished people of color around the world were asking: “How come when those white people make impartial, objective decisions, it always seem to end up going in their favor.” What all the other folks saw that we whites had (and still have) a hard time seeing is that we were as biased out of our own background and self-interest as any other group. We had deluded ourselves into thinking we were able to “rise above” our own prejudices to see things objectively.

Once when I was on jury duty I was in a jury pool for a young black man who had been accused of breaking and entering a store. As I looked around the 40-50 of us who were being interviewed for the jury, there were only 2-3 black persons, and all middle or upper middle class, and I thought “this is not a jury of this man’s peers.” I was shortly dismissed from the jury pool, so I don’t know who ended up on the jury, but I am sure that man did not see a reflection of himself. That jury was not able to make an “impartial” decision about that defendant. Our middle class upbringing influenced us to see that man in a certain light: young, black, poor, and probably guilty. My guess is the young man’s true peers would have viewed him differently and used different adjectives to describe him. We can do the best we can to be “fair” and “impartial,” but the fact is that all of us see the world in a certain way because of our background

I appreciate Sonia Sotomayor’s candor about the impact her life experience has on her judgment because it forces all of us to consider how our judgments, values, prejudices and preferences are shaped by our life experiences. Just like Sotomayor, it is not that we don’t consider facts, principles and (in her case) the law, but the lens through which we view those “objective” elements is literally shaped by how we were raised, who we grew up with, the experiences we have had, and the socioeconomic conditions in which we lived. Given her background Sotomayor will provide a valuable addition to a Supreme Court that currently reflects the backgrounds of only a small segment of the U.S. population. Like the President who nominated her, Sotomayor brings a new set of eyes to a role that requires a diverse set of opinions and perspectives.

For me, Sotomayor’s comments don’t strike me as prejudicial at all, but rather remind me that I need to listen more intently to those whose experiences and backgrounds are vastly different than my own, so that perhaps I might be able to see and have a feel for life experiences that I missed or from which I was spared. I don’t begrudge my privileged background except in the ways it may have inadvertently damaged or diminished others, but I won’t know how others are or were affected until I step back and realize I need to listen first, and speak second.

Not Guilty!

May 26 is a day I will never forget. At about 5:30 in the afternoon, after nearly 6 hours of testimony and legal debate, the twelve of us arrested for protesting in front of Colismo’s Gun Shop were pronounced not guilty by Judge Yvette Simmons. After nearly 5 months of preparation and waiting since our arrests in mid-January, we gave a collective sigh of relief for justice being done. As I said in my testimony, the very fact that we were even brought up on charges was a contradiction of justice, when the current laws in Pennsylvania readily allow for the process of straw-purchasing. While Judge Simmons did not explain her verdict, she appeared to be moved by the collective convictions of those of us who testified. Our lawyers invoked a “justification defense,” which essentially said that our actions were justified in that we committed a lesser harm in order to prevent a greater danger.

To be part of the action and the trial was a humbling privilege that will stay with me for a long time. As I have previously shared in this blog, I had a traumatic experience in jail after we were arrested. As a result I was quite timid when it came to the whole legal process; yet time and time again I was lifted and inspired by the passion, conviction and commitment of my co-defendants. To be counted in the same number as these amazing people was a humbling honor.

Moreover, the hundreds of people who came to support us before and during the trial, many of whom spent part or all of the day sitting at the trial, was amazing. Words cannot express how it felt to have all these folks giving up their time to stand with us in our effort to draw attention to Mr. Colimos reluctance to do his part to stem the flow of illegal guns on to the streets of our city. Their presence was a reminder that what we had done carried a significance beyond our individual convictions in front of one particularly notorious gun shop.

Beyond those who were physically present, there were many more who were praying for us. Shortly before the trial, I was handed an envelope in which was contained a small knit square 12 stitches by 12 stitches. With it was a note indicating the square was reminder of this woman’s prayer for all of us. She had knit one for each of us. Several times during the day, and especially shortly before I testified, I held that square in my hand as a reminder of the greater Presence with us. I was reminded that we were being upheld by brothers and sisters in spiritual solidarity with us.

During his testimony, Fr. Isaac Miller drew attention to the long standing tradition of Christian civil disobedience best exemplified my Dr. Martin Luther King during his non-violent struggle for Civil Rights. Fr. Miller reminded us that we serve a higher law that calls us to challenge unjust laws when they contradict God’s law. Yesterday was a validation that this struggle is a divine struggle for justice against principalities and powers that have a vice grip on the processes of legislation and justice in our country.

For that reason while yesterday was great day, today we must continue the struggle. During the trial we did not change one law, nor did we necessarily stop any straw purchasing. As a sign of hope I can say that in my perusal of the morning paper I did not see any mention of gun violence in Philadelphia on the night of May 26. Nonetheless, the struggle must continue. That is why I will be at Millcreek Baptist Church this weekend at their 2nd annual stop the violence conference, which will include a gun buyback, and I will be speaking at Frazer Mennonite Church’s peace festival. That is why some of us will continue to witness in front of Colisimos on Mondays and Fridays. That is why Heeding God’s Call will continue to invite and encourage churches to join this faith-based effort to change the laws and practices in Pennsylvania around the sale and use of guns.

Perhaps the most encouraging sign that came from the trial was the hope our actions engendered in others. During a short break in the trial I was approached by a distinguished African-American man in his early 60’s. As he shook my hand and thanked me, he said that in the 60’s and 70’s he had engaged in activism and civil disobedience during the Civil Rights struggle. He is now a lawyer, but said that our action had encouraged him that people were still willing to put their livelihoods on the line for social justice. What I and the others endured was probably nothing compared to the suffering he must have endured during the tumultuous days of the Civil Rights struggle, and yet he was thanking me! I thank him for showing me and the others the way in which the struggle for justice can be won against overwhelming odds. While I did not see my decision to stand up for justice by sitting down in front of a gun shop as a particularly courageous act, I recognize that it has inspired and emboldened others. My hope is that our actions and the trial that followed can be a catapult to further action that eventually will change the laws and the violence-saturated culture in which we live. When that day comes, I will be grateful for having played a small part in bringing it into being.

Faith, Guns and Direct Action

In preparation for our trial on May 26, our lawyer asked each defendant to put together a personal statement as to why we participated in the direct action against Colismo's gun shop. While this will not be my exact testimony, the following is my basic reasoning for particpating in the action.

My Statement at Trial


For years I was troubled by the nightly reports of violence and death on the streets of Philadelphia, often at the hands of young people, mostly young men, using guns. As a Christian, I had long believed and witnessed to my conviction that God has not created people for violence but for community. Long ago I had dedicated myself to be a person who lived out lifestyle of peace and called others to the way of peace. So I agonized over the statistics of violence in our city, and I wondered what can I, and what can we as Christians concerned about peace do in response to this situation. I had been involved in numerous efforts to stop the wars in Vietnam, Central America, and Iraq, and had even supported some folks who went to witness as Christian Peacemakers in Baghdad on the eve of the 2nd Iraq war. I wondered: if we can send people halfway around the world to protest war and witness for peace, why do we feel so powerless in stopping the violence in our city streets?

About two years ago, I met Bryan Miller, the founder of CeaseFire New Jersey and CeaseFire Pennsylvania. Bryan spoke about the gun laws in Pennsylvania and explained in simple terms how guns could be bought legally in Pennsylvania gun shops and then sold or given to criminals or young people who could not legally own a gun. This process is called straw buying and is a major source of illegal guns on the streets of Pennsylvania cities. There is no legal repercussion for straw buying if when a gun is traced back to him or her, the straw buyer simply says the gun was lost or stolen. Bryan talked about two laws that had been proposed in the state legislature and passed in Philadelphia and other cities that could discourage this practice. The “Lost and Stolen” bill would require people whose legally purchased gun had been lost or stolen to report to the police when the gun was missing. The other was a bill that would limit handgun sales to one per month. Similar laws in New Jersey had significantly reduced the flow of illegal guns being bought and sold in that state. However, because of Pennsylvania’s truck-size legal loophole, PA is a major source of guns not only in its own state, but several surrounding states, including New Jersey. After hearing Bryan Miller’s simple and logical explanation, I realized there was something concrete and practical I could work for.

So for these past two years I have been writing letters to my local newspaper and to my representatives. I have helped organize a community forum on gun violence. I have blogged on the issue, and talked at length with friends and colleagues. Furthermore, as a college professor with students from Philadelphia, I have had personal contact with young people who have lost brothers and friends to gun violence. I have had at least one student who survived a gun shot wound as a young child, but as a young adult is still traumatized by it. Changing the laws and changing the practices around guns became personal for me.

Bryan has often reminded me that changing the laws is going to be a long slow process. So when we who were part of Heeding God’s Call began talking about a gun merchants’ Code of Conduct signed by Wal-Mart, I was interested. We chose to present the code to Mr. Colismo, since by all reports his shop was a major source of illegal guns bought through this process of straw buying. When Mr. Colisimo refused to sign the code, we discussed the possibility of performing a direct action at his shop. For me the decision to join the direct action was simple, and a logical next step in my growing commitment to stop the flow of illegal guns.

Others may have more developed rationales for joining the action, but my rationale is straightforward, and is captured in the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans where he said: “I beseech you brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to the Lord. For this is your act of spiritual worship.” For me, participating in the direct action and sitting down in front of Mr. Colisimo’s store when we were refused entry, was an act of my Christian commitment and an act of worship. It was a way for me to literally put my body on the line for stopping gun violence. My sitting down in front of Colisimo’s store was a concrete, physical act of faith, pure and simple.

The irony of this whole affair is that the police who arrested me and who blocked our entrance to Mr. Colisimo’s shop are the ones on the front lines suffering from the presence of illegal guns on our streets. I can’t imagine what it must be like for them to go out on some calls knowing they could be fired at. I admire their courage. Yet how ironic that they arrested me for trying to stop the flow of the illegal guns being fired at them. I pointed this out to one of the officers just before I was arrested, but he was not hearing any of it.

It is also ironic that the D.A.’s office is bringing this case, when they have testified on behalf of the very laws I too would like to see passed: the lost and stolen, and one handgun a month bills. It is further ironic that I am being tried in a court in Philadelphia, which itself has passed these laws, but has been prevented by legal challenges to enforce these laws I too would like to see enforced.

I am not the offender in this court. I am not the criminal. The criminals in this case are those who block the passage of sane laws, and who object to signing a simple code of conduct that would slow down the process of straw buying. Those are the ones who should be on trial, not the twelve of us who stand before you today. If I am a criminal, then the DA’s who are trying me, and the city of Philadelphia are also criminal, because we are all on the same side. I contend I am not in the wrong and should not be convicted of a crime because I don’t believe the city of Philadelphia is wrong or the DA’s office is wrong in trying to stop the process of straw buying. The criminals in this case are still free to operate: gun shops like Mr. Colisimo’s who look the other way to make a sale, and who won’t put common sense practices in place to discourage straw buying. The criminals in this case are those like the NRA who oppose the passage of these common sense laws. The criminals are politicians who allow their votes on these gun laws to be swayed by the NRA’s money. These are the criminals in this case, and they are not on trial, but were we acting logically and in accordance what is right and just, they would be.

So, your honor, I ask that you see this case for what it is: a complete contradiction of justice, and acquit me on the charges brought against me.

The "Dark" Side of My Family History

Several years ago as part of a workshop on Family Systems, I did an extensive history on my family of origin. With the help of an aunt on my Dad’s side, and an uncle on my Mom’s side, I was able to pull together a rather impressive history of the various strains of the Boyd and Mullins families from which I come. A few years after that, at a Boyd family reunion, I presented a booklet to all the members of my extended family with the history all written out. While the history is mostly complete, there have always been some gaps in the story that I have wanted to research more fully and try to fill.

However, recently I have begun to think that there probably is huge gap in my family history that I, like most white Americans, not only have missed, but have purposely ignored. This “dark” side of my history came to my attention through the reading of two books. The first book, The Hidden Wound, is an extended essay by Wendell Berry written first in 1969 and then updated in 1989. In this reflective piece Berry describes his childhood experiences on his grandfather’s Kentucky farm where there lived and worked an older African-American man named Nick Watkins, and his common law wife Aunt Georgie. Berry recalls the closeness he felt to Nick, even while his white family members urged him not to get to close to “the good nigger,” as he was called. Writing nearly 20 years later, Berry returns to those childhood memories to reflect on the nature of racial relations in his native Kentucky, as well as in the United States as a whole. Only upon reflection does Berry realize how unaware he was of the strict lines of separation between black and white during his 1940’s childhood and how his destiny and Nick’s were predetermined by the racial apartheid of that era.

The second book, Slaves in My Family by Edward Ball, is even a more intriguing look at family history vis-à-vis the legacy of slavery. Ball’s story begins at a family reunion in Charleston, SC, where his forbears had been wealthy plantation owners from the 1600’s to the early 1900’s. While the family myth indicated that the Ball ancestors were wealthy slave owners, the myth also said that “they treated their slaves well.” Edward Ball wanted to find out if that was true, and went on a quest to retrace the family histories of the slaves that worked in the rice patties of his ancestors’ plantations. In the course of his study, Ball not only found many cases of white brutality and slave rebellion, but also was able to discover cousins whose line traced back to the illicit and forced sexual relations between the white master and his female slaves. Along the course of his journey, Ball encounters anger and resistance from both white and black, who neither know nor want to know that sordid side of their history.

Now on the surface of it, my family and the families of Wendell Berry and Edward Ball, have little in common. They both hail from the segregated South, whereas my forbears came from England, Scotland, and Ireland by way of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio and Delaware. There is not hint of slave-owning in any of my background, and the ones who settled furthest south in Delaware were Quakers, who were the earliest religious groups to become abolitionists. There is even some evidence that one side of the Ohio family may have participated in the Underground Railroad. So why the concern?

Through my re-reading of US social history, I have become increasingly aware of not-so-veiled prejudice against African-Americans that existed in the North. Moreover the settlers in New England were well-known and proudly so, for their removal of Native American tribes from the whole region. The North regarded African slaves and America’s indigenous people as sub-human and thereby justified their violent treatment of them. While I was quite aware of this history, until reading Berry’s and Ball’s reflections on their own families, I had not thought to personalize this social history and see the degree to which my family might also have a sordid side that I and my ancestors had conveniently overlooked and ignored.

In reflecting on his own history, Berry writes of his “hidden wound,” the legacy of racism that has divided him from his African-American friends. He writes: “I knew well that racism had caused pain to black people, but I knew too that it been a cause of pain to white people – it been a cause of pain to me – and not just because of guilt. I knew that for white people it had involved loss and spiritual disfigurement” (pp. 110-111). While I would never suggest that the loss and pain of white people can even begin to approach that inexorable suffering of the ancestors of my African-American and Native American colleagues, I can attest to the sense of spiritual disfigurement and loss of identity cause by the history of racism of which Berry speaks.

W.E.B Dubois, the brilliant thinker and founder of the NAACP of the last century, wrote about the double-consciousness that all people of color have to master in this society. In Souls of Black Folk, he writes: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. [The black person] ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” In my own way, I have realized I too have had to develop a double-consciousness of my own. On the one had I go through my days seeing myself in light my “official” history that points me out as a white person with a legacy of white privilege and power. On the other hand, while acknowledging that history I am actively trying to re-imagine myself and live a life where I don’t rely on the racial power, status and privilege my skin color and social class afford me. This second part of my double-consciousness challenges me each day as I realize how consistently and subtlely I am afforded advantages simply because I am a white, middle class male. Like most white people, I am hesitant to look too deeply into my family history for fear that I will discover what I intuitively already know: that the “success” of my family was bought and paid thru the suffering of others, a suffering my family directly or indirectly inflicted.

Despite my hesitation, I am now also curious to revisit my family history, and like Wendell Berry and Edward Ball, try to see that history in the larger socio-economic context of its day. No doubt in that search, I may find a dark side of my family history that has been ignored and forgotten.

Resurrection Hope on Spring Garden Street

On Good Friday, April 10, about 100 people gathered near Colismo's Gun shop to commemorate the death of Jesus, and its connection to the countless meaningless deaths due to gun violence. Folks from all walks of life gathered to say that illegal guns and the straw purchasing that lets these guns onto the street needed to end. Several local preachers spoke, as well as two mothers who had lost their sons to gun violence. We were led in songs that spoke of hope. We prayed for the those who had died due to gun violence in the previous year by name. We were called to commitment and action to end this scourge. James Colisimo, the gun shop owner who had refused to sign the code of conduct that wold allow him to more readily identify straw buyers in his shop was called out by name to act. The shroud that hung on the cross was laid on a enlarged gun and coffin, saying death to the means of destruction not to more victims. We ended the service by marching in front of the gun shop, singing "Lord, Listen to your children praying", an enlarged version of the code of conduct being held in front of us. Four police officers stood in front of the shop, "protecting" Mr. Colismo from this spiritual onslaught.

Altogether it was an inspiring gathering, a sign of hope that the violence can end. This gathering had a feel and a color that was more diverse, and included not just concerned white folks like me (personally distant from the violence) and folks who were and have been on the front lines of this struggle for a long time. However, the presence of the mothers reminded me of (1) the struggle is a long one (these mothers had been speaking out since the early 1990's); and (2) the pain and suffering of those who have lost loved ones or been maimed by guns is also long. However, my prayer is that they found comfort and felt the hope I felt in that gathering.

On Good Friday, we stand in the face of Death, to anticipate Death's defeat. As the speaker that day, Bishop NewKirk of Harold O.Davis Memorial Baptist Church, said, just because guns are legal, when young people die needlessly, they are not moral. Like slavery, like the Native American Genocide, like the Japanese-American internment during WW II, selling guns to straw buyers is "legal" but not "moral." The instruments of death, by some twisted NRA, Second Amendment logic, are legal, but in this age when gun men kill 13 people in a Binghamton Immigration center, and 3 police officers in Pittsburgh, and 318 people in one year in Philadelphia; those guns may be legal, but they are not moral.

I believe the laws in PA will be changed to limit the sale of handguns to straw buyers - its only a matter of alot of effort and time. I believe the NRA can be revealed for the fraudulent front for the gun manufacturers that it is. I believe that gun dealers like Colismo's, that will not be accountable for their business will be exposed and disgraced. Hope is on the rise. Death will be defeated. This was the feeling and message with which I left the service that day. Indeed, there was hope of resurrection on Spring Garden St on Good Friday!

(Many thanks to Kemah Washington for his pictures of that day!)

What Do You See: Pork or Steak

[With apologies to all my vegetarian friends, please forgive the overabundance of meaty metaphors in this piece.]

In the interest of trying to see all sides of current issues, I often will read The Bulletin on my train ride into the city. The Bulletin is an unabashedly conservative newspaper that openly critiques any opinion that isn’t staunchly pro-business, anti-abortion and politically conservative. For instance, last year regular columnist Herb Denenberg spent a page of ink every day, 5 days a week, blasting and criticizing Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and all the Democratic candidates. These days most of his criticism is reserved for Obama. In all fairness, Denenberg’s pieces don’t have the venom of an Ann Coulter or a Rush Limbaugh, but rather are usually thoughtful and measured. Nonetheless, I find it difficult to take him seriously when he has such an anti-Obama, anti-left-of-right-center fixation. I want to say, “Herb, get a life, man! Every once and a while, write about baseball or the coming of spring or your grand kids; give it a rest!” However, The Bulletin’s reader’s must like him, because he keeps spilling the ink, and they keep reading.

However, the other day, I had had enough, when I came upon an article in The Bulletin (not by Denenberg) entitled “Local Congressmen, Senators, Receiving Millions in Pork”. The article was reporting on an analysis conducted by a group called Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) regarding the recent spending bill passed by Congress. The critique of “pork” has been a standard line of the Republicans opposing the bill, on the grounds that it involves too much spending overall, and especially in areas deemed “nonessential" in these lean economic times. Since I had not analyzed the details of the bill, I went to see what CAGW considered “wasteful” and “pork.” I expected to find the usual candidates like research on the mating calls of Puerto Rican tree frogs, and grants given to obscure groups like the Asian Abacus Society. Instead, I found such “nonessential” items as scholarship funds for college students, grants for small businesses, environmental projects in local rivers, community-based violence prevention programs and alternative energy grants. In fact on the list of “pork” I saw nothing but items absolutely essential toward building a safe, clean, and prosperous future that will change the way we drive, heat, and otherwise use energy. As far as I could see it was not pork, but filet mignon.

I realize that pork is in the eye of the beholder but the article reminded me of the dramatic paradigm shift that Obama and company are trying to make in the way we think about the economy, education, the environment, and equity. For those who write for the The Bulletin,and those who agree with them, news flash: the trickledown economics, deregulation, and rapacious capitalism of the Reagan years is over. Bankers, CEOs and stockholders will have to earn their money just like everyone else, and probably will end up with a lot less than before. The economy is here to serve more than the wealthiest 5%, and no longer will policy assume that the wealthy and powerful will use their positions in socially responsible ways. Those who do will find themselves rewarded. Those who don’t will find that their party is over. Moreover, Obama is saying “investment” now will now be in the development of people, not in “capital”. While I don’t understand all the fine details of Obama’s approach,and I have questions about some of his actions (such as the continuous support of banks that don't lend money to folks, and companies that don't seem to be changing their wasteful ways), overall I get the big picture. Obama, like all politicians before him has said that the our country’s greatest resource is its people. The only difference is that he is actually putting our money where his mouth is. Likewise, he is not just talking about global warming, he is challenging us to take steps to do our part to slow its progress, and making us pay when we don't. He not only sees the value of education, he is supporting it with real dollars.

The problem for the Herb Dennebergs of the world is that they haven’t made the paradigm shift. They are looking at what is going on in Washington thru an old set of lenses. As a result they can’t tell a pork chop from a ribeye. Until they do, they will continue to be disappointed. Obama has said that his plan is risky, and indeed it is, but I admire his courage and support his effort to make the systems of this country work for all its citizens, and not just the privileged few. So, some folks will have to change their paradigm, or they are going to find themselves missing the train as it pulls out of the station to the future.

The Enemy is Ignorance

Every once and a while I come across something that opens a new window to my understanding. Such was the case recently when I read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. For years I have lamented that we who call ourselves peace activists have not really put forth any clear proposals as to how to address the reality of terrorism in our violent world as an alternative to the single-minded military response that has characterized U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have been against war because we know it only creates the conditions that cause innocent people to suffer (called “collateral damage” by the military) and provides justification for a violent response by U.S. enemies. Yet, I have not been able to see any constructive, positive proposals that can combat terrorism in a peaceful way.

After reading Three Cups of Tea, I realized alternatives have been there all along, I just hadn’t been able to see them. Three Cups of Tea relates Greg Mortenson’s story of building schools in some of the most remote, mountainous areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the early 1990's, he was nursed back to health after losing his way on a mountaineering expedition by the people of the tiny Himalayan village of Korphe. In gratitude Mortenson promised to repay their kindness by raising the money to build the village a school. After raising money, taking several years to build a bridge over a rugged moutain chasm and then a school, Mortenson discovered his calling, and began working with local village elders and Muslim leaders to build schools in some of the most remote areas of Pakistan. He learned to respect and follow the traditional Muslim ways of negotiation, and earned the trust of local people and conservative Islamic leaders, who had a deep-seated and well-deserved distrust of Westerners. Long before the bombings on September 11, 2001 Mortenson heard of Osama Bin Laden and other Saudi Arabian rebels who were stirring up people in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. On September 11, 2001 Mortenson was in Afghanistan meeting with local leaders aboaut building yet another school. While many of the commentators on the book focus on Mortenson as an individual hero, what strikes me most was how he allowed himself to become one with the people he was serving and thus a catalyst for bringing education, especially for young girls, into some of the most remote areas of the world.

The penultimate chapter of the book is entitled “The Enemy is Ignorance.” In that chapter the authors quote General Bashir Baz, a retired Pakistani military officer, who says:

“People like me are America’s best friends in the region. I’m a moderate Muslim. But watching [the US bombing of Iraq and the subsequent suffering of Iraqi civilians], even I could become a jihadi…Your President Bush has done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next two hundred years.

“Osama [bin Laden] is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is the creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man I know that you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot you once and then run off and hide…. You need to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case the enemy is not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance [emphasis mine]. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.” (p. 310)

The enemy is ignorance. That statement can be taken two ways. General Bashir said these words in order to stress the need for education in the Muslim world. But the ironic twist is that it also can mean Western ignorance of the culture and traditions of people they supposedly want to help. Stephen Covey says, “The way we see the problem is the problem.” Our problem is that we think the core issue is Osama and terrorism. What Mortenson and others like him are saying is that the core problem is our inability to see past our guns and bombs to the real need, which is a need for education and economic development.

Mortenson is not alone in his work. Syndicated columnist Trudy Rubin recently wrote about the work of Afghan activist Suraya Pakzad, who has been running girls’ schools for years amidst the rubble of the war, and Afghan businessman Aldo Maggazzeni who builds water systems in Afghan villages. Jim Wallis of Sojourners has recently called for a petition urging military de-escalation and greater investment in diplomacy and economic development. Increasingly, even military experts are recognizing the futility of trying to win over the people of Afghanistan with war. The British and the Russians failed miserably and gave rise to the Taliban. What makes the US think we can do better?

To be sure there are military dangers. The Taliban and al-Quaeda are vicious and dangerous, and do in fact terrorize people. However, if the US invested its billions in helping people like Mortenson, Pakzad and Maganezzi and used the military to protect them in their efforts, the downward spiral of violence and destruction could end.

The enemy is ignorance, starting with our own. The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s most remote regions need and welcome our help. Instead of barging in with guns and bombs blazing, we we need to sit down for three cups of tea to know the Afghan and Pashtun people, and allow them to know and trust us. Then, and only then peace, security, and justice will come to the region.

My Charter School Dilemma

After several years of frustrating delays, on Feb. 18, Eastern University received final approval from the Philadelphia School District to open its charter school in the Fall of 2009. At that same meeting, Arlene Ackerman, Superintendent of the Philadelphia School District, announced her proposals for school reform, which included granting many more charters and turning over some schools to the management of for-profit companies. In the same vein in his address to Congress on Feb. 24, Pres. Obama announced his plans for education reform, which included the starting of more charter schools across the country. So it seems that charter schools are all the rave, and for many political leaders, central to addressing the underperforming public school system particularly in economically depressed urban and rural areas. In fact when Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, approached the Chancellor of the New York City Schools about taking over a couple of public elementary schools in Harlem, he was advised that he would do better to simply start his own charter school than try to revive the failing public schools.

According to U.S. Charter Schools, charter schools are given public money to run programs independent of the existing public school system tailored to meet the needs of a specific group of students. In exchange for the freedom to innovate, charter schools are held accountable to provide students with a level of education equal to or above national standards. While charter schools cannot “select” their students (enrollment must be open to all), they often do not have the special needs programs required of regular public schools. Thus, by virtue of the fact that they are not designed to meet these needs, charter schools by default screen out children with some of the most difficult academic and behavioral problems. Also, because families must choose to apply to a charter schools, those children from the most dysfunctional families often don’t even know of the charter schools option. Also, charter schools usually can avoid teachers unions and some of the power politics involved in public school education. Thus, it is understandable why parents, students and politicians are attracted to the charter school option, as it avoids many of the problems and barriers faced by a people involved in the public schools.

As the Philadelphia and New York examples illustrate, the CEOs of large urban public school districts seem to have given up on the very system they have been charged to lead. Therein lies my dilemma. If the leaders of our public school systems and the President of the United States no longer believe in the public education system, what hope is there for true public school reform?

This issue has taken on a very concrete manifestation for me. Over the past 18 months, I have been involved with a group called the West Philadelphia High School (WPHS) Community Partners, a group of students, teachers, community members, business folks, and concerned professionals seeking to promote innovative changes to a vastly underperforming urban high school. Essentially, we have been asking that WPHS be given the same flexibility to innovate as a charter school, but have been informed thus far that our proposals are too expensive, and unrealistic.

As positive as they are, charter schools pose a significant challenge to overall fabric of communities. Charter schools’ focus is usually not geographical, so they draw from across a wider area than a regular community based school. Sociologists point out neighborhood schools are essential to the overall health of a community. Families with small children consider the quality of schools a major factor in choosing where to live. If schools are underperforming, parents will often send their children to private or parochial schools (if they have the means to do so), or move to a community with a better public school. Charter schools are a form of the private/parochial option without the cost to the family. While this option serves the individual students and family well, it undermines the potential of a community by draining the local school of capable students and involved parents. While this phenomena is most pronounced in economically depressed areas, I see it happening in my suburban school district as well. Nearly 35% of school age children in our suburban district attend a non-public school option. Moreover, this district continually faces the opposition of tax-payer groups not wanting to support the local school. If this trend gains strength, even in this middle class suburb, public school quality will continue to decline. Charter schools, like private and parochial schools, serve the needs of individuals but often at the expense of the wider community.

So, when a community group, such as the WPHS Community Partners, asks to innovate their local high school, why are they rebuffed? Essentially, our proposal has been to convert WPHS, a school of 1200 students, into four “small schools” within one building. Each school would be comprised of 300 students, have a particular focus (Performing Arts, Business, Auto Mechanics, Urban Leadership) and be led by its own principal who would have freedom to innovate. By sharing the same building the schools could cooperate in use of facilities and large group programs such as music and athletics. This model has proven successful in urban areas such as Providence, RI and South Bronx. While there are greater costs at the leadership level, those costs are more than made up in reduced need for security, discipline, and following up on drop outs. Students in small schools don’t “fall thru the cracks” and become a caring learning community. While we are stilling hoping for a more positive response, I suspect the reasons the Philadelphia district is hesitant get down to teacher union intransigence, intra-district politics, the traditional school distrust of community groups, and a fear if the model works, it might put pressure on the district to replicate the model in other schools. However, if the model works, and strengthens a community in the process, perhaps such a change is necessary.

Please don't misunderstand; I am not opposed to charter schools. I am only concerned about the trend they represent. My concern is if public school districts simply farm out their problems to independent groups, the very purpose of public education (to equitably educate citizens for the common good) will be undermined. Avoiding the necessary reform of the very core of public education cannot be accomplished by working around that system. To do so is to relegate many potential star students, dedicated teachers, concerned parents, and community residents to a second class, inadequate education. We will serve the interests of individuals but further undermine the health of struggling communities while we are doing it.

Reflections From a Jail Cell

Nearly a month has passed since I was arrested for blocking the entrance to Colisimo’s gun shop (see January 18 blog). In terms of the overall experience getting arrested was easy; the difficult part was the 25 hours I spent in jail. Many people have asked me what it was like to be in jail, and until very recently, I have not been able to talk about it because the experience showed me some things about myself that I am still trying to come to grips with. Even so, I will try to describe what that experience was like for me.

Fred Kaufmann, Kemah Washington and I were arrested around 3:30 pm on Friday, January 16, handcuffed, and taken in a paddy wagon to the Philadelphia Ninth District Police Station. Over the next 25 hours I saw the inside of a jail from the vantage point of a prisoner, and got a tiny glimpse of the degrading, dehumanizing nature of the criminal justice system.

“Therefore I urge you… to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God…” (Romans 12.1)

I am not a mystically oriented person. Praise, prayer and worship for me are largely outward, physical acts. So for me, participating in the civil disobedience action that day was an act of faith and worship to the God of peace I seek to follow. As such I was generally prepared for the physical discomfort of the jail cell.

Fred, Kemah and I were put in a cell about 6 feet by 10 feet, with battleship gray walls on three sides and bars in the front. There was an open toilet on one side of the cell and a hard metal bench on the other. A narrow passageway ran in front of the bars across from which there was a rough gray-stone wall. A radio played softly all the time on a station that give neither time nor news nor weather. A few dim lights lit the semi-dark hall. Day or night the light, the music, the cell had this same general feel. In two of the three cells I stayed in, the toilet did not flush, so that over time the cell smelled like an oversized outhouse. While I could hear the inmates in the adjoining cells, I could not see anyone. Because of the hard cement floor and metal bench, as well as crowded conditions, sleep was difficult. I drifted off a few times, but only for a few minutes.

The essence of our experience was waiting. Four hours after we were put in the cell we were photographed and fingerprinted. Four hours later we talked via video camera to a bail bondsperson. Then for me it was another 16 hours waiting to talk to a judge and be released. If the guards knew anything, they pleaded ignorance when one would ask when they would be let out. It was an experience of complete sensory isolation.

“When I was in prison you visited me…” (Matthew 25.36)

While the cell was uncomfortable, the experience was bearable during the time I was in the cell with Fred and Kemah. However, at 4 am, about 12 hours after we had been locked up, Fred and Kemah were released. Rather, I should say from my perspective, they were taken out of the cell and did not come back; at that point I felt abandoned and forgotten. About two hours after they left, a young man was put in my cell with me, but shortly after was taken out. For a brief time I was put in with two other guys from our group, Sam and Jim, who had been arrested after us, but then an hour later, they too were released. The last couple hours I was squeezed into a one person cell with guy shivering in the corner, coming down from a drug high. However, the bulk of those 12 hours I was more or less alone.

Without my companions I began to be overwhelmed by two feelings: boredom and loneliness. To counteract the boredom, I made up games, seeing how close to the wall I could pitch plastic water bottle caps, and I played the alphabet game with the graffiti on the walls. I sang songs and recited passages of scripture (now realizing how few I actually remembered). However, despite my best efforts, soon the boredom crossed over into loneliness.

What was so striking to me is that I knew I had people on the “outside” who were monitoring my situation and praying for me. I knew that there was a lawyer who was trying to get me out. I knew my daughter and wife were aware and concerned for my condition. In terms of personal support, I was wealthy compared to the other folks in the jail. One of my cell mates was a 26 year old nurse assistant who was going to miss a job interview because of his arrest. His only support person was the roommate with whom he had gotten into a fight, the reason he had been arrested. There were others in adjoining cells who talked of not having anyone. I had an entire network, yet it didn’t seem to matter. I felt totally alone and abandoned and soon that loneliness turned to fear and hopelessness.

I realize now that the trauma of jail is not the physical dimension, but the feeling of being pushed aside, forgotten and alone. All of us in the cells that day shared the experience of fear and frustration. Regardless of the reasons that had landed us in the jail, all of us in the cells felt forgotten and abandoned. The lack of human contact and concern sucked from us any sense of dignity and worth.

“When you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters…” (Matthew 25.40)

Before he arrested us, the police captain tried to scare me by suggesting that we were going to be put in jail with a whole host of “bad people.” In the end I found a sense of solidarity with the other inmates; it was the “good people” who made my life difficult. Apart from my fellow protesters, I also spent time in a cell with a guy arrested for fighting, and another for possession of crack cocaine. In the adjoining cells were guys arrested for a variety of misdemeanors: assault, weapons possession, vandalism; and one woman arrested for writing bad checks. The other inmates referred to me as “the protester.” While a few of the guards were personable, for the most part they were aloof, arrogant and demeaning. Any request was treated as an imposition, and often they did not even come to a place where we could see them; they simply shouted from the room outside of the section where the cells were located. I am sure the questions we asked (about when we would be let out or when we see the judge) were questions they were asked 100 times a day. I suspect they hated their jobs and took it out on us.

As the hours dragged on and I did not know when I would be released, I began to feel intense anxiety. However talking to my fellow inmates calmed me down. In fact one of the nicest things one guy said was “The protester is still in here! This is messing with my mind! It’s not right!” In retrospect I don’t think he spoke those words in support of me, but rather as an expression for how frustrating the whole process was. However, at the time I took his comment as a recognition of my dignity, and it comforted me. Help came not from the guards, but from one of those “bad people.”

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me...” (Psalm 22.1)

From the inside of a jail cell, I learned what it is like to be regarded as less than human, and to be regarded as society’s refuse. We wonder why people often come out of prison, more violent and anti-social than when they went in. After only a day in a holding cell, I can understand why. People often live up or down to the way they are treated. A police station holding cell is mild compared to prison, and U.S. prisons, while terribly overcrowded, are much more sanitary than prisons in other parts of the world. In that jail cell, I was a nobody, someone unworthy of respect; someone not owed a piece of decency. People treated like animals will respond in kind, and prison treats people like animals. Yet, we wonder why prison doesn't set people straight.

People often “find God” while in jail; that may be so. However, I have never been in a place so devoid of hope and meaning as that jail cell. Perhaps, if I had stayed longer, I would have experienced what the writers of the lament psalms realized as they cried out in despair, and what Jesus found on the cross; that on the other side of hopelessness is the God of love. Frankly, I am glad I didn’t have to stay that long. I find it hard to believe we call ourselves “civilized” and yet treat people with the indignity that pervades our prison system. In my 25 hours I got only a tiny glimpse of that indignity, so small that it may not even be worth mentioning, and yet what I saw rocked me to the core of my being.

I doubt I will ever fully recover from those 25 hours in jail; I saw life from the perspective of hopelessness, and I did not like what I saw. May I never forget how many people slog through life from that perspective, and may I never let go of my resolve to be a person who works for hope, change and the dignity of every human being.