Lift Off: Of Poetry, Potential, and Power

"Injustice is telling them education is the key while you continue to change the locks."https://t.co/SyUP0LfoM3

— Harvard Education (@hgse) May 27, 2016

Just watch it.  If you'd like to see some of my quick thoughts on it, click here.

Demagoguery 2015: Trump and Why Education Matters

If you've not read this story on today's New York Times in which they do a rhetorical analysis of over 95000 words spoken by Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump during his campaign, you ought to.  It's a long article, but it's well worth the investment of time as it clearly indicates the rhetorical patterns and choices Trump makes which ally him with a long history of American Demagogues like Joseph McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, and the like.

I'm not going to review the article.  It's something everyone should read but which, of course, those who most need to read it won't because it doesn't jive with what they "feel" is right.  And it is that, more than anything else, that is telling about Trump.  His policies...they're non-existent, little more than soundbites about building really tall walls and bombing the hell out of people.  But those soundbites are powerful as they are really at the heart of the NYTimes' analysis.  Those words, whether carefully chosen due to some deep understanding of the neuroscience of how the brain processes language, or, perhaps, because Trump is practiced in the art of negotiating (or verbal bludgeoning), speak to the emotional centers of the brain.  It is those centers, below the conscious, higher-order thinking layers of the brain, that actually drive most human decision making.   (And this one, for a more in-depth look.)

Unless, of course, we know better and are practiced at truly listening and questioning the words and intent of speakers like Trump.  But that's hard work, and requires a good deal of training, neither of which seem in plenty supply in America anymore.

This is not to paint Trump's supporters as idiots or puppets.  Rather it is to point out that Trump knows what he's doing when it comes to speaking and presenting himself in order to manipulate, and it's not only akin to those people I mentioned in paragraph #1, you can link his propaganda techniques straight to the even more sinister people who stepped into the limelight during periods of great social upheaval (which I would argue we are in right now) and came to manipulate the masses.

It would not be wrong to say that Trump will "buy" this election, should he win it, because what he's done is nothing different than plying the manipulative language and propaganda techniques that mark American marketing and advertising.  He packages his ideas in easily digested emotionally fortified bits and allows the unsuspecting to swallow them, turning their hearts black and smoldering with fear and hatred.

Read the article.  The intent is clear, the patterns undeniable, the impact...chilling.  We must be ever vigilant against demagoguery, but far too many of us don't smell it when its BS approaches.

It's Funny How Things Work Out

(I wrote the first 1/3 of this last year.   I wanted to give it a place to be.)

Like many people, I am a fan of quotations.  These pearls of wisdom that seem so perfectly formed and easily spoken are as close as I can come to the word of God, for they appear, seemingly unbidden, at just the right time in my life to comfort me, prod me, or give me direction and counsel.  

How words find me in this way is eternally mysterious to me, but such thinking pumps at the very heart of religion.  It is not a coincidence that one version of the Old Testament begins, "In the beginning was the word."  I find…I have always found such solace in the thoughts of others, and I moved away from that, drawn by the desire to do more than play with words and, perhaps, to run from the fact that I could never master them.  What I found in design was a place where my thoughts could rest in the real.  Where ideas were manifest in objects, places, things.  To me this was peace.  Chasing the dreams of words, however beautiful, however playful and melodic, was just playing with ideas.  Design brought thought and ideas into the real world.  I lived there and preached it for several years.  

And then I gave it all up to go back to words as a teacher of a new English class for gifted students at the High School.  

We and our worlds are little more than the stories we tell ourselves.  For 20+ years I had been writing one story and then...?  Then I changed it.  I'm not sure how some people do it, how they can change themselves so easily and quickly and write a new story.  Or I wasn't sure how they did it until I did.  Truly, I struggled to hold myself together last year.  Even with Campbell's words of guidance and my wife and friends to help me, I couldn't see how to begin a new story until I learned to open my eyes and accept the life that was waiting for me. 

And that's where Campbell's words ring so true.  I encountered them in late August of last year, just before I started in my new position.  And I rediscovered them (and the better part of the first 1/4 of this post) just today.  I accepted the life that was waiting for me.  I don't think I'd go back now.  And that's the funny part.  I visited a therapist a few times last year to talk things out.  He helped me immensely, and one of the things he said was, "these things have a way of working themselves out." I know what you're thinking, "You paid for that platitude?"  But it was true.  I'm on a different career path now, finding a way to combine my passion for getting kids to learn by thinking like designers with my love of words.  And my district is offering me a chance to design an entire academy within the school driven by this philosophy I've followed for so long.

I've no earth shattering realization here.  Something happened, I lived through it, I came out on the other side, I'm the better for it.  Campbell seemed to know so much, 'cause right now I'm thinking, "Hey, that's just like the monomyth, Campbell's Hero's Journey."  And maybe it is, and if so, then it just proves I'm human.  

I'll live with that.

What Counts in Education and Why

My title here alludes to a quip by, Einstein, I believe:  "Not everything that matters can be counted; not everything that can be counted matters."

I've been thinking a lot about my former teachers lately.  Maybe it was the quip that my colleague at the High School made about my corduroy sports coat and our former German teacher, Gordon.  Or maybe it was this blog post I found today.  Regardless, those thoughts led to me find the eulogy I wrote for my good friend Ron T., my former Chemistry teacher in HS.  I wanted to post the eulogy again because I've been thinking so much about what matters, what counts, and how we can ever freaking know such information with any accuracy.

Off and on since I graduated HS back in 1986, I would stop in to see  Ron.  I used to drop by his house on my way to and from my father’s, or, more recently, about once or twice a year my family and I would try to get to see Ron and just talk and enjoy some of the simple food he would make with vegetables from his garden.  No matter when I would stop by, he'd always great me with a smile and welcomed look of surprise.  "Well,  Gary..."  I can't think of any time, not even in class, when it wasn't so.  His demeanor rarely changed and you always had a sense that he felt it a pleasure to have you visit.  He was, more than anything, a genuine spirit, unassuming in his countenance and personality, who taught his students as much by what he did as by what he said.

One summer, before I was married, Rob H. and I helped Ron paint the clapboard siding of a barn and twin home he owned as a rental property in East Greenville.  High on the ladders, all of us working side-by-side, Ron would tell stories and his gentle humor made the days pass quickly.  As we grew tired, we would take a break, and Ron would produce his lunch, a lettuce sandwich--just two pieces of pumpernickel bread with some fresh lettuce between the slices.  To two boys who grew up in the great consumer morass that was American culture of the 70s and 80s, you can imagine how we might have perceived his meal.  But, simple as his food choices were, there always existed some flavor up-front.  The caraway of the rye seeds in the pumpernickel, or the dill he mixed into a homemade soup he once served when Heather and I stopped by one night.   Truth be told, I have never met anyone whose appetite so closely matched his personality. 

Just so, Ron was a simple man, but never dull.  He filled his life with a love for his heritage and treasured nothing so much as sharing with people.  When we were still in HS, Ron invited some of us up to his home to view his Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas Putz, a unique collection of animals, buildings, and all manner of figurines which, when setup like a model train display, produced a fascinating landscape for the wonderment of children.  This collection was his from his childhood, and he kept it with the same precision and organization that guided everything he did in his life…so far as I could tell.  As he grew older, he donated his Christmas Putz to the Schwenkfelder Heritage society in Red Hill so that children would evermore be able to marvel at what children past used to occupy their play. 

Other times, I remember Ron inviting his students to make candy during the holidays.  Ron possessed a collection of molds into which, with the right guidance, we learned to pour a hot, colored, sugary mixture.  I believe we would add to this a lollypop stick and when the mixture cooled and the candy was removed, one held in her hand a miniature delight—a clear, yellow, green, or red sweet that shined like a Christmas light but tasted much better. 

My family and I visited Ron in late August of 2011, and then again in November after learning he had renal cancer.  He was tired, but his kind wit had not abandoned him.  We spoke of school, photography, and somewhat of his illness.  We knew the cancer had spread and that there might not be many more chances for us to visit, and so we made plans to visit with him on December 26^th.  But my daughter had come down with a stomach virus.  I called Ron to reschedule but we were not able to get up to see him.  He suffered a setback on the Thursday before New Years and was never able to recover.

If this be eulogy, then let it be this--a eulogy that reminds us all of our teachers and of this important truth:  We can never tell where their influence stops.  Whether I remember how  to balance out an oxidation reduction reaction (if that’s even what you do with them) is not nearly so important in my life as that Ron T. cared…that, for the most part, all my teachers cared, that they shared their lives with me, and that I learned, whether intentionally or not, a good deal about how to be a decent, intelligent, and caring human being.

Fuller, Feynman: Curious Characters Under Study.

Students in my 10th grade gifted honors classes are doing a quick study of Buckminster Fuller and his efforts to create a mass produced home that would, among other things, exchange the internal air every 6 minutes, withstand fires, tornados; whose foundation was based upon a central mast and suspension structures, that could be shipped around the world easily, that could be purchased for (in 1946 dollars) the price of a Cadillac.  Fuller's Dymaxion House contained amenities and ideas so forward thinking that, after actually going home and digging into Fuller's ideas all on his own (no homework was assigned)  one of my students came into class on Wednesday and said, "Mr. Heidt, I just don't know why we're not all living in these houses now, or why we're not driving his amazing cars."

I'd started the week with a short slide show about Bill Levitt and the creation of the Levittowns, the first planned suburbs that eventually became the model for most all the suburbs in America for the next 40 years.  These are the kinds of suburbs (most with townhomes or McMansions instead of the Levitt cottages) that many of my students live in.  So I'd set them up, used the principle of contrast to allow them to see the future that is/that "became," and set Fuller's ideas off against that.

It worked amazingly well.  To have students wondering why this just didn't happen, why the currency of a good idea was not enough to sell America on his genius, that's something I don't get to see everyday.  I wish I did.  But that's the drug that keeps me teaching, that aha! moment.

In my 9th grade classes, students are learning about the challenges that Richard Feynman faced as a

Feynman and C-clamp demonstration

member of the star studded Rogers commission in trying to figure out the cause of the Challenger disaster.  Those students are dealing with procedural challenges, a more difficult situation than the tangible situation faced by Fuller, but they are grasping it very well, the bureaucracy of the situation, and the insatiably curious nature of Feynman, a curious character.

We're examining the characters of these two men--biographically speaking we're reading their stories and trying to understand them as characters dealing with conflicts--through the lens of Carol Dweck's notion of mindsets.  We're trying to understand the manner in which they faced challenges, dealt with dilemmas, and overcame obstacles by reading, within their dispositions and personalities, aspects of fixed and growth mindsets.

For students in an English class, this study opens the door to deeper understandings of characters and personalities. Indeed, understanding people better was one of the main reasons I became an English major in the first place, as the study of character always lead me to better understanding of those around me.

Stranger in a Strange Land

One of the most stressful aspects of moving from the Middle School to the High School this year has been the culture shock.  Sure, I was expecting the basic, "Oh...So that's how they do it here," as well as the time it'll take to get acclimated to the layout, the numbers of students, the way people are spread out all over the place.

Wait a minute.  Maybe I wasn't expecting that.  I've only been there a day.  It was a day where I did most of the talking because I have a design project with a deadline I have to run with my students.  So today as a procedural day.  Do this, read this, take that, we'll get to that later, here's how you navigate that...It was that kind of day.  Not my favorite day by far as it's generally sedentary, especially when you have to move through a number of things in a finite time.

But just in this day, and in the meetings yesterday preceding today's opening, I get the feeling that this high school, ranked in the top 10 in the state by at least two different measures, isn't much different from the HS I went to (because, ha!  This is the HS I went to).

Don't get me wrong.  The HS where I now work--the very same HS in whose halls I first kissed a girl--is fantastic at getting kids into programs, making sure they meet the grade, etc.  The rankings aren't lying, so far as I can tell.

But the kids still move somnambulantly, gravitate into their cliques, and tolerate most of their classes, while idolizing or vilifying the rest.

Is this ever going to change?  What is it about the architecture, the system that morphs us this way?  Or is it not really the system but rather just human development.  I'm guessing it's somewhere in the middle.  But I'd like to spend some time figuring it all out.  Cause for the life of me, I don't feel like having to relive HS all over.

Panic in the (Brain) Attic

My Brain

Nice closet, huh?  Yeah.  That's my brain right now.  It's burgeoning with ideas, as this closet is bursting with...um...stuff.  It's somewhat organized but one system of organization seems to get in the way of another system of organization.  Or maybe systems are competing with one another.

The trouble here is not only the mess I have to deal with to get to anything (thoughts clouding other thoughts, a mind fog, if you will) it's actually an issue of prioritization--things to be done competing with other things to be done and those loudly fighting with one another, some with physical, outside voices calling for forms to be turned in, items to be moved, etc.

I have tried to focus on just one thing at a time, but like those dogs in the movie Up, I'm easily distracted, and one "squirrel!" is all it takes to get me working on something else, and then nothing gets done.  And daily the demons raise their voices in my subconscious, telling me I'm not ready, I've not read enough, not prepared enough...and they're usually right.  After all, one summer, two new curricula to write/borrow from/learn, and 42 Gifted IEPs to learn how to write and organize.  Yeah, you could say I am PANICKING!  Not a useful behavior, but it's where I am right now.

It's no genius notion to recognize that I (you, we) don't like feeling this way.


Strangely, my room is, at least for now organized and neat, less cluttered than it was at the middle school, with only about 15 of the ceiling tiles hanging now on the walls (where once the entire ceiling was filled with words).  After all, I jettisoned a good deal of 20 years worth of stuff

But still, my mind is cluttered.

I've plans for the first couple of months, but not physically written down beyond week two.

My teacher friends, as I'm coming from a curriculum that I had memorized and largely in my head, and which I, therefore, rightly or wrongly, rarely put on paper, you help, if you have any, is appreciated.