Category: Commentary

“Just the facts and nothing but the facts” has become a rallying cry for many parents who fear the socio-emotional aspects of teaching. They worry that teachers today are a bit too concerned about the mental health of their students and not enough about how well they are gaining knowledge and skills. At the same time some parents are pushing for more of a presence of Christian ideas in classrooms where God seems to have been silenced. There is additional worry about how American history is being taught. With all of these issues teachers are continually worried that even a single comment or action may lead to trouble. It’s like walking a tightrope every single day and they are stressed trying to do their jobs and be safe at the same time.

I was an honest and perhaps overly caring teacher. I came to understand over time that until the most basic human needs of each student were addressed their ability to learn was impeded. I had to know and honor their moods, concerns and needs and ultimately inspire them to work hard to be their best selves. This always required me to honor their differences and to know each of them individually. Helping them through difficult personal moments was as important as teaching them algorithms and mathematical concepts. 

On a personal level I viscerally recall moving to a new neighborhood and a new school when I was a six year old entering the second grade. The people who lived around my house had been welcoming and helpful from the first day that we arrived to live among them, so I went to school filled with positive anticipation that was dashed by a teacher who failed to consider how crushing her words to me would be. 

There was a mix up on that first day and I was not listed as a member of any of the second grade classes. The principal took me and my mother to the teacher with whom I was supposed to be assigned. As the principal apologized and announced to the teacher that I was also one of her students an ugly discussion ensued. The teacher insisted that she did not have room for another pupil and argued that she did not want me in her class. After a lengthy and heated discussion the teacher reluctantly deferred to the principal and literally pushed me into her classroom and told me to sit on the floor in the back of the room until she got a desk for me. 

I don’t know if it was just my childish imagination or if the teacher actually decided to focus her anger on me. All I can say is that the year in her care was horrific for me. I dreaded going to school every single day. Somehow I felt that I had become her punching bag because no matter how hard I worked or how well I behaved she found fault with me. The coup-d ‘etat occurred on the final day of the school year when the teacher gave out awards. She proudly boasted that everyone in the class was so wonderful that it was the first time in her career that everyone would receive a certificate. 

One by one she called my classmates to the front of the room to praise them for conduct, attendance, grades, creativity, athletics. When all was said and done each student was smiling and holding an award. I sat there attempting to control the quivering of my lips and the tears that were welling in my eyes because my name had not been called. My only consolation was that when the final bell rang I would never have to see this woman again. 

Perhaps she just missed my name like my mother reassured me when I burst into our kitchen sobbing. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt but, I always tended to believe she was simply being vindictive. She showed no signs of liking me from that very first day. In my mind this is what happens when a teacher focuses only on the facts and doesn’t consider the needs of each student. Without the socio-emotional factor, a classroom can be cold and unforgiving for a child. Parents and politicians who think that taking away human kindness and understanding make schools more efficient simply do not understand the duty of educators to minister to the whole child. 

Over decades of working with students I have found that more often than not their learning difficulties can be traced to socio-emotional problems. Ignoring them leads to killing their spirit and their confidence. Teaching involves working with the whole child, not just the specific skills and knowledge listed as the curriculum. A young girl crying because her boyfriend just broke up can’t be ignored. In that moment she needs to know that somebody cares about her predicament. 

Students are thinkers. They are looking at the world and asking many difficult questions. They want educators who seem to understand them, not just drones spouting facts. One of the reasons that remote learning was so wrong for so many students during the pandemic was because of its impersonal nature. Those lessons and tests really gave little or no feedback, no consideration of the individual needs of the little souls who were as confounded by the fears and outcomes of a worldwide pandemic as the adults. 

I suspect that the parents making their demands are genuinely concerned about the focus and content of what their children are learning. It’s good for parents to be involved, but I would suggest that they not just accept the words of politicians and television reporting about what is happening in schools but instead ask to talk with the teachers and even to observe classes before making accusations that are untrue. I would also want them to know that teachers cannot be uncaring automatons without harming their students. A classroom should be a safe haven for every child who has to be there for more hours of the week than they spend awake with their families. If it is not a happy place, they feel defeated just as I did with the teacher who made me feel spurned. Nobody wants that for anyone, especially those who are very different from ourselves. Teaching is about feeding the mind and the soul. If we take away one or the other the child will suffer. What a terrible waste that would be.

When hurricane Harvey pounded my city for three days I became concerned that my home would flood. I had received notifications from friends and family members indicating that they had to leave their houses as water gushed in through the weep holes and began to inundate their rooms. As the days wore on and the rain continued I felt certain that the drainage system that had kept the water from encroaching on my yard would sooner or later become full. I feared the worst and began to prepare as best as I could for what I believed might be the eventual fate of my house. 

I carried as many of my most prized possessions upstairs. Among those items was a set of two books that had once belonged to my father. One was a volume of the brothers Grimm fairy tales and the other was a collection of stories by Hans Christian Andersen. They had once been lovely with their embossed gold covers and the colorful illustrations inside. Over time the pages had yellowed and the binding had begun to fray. I might easily have replaced them with newer versions, but I felt a special attachment to the originals and wanted to save them in the event of a disaster inside my home. 

My father had read the tales contained inside to me from the time that I was a small child. I had come to view those books as a link to him even long after he was dead. I still remember the intense joy that I felt listening to his voice animate the characters in each story. I suppose that the love that I felt from my father spilled over into a love of reading from those days forward. Those books became even more precious to me when he died. They were an unspoken link to him. His hands had touched the pages. His voice had told the tales. Just touching the volumes became a spiritual experience.

I fear for the life of the books because they have become so fragile. I wonder if there is some talented book binder who can restore them without changing their essence. I’d like to see them repaired, but not replaced. If someone had to toss the original binding away and begin anew, the books would not be the same. I only want them strengthened so that they do not turn to dust in my hands. I desire to have them reinforced so that nobody thinks to throw them away when I am gone. 

I suppose that there is something a bit silly about my love of those books. It is as though the magic of the stories and the fairies contained inside have somehow become real enough to make them so special that they cannot ever be replaced. They were the beginning of my delight with reading and learning. For me they have been imbued with a kind of magic of their own. 

Weekends with my father often meant trips to a bookstore. Even on vacations we avoided silly souvenir shops and instead found quaint little stores filled with the smell of paper and print. Our remembrances of trips came in the form of a storybook or a volume with instructions for tying knots. I will forever recall visiting the library in Corpus Christi or stopping at an old bookseller’s place in Hollywood. 

Both the oldest of my brothers and I think of reading and classical music when we describe our father. The first thing that he did each evening when he came home from work is browse the local newspaper or read a few chapters of his latest purchase from a bookstore. His store of titles was as eclectic as his personality. His tastes ranged from humor to science and everything in between. At the time of his death he had been in the process of obtaining a collection of the world’s greatest literature beautifully bound. He would buy one volume from the set, read it, and then select another. 

When I was earning my degree in education I was not surprised to learn that youngsters whose parents read to them from infancy are generally more likely to do well in school. We humans emulate the behaviors that we see our parents enjoying. They provide us with hints of what our mothers and fathers believe to be important. If they read to us each day and we also see them reading by themselves, we begin to believe that reading is an important skill to embrace. We want to know how to decipher those lines and squiggles on paper. We also sense the love that lies behind those sessions when they carve out special time to read to us.

I never believed in the magic of fairies or that the stories my father read to me were real. I have always been more practical than that. What I learned from the daily readings of those books is how special my father’s feelings for me were. In that regard those two books are some of my most prized possessions. They may be of little worth to others, but to me they are more valuable than gold.

Humans have a fascination with creatures in the sea. One of the greatest novels ever written uses a whale as a metaphor. A blockbuster movie made us all more cautious of sharks that may lurk in the waters at the beach. In ancient times shark teeth were thought to have magical powers. Greeks festooned their pottery with images of fish and whales and sharks. Some how these creatures are more mysterious because they live under the water where we cannot see them unless they choose to emerge. 

Today we have Shark Week on the Discovery channel boosting ratings each year. The hilariously silly Sharknado movie has taken on a life of its own. In spite of the improbability of the stories, millions tune in each time there is a new version. Somehow we have installed sharks as a kind of national obsession in which we either think of them as grandly beautiful specimens of nature or frightening creatures akin to monsters.

We’ve even transformed our language to speak of reprehensible characters as “sharks’ who dupe us. On the other hand someone who is exceptionally good at something is sometimes called a shark as well. Thus we have sharks who cheat us and card sharks who amaze us with their skill. Our human emotions about sharks seem to waver between admiration and stark terror. 

There seems to be a great deal of that kind of thinking throughout human history. We either fear or prize people and situations that we do not understand. Instead of searching for truth we tend to follow whatever kind of group thinking that is most popular at the time. It is the kind of distrust or adoration that creates upheaval and even war. We look for saviors who may indeed be sharks of the reprehensible kind or we run from those that we fear who may in fact be harmless. You would think that we might be advanced enough in our reasoning and educations that we would do some research before jumping to conclusions, but we still too often simply react. 

This is a time when we seem to be drowning in alarm. Perhaps we have a bit of PTSD from all of the things we have endured over the past few years. Maybe we can even go back decades to trace the root of our anxieties. There is little doubt in my mind that the events of September 11, 2001 affected our national psyche. I suppose that we mostly felt safe before that Tuesday and even a bit naive about the world back then. Suddenly we were faced with the unthinkable. It made us fearful and we are still reminded of that every single time we fly on a plane. 

Then came the devastation of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. It opened a dark window into our relationships with people and ways of living with which we are unfamiliar or maybe even judgemental. We saw how powerless we can be in the face of nature’s wrath. Since that time we have almost become numb to the destruction of fires and floods and tornadoes. We are reminded again and again that it only takes a moment to destroy what we have built and lately such events are happening more and more often. Some raise the alarm and others simply look the other way. 

It seems to be the way of humans to be divided as to how to deal with the situations that we do not fully understand. When we lose control we react in different ways. Thus we looked at the recent pandemic either as a moment to work together to protect each other or a time to demand our freedoms from measures judged to be oppressive. 

Perhaps it is our natures that work against the concept of joining together to solve the problems that come our way. Maybe that movie about the shark in the waters of  Cape Cod captured our behaviour better than we thought. There will always be those who want to proceed with caution and those who deny the dangers that we face. It is only in hindsight that we can determine who was right and who was wrong. Even then it may be difficult to be certain that one way of thinking might have worked better than another. 

The fact is that we can only control our environment so much. There are no walls high enough to keep us safe. We cannot predict or prevent the vagaries of random events that threaten us but we can take reasonable measures to keep the ruins as minimal as possible. Fear does not have to be our constant companion the way it seems to be today. We simply need to be alert to our environment and willing to take measures that may inconvenience us but will lead to better days for most of the world. 

The sharks are in the water. They are on the land attempting to dupe us. Nonetheless we have sharks who are so skilled at actions that will save our lives that we should be willing to hear what they have to say instead of relying on fables and fears. Knowledge won’t prevent all horrific moments, but it just may decrease our chances of having to endure them.  

When I entered high school I was three months away from becoming a teenager and my reading habits reflected my naivety. I mostly spent my time with books from the Nancy Drew series of mysteries, biographies of saints, and a variety of stories about pioneer times. The summer reading for my freshman English class upped the ante and forced me to begin an exploration of literature of a more polished nature. It was then that I began a journey of enlightenment through the brilliant words of great authors. 

I instantly became addicted to discovering a world unlike any I had ever before imagined. Because my English teacher required me to read one book per week and then compose a review of it, I spent many hours concentrating on themes and ideas that were new to me. My vocabulary expanded and so too did my views of the world. Those books carried me far beyond the insular little neighborhood in which I lived. Over the next four years I would become more and more daring in choosing books to read, and as I did I expanded my own ideas about the variety and possibilities of living. 

To this very day reading is one of my passions. When asked which books I most enjoyed it is quite difficult to choose only a few titles, but I see a kind of cohesion in the ones that most impressed me. I remember being stunned by the antics of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye and becoming enthralled by Cry the Beloved Country. As I became more and more aware of the power of words, imagery, characterization I was literally blown away by The Great Gatsby. I viewed that book as a metaphor for life. I was unable to push it out of my mind and over the years I have kept going back to it as an exemplar of brilliant writing and characterization. 

When I read To Kill a Mockingbird I felt as though I knew Scout and her family. Having lived in the south and seen the segregation and other horrors inflicted on black people, I adored Atticus Finch for standing up for justice. I cried when I realized that in truth we have not yet overcome the prejudices of our country. This book encapsulated one of the most profound tragedies that I have witnessed during my lifetime.

I continued reading long after my formal education had ended. I asked for a copy of The Kite Runner for Christmas one year just as I always put book titles on my wish list. The holiday when I received it was particularly cold and wet so I spent the days after the Yuletide revelry sobbing over the political and religious upheaval of Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of a family that endured the tragedy. Of course that led me to researching more and more about the history of the Middle East and the rise of religious dictatorships. 

One of my grandsons was enrolled in his first advanced placement English class and was struggling a bit to analyze a book that he was reading beyond just summarizing the story. He reached out for some help and I agreed to read Things Fall Apart along with him. Somehow I had never before known about this novel, but even as I read the poetic rhythms of the first chapter I knew that I was engaged with one of the great works of literature. Surely enough, the novel about the evolution of a village in Africa and a man’s fate as colonialism changed his world was life changing for me and perhaps for my grandson as well. I suspect that my enthusiasm for the story and the brilliant use of figurative language vividly demonstrated the power of storytelling in describing history.

Imagine my bemusement when I learned that virtually every one of these titles has recently been included on the various banned book lists that are cropping up in school districts and town libraries all over the United States. I have wondered how it could be possible that such beautifully crafted stories would be considered somehow harmful to young people when I consider them to have been so inspiring and meaningful to my growth as a thinking adult. The irony to me is that these books opened my eyes to the wider world and to the difficulties and challenges that we humans must face as a part of living. They gave me strength and understanding that would not have otherwise been there. I wondered why anyone saw their messages as negative or immoral when they had simply been honest in moving ways. 

When I read lists of offensive books I saw that many more titles that had influenced and molded me for the better were included. I wondered if the those demanding that these books be removed from libraries had even read them, analyzed them, discussed them. Surely if they had they would have realized that their purpose was indeed to ask us to see life from the many points of view that exist around us. Closing our eyes or looking away from tragedies wherever they may be, is hardly a way of dealing with them. Ignorance may be bliss, but it does nothing to improve our ability to navigate through life. 

I count myself fortunate to have read these great books and so many others. I really abhor the idea of hiding them from the young people of today. I want them to slowly expand the horizons of others one beautiful story at a time just as have done for me. These books all still live in my mind. I know that they have enriched me, but never hurt me. I’m thankful that nobody attempted to take them away from me when I pulled them from a shelf and became lost in their eloquence and beauty.

I live close enough to Galveston beach that I can be there in under an hour. I feel a calm when I gaze out into the water that appears to continue infinitely. I often find myself wondering how many people have sailed from far away places into the harbor. I know that my grandparents once did just before the outbreak of World War I. There are also stories that German submarines may have stealthily navigated nearby in World War II. A bunker looking out into the sea still stands as a reminder of the dangers of that time. 

Mostly though, the beach near where I live is a place for swimming, fishing and fun. We don’t have the soft sand dunes of the Pacific coast nor is the water clear and shades of blue like in the Caribbean. Instead there is only a narrow strip of sand that has to be replaced periodically lest the beach disappear altogether due to the massive seawall that protects the city of Galveston from the wrath of hurricanes. Therein lies a lesson in history as well. 

Whenever I visit Galveston my thoughts always turn to the many souls who lost their homes and their lives in the 1900 hurricane. Before that fateful day in September Galveston had been one of the fastest growing and most prosperous cities in the United States. It had been described by some as the Wall Street of the south while also being a kind of heaven on earth, but nature asserted itself and literally tore the place asunder leaving it to become mostly a tourist town and eventually a port for cruise ships. 

I have grown up understanding the power and danger of hurricanes even fifty miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. I have great respect for the power of wind and flooding rain. I know the story of Galveston by heart and the resilience of the people who chose to stay there even after enduring so much loss. I admire the courage of people who so love the beach that they are willing to risk the possibility that another hurricane may one day take aim at their property. Luckily these days most of them understand that they must leave until the danger is over, so the loss of life is rarely a consideration. 

The people of Galveston are a hardy lot. They enjoy celebrating life and they do so with great joy. They plan celebrations like Mardi Gras and Dickens on the Strand. They know the incredible beauty of the gulf waters in the cold of winter when it seems that only the most dedicated souls walk along the beach. Most of them have caught a kind of sea fever that keeps them tethered to the sunrises and sunsets that have to be seen to be believed. 

I prefer to be a visitor, an interloper who appreciates the beauty and the soul of living near the sea, but in the end I am a landlubber who seeks higher ground. While I understand those who feel a visceral attachment to the seaside, I am  not one of them. Nonetheless I feel the pull of the tides and a need to smell the salty air. I want that vista that seems to meld the earth with heaven. I feel the healing essence of sitting quietly on the seawall doing nothing but gazing into the magnificence and power of the water. 

My father often dreamed of living by the sea. He was drawn to the water as though it had a magical power over him. He was happiest when he sat on a pier with his fishing line bobbing up and down. I literally felt the joy radiating from his soul whenever he was near the ocean. I suspect that some speck of daddy’s DNA landed in my brother who has lived in Galveston for many years now. He found a bride who shares his love of living with the water in his backyard. Together they have created a pleasure dome of serenity, at least until the storms come. 

My personality is perhaps more reserved. I would not mind living by a placid lake or on a mountain top. I don’t want to have to worry about moving when storms brew offshore and threaten to come in my direction. I won’t even stay in my inland home when such threats are dire. I head for the Texas Hill country and enjoy a sojourn there until the danger passes. I often wonder why I became this way because the history of my family is one of adventurous spirits, not careful over-thinkers like me. Perhaps it is my caretaker personality that causes me to want to keep myself and my family safe. 

The only person whose way of doing things seemed to align with mine was my grandmother, Mary. Once she crossed the ocean and settled into a tiny house in Houston, Texas she never again wanted to move. In fact, she did not even have a desire to leave the house. She was perfectly content to live out her days caring for her children and tending her garden. 

I am somewhat more balanced in that I love to travel and I continue to work outside of my home even in my retirement years. Still, it would not take much for me to spend more and more of my time simply enjoying my home and the neighbors around me. I feel quite comfortable and safe here. I don’t feel the need for excitement. I prefer the quiet of living a routine life. 

I am able to hop in my car and travel to the sea on any day. I can spend as much time there as I wish and then go home knowing that the worst a hurricane may do to my home is toss a few shingles off of the roof or take down my fence or one of my trees. In fact, I know that my city is the metropolis that it is because of that hurricane of long ago. When the winds devastated Galveston the progress and commerce moved inland. Houston was far enough away to take advantage of the shift. They built a ship channel and used bayous and railroads to grow a city in a fairly unlikely place. 

Now it is my home and I love it, but I am beginning to worry. As the climate changes and storms become stronger I have witnessed the devastation of flooding more often than I like. So far I have been spared, but my cautious nature makes me uncertain. One day I may feel compelled to move north to higher ground.