All It Takes Is A Little Love

I was a very good student. As long as nobody was pushing me to answer questions immediately I was always able to compose myself, reach into my store of knowledge and find the correct response. I was not good at contests in which I had to be the first to come up with an answer. My mind works wonderfully but its pace is slow and steady. If a clock is ticking I freeze. I won academic contests that allowed me to ponder over essays or prepare speeches in advance. I morph from being intelligent to stuttering as though I don’t have a brain when people put pressure on me to answer immediately. I was generally the last person to turn in a test, a fact that often annoyed my more quick witted classmates. I generally got high grades because I took the time to review and refine my responses. I suspect that many learners are like I am. There are those among us who can win Jeopardy. I am not among them. I will come up with the answer but not in the blazing timeframe needed to win a contest. 

I mention this because something is happening in the Houston Independent School District that troubles me greatly. After a state takeover of one of the largest districts in the United States a new superintendent is requiring some schools to use a pedagogic methodology that I believe will make learning more difficult for many students, especially those like me. From what I hear teachers are given scripted lessons with no time allowed for addressing individual learning needs. There is also a component that requires some segments of the lessons to be timed including moments when students are providing answers. From the standpoint of a long time educator I have a mountain of issues with what is happening.

First of all a script is far too impersonal for teaching much of anything. It ignores the reality that each group of students may require differing versions of the lesson depending upon their learning styles and how well they are comprehending the subject matter. It does not allow for reteaching with is critical to any good mathematics class. It also assumes that all students will respond positively to the exact same teaching method. Finally it forces students to race with a clock, an unfortunate situation for learners who need time to compile their thoughts before responding. 

I continue to teach mathematics even after officially retiring. Only the other day I had to backtrack with a group of students when I realized in grading their homework that most of them had struggled with a particular concept that I had presented in the previous class. It was important to clear up all of the misconceptions that I found before moving forward with the next topic. I new from experience that simply ignoring their trouble would only lead to bigger and bigger gaps in their understanding. Timed and scripted lessons would not have allowed me to have the luxury of reteaching and pointing out the common errors that I was seeing. The students were more attentive than ever because they had been stressed when they themselves realized that they had not quite mastered the concept. They were smiling by the time I had helped them to clear up their confusion.

A few years ago I was enjoying a wonderful opportunity to tutor underserved high school students after school. I had a working relationship with their mathematics teachers who sent samples of their work and alerted me to what kind of help they needed. It was gratifying to see the confidence grow among young people who were literally frightened by math. They beamed when their grades improved and their efforts made everyone happy. It was a truly gratifying time for me and then something terrible happened. 

The company that hired me to tutor in the school began issuing commands that I knew would not work with my high school students. They insisted that I never use the student textbooks or the teacher created work for the tutoring sessions. Instead they wanted me to give the kids a standardized test to determine what skills were weak. Then I was told to simply set them up with a computer program and monitor them as they worked independently. I did this one time and found that both students and teachers were upset because nothing matched what they were actually doing in class. When I told the company that I preferred to continue tutoring in the manner that had been so successful they threatened to make surprise visits and fire me if I was not using their pre-planned lessons on the computer. I beat them to the punch by resigning. 

It saddened me to abandon the students and teachers with whom I had built a strong and trusted relationship. I tried to explain how my hands were tied by people who seemed to have little idea how to work with high schoolers in mathematics. The ignorance of it all angered me. There were so many silly rules many of which were being made by individuals who had never taught mathematics or worked inside a high school. I was unable to reason with them because they were not really peddling a true tutoring service, but rather a computer package that had little or nothing to do with the realities of the situation. 

I find myself wondering of the prepackaged and strictly timed standardized lessons that are being echoed across classrooms are draining the joy and common sense out of the HISD schools required to use them. Students are first and foremost humans and by definition have different needs and ways of learning. I cannot help but believe that this system will fail and in the process put thousands of students behind in their knowledge and skills. Perhaps it will also have a very negative psychological impact on them. Somehow it does not seem as though true professional educators would design such a system. The system appears to be more of a product created by a business intent on selling its wares and using children to prove its worth. 

I hope that not too much damage is done to the young minds having to endure this experiment. I hope that the teachers do not become too discouraged. Mostly I hope that everyone will come to their senses sooner rather than later. What is happening is an educational travesty and needs to end as quickly as possible. There are many experts among teachers who know what to do. Someone needs to listen to them and to the students and their parents as well. 

I should receive Henry Winkler’s autobiography Being Henry…The Fonz and Beyond from Amazon sometime today. I won’t have much time to read it because I have four hours of teaching to occupy me and this is Halloween. I’ll spend hours this evening enjoying the annual pilgrimage of little ones in costume seeking treats. Nonetheless I’m anxious to dig into Henry Winkler’s life story because I am a fan of his attempts to overcome the extreme difficulties of his childhood to become one of the most beloved actors and authors in the world. 

Like everyone, I first discovered Henry Winkler on the sitcom Happy Days. I loved the premise of the program and immediately fell in love with the character of the Fonz. Winkler played that role so well that it became an icon. At the time I was raising a family, teaching school, and doing my best to keep my mother mentally healthy so I was rather busy and often times a bit stressed. Laughing at the antics of Fonzie provided me with an outlet for my anxieties. Little did I know at the time that Henry Winkler had a whole lot of baggage of his own. 

After Happy Days had left the air and I was well into my career in education I enjoyed the pleasure of attending a National Convention that featured Henry Winkler as the guest speaker. I don’t remember much else about that gathering, but I will never forget how inspired I was with Henry who quite openly revealed the learning difficulties that had plagued him as a young man. It seems that he was severely dyslexic and as a result of that affliction reading was incredibly difficult for him. He viewed himself as a failure and the fact that most of the adults around him saw him in the same light only reinforced his feelings that something was innately wrong with him. 

It took great determination for Henry Winkler to progress in life, but somehow he had the grit that he needed to find a college that would accept him in spite of his dismal academic resume. He learned by listening and found out that he was quite capable as long as he did not have to read. He first created learning techniques for himself and much later learned why reading seemed almost impossible. With carefully designed aides he was able to memorize scripts and even write a number of books for children that focused on characters much like himself. 

I suppose I became more of a fan of Henry Winkler after hearing him speak than I had ever been. I realized that he was not just a shallow character, but a compassionate man who had overcome daunting challenges much like those I have witnessed in many of my students. I felt a kinship with Henry because I too have a tinge of dyslexia that rears its head now and again. It is why I sometimes switch letters and numbers. It is the reason that I drive people crazy with my daily rituals. Everything in my routines has to be linear or my brain begins to short circuit. If someone moves an item from the place where I expect it to be a kind of cyclone takes place in my mind leaving me in a fog of frustration. 

My opinion is that Henry Winkler is a great man. I know he loves to fish and he is always a champion of the underdog just as his character Fonzie was. He admits openly to his own insecurities and then worries that perhaps he will anger someone by being too honest. I suppose that anyone who publicly records his or her thoughts feels the same kind of worry that the true meaning of what they have said will be misunderstood. Still, Henry Winkler seems to understand that by sharing his story many others will be greatly inspired to overcome their own difficulties. He is a shining example that we do not have to be defined by our afflictions or our fears. 

Sometimes I feel as though we live in a world of shiny objects that deflect our attention from the challenges of living. Especially in a country like mine where there is so much freedom and plenty even for the most common among us it is easy to get lost in the mundane. I know that in spite of losses, privations and struggles I have enjoyed a very good life. I suppose that I was lucky to have a first grade teacher who saw the learning difficulties that I had. She showed me how to focus my eyes and create ways of learning that worked for me. She taught me not to panic when words on a page seemed to jump around. She assured me that taking my time was not an indication that my intelligence was less than those with quicker wits. 

I was not nearly as afflicted with learning difficulties as Henry Winkler was. I was also surrounded by adults who encouraged me when I faltered. My own difficulties helped me to become a patient educator. I emulated my first grade teacher and worked to bring out the brilliance in all of my students. Now Henry Winkler is putting his story on the line to reach an even wider audience. I have little doubt that his story will inspire souls all across the world. I can’t wait to start reading.

Maine is a small state. It’s largest city has fewer people than the city of Pearland where I live. It’s a place filled with trees and quaint houses built in clearings in front of wooded areas. When I visited there this summer I felt a release of tensions that had been building up in me after a year of adjusting to family illnesses and losses. We stayed in Brunswick, Maine which is about thirty minutes from Portland and only a matter of a few miles from multiple small towns that run along the Androscoggin River. We reveled in the beauty of the area and spoke of how safe and peaceful we felt there. Since our granddaughter attends Bowdoin College there, we felt quite reassured that she would learn and thrive and be happy in such a tranquil place. 

In October Maine really shows its colors. The leaves begin to change with the season and there is a crisp coolness in the air. The sweaters come out and festivals crop up all over the landscape. At Bowdoin College the annual Family Weekend takes place at the end of the month. Parents and grandparents travel from all over the United States to visit with their young scholars and to participate in the activities that showcase their talent. 

On Wednesday last week everything was normal until gunshots rang out first at a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine and then at a bar and grille in the same town. Eighteen innocent people just having a fun night out were dead and dozens more were insured. As the shooter fled word quickly spread to neighboring towns as law enforcement urged citizens to stay inside and lock their doors. Given that Bowdoin College is only about nineteen miles from Lewiston, students were immediately told to lockdown until further notice. 

Anxious citizens of Maine were glued fearfully to their televisions with shades and blinds drown as the tragedy unfolded. Only hours later the suspect’s car was found abandoned in Lisbon near the Androscoggin River. Lisbon is about eleven miles from where my granddaughter was locked inside a student house raising fears that the shooter might be heading south toward Brunswick. 

When law enforcement rushed to the suspect’s home in Bowdoin, which is only three miles from where our granddaughter now lives our fears grew even stronger. We had seen the area. It is dark at night. Wooded areas dominate the landscape. Someone who knows the landscape and has survival skills might be able to walk about unnoticed for weeks and may even find a way to escape entirely. The lockdown continued as towns looked as though they had been abandoned. Thursday was a long day for all of Maine. By then photos of the shooter were impressed in the minds of people all over the world. The clock was ticking and he had to be found before he hurt anyone else.

When the killer was still at large on Friday morning the concerns only heightened. The Mainers and the students at the many colleges like Bowdoin and Bates were still locked in their dorms and houses and apartments. Parents who had arrived for the Bowdoin Family weekend sat in hotel rooms waiting anxiously to be reunited with a son or daughter. News that police had found the shooters phone and a note that indicated that he might be dead was only mildly reassuring. By the evening his body was found at a recycling center that appeared to look vaguely familiar to me from our travels around the area. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief but the trauma was far from over. 

There are gentle people who were killed or physically hurt by yet another mass shooting. There are innocent people who endured two days of worry that they might somehow encounter this mad man and become victims of his paranoid anger. Individuals who had endured mass shootings in the past felt their feelings of terror and helplessness rise to the surface once again. Family members who had lost loved ones in shooting incidents were reminded of their grief that never really goes away. The whole nation wondered once again why such incidents happen so frequently in the United States. A feeling of hopelessness filled my own heart as I wondered why our nation has been so unable to agree that we have to get control of a gun fetish that is fueling divisions rather than common sense protections. 

I have made my suggestions regarding things that might help to stem the dangerous tide of bad guys with dangerous guns taking out their anger on innocent people. I know that I have a choir that harmonizes with me and a group that disagrees with every comment I make on the matter. I watch as we do nothing other than fortifying public spaces and adding stronger defenses to our homes. We talk about good guys with guns being our saviors and yet there have been few times when that worked. We say that it is mental illness that causes such incidents but we only throw pennies at the problems of mental illness in our nation, leaving the truly ill without the resources to get help. We are simply not serious enough yet even though we have reached point at which most of us know somebody who has endured gun violence or the horrific effects of it. 

At this point I worry that we are simply not willing to take difficult measures to ensure our own safety. Instead we simply continue to enrich the gun industry, deluding ourselves that if we are armed to hilt then surely we will be able to defend ourselves if a shooter shows up where we are. We have a culture in our midst that glorifies gun ownership as a sacred right that will keep us all safe. I wonder why that belief is failing to work out so well? As for myself, I am weary of learning that someone I love has endured the horrible effects of a mass shooting. I am tired of scanning parking lots, watching people inside stores, looking for exists and places to hide. Peace has been shattered far too many times. What kind of environment have we allowed to exist when no place feels totally safe anymore?

There are people who fear telling children difficult truths about history. I suppose that such intentions are well meaning and I can’t speak for everyone, but my own experience has been appreciating honesty from my elders. I suppose that is because my father and my grandfather were always quite open with me. They had a way of informing me of our nation’s troubles without making me feel personally responsible. I always appreciated that they did not hide the flaws from me, but discussed them in ways that even a child might understand. Their honesty actually made me feel more empathetic and determined to understand people who have suffered.

My grandfather in particular often spoke of the profound poverty of many American families during what he called the Cleveland Panic at the end of the nineteenth century. He related how an army of unemployed and impoverished people came through his town on their way to Washington to protest their situations. This group became known as “Coxey’s Army.” Grandpa spoke of their plight and reinforced the gravity of the situation by speaking of people that he knew who were starving. He often noted that this era of economic turmoil was even worse that what came to be known as the Great Depression in the twentieth century. 

My grandfather also recounted tales of his time in Oklahoma before and after it had become a state. A frequent theme of his stories involved the mistreatment of the members of the Osage Indian tribe that he witnessed. It was fascinating and disheartening to hear how white people had stolen from the Native Americans and treated them as though they were inferior and lacking in intelligence. Grandpa said that he saw white men trading car batteries for land among other egregious things. He related his disgust over and over again as though he wanted to be certain that I would be privy to truths about the mistreatment of the original inhabitants of this nation. 

When I heard that Martin Scorsese had directed a movie that featured a story about murder and theft against members of the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma I knew that I had to see the film. Killers of the Flower Moon is based on a book of the same name. Members of the Osage tribe were placed on a reservation in Oklahoma on land that was considered to be the worst part of the state. Then oil was discovered making the Osage people who lived there the wealthiest people in the nation per capita because the treaty agreement had promised them the mineral rights. Unfortunately the Osage people were under the jurisdiction of white guardians who doled out their income and often took cuts for themselves as fees for their services. Eventually there were a series of unexplained deaths among the newly wealthy Osage people. 

I won’t go into details about the story because I think that the film is a masterpiece that is a must see for everyone. Martin Scorsese has created a movie that will be viewed for the ages. His reverence for the Osage people is apparent in every minute of the over three hour story. The actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DiNero, and Lily Gladstone give Oscar worthy performances. The script is intense and heartbreaking. Every American should see this film so that they might realize the extent to which we all too often mistreated and misunderstood those whose ancestors roamed this land long before the first settlers came from Europe. It is an important and eye opening story even for someone like me who had already heard of such mistreatment of the Osage people from my Grandfather. 

What is most beautiful about the movie is that the Osage nation is treated with great respect by Martin Scorsese. He used only Native Americans for the roles of Osage people. He did not ask them to speak any differently that they actually do. He portrayed them as the beautiful, compassionate and intelligent people that they were and continue to be. 

The conclusion of the film included a ceremony of the Osage tribe that brought me to tears. As a child of five years old I lived in Oklahoma for a brief time while my father worked there. One evening he took us to see a similar ceremony telling us what a privilege it was to see such a thing. I have never forgotten the beauty of the ritual. It was absolutely stunning. Seeing it again on the big screen brought back the child in me who had been so enchanted by the sheer majesty of the ceremony. I found myself sobbing for the cruelty that these beautiful people have endured as I viewed their beauty in the theater. I understood why my father and grandfather had tried to educate me even when I was quite young. 

Learning difficult truths is indeed very sad, but I believe that it is necessary. The history of the world is littered with tragedies inflicted by one group of people on others. Knowing about such things helps us to recognize wrongs when we see them. Admitting that we humans or Americans do not always get things right makes us better people. We can evolve into more just behavior only if we are honest. Children are not harmed by truth. 

When I was still a little girl I enjoyed hearing exotic stories from one of my cousins who was old enough to be my father. He was a geologist who often spent months working in northern Africa, particularly in Libya. He would speak of the unique beauty of the country and its people. One time while working in a desert area he became disoriented and lost his way. If not for the kindness of strangers who found him and guided him back to civilization, he might have died. As a child I was in awe of his adventures and often wondered about the remarkable country that he so excitedly described. 

It would be much later that I would find myself reading about far different images of Libya than the ones recounted by my cousin. After years of political upheaval the political situation there had changed dramatically by 2011 leading first to protests and then years of civil war between multiple factions. A tenuous peace was finally procured in 2020, but there are still isolated terrorist attacks and protests that have made the country unsafe, poor and badly run. Infrastructures have been weakened after years of neglect and tensions have continued to fester under the tensions of daily living. 

On September 12, a storm in Mediterranean brought torrential rains to northern Africa and Libya in particular. After years of neglect two damns riddled with cracks and crumbling walls broke as water from the storm pushed against first one and then the other. The result was an epic human disaster when the waters rushed without warning into the city of Derna in eastern Libya. Tens of thousands died including whole families whose homes were washed away. Rescue efforts required cooperation among rival factions and countries. For the first time in decades it seemed more important to Libyan citizens to suspend enmity in the hopes of saving lives. 

I listened to a distraught resident of Libya describing the scene while fighting back tears. His emotion was palatable as he spoke of the realization among the people of Libya that climate change had wrought this epic tragedy, but ultimately so had all of the fighting among rivals. He urged his fellow citizens to suspend their divisions and finally come together in peace and unity for a common cause that affects them all. 

As I listened to this man I could not help thinking about the past few years during which America has been torn into warring camps that have led us to a very dangerous moment in our own history. Instead of working to solve our common problems and to keep our nation in good working order our national, state and local governments are beset by bickering and retribution, wars over our differing cultural beliefs . We may not have political problems that are as severe as those in Libya, but we have not been been living in harmony with each other for quite some time now. All of us should be concerned by this and by political candidates who stoke the fires of fear that create fissures in our political system. 

Libya’s story shows us that things will only get worse if we continue down this road. Some of the most honorable men and women in our government are being pushed out of office and telling us that the situation is far worse than we might even have imagined. We look at the functioning of our institutions and surely must see that they are broken, but instead of making repairs, mending fences, we seem to only be quibbling with one another. We may not realize it but we are presently engaged in an unofficial war that will most certainly continue to escalate unless and until we broker a truce that brings nonpartisan ideas to the table. 

We all know what we should be doing, but we continue in a circular motion that ignores truth and common sense. Tribalism and nationalism has never worked. It’s based on the idea of pitting one group against another. It forces individuals to join groups. I focuses on meaningless problems rather than what is really needed by the society. It breeds extremism that leads to seemingly good people becoming focused more on prohibiting and banning than providing solutions and freedoms. 

 We would do well to see Libya as a proverbial example of what might happen here if we do not quell the fires of disagreement that are being fanned by people who have found a way to assert their own power. Dictators do not actually care about the people. They pretend that they do, but essentially all that they have in mind is feathering their own nests. They have to use force to keep people in line and to protect themselves. It has happened before even in seemingly civilized societies. It most certainly could happen here. It’s up to each of us to be certain that we do not encourage people who openly taunt us to hate each other. Democracy dies in such dark places. We have to use our votes wisely while they still count.