Telling the Teacher to Shut Up, If He Knows What's Good for Him.

Having a classroom full of willful, energetic and smart teenagers listen to your lesson with attention, wonder and, if possible affirmation,  is a joy beyond imagination.   Having done so for forty-two years, is a satisfying career that continues at a much slower pace.

I was taught to teach honestly - give the full story.  I did, I hope.

One of the secret pleasures of Facebook ( that is the extent of my social network: can't text and I use an "Old Guy" flip phone . . .for Phone Calls!1!).  Since my daughters encouraged me to open a page, I have reconnected with hundreds of kids ( now in their 40's, 50's, and 30's) who sat packed in historically uncomfortable desks and bought what I was selling - literature, philosophy, history, shared truth and the world contributions to leading a good life.  I taught Catch 22, A Separate Peace, Moby Dick, Heart of Darkness, Confederacy of Dunces, Paradise,Vanity Fair, Grapes of Wrath. USA Tilogy, It Can't Happen Here,  Canterbury Tales, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Adventures of Augie March, Native Son, Invisible Man, the plays of Shakespeare ( especially the English War of Roses and the Roman Plays) Euripides, Aristophanes,Aeschylus, Sophocles, Raisin in the Sun, the philosophical works of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Spinoza, Descartes, Rousseau. Voltaire, Berkley, Hume and Russell's History of Western Philosophy.  The historical texts of Xenophon, Thucydides, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, Francis Parker, Henry Adams, Malcom X, Barbara Tuchman fleshed out the a study of man at his best and worst.

I introduced my students to a book The Peoples History of the United States in 1980 and explained that it was Red nonsense in clever packaging.

I taught Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here a dystopian America addicted to fascism.  Strangely some of the kids who loved that rather brittle and sloppy novel are now devotees of later day Buzz Windrip's who are telling everyone to get in line, get on the right side of history, shout with Move On. org, Organizing for Action, AntiFa fascists and the book burner historian Howard Zinn.

None of this stuff is new. It is merely 1930's American Stalinism in velcro pants. 

• If you are not with us; you are against us!  
• We have the ghost of Tom Joad and Pete Seeger walking before us!  
• We are the People. 
• The Boss needs you; you don't need the boss.
• Organize the workers to control the use of their labor power,
• Workers of the world, awaken! 
• Which Side are you On???!

A few of my brightest students, sadly swallowed Howard Zinn whole and subsist on his diet of class envy, race baiting and scab yanking American history.

A former student bemoans the fact that I voted for Trump.  Get in line.  Now, in order to goat my sensibilities, indicated that my vote is dog whistle for my intrinsic panophobia and hateful nature.  I'm a Nazi, a Klansman, Lynch Mob psychopath and a moral coward, this fine young gent opines.

Glad to have introduced you to the world of ideas.  They are your's to ignore.

I found his jibe unworthy of his intellect, but there you have it.  I am like the Jewish teacher of the SS man in the brilliant series The Holocaust.  "Thanks for your wisdom, but you are on the wrong side of history. Now, let me help you step up into that boxcar Herr Doktor."

I responded to his snarky reply, "You can remind when your crowd carts me off to the Reeducation Camp."

There is no getting away from it - the young man was a straight A student.

Erase history and then start erasing the people who know it.

Oh, it can happen here.  It is already happening.

My Return to the Classroom to Make Constant War on Test Scores and Low Expectation

The world suffers its well-meaning fools,
who often jump in before sensibility rules.
Afraid to confront what they know not,
they carry their protection like a frock. Ronald W. Hull 

I have missed teaching English to high school kids.  In order to support my family, I have been doing Institutional Advancement work since 1994 - exclusively.  Here, at Leo High School, I have substituted in the classroom when and where needed. One year I taught science for three weeks. Christ forgive me.

Time to go back in.

The kids need an experienced, demanding and deeply schooled goad in the classroom.  The need is great.  One of the most heroic young men that it has been honor to meet in forty years of teaching and education struggles with reading and he will graduate and go on to college in few months.

He has never been challenged.  I pick the young man up in Bronzeville every morning and he is constantly buried in some text.  One teacher even  selected a For Dummies product.  I am not kidding. That was my epiphany - or, in Apple/Smart Book language my WTF moment.

I told the fierce and moral young gent, " Read anything, but this is a bit off-putting."

He replied, " What's 'off-putting?'

" It means if you are handed some horseshit, don't eat it."

" Word."

" To be sure, my friend.  How did you feel when these books were trotted out."

" I was pissed, but Mr. _______ said that we needed this to get the basic understanding of the stuff."

"  Would you rather eat at Mikey D's, or Schaller's? "

" Schallers no doubt."

" Why?"

" The food is better and they treat you with dignity. not like some punk."



The teacher was well-meaning and having read the entry scores formed his curriculum.

More damage has been done by well-meaning chart readers than anything caused in nature.  Neville Chamberlain, General Walter Short, WEB Dubois, . . .

I will return to the classroom and I will use the Norton Introduction to Literature Anthology  at all four levels.  Four years;one book.

No kiddie lit; no pop novels; no ethno-centric pap,  no PC huggie books, no comic books; no graphic novels, but real meaty poetry, fiction, drama and prose, as well as critical essays.  The students will read and understand what they read.  They will speak of what they read and they will write about what they have read

I get sickened when I find hundreds of unopened, unread and discarded copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, The Kite Runner and The Great Gatsby covering the halls on the last day of the year.  One text for four years.

They will not be denied contact with white table cloths, cutlery and cuisine.  They will not be denied courtesy and prompt service from their attendant service provider.  They will knock down the best in writing and thought.  They will learn to be discerning This I pledge.

This will be no tip-toe through the tulips in search of rainbows and unicorns. This will be a bitch and a half and worth it.

Gospel of Mark - To All Teachers, All Star Break is Over!

Mark 6: 30 - 34

The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.
And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves.
Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them.
As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

The All Star Game marks the true end of summer for teachers. Once the American League whups the National League, it is time to get your mind right for the return to school.

Teachers and Football, Cross-Country and Mathlete coaches are already hard at it,tagging uniforms and doing the pads and reconditioned helmets; marking passages from seminar insights; ordering paints and papers and lining up guest speakers. Last year's notes will not do.

Administrators are pouring over the rolls of students and double-checking the class rosters.

You are resting with no rest. The love of teaching balms the tired soul.

Breath deeply. Set the clock earlier each day.

You have much more to give. The Good Shepherd was a great boss-teacher and fine example even to those of us who may not mention HIS name in the class day.