There
is a saying in Mandarin Chinese that goes, Wo gei tamen yidian yanse kankan, that means, “I flashed them a
little color” or, less literally, “I guess I told them a thing or two.”
Perpend:
I delivered a
strong blow to Ed Graff and the members of the Minneapolis Public Schools Board
of Education at the monthly meeting this past Tuesday (14 March).
Graff
has been bringing some students and teachers in for some feel-good moments at
the beginning of most school board meetings, so it usually falls to me to
destroy that mood. This time, though, Graff got caught. He brought
in a high school drama group that is led by a very issue-savvy young
teacher.
About
15 members of the group delivered a powerful dramatic tale of an all too
typical case of an African American adolescent who is pulled
by beneficent and nefarious forces in his life but succumbs to
the nefarious and pays the consequences in expulsion from school and the
likelihood of falling ever more completely into the company of those
who exerted the negative influence.
The
refrain at the end of the piece was sounded as, "Minneapolis School
Board----- This is your fight, too! Minneapolis School
Board--- this is your fight, too! Minneapolis School Board---
This is your fight, too."
So
guess what my first line was? You guessed it, wise readers and fellow
K-12 revolutionaries:
"You
heard 'em, Northfield School Board--- This is you fight, too!"
I then
said, "Gary Marvin Davison, New Salem Educational Initiative,
just this ol' centerfielder's two-bounce throw from the outfield to home plate here
in North Minneapolis.
"What
do these things have in common: the relationship between the Roman Empire
and the Han Dynasty, Siddhartha Gautama, the Shi'ite-Sunni split and why
that's important today, the significance of the rise of the Ottoman Empire and
the consequences of its fall, the location of the Mediterranean Sea on a map
and any sense at all of its historical and continuing importance, the fact
that the 19th century means essentially the 1800s and not the 1900s, the way in
which both Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein changed perceptions of life
in the 20th century--- and the multiple meanings of any of the following
terms: liberal, conservative, socialism, communism, and--- I kid
you not--- even capitalism and
democracy?
"These
are things that your students do not know. I know that they do don't know
them. Remember that you cannot fool me. I teach a broad subset of
your students. They go to your schools to get breakfast and lunch,
interact with their peers, participate in extracurricular activities, and
receive a modicum of foundational academic skills; they get their
real education in their two hours a week with me. You cannot fool
me.
"And
then there is the matter of the students whom you really abuse: Fewer
than 20% of African American and American Indian males achieve at grade level
on math and reading assessments; only 52% of African American students
and 39% of American Indian students graduate within four years.
"And
I know what you're doing. Remember, I'm the guy whom you will never
fool. Mark Dayton, Brenda Cassellius, and Rebecca Gagnon have vitiated the
MCAs, so now you're going to pretend that you're going to align the curriculum
with the much harder ACT, herd all students into an arena to take that test,
then when poor kids come up with 13s or 14s or 15s, basically middle
school performance levels on that college preparatory exam, you're going to say
that's okay because you've got them socially and emotionally prepared, and even
thought one-third of your graduates will need remedial instruction at the
university, you'll claim that that's all right because they'll have the traits
of persistence and dedication that will carry them on through."
"So
you're fakes and frauds, and you know that I know you are. So,
now remember, as I leave here this evening to go take care of the
babies whom you academically abuse during the daytime, then as I return,
you say to yourselves, 'That's the guy that we will never fool.' "
Usually
the large assembly room contains mainly central office bureaucrats,
but on this evening there were a good number of students, so instead of stony
silence I got a fair number of hand-claps. The members of the
Minneapolis Public Schools Board of Education had bracingly chastened look on
their faces after having received the double whammy of the drama troop and
myself.
……………………………………………………………..
The
revolution thus continues at an ever accelerating pace. Folks are
nervous, especially since a $28 million dollar deficit is inducing another
round of central office cuts.
Ed
Graff is boldly leading the school board on a three-day trip on which no responsible
or discerning educator would venture to lead---
to Chicago for a conference at which the focal presentation is
going to be made by an organization called CASEL(Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional
Learning). Graff and the board are actually going to tour
schools in that titan of educational excellence, the public school system of
Chicago, to find out all of the good things that the education professor's
latest creed, Social and Emotional Learning, is accomplishing.
I did some research and found out that in the very
year that Ed Graff won an award from CASEL and the school board was
declining to renew Graff's contract, the Anchorage school system was coming off
a year of academic results that were worse than those of the Minneapolis
Public Schools.
Much as journalists’ references to the escapades of
Donald Trump and his administration go, I could not make anything up more
ludicrous than this band of ne’er-do-wells’ routine exercises of human foible.
You’ll find many detailed accounts as you scroll on
down the blog.
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