The Power of Shakespeare in Coon Rapids by Way of North Minneapolis

Yesterday was a particularly rewarding day.  In between church attendance at New Salem and participation in the last day of the Festival of Nations at River Centre in St. Paul in behalf of the Taiwanese exhibit, I met with Evelyn Patterson and sons Damon Preston and Javon Jakes  (all data privacy pseudonyms).

 

This reminded me of an early encounter with Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Superintendent Ed Graff, when he and staff hosted five community gatherings two months into his occupation of the superintendent role in late August and early September 2016.  I attended all but one, the nonattendance of that latter event coming when I was in Dallas spending time with my mom.

 

I asked Graff questions at each of the four events that I attended that ultimately had the similar purpose of discerning Graff’s philosophy of education, insofar as he had a philosophical framework and the capability to articulate his view. 

 

At the first event I reviewed the two philosophical approaches to education, counterpoising knowledge-intensity with the anti-knowledge tact taken by education professors, then asked Graff which he embraced.  

 

At the second event I asked him if he understood the depth of the dilemma of the Minneapolis Public Schools as to an academic program that served no student group very well and wretchedly ill-served children of poverty and familial dysfunction.

 

 I was in Dallas for the fourth event. 

 

At the fifth event, I asked Graff if he understood the extent of the overweening bureaucracy that prevailed at the Davis Center (Minneapolis Public Schools [MPS] central offices, 1250 West Broadway) and how ineffective were those departments most pertinent to the academic program.

 

It was at the third event that I said to Graff:

 

Superintendent Graff, just yesterday I drove to the East St. Paul residence of one of the families in my program [the New Salem Educational Initiative].  This is a family that I followed through two residences in North Minneapolis, one in far South Minneapolis close to the Crosstown, then to this East St. Paul residence.  I was at the residence on this particular day to move the family to a better, cheaper Section 8 housing unit that the maternal force in the family had located in Coon Rapids.  Since the mom could not afford the $200 for a moving crew and van, I did the moving.  Along the way, this thirty year-old woman and I talked nonstop about her growing up tough in Southside Chicago and the obstacles that she faced during those years in a family with multiple challenges of finances and functionality.  I offered low-key counsel as we agreed that she and her two sons, multiyear participants in the New Salem Educational Initiative, were on a promising course toward a much better life.

 

So, Superintendent Graff, I understand the need to establish emotional connections.  But I would consider myself a failure if I did not draw upon those emotional connections to abet my academic instruction and mission to deliver to my students college preparatory knowledge of highest caliber and  importance.  With your emphasis on social and emotional learning, do you consider the ultimate goal of the program that you provide for the students of the Minneapolis Public Schools to be the impartation of  knowledge and skill sets that define an excellent education?

 

Graff gave me a vague answer, grounded in education professor verbiage about teaching the whole child.

 

Yesterday I had a remarkable experience pertinent to this exchange:

 

Between attendance at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church and participation at the Taiwanese exhibit at the Festival of Nations, I slipped in an academic session with the familial unit described above.  This includes Evelyn Patterson and sons Damon Preston (grade 9, age 15) and Javon Jakes (grade 3, age 9).  I work with most of my students at a classroom at the church, but in the case of Evelyn and family save the transport time to and from by holding our sessions at their duplex unit in Coon Rapids.

 

The place is spacious and serviceable but spare of furniture.  We scrambled to gather an odd assortment of chairs for the four of us, seated at a formica dinette table.  We read my 14-page compressed version of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, with Evelyn preparing for a role as the Duke of Venice;  Damon as Shylock’s daughter’s husband, Lorenzo;  Javon as the jester, Launcelot;  and me as Shylock, the Jewish businessperson.  We also served as readers for the other roles.

 

Evelyn, Damon, and Javon were enamored with the play, just as they have been with King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Othello, and Twelfth Night.  They reveled at the humor and the gender-switching moments, but they also considered very thoughtfully why I opted to place Shylock’s appeal for the common humanity of Jews and Christians at the end of the play.

 

For many moments during this academic session my thoughts traveled into the upper ether and gazed down upon this marvel of sitting in a Section 8 housing unit on a Sunday afternoon with a family for which life has been a constant struggle.  To a person, this remarkable mother and her two sons; indeed, all of the student participants in the New Salem Educational Initiative;  love Shakespeare.

They sense my love, listen intently to my animated decoding of the beautiful Elizabethan language, and rivet their attention on themes of treachery, love, deceit, nobility, betrayal, and sublime appreciation of beauty.

 

However sensitive we must be to the emotional needs of a diverse population, we must always understand that excellence in education is knowledge-intensive and takes as its core mission respect for the need and the right of people of all demographic descriptors to know.