Deborah Meier and Pedro Noguera will return to blogging after the holidays. Until then, happy holidays to all and peace in the New Year!
—The Editors

Posted by Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A version of this piece appeared initially on deborahmeier.com.

Dear friends,

If we extended the logic of the NRA, one could say, "atomic weapons don't kill, people do." So why are most people, including almost all NRA supporters, so worried about Iran developing a bomb? Because countries (like people) can't kill without the weapons to do so, and they can't kill a lot of people in one stroke without weapons of mass destruction.

That's why we rightly fear the spread of such weapons. That should go for guns of mass destruction, too. I find it incredible that about half our nation is so worried about a country half a world away, yet seemingly unconcerned about massively lethal weapons in their own midst. We are not talking about weapons anyone would take out on a hunting expedition; I doubt any self-respecting hunter would use these weapons on a herd of deer.

There seems something wrong, even six days later, to be talking about the politics of the massacre in Connecticut. None of this discussion is of any help to those dead children and their grieving parents. Nor for the millions more affected, by the fear and distrust it has spread. But it is the right time for such talk.

It is, of course, symptomatic, a signal, an indicator of something rotten in America. Yes, we far outnumber all other industrialized nations in private madman massacres. Isn't that somewhat more worrisome than being in the middle on international math test scores?

This tragedy raises so many conflicting thoughts for me. As a
professional entrusted with young children and a parent of young ones, my job was to keep them from situations where their limited experience could endanger them. Still I also wanted them to be risk-takers. At Central Park East and Mission Hill I prided our schools on our openness. Our accessibility, the easy coming and going, was part of our precious character. Should we abandon all this?

Personally, I doubt that the killer in Newtown would have been deterred by any normal precautions. In fact, the Newtown school had locked doors and protocols for dealing with unwelcome intruders. The odd thing is that he stopped at 26.

How can we learn from this without turning our schools and communities into armed fortresses, which might lead to even more gun play? I just heard a TV commentator suggest, that from now on we should interrogate our children at the end of each school day with probing questions that might lead us to see dangers they may unknowingly face. Can you imagine the cost (and not just fiscal) to following up on every potential danger raised when in many cases, such as this recent tragedy, there are few obvious signs?

I went to Litchfield, Conn., last Saturday for a memorial service for an old high school friend, Ann Mott Booth. I listened to the stories told about Ann's treasured openness to others, her joy, her inclusiveness—even in the midst of her own personal tragedies. How can that special spirit be passed on to our youngsters when our own fears, not of a "foreign" enemy, but even of our neighbors, are so rampant?

"Freedom from fear" was one of the Four Freedoms that FDR proclaimed as the purpose of World War II. Shouldn't it outweigh the freedom to own weapons of mass destruction?

Let's not lose sight of that goal in the name of security, big and small, and thus diminish our capacity to trust each other. Let's listen to the violence of the language that surrounds us, including the language that permeated the last election.

But as I write these words, I remember how many other children have died this month from bombs we Americans have dropped on our enemies. And how many weapons of mass destruction we are stockpiling for ... for some possible future use. Is it really any less crazy than the weapons owned by the mother of that 20-year-old boy in Newtown?

As we think about these issues, brought to the fore by this particular brutal act, let's grieve and comfort each other. But let's also explore together what risks we face in efforts to promote trust, and what compromises we must make if we are to think through common solutions. How do we balance our love for our individual freedom and our equally powerful love for our common causes, our families, neighborhood, country, and planet?

I once wrote, in defense of small schools, that probably not a day passes in the average large comprehensive high school that some child is not grieving for the death of someone dear to him or her. If we stopped to take each death seriously we'd be in a perpetual state of mourning. I was glad that in the schools I've been a part of we had the time to stop everything and join together around each other's needs. That was a good habit that cannot often be lived up to in modern times.

I commented also on how often I see adults rushing over when they witness a child being hurt by another angry child, to scold the perpetrator—rather than rushing first to console the victim. There's a time for punishment, retribution, or whatever—and a time for loving. But our "habits," and I mean mine, too, are far behind the rhetoric we preach.

Deborah

Posted by Deborah Meier at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Dear Deborah,

Like you and most people throughout the country, I am overwhelmed with sorrow over the shootings that occurred in Newtown, Conn., last Friday. Given the enormity of what has occurred I can't think of anything more important to write about now.

After a tragedy of this magnitude the questions we are all now pondering are: Why did this happen, and what can be done to prevent something like this from occurring again?

Our deep fear of course is that they can't be stopped, not with more police or tougher security measures, or even more restrictive gun control.

How do you stop a deranged killer determined to harm innocent people? This shooting wasn't rational. As far as we know, it wasn't carried out with a political motive. It is the very randomness of the act that confounds and disturbs us most of all.

As a parent and an educator, I still find myself struggling to try to understand why this happened to small children. My heart goes out to the parents, and I feel an overwhelming anguish and despair over the vulnerability of our schools. Parents entrust their children to our schools with an explicit expectation that they will be safe. Of course, anyone who has worked in schools knows that safety is illusory.

No matter how many metal detectors we install, or how many guards we put in place, schools can never be absolutely safe. Schools cannot become fortresses, and a free, democratic society cannot rely on armed police for safety.

I realized after the massacre at Columbine, and was reminded yet again after the shootings in Jonesboro, Ark.; West Paducah, Ky.; Chardon, Ohio; and all the other places where gunmen have entered schools and taken lives in recent years that schools are inherently vulnerable. There are simply too many ways for an individual who is determined to perpetrate mayhem to gain access to a school. The shooter in Newtown shot his way into the school. We cannot blame a lax security system for this one. I think it is time for us to acknowledge that we won't find safety through security alone.

As I have thought about the causes of these mass shootings over the last few years and again over the last few days, I am reminded that schools have not been the only targets. We had a similar, though not as deadly, attack at a mall in Portland, Ore., as recently as Dec. 11. The mass shooting at the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., was just last summer, as was the shooting at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin; and the shootings at Virginia Tech that took even more lives than this one occurred just five years ago. The list goes on and on.

These attacks by deranged gunmen have two obvious things in common: The gunmen chose venues where lots of vulnerable people were gathered, and they had easy access to guns.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is right in calling for immediate action to restrict access to guns. This is not a time for rhetoric or hand-wringing. We need to call upon President Obama and Congress to take effective action now.

However, we also have to recognize that even with more restrictive gun control laws, determined killers will find a way to get the weapons they need to perpetrate violence.

We must go deeper beyond adopting new laws or new security measures. We must start to ask why the social contract that is supposed to hold our society together has fallen apart and what has caused this country to become one of the most dangerous nations on earth. While other nations must contend with violence, no other Western society is experiencing random violence with the frequency that we are.

Safety in a free, democratic society can never be premised on the presence of armed security agents or laws prohibiting the unlawful use of guns alone. While laws and police officers are obviously important, laws require the consent of those who are governed by them to be truly meaningful, and the police cannot be everywhere at all times.

As we become more atomized and fragmented as a society, as alienation grows, as the social bonds that give our lives meaning—family, community, religion, etc.—weaken and wane, we find ourselves at greater risk.

Each of the assailants in these mass shootings was described as a loner. This is an important piece of information because human beings are inherently social beings.

Schools are the institutions we rely upon to teach children how to become members of society, and while some of what is learned may be problematic, they nonetheless play a vital role in socializing each generation. In a society as diverse and complex as ours such a role is critical.

This is why when our schools are attacked and when the safety of children can no longer be taken for granted, it is so devastating to the social trust that is essential for operating schools and holding our society together.

That is why the only way to truly prevent acts of violence of this kind will come from finding ways to strengthen the bonds that should hold us together. Bonds premised on empathy, tolerance for difference, and respect for human dignity. To do this we must undertake deliberate efforts to increase our connections to each other, to embrace the alienated, and care for the weak, including the mentally ill.

Our schools must lead the way in carrying out this work, just as they did over a century ago when we struggled to integrate millions of new immigrants who came largely from Europe with different cultures and speaking different languages. We turned to our schools when our society (led by the U.S. Supreme Court) finally came to the realization that legalized "Apartheid" was morally reprehensible and had to cease. We must turn to our schools once again as we seek to find a way to restore and revitalize the bonds that protect and connect us.

We can find safety in community, in solidarity, and in affirming our mutual dependence. Schools will continue to play an important role in the effort to keep us together, but they cannot do it alone.

Pedro

Posted by Pedro Noguera at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Dear Pedro,

Picking up from your words Tuesday: The argument ought not to be about the influence of schools vs. society. I think we agree about this. Schools are part of the society that both creates and sustains poverty and racism. Although I think test scores are the last place in the world where we're likely to capture positive change in either school or society, that does not mean that the hours young people spend in school every day have no impact.

When I first began to teach—in the early 1960s—it was crystal clear to me based on two years of substitute teaching that the education the poor (and poor black children above all) received in Chicago was substantially different from the education that children in white middle-class families received. What struck me with perhaps equal intensity was the disrespectful ways teachers and parents were treated in such schools. I was, literally and naively, stunned.

In the few integrated schools I saw, it looked somewhere in between, like Shoesmith Elementary School, during the period in which my children attended it and I taught kindergarten there.

What became clearer were the ways a disrespectful setting hurts kids—leading us to miss some children's potential for curiosity, thoughtfulness, creativity, independent spirit, and their relentless love of learning. (Even if not what we think needs to be learned first.) There seemed no question that even the best intentioned schools serving low-income black children actually organized schooling in ways that depressed children's intelligence, curiosity, and openness to learning.

I soon discovered what I had not known and what was hard to observe—many children came into Shoesmith with a forewarning from home: Beware. Don't trust "them." Just "be good." Be quiet, be well-behaved, don't get in trouble, and watch carefully what you share with others in school, especially the adults. It was clear to me that many of the children who came into my classroom were not "the same" as the ones I observed daily in the playground across from my house, which was also their neighborhood playground. The silent children in my class were noisy ones at the playground, chattering, telling tales, rhyming, and laughing with each other. In time they began to do the same with me present, including in or out of the classroom. Even the middle-class and wealthy black families in Kenwood were wary; over time we began to talk about their experience vs. mine.

"If I don't overdress my daughter for school," one wealthy mother told me, "they'll think I'm either too poor or too lazy to dress them properly. They won't make that mistake with your children."

If you go onto my website, Pedro, you'll see some of the articles I wrote during those years. I think I was essentially right. I think what I didn't see as clearly then as I did later was that the impact this had on the boys was greater than on the girls. They gave up on trying to "be good" earlier and faster. (To some extent this goes for white boys, too.)

When I overheard parents greet their children after school, what I heard over and over was: "Were you good today?" When I asked children why their parents sent them to school, they almost unanimously answered with stuff like, "to stand on line," "to raise my hand before speaking," to "walk and not run," in short—"to be good." (Ah, if only we thought "being good" was something deeper!) The dangers they saw in "being naughty" in school were hard for me at first to acknowledge. But today we should know better. They feared being "held back." It was their worst fear—second only to losing a parent.

I decided I'd teach in the ways I had been taught in independent progressive school. That was easy, except that ... I had to understand better how the children and their parents interpreted my ways. Working closely, both formally and informally, with families was the harder part. For the next 50 years I wrote home each week about what we were doing. I held—in formal and informal ways—frequent in-person conferences, almost always including the child. I listened more carefully over time for signs of my own ignorance about how all children think and especially how the particular ones in my daily company were thinking. We did lots of story-telling, visiting the neighborhood, putting on plays, reading and reading, doing experiments, building blocks, painting, modeling, etc. And, I wondered , what would it be like if schools were truly part of their neighborhoods from kindergarten through 12th grade, and if all neighborhoods were as integrated in terms of race and class as that section of Kenwood was. (Maybe 20 percent of my students were white, and maybe an equal percentage were black and rich.) I spent the next decade teaching in all-back and all-poor communities and it was harder, but do-able.

How we meet the children we teach, and how we meet their neighborhood and family have an enormous impact on how useful or useless or worse-than-useless we are to children's education. Yes, schools matter. Yes, poverty does, too. But ...

I cringe when I hear people on "my side" of the debate argue over "how" poverty impacts children. They misunderstand my view. Yes, a nation where 23 percent of the children are poor vs. one in which only 2 percent are (the United States vs. Finland) can't expect equality of outcomes. Period. Yes, bad health, unheated homes, etc., are damaging. Yes, but ... I cringe when they use terms like "inadequately parented" or "deprived of language" to describe the kids I have taught for most of my life. Weirdest of all when some imply that since their parents haven't taught them proper manners, looking people in the eye, etc., they need schools that spend more time on such "basics." Nonsense. Quite the opposite is true. The head of the fancy Dalton School (for the very rich) in New York City said to me, after visiting the Central Park East (in East Harlem) school for a few hours, "but of course, your children are so much easier and well-mannered than ours." She was right.

So, just venting a little, Pedro. I urge folks to go to my website and read and respond to pieces I wrote 50 years ago—not all of which I may agree with or would describe in the same words today. But I'm still essentially in agreement with myself. And, I think, with you. Where do you see the differences we might bridge—because I think there are some?

Twenty years ago I thought we were well on the way toward learning these lessons, and the slow and steady road forward seemed inevitable. ... Today, I just don't know. It will take more than good books, articles, and inspiring movies to restore our confidence that what the wisest and wealthiest parent wants for his child is what every parent also wants for his/her child (to paraphrase Dewey). It includes enjoyably sharing the particular strengths and interests of each particular child and also an acknowledgement of how much they learn and have learned in the hands of their loved ones at home.

Deb

Posted by Deborah Meier at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Dear Deborah,

I want to continue on the theme of how schools can work under the constraints they face to make a difference for the students they serve. Some of the educators I work with dismiss the success of schools like Brockton High School and Mission Hill because they claim such schools don't serve the neediest students; those that sociologist William Julius Wilson described as the "truly disadvantaged."

I know there is some truth to that assertion. I spend a great deal of time working with schools that serve what we might euphemistically describe as "high need" students. It's not simply that they may have learning disabilities or come from homes where English is not the language spoken. The learning challenges they face are compounded by an intractable combination of hardships such as a lack of stable housing or inadequate home support. Schools that serve large numbers of children with severe behavior problems that are rooted in a history of abuse and neglect, or children whose parents are in prison, or who are being raised by sick and tired grandparents, are often overwhelmed by their needs. These children aren't typically part of the lottery pools for admission to charter schools. There also aren't many of them at Brockton High School or at Mission Hill either.

It's important to acknowledge that such children tend to be concentrated in the poorest communities, and the schools that serve large numbers of them face extreme challenges. Many of these schools are labeled as "failing" due to low student test scores, a lack of safety, and other chronic problems. Should we be surprised? Anyone who spends time in such schools realizes that in most cases they lack the resources and personnel to meet the needs of their students. I would argue that these schools were designed to fail, and simply closing them down is not a solution unless a more effective strategy for meeting students' needs can be found.

However, occasionally some of these schools manage to find ways to serve their students well, despite the enormous challenges they face. I won't go so far as to suggest that they succeed in conventional terms, but when they are staffed by strong, visionary principals and dedicated teachers they can do a far better job at meeting the needs of their students.

I was at such a school last week: the Brooklyn High School for Leadership and Community Service (BHSLCS). It is a transfer school designed to serve students who have been kicked out of other schools. Many of their students are over age and under-credited, meaning they might be 17 but have the credit accumulation of a 9th grader. BHSLCS shares space with a middle school that was recently identified by the New York Post as one of the most dangerous schools in New York City. Ironically, it is called the Peace Academy, but the Post article neglected to mention that the school had been assigned four different principals in the last four years. Despite the challenges that arise from sharing space with an unstable and often chaotic middle school, BHSLCS is a sanctuary that provides its "high need" students with a supportive community and a safe place to learn.

During my visit the school principal, Georgia Kouriampalis, asked me to meet with six students who shared their stories with me. They told me how they ended up at this school, and each one described a young life filled with hardship and adversity. One student explained that he had been homeless for two years and lived in the stairwells of the projects where he grew up. Another told me he stopped going to school because he was teased by students and teachers at his former school due to his obesity. Still another confided that she had been working as a prostitute in the nights to support her mother and disabled younger brother. Despite the severity of the hardships they faced, each student ended their story with a silver lining. The students reported that they were finally in a school that offered them support, safety, and stability. The formerly homeless student was recently honored at an event by the New York Department of Education for his improved academic achievement; the obese student said he has lost more than 200 pounds since, and since enrolling at the school his physical education teacher has become his personal trainer. Each student was still coping with hardships, but over and over they described how fortunate it was for them to be in a school that provided them with a safe haven.

Schools like this one are providing much more than an education for the students they serve. They create supportive communities that give students the safety and stability they desperately need and make it possible for them to focus on learning. Schools like BHSLCS should be commended and used as a model for similar schools. Imagine how much more they might be able to do if they had support from social service and healthcare providers? What impresses me most about BHSLCS is that the staff does not complain about who they serve nor do they blame their students for the challenges they face. Instead, they concentrate their efforts on finding the best ways to meet their needs.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Pedro

Posted by Pedro Noguera at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend