Take Out the Stories They've Put into Your Mind

“To embrace suffering culminates in greater empathy, the capacity to feel what it is like for the other to suffer, which is the ground for unsentimental compassion and love." - Stephen Batchelor, Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist

Throughout the past month, covid numbers climbed again. Many I know began to retreat back into their cocoons. Fear set in. Again. Newspaper headlines reported the descent into another chaotic public health crisis coupled with a political crisis of a growing resistance movement by the many who refuse to accept that covid represents any sort of threat to their lives or those of their loved ones. 

As an uplifting backdrop to the daily fresh hell of American politics, I have been reading a book about grief and acceptance of loss. Despite not actively grieving anyone at the moment, I found the book particularly moving and an important glimpse into how Americans view death. The read fresh in my mind when my partner recently proclaimed that, "covid has stolen nearly two years of our lives at this point!" it unlocked the missing piece for me in all of this. The resistance and the covid-cautious are both grieving in some way, albeit very differently. Everyone has lost someone or something out of this pandemic. No one wanted this, clearly. But now that it is here, the only way out is through. Certain people have settled on through is to risk getting covid and hope that their own immune defenses will be enough. Yet, from a utilitarian standpoint, the best way through for the highest percentage of people (young to old, healthy to unwell, poor to rich) would be to increase the number of preventative measures like vaccinating, distancing, increasing overall health, etc. 

Americans will go to great lengths to avoid any sort of discomfort - mentally, emotionally, and physically. These measures against discomfort take many forms including believing in conspiracy theories, alternative timelines, and accepting millenarianism. The pandemic has gone through many stages at this point, and in its current evolution, there's still not a hint of acceptance coming through on any political front. For the more cautious, unending vigilance against viruses has literally put lives on hold in major ways, threatening to damage the socioemotional and intellectual development of everyone involved. On the other side, an assertion of individual freedoms over anything that impedes their lives in any way, big or small, has put countless innocents at risk of dying unnecessarily of covid. Both of these perspectives are just that -interpretations of reality.  Yet, "reality" aligns with the universe's moral stance, which is to say, there is not one. 

Speaking of discomfort, this semester I took Economics of Education, a course that I powered through to learn the secrets of another perspective on the world. I will never be an economist. It's a degree of empiricism that is akin to religious fanaticism in my mind. If answers are in the numbers, wouldn't we have been able to figure out how to solve the problem of unequal outcomes in school achievement by now? Maybe there are truly too many variables to study this definitively. As much as I felt like an outsider in the course and at times experienced imposter syndrome, I am glad I continued in the course. The class provided valuable information about how others who contribute to the field of education view the institutions and people within it. As the only active educator, I was a minority voice within the discussions at times because my experience had led me to different conclusions and desirous of different solutions than those being presented. Talking face to face with others made it possible to come to an understanding of where we could come together and what would require compromise to accomplish. The current political milieu, entrenched in faceless online interactions does not allow for such a vent. 

As someone whose entire occupation relies on in-person interactions, I spend a lot of time thinking about how our culture is evolving due to the prevalence of online interactions. About a month ago, I was sitting in the back of a public high school auditorium last period with my worst class academically. As they shifted in their seats, uncomfortable and done with the week, a guest speaker tried to engage them in meditation and mindfulness. Admittedly, my own mindfulness during this series of workshops had been absolutely abysmal - writing a paper, grading, checking email, et al. But I decided to model good behavior by at least trying to "turn on, tune in, drop out," too. Why should they be the only ones to sit uncomfortably until the last bell rang?

I began by watchfully observing my students; a movie blasted through the partitioned wall in a drama class. The dialogue caught my attention as something I had seen before -  A Vietnam-era movie? Full Metal Jacket? Maybe. But then, after waking a kid up, the "Flight of the Valkyries" kicked in, and I knew it - Apocalypse Now! Oh, I thought, this is an interesting juxtaposition. Choppers flying overhead, machinegun fire, and a will to be fully present; it took strength to not laugh out loud at that moment. The presenter seemed not to notice, neither did the kids.  Despite their collective disinterest in the program, some of the students were paying close attention and all of them at least had a break from the norm of the hyper-scheduled school day. 

This tableau so concisely symbolizes the experience of working in a public school - the dysfunction is real, and yet largely, the kids are alright. For those concerned about the wellness of students after two years of interruptions, the truth is, there are issues academically, behaviorally, and emotionally. Parents and politicos should realize that those problems may have been exacerbated by school being interrupted, but they were already manifesting long before that. Problems may be coming to a head because there's a support staff at school to adequately deal with it. Many students, like many adults, want to return to whatever their normal was before. Constantly harping on the learning losses and emotional depravity of covid-learning plants thoughts in students' minds that there IS something wrong. 

Anxiety often proves to be unproductive. Rather, present students with tools and coping mechanisms, meet students where they are academically and model good behavior. Education institutions have been providing these services for generations. We have to trust that with the right support, public institutions can survive the most difficult times as those in which we live. For those who find it more appropriate to tear down public faith in these institutions, the question becomes just how cynical are you about the state of society? Public schools persisted through prior pandemics, world wars, doomsday countdowns, natural disasters, and perpetual budget cuts. The difference now is that maintaining the health of schools and similar organizations relies on everyone pitching in. In an era of every man for himself, that's a hard sell. The scarcity mindset is not objective reality - it's another lens that's employed to control people through fear. 

Basic human interactions are often awkward and uncomfortable, they require give and take. We're all grieving for the loss of our normal lives, but we're so focused on the loss, we're also forgetting we're still living despite all of that grieving. The best way forward is through, no matter how uncomfortable. 

How can American educators regain a status in the professional class?

    In the past twenty years, the United States and Finland’s public education systems developed along completely different trajectories; while the formidable superpower repeatedly tests in the middle of the pack on international assessments, the relatively small Scandinavian country has become a powerhouse and a model for the world. American attempts at increasing accountability for individual educators stagnate growth and stunt progress whereas Finland’s model of shared responsibility promotes teacher autonomy and creativity as well as measurable success for students.  What can the United States learn from an international model of excellence like Finland? How can American educators regain a status in the professional class on par with other white collar professionals like lawyers and doctors? 

American teachers increasingly found themselves drawn into the political sphere this year during an already trying experience of teaching during the pandemic. From the initial lockdown through the one year point in the pandemic, public opinion on teachers has gone through a kaleidoscope of changes. Despite the variable view of teachers in society’s eye, educators as a workforce have largely adapted to teaching in this new environment of virtual, hybrid and socially distanced classrooms. For many teachers, being publicly vilified and used as political pawns seem de rigeur at this point. Regardless, the included stressor of a worldwide crisis has only added to the amount of pressure on America’s teachers to perform herculean tasks that are far beyond their pay grade. Thus, more teachers are reporting burnout and contemplating leaving the profession entirely than ever before.

 

While conditions within American public schools have been exacerbated by the

coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions, there is an underlying ideological malady that predates

interruptions by any literal disease. The ideological shift from responsibility toward “accountability” in public education has been one of the hallmark symptoms of the disease

plaguing public education, (ESEA, Statement of Purpose, Sec. 1001). While the two terms are

related and often used interchangeably, accountability puts the onus on individuals and their

actions, oftentimes measured by output. Since the introduction of No Child Left Behind legislation in 2002, or its successor, Every Student Succeeds, educators have been

evaluated based on their students’ performances on high-stakes state exams, such as the PARCC,

district-wide initiatives like benchmark exams, or even individual coursework through SGOs

(student grown objectives).  Much like other public policy initiatives, the way of

approaching public education has been dominated by neoliberal, “third way” socioeconomic

theory, “The social theory of the Third Way argued for integrative thinking—linking the best of government leadership with innovative markets in educational change. In practice,

though, many Third Way policies have drifted from the Way's original ideals—alienating

students, corrupting classrooms, manipulating educators, and deceiving the public,”

(Hargreaves & Hurley, 21).

As educational theorists Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Hurley note, while the third way can offer

objective numbers that can be compared across school districts, there has been an overemphasis

on those raw scores rather than considering the human aspect of the teaching profession. 

The obsession with accountability has roots much deeper than the influence of corporate paradigms within education. A misapplication of the Protestant work ethic is at the root of this pathology. Elements of the Calvinist strain of Protestantism at the foundation of Anglo-American colonization remain a cornerstone for defining “core American values.” The thrifty and hardworking Puritans are but one group in a long line of stoic endurers of difficult times in the American mythos - from homesteading pioneers to the Depression era savers to pandemic bread makers and DIY-ers; there have always been survivors and thrivers. This persistence through obstacles, while originally attributed to God’s saving grace, has been secularized into part of the American character. 

This perseverance has been co-opted by corporate America into another selling point for potential employees. Marketability of one’s self now must include some sort of grit, “x” factor, or charisma that remains difficult to define or quantify. What is it that makes one employee thrive but another wilt? Those who cannot keep up may be provided with constructive criticism or a corrective action plan, but the onus of success remains on the individual and not the institution. The lie perpetuated here is that those “graced” with grit will perform well, despite any hardships. 

The concept of accountability under the guise of “grit” even swept through schools as a way to market personal accountability to individual students. Valorizing this nebulous but clearly individual trait turns education into a competitive exhibition of academic success earned through grit - and measured through gains on quantitative assessments - which in turn allows access to highly-rated colleges and highly-paid careers. Life within and beyond the classroom is reduced to the pursuit of the “score.” Such practices prime students for their future as obedient players in systems that continue to “grade” them throughout their lives - from their school to  employment careers. Accountability provides employers with a mode to quantitatively measure job performance without explicitly saying so. 

Accountability (and measures of it) is a tool. The emphasis on accountability as the bellwether of health of an institution like public education is problematic, however. Schools do not exist in a vacuum and while an individual teacher or district can be measured through evaluative standards on how well they perform, there are multiple variables that remain outside their control, despite their potential impact on the outcome, (for example, socioeconomic status of students in a class or district). Accountability as a measure stems from the corporatization of the public sector in the US. Both major American political parties embraced neoliberalism in their own ways in the wake of the Cold War, but always with an end goal toward protecting profit margins. As noted by education researcher Marianne Larsen, “...the imperatives of global capital have imposed neo-liberal economic discipline on all levels of government...characterized by managerialism, these policies entail the introduction of business values and practices in the public sector,” (Larsen, 293). 

While teacher quality can and should be assessed, what would be the most effective and

productive way to do so, and would that make a difference in professional satisfaction and for

student achievement as well?  On an international level, the evaluative model for teacher

professionalism and expertise varies from nation-state to nation-state; international comparisons

have shown that the more high-stakes and punitive teacher evaluations are, the more likely they

are to provoke counterproductive distress within the evaluee, “Like other fields of study, education has been influenced by market-driven global forces, and stakeholders with administrative powers started questioning whether their investment, financial or otherwise, was getting its worth…accountability-based teacher evaluation models, despite their popularity nowadays, are more likely to ‘increase stress, anxiety, fear, and mistrust amongst teachers and limit growth, flexibility and creativity’ (Larsen, 292) and that teachers are oftentimes struggling with trying to meet the requirements defined by various stakeholders.” (Tarhan, 37).

Yet, the problem may not be with accountability itself, but the cultural climate surrounding accountability; what foundational ideologies surround accountability in the US versus Finland?  While their research focuses on accountability for students, the differing sociopolitical context in the US and Finland frames the usage and interpretation of accountability as a tool. Furthermore, the researchers illuminate the stark contrast between the Finnish teacher training programs and associated professional evaluative systems, which are standardized across a handful of universities, all with the same objectives to meet the national requirements for professionalism, with the American accreditation programs, which not only vary from state to state, but may vary from district to district within a state.

          

Reflecting on Weariness

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Viktor Frankl

Two weeks ago, on a remote day of instruction thanks to a true winter snowstorm, the likes of which the area has not seen in years, I finally felt "over" the pandemic. Logging into class that morning, I relayed this sentiment to my students, who were as war-weary themselves. Some of them nodded in agreement, while others stared straight ahead into their cameras. It's not that I hadn't felt "over it" prior to that day, but those moments had been more tied up in fear, anguish, disgust or generally overridden by another, stronger emotion. Etymologically, weariness draws meaning from physical exhaustion, obviously, but shares deeper roots with notions of wandering and intoxication. When I reflect on how the past year has felt "weary," at times, it has encompassed those alternate meanings as well. It's been like walking through a dream in some moments, and in others, as though Kafka himself handed me some real wicked shit to try and now we're both suffering a bad, paranoid trip.

Our school demands that we consider the curriculum in light of the stressors of the outside world and that we maintain a degree of normalcy for the kids' sake while leaving their mental health to appropriately-designated professionals like counselors and social workers. While I do not think I should be personally counseling students, taking a moment to relate to them as people is something that reaffirms that we are all going through something and it is OK to be tired or frustrated. Normalizing mental weariness and stressors is a frightening prospect for many educational professionals and others in positions of authority (including politicians) because it tends to be associated with weakness and uncertainty in American culture. For many students however, their feelings ARE very certain to them. To not acknowledge said feelings and to power through the pandemic as though we will all come through on the other side of this as though nothing disrupted our pre-pandemic flow for a year plus is delusional and destructive to each of our selves. 

Within the same time frame of coming to terms with taedium vitae, I recently stopped blow drying and straightening my hair. While it may seem like an odd thing to pivot toward discussing in this post, it marked a milestone of acceptance of my self. From teenage years on, I have tried to change the texture of my hair. Not really having any luck in the long run, I at least succeeded to mask nature through sheer determination and a colossal waste of my own time. No one had ever specifically told me wavy hair was undesirable, but it was never shown to be desirable either, which left me to draw my own conclusions. While some white lady finally embracing her natural hair texture isn't revolutionary, it does raise the question of the degree of pervasiveness beauty standards and norms have in our wider culture. More broadly, embracing the natural within myself has been a way to escape the existential weariness associated with cultural conformity that extends far beyond the past year. America's obsession with getting back on the road to normalcy in the post-pandemic world has gone through many iterations in the past year - from virtue-signaling to a particular base, to publicly flouting basic hygienic and safety precautions, and extending to an extreme and abject rejection of reality (eg; the rise of conspiratorial theories, the failed Capitol insurrection, et al).

However, the post-pandemic world is not here yet, and to pretend that going back to business-as-usual is necessary now is misguided and dangerous. To stave off more weariness for the future generations, now should be the time to take stock in whether business-as-usual is even worth going back to. The obstinate American idealism that preceded so many national disasters, like the entirety of the 1920s, for example, points to the idea that American rhetoric has continually been incapable of acceptance of reality. There's a degree of insanity to American (or any nation's version of) exceptionalism that prevents the cultural messaging from attending to the suffering and subsequent healing at the time of a crisis. It takes a pragmatic mind to address issues in the now rather than looking toward a way to reverse course and recreate a simpler past or to barrel through toward a better future. The biggest concern I have moving through this entire year of quarantining is that many Americans will come out having learned little to nothing about themselves and our society. Reflecting on the present would go a long way toward understanding how best to provide support for all members of our society to stave off suffering for future generations coming of age in the post-pandemic world. That would start with being truer to ourselves. 

‘There is a still deeper source of activist faith and activist nihilism in a profound taedium vitae, in a malaise in historical existence, in a deep-seated spiritual impotence of meeting life on its own terms, and consequently in a will to escape from the burden of existence into a paradise.

Education as transformation versus transmission

The implications of critical social theory in regards to the definition of quality education are essential to the definition of quality education in and of itself. Quality is a difficult word to define and I look toward American philosopher Robert Pirsig to help me address it before entering into the discussion of what quality education would look like. In Pirsig’s own struggle to define the word quality, he suffered a mental breakdown, was institutionalized and received shock therapy. In the post-treatment life, his philosophy grappled with the dialectical struggle between the classical and romantic views of the world - the classical, or rational view, that had him seek an objective truth to define quality, and the romantic view that focused on whether or not said quality was experienced by the subject, Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. ... The Quality which creates the world emerges as a relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the creation of all things. For Pirsig, ultimately, he sees this tension as being the everything behind quality of x. Similarly, quality education would have to find that synthesis between the practical and transformative aspects of public education in the US today in light of the structural realities of said institution.
Quality education, through the lens of critical theory, would have to address the agency of the learner within the institution, as well as the institution itself. Philosophers such as Paolo Freire and John Dewey directly address the role of the individual learner within the classroom as being an active participant in their own development. A democratic classroom would engage students as agents of their own and not as vessels to be filled with knowledge. Theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault and Freire again all also address the structure of the institutions that for so long have perpetuated the continuation of an entrenched hegemony. A critical theorist viewing education would also need to consider the role of the teacher as well. The authority figure in the classroom, the teacher is an important figure for their ability to either continue to prop up a system or to work as an agent of change herself. Zeus Leonardo touches on the transformative role of the teacher when discussing Freire; he posits the teacher as an intellectual and a cultural worker. If the teacher is a believer in the perpetuance of a particular orthodoxy, such as American exceptionalism, their role may be limited to a transmitter of education, expecting students to be passive observers within their own educational experiences. However, if a teacher is well-versed in critical theory, their ultimate goal would be to allow students to engage directly in their own experience, which would also include examining information presented through a more critical lens. This may lead students to reject what is presented to them. The goal of the educator in this instance would be to provide students with the tools to ensure that they can unpack any information presented to them in a constructive way; to transform and utilize their education to suit their own ends, and with hope, to make the world better for others beyond themselves.
Teaching in a modern setting has made it evident that students have a lot of experience with knowledge transmission. They’re used to being seen as “empty vessels” ready to be filled up and in some respects, do not like the internal tension of not knowing something. Teachers may derisively call this having to spoon feed students what they need to know. If we could stop as educators and unpack that statement, we can see that perhaps we’re the misguided ones. How do we say what they need to know? To students, the quality education may be vastly different from what the institution or even society has laid out as essential. As a classroom teacher, I have to find ways to engage students with materials that may ultimately come to broaden their understanding of the world either now or in the future. As a Dewey disciple for many years, a practical approach to teaching has yielded results and shaped my practice. The Global Citizenship course I teach (and also designed) is labeled a practical arts class in the school coursebook. One of the units we venture into is budgeting, and along with it college and/or job exploration. While the students are only freshmen, their initial forays into the world beyond high school is eye-opening for them. We begin budgeting with little to no guidance from me (on purpose). As the students build their dream life on Zillow and write out their monthly expenses, I can see their anxiety levels rise and their questions end up flooding me until we have to stop so I can address their concerns. While completing this assignment, we have also held many discussions about what they value in life. I find that many students want to go to college because their parents want them to or because it’s expected by society (and our school, which puts great emphasis on a 4 year college experience). When I ask them to explain what their own interests are, they sometimes have either a completely different conception of what success looks like and/or are at a loss to tell me. It has made me wonder what we, as a society, are instilling in our students and for what purpose? To have them be successful or to have them join us all in an unsustainable experiment that ends with the destruction of the planet. The knowledge that they gain from even researching for a few class periods on their own is transformative for them. When we move into building resumes and holding mock interviews, I say very little about their job choices. There is no judgment by me that their desire to be a barber is any less valuable to society than someone else’s desire to be a neurosurgeon. Theoretically speaking, this is reflective of a critical theory approach because the idea that success looks a certain way is not only a fallacy, but continues to set students up for failure. It perpetuates a system that forces many Americans to live on the edge financially while yearning for something more fulfilling spiritually.

Now I Am Here

“The world is material. We are always in a certain place. Now I am here.” - Autumn, Karl Ove Knausgaard

As a Social Studies teacher, a wide variety of courses get thrown your way - geography, sociology, law, psychology, history, economics - it depends on the school and course offerings, but most of the 'soft sciences' end up being something one might encounter along a career in the profession. In my 6th year of teaching, I took on human geography; the intersection of human culture and development with geography. The course itself is a distillation of social studies in a way - covering everything from linguistic development to demographics to agricultural systems.The cultural landscape is something I had never really considered deeply, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense and ultimately became one of my favorite classes to teach. Something that struck me most when beginning to study the subject in order to teach it was the influence of place on linguistic development. The native peoples of the Arctic Circle civilizations have many words for winter conditions that speak to not only what's coming out of the sky, but the conditions on the ground and whether or not said conditions are conducive to walking about. The perceptive abilities of humans will never be fully translate-able into verbal expression, but necessity can lead to amazing feats of human creation. 

Thinking about the interplay of humans and their environments, I hold an affinity toward extreme landscapes and often, those who come from them (or at least, the art they produce while in them). When the land itself is not welcoming to person or a people, it does something to their understanding of the world. So many Americans live in prefabricated neighborhoods and are entirely engulfed by the man-made as to never have to encounter the frightening vastness Earth has to offer. Since high school, I've personally wanted to see the Mojave Desert. The starkness of the desert biome has been likened to an extraterrestrial one many times; perhaps that's a deeply anthropocentric view. We did not create such vacancy; in fact, such traits are anathema to a social primate's instinctual desire for proximity and comfort, but that does not mean such landscapes do not belong here. Standing alone in a desert (hot or cold) surrounded for miles by emptiness would send anyone into an existential crisis after a while. Hell, it'd even make people want to live in Las Vegas just to avoid the uncomfortable nothingness. Humans are not so different from the  rhesus monkeys in Harlow's infamous psychology experiments. Primates, and likely many other animals, would give up actual nourishment for psychological comfort and security. Of course this might be a stretch of an analogy, but there is a degree of truth to why so many of us choose to live in less than ideal surroundings in exchange for the access to convenience of modern living, for the comfort of conformity with other members of our species.

For those who know me and have heard me fangirl over the epigraph's author, Karl Ove Knausgaard, you may also be aware that Norway is one of those places that calls to me. The extreme landscape has not only produced one of my all-time favorite writers, but also some of my favorite musicians. There is a conservative, Lutheran culture in Norway that I would venture to guess all of these artists have chafed against to produce their craft, a point that could be dissected in and of itself at length. What links the expressions that come from this environment is their reverence for the physical world that surrounds them. Even within the intense focus on his own mind for Knausgaard's six volume "autobiographical" novel,his writing has an expansiveness to it. Here we are, mining the depths of the mind of a middle aged man, and somehow we're faced with the unity of all of our own consciousnesses. Whether we want to admit it or not, we've all secretly scowled through meetings or cursed our friends or resented the existence of our most cherished. That internal struggle to be outwardly compassionate and inwardly curmudgeonly is not reserved for his experience. And although his work is not some sort of revelation in the sense that it's exactly saying something new, it does break through the confines of what we are supposed to publicly admit and feel about those whom with we share our lives.  

I've also been reading David Wojnarowicz's In the Shadow of the American Dream, which is a collection of his diaries from his teens through his fame and ultimate death from AIDS. There's something about the America he describes that reminds me of now; a brokenness or failure of culture that marginalizes those who do not fit in. The definition of who doesn't fit in is always shifting -that's the game. Sometimes marginalized groups are brought into the fold and a new "other" appears. Whomever the other is, however, within that marginalization there is a sort of freedom to create and be who you are. Although, on the other side, being persecuted for the exact same reasons comes along with those spaces. In final diaries, he's dying of AIDS-related complications, feeling as though his body has betrayed him but also that others have as well by continuing to live their mundane lives while he's thrust into the existential crisis of death. Living through a virus-caused pandemic right now, it's chilling to think about all of the parallels to the continued horrors of not knowing what the virus will do to a human host - Kaposi's sarcoma in young men? Blood clots that kill? We've lived this before. But death remains the ultimate "othering" - we shunt the dead and dying off into margins of our minds, even when they're the ones we love. The vastness of death is that existential desert we just can't bear to look at. 

Early into this pandemic, there was a moment where Americans really did seem to be at the precipice of an awakening to being more accepting of the unknown. People were spending more time outside, driving less, consuming less. As the pandemic has worn on and become more and more a politicized weapon, whatever desire for change has faded not because people care less but because they are made to suppress their desire for revolution. The pull of modern life plays on our desire for comfort and provides emotional shelter from mortality. Constant talk about returning to life as we knew it forms a sort of nostalgia for the old (even if it only mere months ago). Covid deaths continue to climb; we tend to understand the threat less and less, as the numbers become more and more abstract the higher they go. Similarly, the environmental crisis that looms in our near future has also kept us from dealing directly with the problem. The problem is our way of life. We must change, not the environment. We are part of the environment and must remember all of the times it has humbled us - even if one hasn't ever seen a town laid to waste by a tornado or hurricane, maybe a beautiful sunset gave pause, or a giant clap of thunder rattled one's brain. 

Sojourning through a desert for years on end in search of answers isn't a reasonable expectation for most to have. However, opening one's self to accept the existential expanse that is all around us is feasible even within the confines of a suburban hellscape. 

Musical Epilogue:
 
Although they're not Norwegian, American greats Mastodon have encapsulated this vastness perfectly in the song below....

On Play

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
― Fred Rogers

For nearly four months, playgrounds have been closed. My four year old daughter cried for a half hour straight the day her favorite playground had caution tape over the gated entry. After reality set in that this might be for the long haul, she became accustomed to waving to "Gazebo Park" from afar and wondering aloud whether or not the birds and squirrels were appreciating the slides and swings while children took a break from it all. My in-laws immediately offered to buy her a play set for the backyard. I had one as a kid and have fond memories of playing on it - but my adult backyard is an awkward shape without as much open space for the set. Plus, once quarantining is over, the idea of being confined to our own property with our own things....? It's safe to say everyone's had enough of that.

So what's a kid to do in this environment? Well, we began to make new explorations part of our daily routine. Instead of the trip to a designated park where we generally knew what to expect, we would set off on our walks with a different goal in mind; these goals varied from taking pictures to observing insects (and especially ladybugs) to finding sea glass. The attempt has been to find the extraordinary in the ordinary - to focus on what we usually walk right by. When I walked with her, on a whim, to a hundred-plus year old stone bridge in the neighboring town, it awakened an obsession with travelling there a few times a week. Zillow gave us an excuse to walk by interesting homes that we'd already viewed the insides of online. The mini-polaroid camera also provided a new way of looking at things - framing pictures just right to capture the shot she wanted to bring home to "show Dad." 

This week we walked along a fishing pier in the neighboring town, paying close attention to a group of teenage fishermen who had successfully caught a fluke (though were unsuccessfully relieving it of the hook in its mouth without serious damage to the poor thing). On the expanse of beach below the pier that continues to stretch down the bay to the ocean, I watched her scramble up large cement slabs covered in algae without concern for her hands or clothing. She slipped a few times as I looked on. not asking me for help but becoming more insistent that I let her climb even deeper into the rubble so she could "explore." Watching without intervening is hard sometimes, because I worry she will hurt herself, but I also think to the types of risks I took as a child - riding my bike where I was expressly told not to go, taken the shady old trail down through the woods with my all female crew - and know making these sorts of decisions is important for her to experience too. While the playground is missed, I do wonder what is missed when we make that our sole destination. A few years ago, I read about British risk playgrounds that have been designed with these choices in mind -to push small children into making choices about what risks are manageable and which aren't for their ability level. 

Beyond physical endurance and spatial cognizance, the beach-as-playground also allowed for organic discussion about what we were experiencing in the here and now. There were questions about tides, clouds and boats. She inquired why we shouldn't walk into the dune grass and even got to see the birds hopping in and out of the tall blades. She opined that an old tire didn't belong on said beach and wondered how/why someone would dump it there. We examined shells and and dead blue crabs and investigated whether or not two beached horseshoe crabs were indeed alive (one was, one was decidedly not). Seeing life or the remains of life taught her in real time about the cycle we're all in through a much gentler way than a relative or pet dying. These creatures showed her that death was natural and observable at all times, something most Americans avoid acknowledging at all costs. 

The real world is a scary place as we all know. We do our best to manage the risks it presents as adults. When we expose our children to environments outside of the means-tested, well-cultivated ones, we help them to be more prepared for what the real world can throw at them. As a teacher of young adults, I find their exasperation at the myriad current situations understandable - the padded table corners and exclusive playgroups do not translate to these times. They don't buy that everything will go back to normal and be "as it was" because the "as it was" was...well, bullshit. There were always risks, whether or not the adults in their world wanted to expose their children to them or even basically acknowledge their existence. And of course, certain populations have had to grapple with this all along - parents of black and brown teenagers have to have these talks, parents of girls and LGBTQ+ teens as well. To not mention that there might be a bias against your child simply because of their skin color, sexuality or gender would do those children a disservice that could lead to their death (and even with those warnings, it could happen anyhow). 

To resist Fear-based parenting not only recognizes are child are people independent of ourselves, it also allows them the ability to begin to see the world outside the ones we've provided for them as safe spaces to be themselves. It encourages them to 

On Grapefruits And Graveyards

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. - Alan Watts

On a sunny Tuesday morning in early May of the plague year, I finally offered to cut the grapefruit that my four year old daughter had been coveting since last week. The heavens rejoiced in her mind as she bound around the kitchen yelling, “YES!” On a whim, I purchased a grapefruit at the supermarket the week prior. As the world as we know it breaks down in fundamental ways, buying something as unessential as a grapefruit seemed almost transgressive. In the previous time, what would be as outdated and blasé as eating a grapefruit for breakfast? What is this? Some 1980s fad diet? Now, eating a grapefruit for/with breakfast has taken on some luxurious undertone in my mind. 

Since unpacking the groceries, this fruit took on great significance for her. La niña appeared, mainly to see if I had brought home some sort of “prize” from the supermarket, and then transitioned into interrogation mode regarding this purchase- what's this? What does it taste like? Can I have 'a piece'? Why does a GRAPEfruit have an orange rind? Since the moment it was shelved in the refrigerator, she's argued with me to cut up this fruit for her at every meal. She needed a grapefruit right NOW for a variety of reasons.

Finally, this morning the grapefruit was cut open. I segmented a half for her to try and placed it before her. Digging in, she ate two segments and then pushed it aside, to “save for later.” When I asked if she liked it, she gave a resounding yes, but that the real trouble was she was so full, there was no more she could eat. I offered her an out, “...but it's ok if you also don't like it.” Of course, the Iron Lady refused to recant her previous statements on the tastiness of grapefruits.

If you have never bargained with a small child, you've never truly experienced the unrelenting psychic stamina of another person. It's almost as though a pre-pubescent child's ability to physically stand in a freezing pool, teeth chattering and lips blue, can transfer to their mental state when required. Young children have “endurance.” This may sound like a cold assessment, but I'm awed by their skill. If only I had the endurance for endless small talk, bad arguments, or unrelenting pleas to cut random citrus fruits.

Since work has been minimized due to the new virtual format and constant worry about how much stress we can and should be putting on academic work during a pandemic, la niña and I have been walking quite a bit. We have a usual loop, in which I vary the path slightly, but typically head up a long, unbroken stretch of sidewalk that connects our town to a much cuter and prettier one which has a real downtown and a harbor to walk through. Tired of the usual the other day, I brought up going on a new adventure. We took a leisurely walk around a local cemetery. It's on a hilltop cleaning surrounded by a wooded area about 2 miles from our house, nestled inside one of the typical housing developments in this area. We took a Polaroid camera and a snack to visit tombs (her word) and learn more about them.

While walking through the back end of the cemetery, I saw a name on a gravestone that I recognized. Someone I had gone to school with since first grade (maybe kindergarten, even) was buried there. In fact, she'd died in 2014. The obituary revealed little when checked. This woman was not someone I was close to, although we'd gone to school together for 12 years. She was born in November and was likely one of the older students in my graduating year; I, on the other hand, with a late summer birthday, was always one of the youngest. While everyone matures at their own rate, sometimes the gap of nearly a year does create noticeable developmental differences. At some point in upper elementary school, she stood up for me to some other kids who were being a nuisance. That's pretty much the only memory I have of her besides thinking that in high school, she likely smoked cigarettes, which was what most suburban teenagers seemed to be into in the late 90s.

This "find" didn't necessarily provide pause for the contemplation of my own mortality – that's a nearly daily meditation anyhow. Instead, it led me down a line of thinking about the degree of anonymity our lives take on when removed from a daily routine. After a month of not being at work, I realized I hadn't thought of someone I see on a near-daily basis usually in the entire time we'd been away until that very moment. It was startling in a sense. And not necessarily because I'm a uniquely selfish asshole, but because removed from the daily grind, everyone's vision narrows to what's right in front of them. When people are imprisoned or held captive for a long time, sometimes they relay their time in that experience with a degree of calm more fit for a Buddhist monk. One of the reasons why is likely because they learned to accept their reality, to not struggle against it or to pin hopes on wishing it away. Maybe the suggestion for our quarantine time now should be to keep calm and meme on? Jokes aside, accepting that this is what the near entirety of the world is experiencing now would be a step toward allowing ourselves the space to breathe and be without having to answer to all of the demands we typically put on ourselves. 

When you consider the transitions we consistently face in our lives – graduations, promotions, moves, relationships, births, deaths, et al – it's no wonder internally we face such a degree of turmoil despite the mundanity of those events. Everyone goes through changes all of the time; change is the constant, not anything else about life is a constant as much as we would love that to be the case. Some of the changes we face, like aging, are much more gradual (and possibly) less abrasive to our psyches. But it is worth sharing our feelings about those tumultuous events with those we trust and/or love because, as it turns out, empathy is a great healer. It provides us the room to accept the situation and ourselves (physically, emotionally and spiritually). 

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recommended reading/listening:

interview - https://thedewdrop.org/2019/12/06/deneen-fendig-duncan-trussell/

music-  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zikXou8vDc