Protect the Head…Please!

 

Did anyone see Super Bowl 44? Sorry, for you sports fans out there I mean Super Bowl XLIV…If you did, did you see Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees with his son at the end of the game? His son was wearing headphones to protect his brain (kind of ironic isn’t it?) from the noise generated by the thousands of screaming New Orleans Saints fans.

Way to go Mr. and Mrs. Brees! You all may be going to Disneyland but you also know that your son is headed into the future and he’ll need his brain to be fully functional and intact when he gets there.

So to everyone out there, whoever you are and wherever you are, PROTECT THE HEAD!!

And speaking of head protection, it’s the Baby Boomer generation that has been responsible for parenting over the last 3 decades or so and consequently we are responsible for whatever decline there has been in the education of America’s children over that time but it was our parents who were  responsible for raising us and they were members of “America’s Greatest Generation”. They were the ones who defeated Hitler and Fascism and who saved the world for Democracy and who won World War II (more Roman Numerals!) so wouldn’t you think they’d have known all about the importance of head protection, as in wearing helmets and protecting the brain, since they had spent so much time getting shot at and being blown up and jumping in and out of fox holes and such…(all while wearing helmets I might add) but did they make us wear helmets and force us to protect our heads when we were growing up?

No! They did not. So thanks a lot mom and dad. Your kids’ world was dangerous! You were the ones who gave us Monkey Bars and that playground death-go-round that would spin us around and then fling us off into space, knocking so much sense out of us that we all thought it would be a good idea to go on it again!

You were the ones who gave us school playgrounds with concrete floors! And then you gave us multiple siblings and equipped them with toys that were actually designed with the specific intent of putting our eyes out! You invented Little League Baseball and actually gave us real hardballs to throw at each other’s heads…then you thought Little League Football would be an even better idea.. for crying out loud you put helmets on little kids with the sole intent of making us crash into each other like battering rams. Thanks to you guys concussion was our middle name!

So all bets are now off. We Baby Boomers refuse to take any more responsibility for the decline of American Civilization. We all had and have PTSD and did not know what we were doing from adolescence onward.

So let’s all start protecting our children’s heads now by putting on their thinking caps instead of weaponized head gear. Then perhaps a new generation will grow up with the ability to start thinking of ways that will actually get us out of this mess that all of the previous generations concussed themselves into.

Which One’s the Referee?

One day in school I was standing outside my door waiting for the bell to ring when suddenly a fight broke out in the hallway. Two students, seemingly from out of nowhere, began slugging it out right in front of me. Without thinking I did what any good referee would have done and stepped into the middle of the clinch and separated the combatants with my arms. Thankfully the students in question were flyweights and not heavyweights or I’d probably still be there, crushed like a slice of sandwich meat between two hoagie rolls.

Anyway, I tossed one of the students into a row of lockers while I pushed the other up against my classroom door, holding him there while yelling for help. A teacher always has to yell for help in a situation like this because the other students in the hall will never offer any assistance whatsoever. Those who aren’t closing in to form  the traditional spectator ring are too busy microwaving their popcorn in the hopes of settling down into a nice long championship bought.

And if it’s two girls fighting? Forget about any chance of help…The cheering mob will become the very best Hollywood paparazzi with their cell phone cameras and iPods all a twitter in the hopes of catching an impromptu topless ingénue to tweet around the world…

But again I digress…for security soon arrived and the fighters were removed to their corners while the disappointed crowd broke up and went off to class. But my own students were in awe of me for the remainder of my class period as I was now the old man who still had “skills” and I must admit that it felt good to have stepped into a crisis and to have prevailed with the use of quick wits and brute force while helping to avoid a larger brawl. (And with no guns!)

And later that day the building principal came up to me to offer his approval, support and praise for a job well done. However, he then offered me a word of caution…

“Be careful out there, he said. Apparently you broke up a fight between two rival gang members and now they might be out to get you. Watch your back!”And with that he was off bounding down the hallway to no doubt spread cheer among another unsuspecting colleague.

One of the things that can make being a teacher difficult and exhausting these days is that sometimes doing the right thing can somehow be the wrong thing.

Sometimes Kids Say the Darndest Things

 

One day in class…and for no apparent reason at all, my students started complaining about me and my teaching style. They said that I was too boring and uninteresting in general. So I stopped my lesson and asked who they thought would make a good teacher. A boy in the back raised his hand and said, “Eddie Murphy!”

“Eddie Murphy?” I said. “Why Eddie Murphy?”

“Because, the student replied, he’d tell us jokes and make us laugh.”  The other students all agreed.

Then they all failed my surprise quiz.

One of the things that can make teaching so difficult, and learning for that matter, is that you always have to be ready for new ideas…and for disappointment.

To Have and Have Not

“Them that’s got shall get. Them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible said and it still is news…”

I remember trick or treating many years ago when my friends and I came to a house where no one was home. We were about to leave and head for the next house when we noticed a large bowl on the stoop filled with candy and a note on it that read, “Please take one.”

Wow, we thought, that’s not only nice but very trusting also. Back in those days candy bars were really candy bars, not the little pieces of bite sized goop that they are now, and Halloween was the only time we kids could get our hands on real candy because parents did not buy kids candy, sweets, chips or any other kind of sugary snacks unless they had a reason like it was your birthday…or it was your birthday again….so leaving a giant bowl of candy out for anyone to haul away in what would have been the biggest heist of the century (for kids) was taking quite a chance.

But even though we were just kids we understood the sentiment, thoughtfulness, implications and expectations of all that candy left at an empty house with a note on Halloween…and we each took one and were happy to go on our way…as did everyone else in the neighborhood on that all Hallows Eve.

“You can help yourself…But don’t take too much…”

Is that sentiment still alive in today’s world? I would like to think so. I know that it still is for many…especially in light of some of the disasters that have befallen the East coast in the last few months… but when I look around at financial and banking institutions, Wall street, many large corporations and even our own leaders in Congress I am beginning to think that in many respects we may have turned the corner as of late, and anyone who takes just their fair share out of that big bowl of candy these days and leaves some for everyone else would be left for a chump….while some enterprising citizen who absconded with the entire contents of that bowl and set up shop selling them on a corner somewhere would be hailed as a forward thinking entrepreneur.

I hope I’m wrong and it’s just my advanced age talking.

 What do you think? Would that bowl of candy still be safe in your neighborhood?

“God bless the child that’s got his own…”

Teach Your Children Well?

Okay, let’s try this…a simple yes or no is required…

You look outside and see that your 4 year old child is being hit by another 4 year old with a stick… Do you run outside and hand your child a stick and then say, “Here, now you are both safe.”

You hear that some unruly students at your child’s middle school like to push and shove and bully others while playing on the playground …Would you ask the principal to make an announcement  to the entire student body that from now on everyone in the school is authorized to push and shove and bully in retaliation to anyone who provokes them, in the interest of safety, order and security for all?

Your child comes home from high school and tells you that some of the other students carry switch blades which they often flaunt during lunch…Do you give your child a switchblade and say, “Don’t worry, show this to everyone tomorrow at lunch so that they will know to leave you alone from now on”?

If you answered no to these questions then at what age would you deem it appropriate to give your child a gun in the interest of helping them secure their future safety?

More Guns Does Equal More Crime

       I read a very interesting article in The New York Times this past weekend. As most of us know, following the Newtown, Connecticut shooting the National Rifle Association called for a renewed effort to place more armed police officers in the public schools to…you know…make them safer…because more guns equal more safety which consequently also saves more lives.

Even the White House jumped on board and has since proposed an increased police presence in the public schools.

And the NRA is always happy to site previous instances where a gun wielding principal or resource officer has helped to stop or thwart a student or intruder who was attempting to do harm.

However, as those of us who have worked in the public schools know, and as many NRA officials and gun advocates also like to point out when citing their statistics, there aren’t that many horrific acts of violence that do take place in the public schools and are in need of thwarting.

So, what has been the impact so far of an increased police presence in our public schools?

There has been an increase in arrests and misdemeanor charges for what most teachers have always seen as essentially non violent behaviors… like scuffles, truancy and even cursing. As a result more students are finding themselves in court and in fact in Texas, where I am assuming there has already been a police presence in the public schools for quite some time, over 100,000 tickets are written each year by police officers in schools…which of course leads to fines and police records etc. where none would have been incurred before.

Experts have noted that it’s not necessarily the policemen’s or resource officers fault,  it’s just that hanging around kids all day who behave…like kids…can be, as any veteran teacher will tell you, enough to drive you over the edge of sanity. And I have known many teachers who would have arrested the better part of their  school’s student population each and every day, if only their most fervent dream had come true and they had somehow been deputized and allowed to carry a gun and wear a badge.

However, when properly trained and taught how to work with students and young adults and schooled in adolescent psychology and mediation techniques, life in the public schools returns to normal because, well…the policemen start to interact with the students more like…teachers… and life in the public schools gets back to normal.

And, even though one horrific act of violence is always one too many, walking the halls every day trying to prevent it can be a pretty boring job…especially when you are a gun toting officer of the law who is probably not used to such boredom…and then of course one would have to be in the right place at the right time anyway. (I think that my high school alone had over 50 different entrances and exits…not counting windows.)

So until we can come up with a way to prevent violence before it happens rather than try to be there to stop it when it does, it looks like more guns will equal more crime and parents will have to just make sure to add their lawyer’s number to their child’s speed dial and keep a bailout fund in the cookie jar next to the milk money.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Last Refuge

VIOLENCE: exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse: injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation: intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force : vehement feeling or expression or an instance of such action or feeling : a clashing or jarring quality :

Once again it has taken a  public viewing of violence in action to move the individuals most responsible for that violence to take action to end it, even though it had been occurring for quite some time and known about by quite a few individuals, and that’s not even including the adult perpetrator and his adult victims, who obviously were all too aware about it too.

In case you are unaware of the specific incident of which I speak, I am referring to the recent firing of the Rutgers Men’s Basketball coach. Certainly there are and have been greater and more violent episodes in our society than this one… but perhaps it is our all too common belief that violence, when called by a sweeter name makes its stench more rosy… that allows for its constant acceptance by all of us in all of its various and insidious forms.

 

Our use of Violence in our society is almost as inexplicable as it is pervasive. It accomplishes nothing, leaves anger in its wake and only satisfies the one who uses it. And that satisfaction is almost always short lived and regrettable. And violence is also something that seems to require the immediate notice of many to even be seen or acknowledged as something that actually exists.

When experienced by the few the violent act almost always takes refuge in the deeper recesses of the brain… a shared secret among those who agree to be separate yet somehow equal, perpetrators.

Why we still resort to it is a question that by now we should have an answer and a solution to. It is a sad testament to our culture and humanity that we have not yet found one.

I have lived long enough and have worked with enough troubled and battered children to have realized that violence is not and can never be a motivational tool for any kind of positive learning experience, personal athletic improvement or moral achievement. Violence isn’t even a last resort. It’s a surrender. It’s a statement that says “I have no idea what to do!” And it truly is “the last refuge of the incompetent”.

 Rather than scorned or shunned by those who have felt its wrath it seems to be handed down from generation to generation like an inherited gene. And yet I have never met anyone who has ever sworn by its instructive value as in: “If I hadn’t been for that coach/parent/mentor’s abuse  in my youth I never would have developed the talents that I have today”

Whenever I see someone who is performing a task or involved in an instructive activity, resort or devolve into violence to make a point or a show or to add punctuation, I know that they have no idea what they are doing and that it’s time to walk away, get out of the way or move on to someone else.

There’s just no two ways about it… and until violence in all of its aberrant forms  is always and unequivocally equated with incompetence we will forever live in a world that will at best be one of two steps forward and one step back…and perhaps even more sadly the other way around.

 

 

How Charter Schools Can Teach Us to Make Baseball More Profitable, Baseball Players More Productive, and Baseball Fans Better Entertained At Cheaper Prices

 

It’s opening day of the Major League Baseball Season and the game is simply getting out of hand.  Poor and deteriorating cities are spending taxpayer money that they don’t have, to maintain giant stadiums where these baseball teams play. And in most cases the teams do not even sport winning records.

In fact most of these so called “professional” teams sport winning percentages commonly at 50% or lower and if one team ever wins even 60% of the games it plays it is declared a champion of its division and then sent on to compete for an even grander championship with other so called “high performing” teams.

And although the players on these teams have been trained and educated in their craft for years and often practice on a daily basis most of these players can’t even perform their hitting skills at 30%  proficiency. That’s a 70% or worse failure rate and yet these players are often considered “stars” by their teams and owners and entrenched union supporters and are paid exorbitant salaries that are often passed on to the customers or fans by way of overpriced ticketing, beverage and merchandising costs.

The pitchers on these teams often fail at an even greater rate than the hitters do and yet they are often applauded for their efforts after failing to complete even 60% of their allotted time on the mound while often appearing exhausted and drained after doing so.

This is outrageous! And here is what should be done about it!

For too long the uninspired owners and bloated baseball unions have demanded that 9 players be employed for 9 baseball positions on the field during each game. By eliminating even one of these positions we will be able to save money on baseball salaries thereby decreasing costs in wages while increasing productivity by forcing each remaining player to work harder to cover the 9 positions on the field.

However,  since the baseball field is organized into two distinct areas of play we can eliminate 1 infielder and 1 outfielder per team and reduce the number of players to 7.  Productivity will then double since  the 2 remaining outfielders and 3 remaining infielders will have more area to cover. This will force the players to work and practice harder guaranteeing them a greater percentage of success.

The fans of the game will become happier because the increased activity of the players on the field will be more entertaining to watch and as the players work harder their skills will become more pronounced and greatly improved which will also bring more joy to the fans as they watch their local heroes succeed. The reduced costs in wages to the players can also be passed along to the fans in reduced ticket prices and stadium costs, creating a greater feeling of pride among all of the people of the represented city.

It should also be noted that because of the baseball player’s overbearing, influential and wealthy union many “non-playing” baseball players are forced upon the owners who must then pay for these “non-players” and potential substitutes to sit around all day in air-conditioned dugouts and bullpens just waiting for a chance to get in the game when they aren’t even needed in the first place!

And Amazingly, these substitutes, who do not even possess the skills necessary to “begin” a baseball game and who  are not even expected by the owners, fans, players and union officials to perform at a level anywhere near commensurate with their peers, are paid a full salary also!… to sit and do nothing until called upon!…and often even laughing and cavorting about while their teammates perform miserably on these fields of their fans’ all too often broken dreams!

Imagine having a “team of professionals” where most of the members of the team are not rated as above excellent, excellent or even above average?! These unions must be eliminated so that all of these subpar, ill trained and poor performing workers can be terminated by the new and innovating owners thereby saving untold millions in wasted wages.

The immense savings that will be realized by reducing labor costs, increasing worker productivity and gained in profits for these new non-unionized public “charter teams” can then be passed on to the fans, citizens and city coffers thus creating a national pastime that we all can not only finally afford but also be proud of!

*It should be noted that when these “Charter teams” were given a chance to operate and perform on a limited basis on a real baseball diamond  in a test city the hitters’ skills immediately improved and averages increased among all 7 players per team. Substitutes were never used and every pitcher’s productivity also increased to 100% and in fact each pitcher eventually completed every game that he started.

It should also be noted however, that “burnout” among players was high but this condition did coincide with greater job opportunities for more players and although initial savings to the teams and cities and fans were quite palpable increased compensation to the new owners in the form of bonuses and stipends for management, oversight, intense player development and “other” compensation has eroded initial profit projections and unfortunately we expect to operate at a loss until new expansion opportunities through government partnerships take place.

Now Play Ball!

 

Judge Not… It’s the Best Way to Learn Something New.

It’s the Easter weekend and after having been raised as a Catholic (although without great fervor) I have come to the conclusion that most of what is written in the Bible is metaphorical… in the sense that it exists and was compiled in an effort to teach us about the trials and tribulations inherent in any life lived among others and to hopefully express ways for us to learn how to treat each other with kindness, love and respect.

Of course I could be wrong… but that’s my point. So could everyone else.

Our world has become filled with a myriad of different beliefs and rituals and followings and followers and there appears to be no reason to believe that a consensus on the subject of religious beliefs is anywhere in sight. In the 2,013 years since the first Easter, Christianity has grown from a few followers to over 2 billion and yet that still represents only about 30% of the world’s population.  Some might say that that is quite an accomplishment but at that rate we should all be Christian in the year…never.

Unless of course every seriously devout Christian’s belief comes true and God returns and kills everyone else…and wouldn’t that be nice? That espoused and widely held belief alone has been enough to help me decide that the answers must lie elsewhere.

So here is what I believe is most likely to be true about god and about ourselves (not that you asked) Joseph Campbell says it best for me in this excerpt from an interview that he did with Bill Moyers.

 

CAMPBELL: The reference of the metaphor in religious traditions is to something transcendent that is not literally any thing. If you think that the metaphor is itself the reference, it would be like going to a restaurant, asking for the menu, seeing beefsteak written there, and starting to eat the menu.

For example, Jesus ascended to heaven. The denotation would seem to be that somebody ascended to the sky. That’s literally what is being said. But if that were really the meaning of the message, then we have to throw it away, because there would have been no such place for Jesus literally to go. We know that Jesus could not have ascended to heaven because there is no physical heaven anywhere in the universe. Even ascending at the speed of light, Jesus would still be in the galaxy, Astronomy and physics have simply eliminated that as a literal, physical possibility, But if you read “Jesus ascended to heaven” in terms of its metaphoric connotation, you see that he has gone inward – not into outer space but into inward space, to the place from which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all things, the kingdom of heaven within. The images are outward, but their reflection is inward. The point is that we should ascend with him by going inward. It is a metaphor of returning to the source, alpha and omega, of leaving the fixation on the body behind and going to the body’s dynamic source.

MOYERS: Aren’t you undermining one of the great traditional doctrines of the classic Christian faith – that the burial and the resurrection of Jesus prefigures our own?

CAMPBELL: That would be a mistake in the reading of the symbol. That is reading the words in terms of prose instead of in terms of poetry, reading the metaphor in terms of the denotation instead of the connotation.

MOYERS: And poetry gets to the unseen reality.

CAMPBELL: That which is beyond even the concept of reality, that which transcends all thought. The myth puts you there all the time, gives you a line to connect with that mystery which you are.

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And that’s what it is. The nature is your nature, and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology are referring to something in you. When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there so that you never make the reference to yourself, you have misread the image.

The inner world is the world of your requirements and your energies and your structure and your possibilities that meets the outer world. And the outer world is the field of your incarnation. That’s where you are. You’ve got to keep both going. As Novalis said, “The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.”

 

Happy Holidays to those who observe them and peace and safe journey to all!

 

 

What Would Jesus Allow?

Okay, last question… and I’ll try to make it quick. I’ve asked about the coming and the going or rather the coming and the going and the returning of Jesus as those of us who are Christians have learned about it from the Bible or through our various Christian faiths.

Most seem to believe that there will be a return of Jesus to Earth and that it will involve a final reckoning of sorts including possibly a great battle that will destroy most of the people on Earth but leaving some, maybe millions, to enjoy the 1,000 years of peace under the rule of Jesus and the Saints.

Reading about Armageddon always makes my head spin because it makes little sense to me that the “Prince of Peace” or “Lamb of God” would come back to lead all of the children of God in major fisticuffs but that’s the story…so

Here’s my question (And you Biblical scholars out there just might have a spoiler alert that renders my question a bit moot) but here goes…

Jesus returns, great battle ensues, billions are killed, millions survive to live in peace on Earth under Jesus’ rule…

Does Jesus allow the survivors to own guns?

A) yes, freedom means all you can carry!

B) No, what just happened? Duh!

C) yes, but with very strict registration, education, testing on how to use them properly and safely, and licensing laws.

D) Who needs laws? We’re all God loving/fearing Christians now!