Wednesday, February 29, 2012

A Red Letter Day At The YMCA

I have to write this before I forget. I'm beginning to see a chink in the conservative armor around here. Fox News Republicans don't seem quite as bombastic as normal. There were precious few enclaves of pot bellied men standing in tight circles and roaring in laughter over the same anti-Obama banter.

After my workout, I was sitting in my customary place in the hot tub, sharing it with a nice enough guy who only gets politically loud when he has lots of support. We were peacefully and silently enjoying the water which was at the right temperature for a change, when Dennis, the most bombastic Fox News type of all, comes over and they start yelling things at each other. Luckily, my tinnitis made it impossible to hear their rants and I kept my eyes closed, pretending I was off in another world.

Dennis left and my tub mate looked over and said a few things to which I kind of nodded my head even though I didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. But the tub stopped gurgling and I actually heard him say that the economy is doing better and the car bailout has been a huge success. It looks like Obama is going to win. It was an amazing omission for that particular venue. Most surprisingly, there was no discernible mask of despair on his face.

Then I'm out of the shower and I walk into my part of the locker room. As I come around the corner, Bob says "Watch out! His daughter worked for the First Lady."

There are new members in the room and they all look carefully at me. I'm not sure what is written on their faces. I'm so tired of this shit. I like the bombastic guys like Bob, but they wear me down, so Katherine and I have been going in later in the day. It's nicer then.

So I say, "Okay, since Bob brought it up, I'll make one political comment. I'm looking forward to coming in early on the first Wednesday in November so I can just smile and gloat because my president will have won a second term. It'll be a great day for the country."

This comment was not met with the usual howls of derision. One of the new guys even nodded his head in agreement.

This day has gotten off to a good start.

Friday, February 24, 2012

A Day at the Museum

Celebrating Katherine's Birthday

There are certain places around town that force me to "refall" in love with Denver each time I see them: Driving through the mousetrap traveling south and seeing the skyline framed by the I-70 overpass; the way LoDo looks on the drive down 20th every Saturday for breakfast at Snooze; the way downtown looks from the top of the steps at the Museum of Natural History, or whatever they are calling it nowadays; the dancing figures outside DCTC and the whole DCTC complex with the plexiglass arch overhead; the bear outside the convention center; the "devil-horse" at DIA; the entire metro area from the vantage point of Carpenters Peak in Roxborough Park; and especially the art museum/library complex between 14th and 13th. I get happy just thinking about it.

Kathie and I spent her birthday there last Wednesday. We started the celebration off by not going to the Y to work out. Instead, we spent a lazy morning reading the paper, watching ESPN, and drinking Snooze's Guatemalan coffee, French press grind. If for no other reason, the coffee at Snooze is worth the trip to Larimer and Park Avenue for breakfast.

A couple of leisurely showers later, we head off to Palette's, the Kevin Taylor restaurant inside the museum. Lunch there is a special treat. It is a sunny room punctuated by significant pieces of art and banks of sunny windows. We order a calamari appetizer to share and a split of Gruet champagne from New Mexico. (Wine Tip Alert: Gruet from Albuquerque is, in our humble opinion, the best sparkling wine in the country for the price. No contest.) The Calamari is huge with a light tempura batter, drizzled with two differently seasoned Aiolis. It is right up there with the calamari at Luca d'Italia, my squid standard. Kathie orders a mac and cheese for her main dish that could feed a family of four; I order the tuna, lightly seared--at the risk of sounding like a food critic straining for descriptors--with sauteed bok choy (unbelievably wonderful) and a ginger flavored rice to die for. Bones on 7th and Grant has my vote for the best lunch food in town, but this place might be better!

Of course, it helps that after lunch you get to go into the museum without having to leave the building. I love this place. I loved it when it was just the one magnificent building. I used to get my humanities students to go on scavenger hunts there and meditate in front of the Shiva on the fifth floor. Kathie and I would drag our children there maybe once a month. Hey, it was, next to Bears Badges, the cheapest family outing in town.

I loved the surprises the main building offered. You'd be getting off the elevator on the fourth floor psyched to see all the European masters and notice the front range framed in a skinny horizontal picture window right in front of a row of benches. Other surprising glimpses lurked around every corner.

I don't know enough about architecture (other than the fact that I love to think about it) to tell you if the new building is "better" than the first. I suspect it isn't, but it is definitely more playful. I think that idea of playfulness is one of the qualities I look for in architecture. I am reminded of Brian Fuentes' "Aristos" where he talks so beautifully about building snow forts with Tolgay Hasenfuss (I think that was his name) when he was a kid. He loved the nooks and crannies, the tunnels, the little hiding places that all of us can remember loving when we were young: Back yard tents, cuddling up in sleeping bags, hiding behind our blankies, playing in refrigerator boxes (boy does that date me!). All that stuff.

Kathie and I once went to Taleisin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's complex outside Phoenix, and we were both struck by the snowfort-like playfulness of the place. Nooks and crannies. Tunnels. Arches. Isolated rooms for hanging out. Just the kind of place you would design if you were 12 and a genius. In addition to the playfulness of the place, there is the marriage of the manmade and nature, the juxtaposition of texture and light that arrests your attention every time you turn around.

All of those qualities are in the new section of the art museum. Ignore for a second that the neighborhood will have to grow a little to live up to the standards of this new building. The walk across the second floor bridge from old to new does a nice job of setting the mood. The mountains hover over the neighborhoods to the west and the eastern view showcases the public art that is slowly but surely taking over the library/art museum plaza. I love the broom and dust pan on 13th street and the cow on top of the old building just off the bridge. And there is the huge chair with the cow at the library entrance. Don't forget the massive and collage-like library building itself. Of course, I've never seen a library I didn't fall in love with.

My favorite thing to do in the new building is to stand at the bottom floor and look up the staircase that seems to lurch up the four floors to the top, the risers appearing and disappearing from view. The exhibits themselves are interesting, but not breathtaking. There is no MOMA moment where you walk around a corner and all of a sudden "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" spreads out in front of you. At places like MOMA or the National Gallery of Art in D.C., you spend most of your time weeping; at DAM you spend most of your time smiling. I mean how can you see a vibrating table covered in hard caked soil and withering grass entitled "Vibrating Field," and not smile a little bit. And of course there is the cool red nook with all the black frolicking foxes.

That is the thing I love about this place. The building is a constant delight and, at least in my opinion, a better work of art than the things inside. I'm not sure that is a problem, but if it is it will surely be corrected by time.

Spend an afternoon at the museum. Have lunch at Palettes. You will thank me for it later.


Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Comparing Finnish School Reform To Our Approach

If you keep up with the Education Wars, you know that Diane Ravich is perhaps the most articulate and certainly the most combative critic of corporate reforms to education. She identifies corporate reformers as those who want to reorganize and quantify education, but who come to the task with no expertise in pedagogy. I like her because she makes so much sense and I identify with her because all of her reasonable arguments against the current regime of testing and blaming teachers for everything that ails the country fall inevitably on deaf ears. Corporate reformers, like most conservatives, aren't interested in dissenting opinions, even opinions that are based on fact and logic.

With this in mind, I want to write a quick response to her article in the recent NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS ("Schools We Can Envy," March 8, 2012). She starts by lambasting the, in her opinion, misguided reform movement and then moves on to a discussion of the Finnish school system, a system held up as a shining example of effective innovation by the very reformers she attacks.

The Finnish system consistently scores at the top of all world-wide standardized tests used to measure a school system's effectiveness, but their approach to instruction is the polar opposite of what our current crop of reformers have identified as effective techniques.

There is only one standardized test given to Finnish students, an assessment given upon graduation. Teachers are given almost complete autonomy. There are no national, statewide, or district mandates. Teachers are told what areas kids need to study (Finnish language, math, science, social studies, ART, MUSIC, PHYSICAL ED, the usual), but they are not told how to approach those studies. Teachers make up their own lesson plans, they create their own tests, they allot the time given them as they see fit. There is none of this idea that everyone needs to be working on objective 32A on October 10th, or other ludicrous requirements.

Finnish kids graduate at a 95% rate. After the first nine years of schooling they choose between continuing in an academic or a vocational secondary school. When you walk through the school halls you see happy, engaged kids in small classes with teachers who have the time and the societal support they need to engage students.

Reformers will say that you can't use Finland as an example because the population is so homogenous. True, but those same reformers use Korea and Japan as examples of the successes of reform through testing and Korea and Japan are at least as homogenous as Finland. Critics will say that Finland has too small a population to serve as a valid comparison, but those same critics are crying for the feds to butt out and let states take care of education locally; therefore, since Finland has a larger population that thirty of our states, what's the problem?

Teachers in Finland are among the most respected professional class in the country and for good reason. Only eight universities are certified to offer teacher training. Finnish teachers must have a degree in their discipline rather than in education. They must also go on to earn a masters in education with an emphasis on methods and a preparation to teach all levels and kinds of kids. For every ten applicants to a teacher training program, only one is accepted. The question of finding and dismissing incompetent teachers is not an issue. It is very hard for the incompetent to make it through the program in the first place. Lest you are asking how these prospective teachers can pay for all that extra education, remember that college and graduate level education in Finland is tuition free.

Guess what? Finland also has higher taxes than we do, but they have chosen the wefare of the young over the profits of the old.

Finally, Ravich suggests that educational reformers have somehow conspired to blame education and particularly teachers, for the economic malaise we are currently suffering. If we just get rid of all those bad teachers, they believe, employment will rise, productivity will soar, manufacturing jobs will return, etc., etc., etc.

I love her response to this delusional argument. If it is true that our economic troubles can be blamed on ineffective schools and bad teachers, than isn't it also true that the United States' current position as the biggest economy and the most EXCEPTIONAL country in history is due to an educational system that has served its country remarkably well?

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Frank Capra's Conservative Manifesto: It's a Wonderful LIfe

After reading "Conservatives vs. Liberals: More Than Politics," an excerpt from The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics, by Thomas B. Edsall, I have become obsessed with the notion that conservatives and liberals hold completely antithetical world views. We might read the same books (not likely), or see the same movies, or read the same news stories, but we interpret those things through completely different prisms. It is as if we were living in parallel universes. The following is a case in point.

A Review
It's a Wonderful Life, the new conservative manifesto by Frank Capra

Frank Capra's story of Bedford Falls liberal George Bailey's reliance on bleeding heart giveaways to the lazy working class denizens of this small upper New York community shows yet again the damages failed liberal policies do to unwary citizens who buy into the socialistic thinking that has created the welfare state.

The choice is made clear at the very beginning of the film when bleeding heart Clarence, actually more of a community organizer than an angel, sees young George and his friends already on the slippery path to economic doom. Instead of using the shovel they had obviously stolen from some local job creator to clear the walks and earn some extra money to boot, they choose to waste the day sliding down that symbolic slope. You would think when George's little brother Harry almost drowns, he would learn his lesson, but no. The next time we see George, his unpatriotic dreams of leaving his country are only inflated by the overlarge suitcase the town druggist, Mr. Gower, gives him. It is no coincidence that the liberal pipe dreams of George Bailey get their start among the drugs he delivers as a young boy to the unsuspecting citizens of Bedford Falls.

Inevitably, George's godless liberalism leads him and his pathetic savings and loan to the brink of financial ruin, another failed institution in need of a bail out. Bailey's last name is eerily prophetic. At the end we see George Bailey, a broken shell of a man, forced to accept hand outs from family and a rapidly diminishing roster of friends. Even Bert and Ernie wear skeptical expressions as they oversee the giveaway.

Standing above all this turmoil like the North Star is Mr. Potter, the economic engine that keeps Bedford Falls on the road to prosperity. Always ready to lend a helping hand, Potter never flip-flops. He is willing to buy up the troubled assets of the savings and loan, but George Bailey's liberal obstructionism won't let him. He even offers George a job and a chance to cash in on that American Dream. But stubborn liberals like George don't give in and George ends up cheating his family of their one shot at prosperity.

That's the lesson of It's a Wonderful Life. What this world needs is fewer George Baileys running around getting people's hopes up, and more Potters selflessly fulfilling their societal role as The Job Creators.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Being Fair and Balanced

One of my favorite classroom memories happened in a fourth hour AP class years ago. This was during a fairly tumultuous political year and, of course, the kids in AP were well versed in current events. In the Fall, King Soopers grocery workers went on strike and started picketing all the stores, including the one on Green Mountain. I had one brilliant little girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and was constantly crying over some social outrage or another. She was something of a drama queen. One would think that the King Soopers picketing would have hit her where she lived and she would be out there on the line during her free hours. Not quite. One day she walked into class a little early with a King Soopers bakery bag in hand. Everyone there stifled a gasp. "I cried when I crossed the picket line, but the fresh croissants at King Soopers are so much better than anything at Albertsons," she explained.

"God, I envy you," said one of the resident raving liberals in the room. "You get to believe anything you want."

I feel the same way about conservative pundits, professional or armchair. They are just so sure of their opinions and they say them so loudly and they are so derisive of any dissent. They are impossible to argue with.

It would be like calling up Rush to disagree with his latest wacko theory. Since he doesn't value facts or logic or science and, worse yet, since he can hang up any time he wants, you wouldn't have a prayer. I suppose you could enlist some third party to come and act as a judge, but that decision would just be brushed off as so much liberal or conservative spin, depending on your point of view.

This will be surprising to a few people who have been in my classroom, but by conservative standards I'm something of a wimp when it comes political certainties. I'm smart and well read, but when someone fights back loudly enough, I begin to doubt myself. I mean maybe I need to consider this different point of view more carefully. So I go back and read some more and end up reaffirming my opinion until the next loud disagreement. And then the cycle starts all over again. It is damn difficult to figure out the truth.

For instance, I have always accepted as TRUTH that among the primary causes of our economic malaise is the fact that we don't manufacture the stuff we use. In the 50's the USA manufactured 95% of what it consumed. Now, with manufacturing sent overseas in pursuit of ever higher profit margins, we are losing jobs that are not likely to be replaced. We need to get manufacturing to come back home.

But that TRUTH ain't really true. It is just the way it was been spun to me my people like Paul Krugman. The truth of the matter, according to last month's Atlantic and Christina Romer's essay in the Sunday New York Times, is that the US is still the largest manufacturer in the world, even though too many of those jobs have been automated. We no longer produce 95% of what we physically consume, but innovations, financial legerdemain, ideas, media, all these ephemeral things are also consumed and generate at least as much GDP as building cars and washing machines or sewing together designer jeans.

It is also not TRUE to go the conservative route and simply ignore the situation by saying it was ever thus, by waiting for some invisible hand to come and make everything turn out all right.

The thing is I don't know what the answer to this dilemma is. Neither does that ranting conservative radio personality, or the Fox News republican next door.

Another example is the controversy over the Citizen's United decision. The Left decries the decision as an assault on the democratic process. Citizen's United will let people like the Koch Brothers buy the election by spending billions on negative ads.

On the other hand, SuperPacs are ostensibly nothing more that a group of like minded citizens joining their resources in order to compete with big money in supporting their causes.

I suspect that moneyed interests like the Koch brothers are using this ruling to bastardize its intent, but the issue is more nuanced than either Bill O'Reilly or Rachel Maddow would have me believe.

You would think we would have all rejoiced last week at the news that our economy added approximately 260,000 jobs last month, but no. Mouthpieces from both the Left and Right quickly went to work to undermine any chance this country might have a reasoned discussion about something.

At a stump speech, Romney scolded Obama for presuming to take credit for the good news. He reminded us that we have gone for 36 straight months with joblessness at around 10% (that, as opposed to the good news, is Obama's fault). Furthermore, the increase in jobs was a result of the ingenuity and never-say-die attitude of the American worker and not due to any of Obama's "Failed Policies." (It is a Republican speaking point never to use the expression "Obama's Policies" without inserting "Failed.")

Well duh! I remember Obama saying much the same words whenever he managed to wring more job making stimulus out of a Republican brick wall.

But I can also spin it toward the Left by saying that the job gains in the last two months are larger than the net job gains in the entire eight years of Bush. Speaking as a journalism teacher, that is an accurate statement, but it is not the truth.

My spin revolves around the idea of net growth. Any job growth in the first seven years of Bush's administration (and those job numbers, as opposed to the 300,000 a month during the last years of the Clinton Administration, are paltry) was more than wiped out during the start of the recession in 2008. The net result is that the Bush years gained almost zero jobs.

But that is an unfair characterization of the situation. It is absurd to think that President Bush and his policies are solely responsible for the recession, just like it is absurd to blame Obama for the sluggish rebound. Things happen and no matter how grandiose the promises, there isn't much anyone can do to stop them.

I still believe it is possible to ascertain the truth. I'm just not sure if it is worth the effort.