School begins tomorrow. One hundred new 8th graders will show up in my classroom. The official title of the class is US History, but the real instruction concerns teaching adolescents how to live. This is difficult, and a teacher must compete with all sorts of noise that diverts the attention of teenagers.
Cell phones for one. Television for another. And of course, the odd desire for teens to congregate at malls and waste their time among baubles, bangles and beads. They tend to gather there in packs and simply roam about. They do not yet understand the concept of opportunity cost. All time spent in frivolity is time that is lost for the better things in life---reading, contemplation and walking alone in God’s creation. Perhaps these will eventually assume a proper place in their lives. But until then the struggle is constant.
I can scarcely remember my own teenage years, lost as they are in the mists of time. I did begin to work when I was 9 years of age, and kept at it all though those years and on into adulthood. I was never unemployed except for my college years, when the GI Bill allowed me to study and read and indulge my senses with little thought about a paycheck. After it was gone I took all sorts of jobs, until on a whim I accepted a teaching post in Costa Rica. I was 36. I had at last found the reason I was put upon this earth.
Tomorrow begins the 18th year of this vocation. I would not consider doing anything else. Besides bartending and playing the Blues guitar, teaching is the only thing I am really good at. Oddly, tending bar and teaching have much in common. Teaching is better, though being good at it requires a great deal of patience. I cannot tell you how times when I was asked by someone what my occupation was, and I responded that I taught teenagers, that the person looked at me with a strange fascination, as if I were a little mad. I am of course---and perhaps more than a little. Perhaps all teachers are.
Last year I was at our assembly that always closes our day at school. In the auditorium were 300 kids, all rustling about, talking and generally behaving as kids do when they are surrounded by their peers. I asked another teacher what it would be like if some person were dragged in from the street and place there with us. Without missing a beat my colleague said, “He would be afraid, and perhaps fearful of his life.” No doubt.
I was once afraid as well. It was my first day of teaching at that little school in Costa Rica. With no teaching experience whatsoever, I suddenly found myself in front of a dozen adolescents. My fear showed, as I had my hands in my pockets and nervously jingled some coins I had in them. But it only lasted a few minutes. I discovered on that day that teaching was going to be a great deal of fun. I have never once looked back.
This new year that starts tomorrow has all the makings of the best of my professional life. But then I always feel this way at the beginning of every new year.
I have been immeasurably blessed, beyond all reason, beyond all comprehension.
Today I am off with my 8th grade Academic Team for an all day competition at the state level. It was hard work with hours of practice and competing to make it this far. We have had to go against schools three and four times our size. And we are a slice of America—the kids are black and Arab and Native American mixtures, with even a white guy thrown in. Three are girls, we have Protestants and Catholics and even a Muslim. And we have kicked some serious rear end to get here.
As anyone knows who hangs out with these types of kids, they are as weird as anything. Each has a distinct personality that, oddly enough, meshes with the others. To watch them play together and joke around is a strange experience if all you have seen of school teams is the dreary sameness of athletics. The jokes of the Academic Club are bizarre and most adults would not get them. They kid each other about race and religion, about being fat and thin, about habits and loves and politics—definitely no politically correct kids here. In fact, they make it a point to be as un-PC as they can. Really, they are a scream.
It is not the case that a school’s Academic Club is made up of the smartest kids with the best grades. No, the three components of a winning team are knowledge, speed and teamwork. If one is missing the kid is unsuitable for the team. These do not easily translate into the best performance in class. Academic Club type kids can be a bit quirky, sometimes bored in class and not always the most popular. But put them together and they understand immediately that they are among their own kind. Expect surprises.
Once during a practice some members of the boys’ basketball team stopped by to have a look at their school’s Academic Team. They began observing with good natured laughter at the oddities before them, but once the practice began the athletes fell quiet. To a man they had the same look upon their faces—incomprehension and amazement. One said, “How do they know all that stuff?” How indeed. And some of those athletes were ‘A’ students.
They share some things that might explain why they are as they are. Except for one girl—the sharpest among them—they come from intact families. They read a lot—constantly and everywhere—and they read some very odd things. They watch TV perhaps as much as any kid their age, but the TV they mention most is The History Channel and The Military Channel. None are particularly into computer stuff but all are addicted to Harry Potter and Twilight. None have boyfriends or girlfriends. They seem to have no vices yet are aware of the fleshy attractions of this world. And every one of these kids is perfectly comfortable talking with adults and can easily see though any sham and insincerity. Don’t even try it. Face it: They know more weird stuff than you and they are smarter than you. Deal with it.
Still, they are kids—but especially demanding and precocious ones. They need your time and they enjoy it immensely when you laugh with them. You need as well to be able to laugh at yourself. Never forget that one day these kids will run the country.
With percolated coffee in hand I sit at my computer while thoughts turn to writing. I see to my left on the floor next to my desk a stack of papers all in a jumble. Ah…essays to correct. I had forgotten. (No. I lied. I procrastinated. Forgive me Lord. Again. Seven times seven times forgive me.)
I just came off a four-day break and still those essays remain un-graded, not even looked at, a set of forlorn and ignored duties that are now tugging at my elbow like a three year old demanding attention.
What did I do with those four days? Before they began I was all a-wonder about all that free time coming right up. Now that it is passed me by I am all a-wonder about how to find time—what a strange phrase, ‘to find time.’ Is she lost?—to get those pesky essays done.
Time stuns me with her perversity. I have lived through moments when she went haywire, all sideways and slow-mo with fits and starts and ups and downs. Time acted thus when I came upon a murder scene while serving in the Air Force. Some drunk had blasted away at his once lovely wife with a .44 Magnum. I saw the result. That was some powerful gun.
I have lived through moments when she would not end, as if the same instant seemed to stretch itself into Eternity like an unbreakable rubber band. It was like that with the first wife. Or the second. I forget which.
Horace in his 10th Ode had a dim view of time.
Injurious Time,
What age escapes thy curse!
Evil our Grandfathers were,
Our fathers, worse.
And we, till now unmatched in ill,
Must leave successors
More corrupted still.
The old Roman had it about right I think.
Time plays with us. I cannot say if she is being playful like a mother with a newborn or playful like a cat with a mouse between its paws.
In September of 2003 I was seven days out from Cuzco, Peru. I was alone in the Andes walking some 150 miles from Inca ruin to Inca ruin. I set my tent in some pasture among a horde of cattle. The day had been a long one, which is another way to say that time had favored me. She had slowed herself just for me.
I was in some valley with neither water nor campsite. And the road went on forever. Up and up, over hill and dale, always more and more. I was thirsty and tired. Time felt pity at such a fool who would venture out alone in such an inhospitable land. I swear to this day that time pulled a Joshua. She stopped the sun for hours until I found those cattle and their pasture and lots of water. By God, that was a long day.
Thank you, maam.
Alas, those essays still await me, curse them! So it is off to work I go.
But—and there is always a ‘but’—I used the wrong word. What I do is not ‘work’ in the usual sense. It is not the curse of Adam, ‘to toil all the days of my life.’ It is something else, something more, something higher, something—timeless. (There’s that word again.)
Teaching has only one foot in time. The other reaches into the well-springs of Eternity.
The first full week of school has begun. At last I can practice that vocation of which God has deemed me worthy. And that is teaching adolescents how to live. Oh, and if there is time perhaps some history as well.
The name of my course is ‘8th Grade US History’ or something like that. But the real course of study is life. I will give my students my version of it. They will take what they can use and write their own version of it. When they are husbands and fathers and wives and mothers perhaps they will remember.
They are at that age where they can look at adults and know the things that are right and the things that are not. And they will mark them accordingly.
Perhaps I did the same thing when I was in 8th grade. My teacher was Mr. Mansfield. He smoked cigarettes. Some of the other boys claimed to take a puff now and then. I did not dare. There was something vaguely sinister about smoking. It marked you as a tough guy and more than a little bit of an outlaw. I remember that the guys who smoked—or who claimed to smoke—always got the bad grades. The girls liked them, though.
I was no outlaw then—I became one later—but I still did my share of rash behavior. Once Bobby Kohn and I made hydrogen gas. We would put tin snips from a tuna can into a Coke bottle, add water and Drano and then put a balloon over the mouth of the bottle. The balloon would fill with hydrogen. When full we would take the balloon, tie it off and put on another.
Soon Bobby and I had a small arsenal of floating bombs. We got some fuse and tied about 10 feet of it onto each balloon and let them float away after lighting the fuse. The bomb got about 20 feet in the air before exploding—very loudly, thank you very much.
Once Bobby miscalculated the length of fuse, and the bomb went off while he still held it. He lost his eyebrows and much of his hair. And he did not see very well for a while. But after about a month all the hair grew back.
The last I heard of Bobby was that he had joined the Marine Corps.
When I tell this tale to 8th grade boys every one of them, even the timid ones, beg me for the recipe for hydrogen. Not a chance. They will have to devise their own brands of mischief and not copy mine.
I also refuse to provide them the makings of a crude bomb I constructed before my 8th grade years. And should I say that Bobby helped me? The bomb was small but effective. We tried it out on Saint Anthony’s outdoor drinking faucet. I still remember the beautiful stream of water that flowed when the bomb went off.
And I remember what Father Carroll did when he found out who had demolished the school’s outdoor plumbing. He was one mad priest. When I see him in Heaven I will apologize—for the bomb and also for stealing Holy Water. I don’t think he ever found out about that.
That summer before 8th grade was memorable for pyrotechnics and also for two rites of passage every boy must endure. I kissed my first girl and fought my first fight. I liked the kiss better. Her name was Millie. She had long blond hair and was a bit of a tomboy. She liked me though for reasons that today escape me. I can still conjure up her face.
The fight scared me. All boys will understand. When you know you have to fight there is a sensation that passes through your gut. It is exactly the same feeling a boy gets at his first school dance when he knows he has to meet a girl. You breathe differently and time goes in short bursts. But after the first blow all is well. There is no pain, only a desire to hurt the other boy until he is on the ground. I won that one and became the hero of the day. I lost my next two fights but emerged victorious in my last one—an acceptable record.
Those 8th graders I will stand before today will have similar things to tell their sons and daughters. By that time I will be either dead or well-retired somewhere in northern Idaho. I can see myself living in a one room shack. I will sit on the porch in a wife beater and rock in my wooden rocking chair. In my lap I will cradle a 12 gauge. On a crude stand next to the chair will be a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Next to the bottle will be my Bible.
And what the heck, I might even have a pack of Marlboros next to the Bible.
If one of my ex-students comes for a visit I might—I say might—surrender that recipe for making hydrogen. As for the Saint Anthony’s plumbing bomb, that recipe is only for Father Carroll.
I will tell him when I see him.
The usual workday for a reasonably competent teacher lasts from around 6:30 AM until 4 PM. The reason is simple: grading. To do it right you must spend hour upon hour every week doing it. There is simply no escape from this.
Numbers tell. I have 90 students. Every homework assignment, every quiz, every exam, is composed of essays. I collect one of these from every student twice—and sometimes three times—a week. Which means every week I have hundreds of pieces of writing to read and mark up with my beloved red pen. Do the math.
I observe. I do not complain. Such is the profession I chose—or rather, it chose me. I was born and this is what I do. Thank you Lord.
There is more. Periods spent in class turning 8th grade miniature barbarians into refined and literate 9th grade sophisticates is only part of the equation. One must—simply must—use a great deal of time throughout the day watching them, advising them, talking to them, looking out for them and just hanging around them. To do less is to fail at teaching. So many in the vocation do not get this at all. They need to find another line of work.
Without fail when I tell a normal person what I do for a living he will stare speechless and say something like, “Man, how do you do it? How can you stand being around all those kids day after day?” How indeed. I have no answer other than I love my work. Really, I can think of no other answer than that one.
The other day a colleague and I were standing in the auditorium that also serves as a gymnasium and a cafeteria. It was the end of the day. There were 300 adolescents crowded into the place, all talking loudly, moving here and there, laughing and engaged in the general jostling about that such creatures do. I said to the other teacher, “Imagine if some person were taken off the street and dropped into this room right now. What would he think?” Without a pause the teacher responded, “He would be afraid, and would think his life was in danger.”
I love my work.
And so I look to my right and I look to my left. On both sides are stacks of papers to grade. When I am through there will be red marks all over them. Some will appear as if a small animal had been sacrificed above them. When I pass them back—always, always the very next class day—there will be both looks of expectation and looks of dread. And there will be surprises. Some kids who can be depended upon to regularly do poorly sometimes get the highest grade in class. Go figure.
And let us get something straight right now. There are no “problems in our schools.” The problem is in the homes—in the fractured, broken, ruptured and crazily dysfunctional homes that almost seem the new norm. Without question those kids who come from homes where ‘divorce’ is a foreign word do better in school—period. Hands down. End of debate. Don’t even argue.
I hear the usual pabulum from adults all the time. “Schools need more money.” No they don’t. They need more mothers and fathers who never break their marriage vows. If parents kept the promises made on their wedding day the “problems in our schools” would melt away.
So would the problems in this nation—most of them anyway.
I see those essays. I arm myself with the red pen. The battle is on, and there are miles to go before I sleep.
I have no idea how most teachers become teachers. I only know how I became one. It was an accident, at least from my end. Fifteen years into spending quality time with adolescents I understand absolutely and completely that there is no other thing on God’s green earth I would rather do. Nothing.
These young folks surprise. Sometimes they are the freest beings on the planet. Sometimes they are little Atlases, burdened with all the cares in the world. Sometimes they have hearts as big as the universe. Sometimes they commit petty acts of cruelty. They are tribal and run in packs. And they can be absolutely ferocious in defending one of their own.
But almost every single one of these teenage creatures posses a laugh that will simply melt an adult unless he is made of coal. It takes so little to make them laugh. Why is this?
And more teen stuff: They have not learned of the evil that men do. These young types really have no idea of evil as what it really is, a creature, a malevolent being whose only intent is to destroy them.
Adults can be oblivious to what stuff is going around in a teenage head. Adults get so caught up in the responsibilities of parenthood and such that they come to believe that the smaller creatures in their care run on auto-pilot—give them food and mall money and all will be well.
So here comes another one of my ‘Indisputable Facts of the Universe.’ Every problem of every teen in this nation springs from the thoughtlessness or the unkindness or the cruelty or the ignorance of some adult. You see, it is we who teach these things to young folks. We teach them in how we act, in what we say, in the promises we do not keep.
Teenagers are not stupid. They have eyes. They have ears. And they are in no way as foolish as adults would have them to be. If you think they are, pardon me but you don’t know what you are talking about. You need to get out more.
Here are the basic needs of these young adults:
Love—lots of it, more than you think you can give. Pray for more love so that you can give it away. It’s free, you know.
Kindness—each and every moment. There is never an excuse—never, not ever—for cruelty.
Time—pay attention to those young creatures in front of you for they are more important than anything else in the universe at that moment they need you. And forget that pop-psych gibberish about quality time. It is quantity time adolescents need. If you will not give it to them I assure you someone else will.
And, of course, food. Adolescents are not particular about this. It amazes how many problems can be resolved over chocolate chip cookies. Sit down and eat with a kid.
They also have questions, some of which would befuddle Socrates but all of which deserve answers. Here is a selection of them, each with an answer. In no way will these answers be sufficient but I will do the best I can.
And you adults who are reading this: You might not like the answers I give but for the love of Heaven do not ignore the questions. They are asked by your child too—and also by adults whether they admit it or not.
Why do people become ‘friends’ with other people just to say they have friends?
Let us not make the common error of saying ‘friends’ when we really mean ‘acquaintances.’ Acquaintances come and go with the wind. Friends stay no matter what you do.
Some people treat friends as things to stack-up and show off. The belief here is ‘the more friends I can display the more popular I will be.’ Adults are prone to this error too.
It is hard for girls to make long-time friends from the 8th grade on through college. The reason is the competition for boys. As single girls become married women with kids they make friends with other married women with kids—perhaps their old school-girl friends now married and grown up.
Boys make friends in 8th grade through high school that they keep forever. Boys are different than girls, you know. Simpler too.
Why do people say they will love you forever, and then when you love them they walk away?
Jesus had a similar problem. Those 12 He chose to be His all abandoned Him, in spite of what they had promised. The lesson here is that an intimate love is like chastity and gold, a rare thing. And like those things it is difficult to find. It takes work and pain until it is found.
Love can burn with a painful fire. When one person says love he means a warmth like a candle. When another person says love she means an all-consuming fire. The candle-love person will be frightened away by the fire-love person.
The lesson here is to not give your heart away easily. Adolescents do this too often. Adults do it too seldom.
Why do parents think that when you get older your little siblings need them more than you do?
Because they do. When you were a babe your parents gave you all they had. Now that you are older they do the same thing for your younger brothers and sisters. You are expected to understand this.
Hard words, yes. But very true ones. When you are a mother you will do the same. Sometimes the best you can do is to help your parents in all things to do with your younger siblings. This is one way to spend time with them.
Not good enough of an answer I know. But sometimes the best we can do is not good enough. Life is like that at times.
Why does a good young man get into a wreck and never walk again, but a young man in a gang who got shot will walk out of the hospital?
This question and all of its forms has been asked by every human being since Adam and Eve—better, since Cain and Abel. The short answer is that there is no worldly answer that will satisfy. The long answer is to leave such things to God. He is under no obligation to give you an answer. Job learned this lesson, yes?
If you love Him—and not with candle warmth but with an all-consuming fire—you will understand that He is in charge. These things happened because He allowed them too. He knows what He is doing.
Of course this answer might not satisfy, but then it is a question of getting on your knees and going to the source of all Love. One day you might not feel the need to know the answer, though.
Why do parents think they know what is best for you, even if they are wrong?
Because they are usually right. Where you are now they once were. And when they are wrong they do not know they are wrong. No one escapes this confusion. But some Carpenter said to ‘honor your mother and father.’ He did not say to do this only if you thought your parents were right.
Most parent-child questions will be solved when the child herself becomes a parent. Yes, I know: Not a great answer. But obedience to parents is seldom a crime, while rebellion to parents almost always is. The Old Testament is absolutely clear on this.
Rebellion in the home destroys families and nations. If you fear the state of our nation you need look no further than this.
Why can’t everything be fair?
You do not know what you are asking. A world where everything was ‘fair’ would be a totalitarian nightmare not fit for any human to live in. Was it ‘fair’ that Mozart played the violin superbly at 6? Of course not. Well then, let us break a few of his fingers so that he would play the same as everyone else.
Was it ‘fair’ that a Carpenter was executed for your crimes and for mine? No. But what sort of world would we have if this great ‘unfairness’ never occurred?
Fairness of opportunity is confused with fairness of outcome. But both are impossible. We are born with different traits and talents. This beautiful world celebrates such things. A world that did not would be intensely boring and not worth the time to live in.
When you find your life-time mate it will be the ultimate in unfairness that he loves you and does not love another. Will you complain at this unfairness? No, you will demand it.
What you really mean by ‘fairness’ is justice—the good are rewarded and the bad are punished. Human law does its best to achieve this. It regularly fails, but what of it? True justice is impossible on this earth. But we do the best we can.
Your question is one of theodicy. It has troubled theologians and philosophers for thousands of years. No answer in the here and now will suffice completely. You will have to wait until the There and Then.
Ok, enough for now. And of course my answers are too easy or simplistic or just not good enough. I plead guilty as charged.
Sometimes the questions asked by young men and young women have no answer in this world. Then it becomes simply a question of Love.
It is always a question of Love.
Something happened yesterday that reminded me of what is truly important in this life. Affairs of the present tend to blind one to the Eternal, forming little cobwebs in the mind and in the soul.
No piece of humanity was placed on this earth merely to be some cog in any political machine, however great that machine seems to its avatars. We are put here to serve the Son of the Living God. Created in Love, bound in Love, meant for Love Eternal, our entire point begins and ends in Eternity.
I was lecturing 8th graders on the sectionalism of our Republic in the early 1800s. As is usual, my teaching ‘style’—a rather grand description of the antics and bravado I use to engage the minds of adolescents—was at full on. I have no ‘volume control.’ All is ‘damn the torpedoes!’ or dead silence. Sure my colleagues next door complain a bit, but I am not here for them but for the students. And that is the simple truth of the matter.
At the end of my lecture there was silence. Not a creature stirred for some moments. Then there was applause. From 8th graders. In other words, from about the finest creatures on the planet.
Applause.
Thank you Christ. Thank you for reminding me of what matters just when I needed to be reminded.
I give you these words that summarize the position with great clarity.
Injurious Time,
What Age escapes thy curse?
Evil our grandfathers were,
Our fathers, worse.
And we, till now unmatched in ill,
Must leave successors,
More corrupted still.
Yipes! Doesn’t sound good for that generation.
Actually, that generation did quite well in History’s scheme of things. Those lines were penned by Horace (65 – 8 BC). In his lifetime he was witness to the fall of the Roman Republic, the rise of Julius Caesar, the wars of his assassins Brutus and Cassius, the struggles between Antony and Octavian, the wiles of Cleopatra, the coming to power of the first Roman emperor—Augustus by name—and the beginning of that 200 year long period of peace we call the Pax Romana.
Not bad for a generation that Horace called ‘unmatched in ill.’
It is enough to say that every generation since Cain and Abel has had to deal with the question of improving the next generation, of not leaving their own children ‘more corrupted still.’
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. Not even reports such as this one.
In what could give fraternities everywhere a bad name, a Delta Chi chapter in Colorado has been suspended after nine of its underage pledges were arrested early Sunday for allegedly trashing motel rooms that police found strewn with broken furniture and splattered with blood and vomit. Oh, and there was the matter of a coffee pot that had somehow been filled with urine…Bottles of liquor and a keg of ‘Keystone Light’ beer were found on scene. The pledges, who were apparently imbibing…
‘Apparently’?
Perhaps these callow lads were simply following some other lines from Horace.
Now is the time for drinking, now is the time to beat the earth with unfettered foot.
And if those boys were not enough for you, how about girls who wear outlandish hair, short skirts, listen to music intolerable to adults, flaunt accepted sexual behavior, put on gaudy makeup, smoke and drink, and otherwise laugh at societal conventions? What sort of kids would these ‘ladies’ have?
Oh, the sort of kids who would defeat the Japanese, the Italian fascists and the Nazis. The sort of kids who would be called ‘America’s Greatest Generation.’ The sort of kids who would found NATO, fight the Cold War and land men on the moon.
I have in front of me another description of kids at university, students who were more dissolute than the society all around them. They are used to having premarital sex, are comfortable around homosexuals, frequently engage in riots, fight among themselves, drink copious amounts of wine and beer, indulge in the hazing of newcomers, flaunt all authority and cheat on exams.
Radicals from the 1960s? Nope. Those words describe typical student life at a typical European university in the 13th century—the same century and the same institution that gave us Thomas Aquinas, Dante and the Renaissance.
I have heard since I became a sentient being about how rotten is the present generation of kids. Their clothing, their habits, their music, their attitudes, their adornments, their hair—and on and on and on. We need to remember that many of those teens who a few years back were giving their parents heart attacks are the same ones who joined the US military and have proved to be the most lethal and efficient fighting force the world has ever seen.
I do not counsel adults to relax their pressure upon the next generation. Hardly. I am in fact in the business of putting pressure upon the next generation. But I do counsel to put things in perspective. Our young are not as corrupt or ruined as they might at times seem.
And if you need a pithy tale to help you place the blame for any evils committed by teens these days, here is one for you.
There was a certain man in a certain town whose life had been dedicated to crime. As a boy he had preyed upon his own kind. As a youth he had advanced to robbery, as a young man he had committed many murders. Now he was facing the hangman. The townspeople gathered around to witness the young man’s execution, a man who had brought them much misery.
Among the people gathered there was the man’s mother. She was weeping for her son. As the man was being led to the gibbet he saw his mother. He begged the executioner to allow him one last moment with her. He relented, and the crowd thought that at last the man would redeem himself through a condemned man’s love for the woman who had bore him and raised him.
The man approached his tearful mother and bit off her nose.
He said to her, “If you had only guided me properly when I was young, I would not find myself here awaiting death.”
Ladies and gentlemen, do not fault youth if you yourself failed in the task of guiding them. If your own kids are evil, the blame lies in the person who leers back at you from the mirror.
Those adolescents sitting at their desks have a clearer understanding of what makes up this nation than do hordes of supreme court Pooh-Bahs and legions of lawyerly sophisticates.
The 1st Amendment riled them up when I explained that it protected the burning of an American flag. It was incomprehensible to them. It is incomprehensible to me.
I told them about an incident in Portland a few months ago where a group of protestors burned part of the flag then defecated upon what was left. Of course the witnesses to that event—it was the West Coast after all—cheered at such a brave act.
To have seen the reaction in my classroom is to have understood the differences between the Bible Belt and the Blue States. Let us just say that no such flag burning would happen here in Oklahoma City. Sure, it might be what the Supremes call ‘protected speech’ but that does not mean that it would be allowed. Just imagine if some fool actually pulled out a US flag here and began to torch it. Now imagine that a truck full of Okies was driving by and saw this.
Do the math.
A people who just stand around helplessly while barbarians burn the symbols of their civilization are ready for the slave pen. Trust that no student in that class will ever enter one.
I then brought up a case where a man was handing out pictures of rather attractive women who seemed not able to afford clothing, the poor things. Again, the little darlings sitting at their desks could not comprehend how pornography could be a form of ‘free speech.’
But then, no reasonable person could comprehend this either. It takes a hyper educated and be-robed lawyer to inform us lower types that the free promulgation of photos showing hetero- and homosexual gymnastics with man and beast lie at the very foundations of our freedom. Surely, we are told, this is what Madison and Washington and Hamilton really meant by the 1st Amendment.
So let me get this clear: Burn the US flag—protected speech. Show a women having intercourse with a farm animal—protected speech. But just mention the Ten Commandments at a high school graduation ceremony and the full power of the State will descend upon you in all its mighty fury.
The discussion of the 2nd Amendment served to point out that no matter the beauty and perfection of any constitution, the defense of it relies upon force. And this force must not be available only to the government and all its noisome minions, for that would lead to tyranny over the people. This was a point recognized by both Federalists and anti-Federalists during the ratification debate.
The thing that protects the people from the depredations of government is its possession of lethal force. For just as government itself has checks and balances among its constituent parts, so do the people serve as a check upon government power. No government can enslave an armed populace, a basic fact of political nature well understood by my students.
But then, they are Oklahomans. Most of them have been around guns all their lives. Such was once the normal way of things in this nation among all classes and regions. They responded as Oklahomans when I presented them with this problem: Imagine that some future US government demanded Oklahoma surrender its firearms and National Guard units to Washington. What would be the response of Oklahoma?
To a man they answered as did Leonidas to Xerxes: If the Feds in Washington want our weapons, they can come and get them.
It is a mere side effect, but a useful one, that the 2nd Amendment also protects the people against the depredations of private enterprise tyrants. These are commonly called ‘criminals.’ The right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ is useless without the right to carry a gun. An unarmed man in his home must rely upon the police—and good luck with that.
If some rapist breaks into your home while your daughter is there alone, the police—assuming they arrive—will have little to do other than get a description of the man from your daughter—assuming she survives.
An armed man has little need to dial 911.
I am at a parent-teacher conference. I sit on one side of a table across from the mother and the father of some kid who is having innumerable academic and social problems in school. The parents are divorced and each sees their child every other weekend. The kid is there too, sitting extremely uncomfortably across from and between a bunch of adults who are talking about him.
The parents bicker but do not look at each other—not once. Neither do they address one another—not once. Neither do they even acknowledge the other’s presence—not once.
Each declaims the reasons for the child’s difficulties. Each blames the kid, alternately looking at him and raising his voice and looking at me. The father will put on a fierce look and say something like, “I will knock some sense into him when he is at my home this weekend!” The mother will put on a world-weary look and say something like “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”
Meanwhile the unlucky kid is doing his best not to cry. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes not.
And through all of this waste of time it takes all of my control not to spit.
The problem has nothing to do with the kid. The problem has everything to do with the parents.
Years before the that wretched conference they had met. Something had passed between them—a look, a word, a soft touch—and in their bliss they believed that each was the one for whom the other was seeking. They said all the usual words, promised all the usual promises, felt all the usual feelings, did all the usual things.
Not long after their rapture they stood in front of a preacher man and a bunch of witnesses and vowed a series of vows that they would keep ‘until death do us part.’ Who would have then guessed that this new husband and wife would soon begin the dismantling of every vow, of every promise, of every obligation, taken on that day?
Very soon upon their marriage bed in one of the usual bursts of passion common to such folks they conceived a child. They were delirious with joy, naturally. Even after they held their child in their arms their passion continued for a while. Perhaps they even conceived another.
Then came the tedium common to raising children. You all know the routine. That is when things began to go amiss. The wife could not control her weight, though she tried very hard. The husband became buried under the responsibilities of his work. Tempers shortened all around, the wife demanding more attention and the husband demanding more understanding.
The marriage bed, once a place of ecstasy, became merely a place to sleep. Where once no man could even force a spoon between the sleeping bodies of the man and wife, there now opened up a chasm that no one dared cross.
They began to argue, first about petty things and then about big things. They yelled at each other—beyond each other—neither knowing nor caring that their little ones huddled behind the door. They shook with fear and cried big tears, and could not understand the horrible words their parents were screaming.
Then one day their father was gone. There were lawyers and bitterness and anger all around. The children could in no way comprehend what had happened. When they were with their father he went on and on about how awful their mother was. When they were with their mother she went on and on about how awful their father was.
The children learned about lying. And shoplifting. And drugs. And failing at school. Each parent blamed the other. Where once love ruled now was only hostility. They could not even stand to be in the other’s presence.
And so we all have now found ourselves sitting at a table at that conference. The parents need an answer but can only conjure up more acrimony—toward each other, toward their child. It is a waste of my time.
In a fantasy I see myself grabbing the two adults and shaking them like rats. I scream at them and say, “You selfish fools! You are the problem! You chose your own egos over love. Your lies and bitterness have spread to your children. Stop this! Stop this now!”
But I say nothing and silently curse my weakness. I nod my head at the useless suggestions to keep track of their child’s progress. The parents depart, dragging the poor kid with them. I hear their loud voices as they walk down the hall.
I sit alone in the classroom and mourn for that family, for all families like them. I gather my records and walk out, heading for the nearest bar.
FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE CLASSROOM
It is not really difficult to do so. Young teens are not at all stupid, not at all bigoted and not at all close minded. Appeals to reason work.
Would that such appeals worked with every adult.
The greatest amount of time spent peddling nonsense is occupied with environmentalist goo-goo. Here we see the usual childish pap: recycling, global warming silliness and rainforest idiocies. Teachers—mainly females at the lower levels—earnestly enlist their budding little charges in ‘green’ crusades. It amuses to see 6th graders oh-so-seriously going about the school from classroom to classroom with boxes to pick up paper.
Never mind that in earlier, more rational ages we would call such paper what it really was, trash. And such detritus of teaching would always find its final resting place in a garbage can where it belonged—where it still belongs.
Yes, such activity amuses. But I do not try to stop this nonsense. I learned long ago not to attempt to inject logic into a conversation with an ‘green’ adult about the environment. It is a complete and utter waste of time. No adult ego could possible survive having his cherished fantasies destroyed. So I leave such in peace, much as I would a homeless vagrant muttering to herself while pushing a shopping cart down the street.
It marvels that teachers think that enthusiasm for recycling equals a ‘concern for the environment.’ Here is what a teacher will say to her class:
Well boys and girls, who would like to collect the school’s recycling today?
Here is what the kids hear:
Hey kids! Who would like to leave this boring class filled with writing and reading and arithmetic and head out with one of your pals and go to every classroom—of course taking your sweet time—collecting paper? You then get to head out to the ‘recycling bin’ outdoors and goof off there where no one can see you!
Naturally every little hand shoots straight into the air. Like I said, kids are not stupid.
Another oddity of schoolhouse recycling idiocy is that no ‘green’ teacher I have ever known or heard about mentions basic economics. They are as innocent of the Dismal Science as politicians are of honor. For the most simple fact of Econ 101 is Opportunity Cost.
In economics, opportunity cost, or economic cost, is the cost of something in terms of an opportunity forgone (and the benefits which could be received from that opportunity), or the most valuable forgone alternative (or highest-valued option forgone), i.e. the second best alternative.
Every moment spent teaching environmental foolishness is a moment not spent teaching grammar or spelling or multiplication tables. The quickest way to increase test scores all around would be by the simple expedient of banning recycling and its attendant idiocies from the classroom.
Alas, recycling is not the only goofy ‘green’ thing pushed into the classroom to the detriment of real teaching. We need not unduly detain ourselves other than to mention a couple of them.
Of course we have ‘global warming,’ or as it is currently packaged, ‘climate change.’ It is taught as science, as received wisdom as thus immune to challenge. No contrary arguments are presented. Indeed, perhaps the teacher is simply ignorant of them. It is fun to present to my charges the fact that as recently as 1974 the Big Thing was…global cooling. The same arguments we hear today about ‘global warming’ were made then about ‘global cooling.’
Even if temperature and rainfall patterns change only slightly in the near future in one or more of the three major grain-exporting countries—the U.S., Canada and Australia —global food stores would be sharply reduced.
Sounds familiar, yes?
Elementary and middle schools are chock-a-block full of ‘rain forest’—formerly known as ‘the jungle’—platitudes. The silliest of them is that the jungle offers myriad cures for a whole host of ailments, up to and including AIDS. Thus, it must be preserved at all costs.
The reality is—like so much of the green hoopla—entirely different. The jungle is host to the most bizarre and debilitating diseases known to man. Many are frightful and incurable. But it is even worse than that. Everywhere one wanders in the jungle one encounters death. It walks and crawls and flies and slithers and creeps along and wriggles into your flesh. Any man dropped into the tropical rainforest without the accoutrements of civilization would be dead in a week.
Such is the nightmare presented to our children as some Edenic Arcadia.
The childishness of environmentalism is clear when we see how it is taught in the classroom, using coloring books and cartoon characters. And all of this silliness is ladled with fear, of spooky tales of vanishing polar bears, disappearing ice caps and penguins in the desert.
Imagine if algebra were taught using fear and coloring books.
But like I said, kids are not idiots. They have brains and they will use them.
Would that those who teach environmentalism did likewise.
Here are the main excuses of those who claim Christianity but avoid all the heavy lifting that faith demands.
If you say, “Well, I believe in God.” Good for you! So does Satan. He desires to dethrone Him.
If you say, “Well, I talk to God.” Good for you! So does Satan. See the Book of Job for just one example of Satan talking to God.
If you say, “Well, I know Scripture.” Good for you! So does Satan. He quoted it liberally and cleverly to our Lord when He was doing His 40 days and 40 nights.
If you say, “Well, I attend church.” Good for you! So does Satan. For there is where he preys. As a hunter heads to the forest so Satan heads to church.
If you say, “Well, I do good works.” Good for you! So does Satan. His entire game plan involves making evil seem like good works.
If those five things are what you call ‘Christianity’ then congratulations! Your ‘faith’ is on the same level as the ‘faith’ of Satan. And your wages will be equal to his.
Harsh words? Yes. They are meant to be. For there is much at stake.
But one thing at a time.
When a man says he believes in God the proper response is to ask him which god. For there are many gods. The most common ones are the gods of pornography, power, lust and money. Our nation is littered with those who worship these beings. And these beings are jealous gods. Like the God of Abraham—another jealous fellow—they desire you from top to bottom.
If you worship one of these gods—let us call them demons, for that is what they are—and try to end the relationship, all Hell breaks loose. Literally. For you are a prisoner and your god has no intention of letting you go. In fact you will not be able to leave unless you enlist the aid of a God more powerful than the god who has you ensnared. There will be war and the winner will claim your very soul. As in any war there will be casualties and damage.
Please tell me what good it is to talk to God if you refuse to listen to what He says? You will find the conversation a bit one sided. You are really just taking to yourself. This is like masturbating and thinking you are married.
There is no point in talking to God if all you want to do is justify yourself. For such power is not in you. It is in Him. And He will do that if you allow Him to. But the first thing you must do is shut up. Then listen. Then obey. Please do not omit that last step.
You have my permission to memorize the entire Bible. My hat will be off to you if you do. But such a feat is not to be confused with Christianity. Oh, I know there are many folks who claim otherwise. They are mistaken. When Christ sent off the 70 two by two to spread His teachings he said nothing about taking Scripture although everything from Genesis to Micah was available. And He was quite precise about what they should take with them.
Many prattle on and on about the Bible being all that is needed for Salvation. They seem to think that entrance to Eternity is like passing an exam. A moment after your death you will not be quizzed about Luke 10:3 or Psalm 84:10. You will be asked if you had fed the hungry, clothed the naked and comforted the widow and orphan. Be ready with an answer. Do not even think about lying.
Head to Church every Sunday but do not be so foolish as to think that Satan will not be there. For Christians are tasty morsels indeed. And they most conveniently get together in one place every Sunday. Let us call it ‘one stop shopping.’
If you have ever been in a Church you have been tempted—perhaps a pretty girl was sitting a few pews away, or you become angry when the pastor admonished his flock to repent. Now, please tell me just who in Hell was doing the tempting?
Oh, you have never been tempted? Then be very afraid. Satan tempts those who are worth tempting. He tempted Christ. If he does not tempt you then you are already on his side and he need not bother with you. Good luck.
Forget about preening yourself because you claim to do good works. For unless you love the Source of all good, you have no idea what good is. You may as well drive down a darkened highway at night with no lights on. As soon as you come to a turn you are a dead man—as is everyone else who foolishly went with you. Any good driving you accomplished before your death is entirely accidental.
But don’t believe me. Believe this Guy.
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matt. 7:21-23)
Works for me.
So what does it mean then to be a Christian? It means that Christ has taken up residence inside you. He is making you into a ‘little Christ.’ He will do whatever is necessary to accomplish this. It will hurt. It is meant to. So stop complaining about it and get to it.
And by all means believe and talk and attend and know and do. But do not stop there, for the journey does not end there. I does not even begin there. It begins when you are on your knees.
Start today. Right now. This instant if you can.
The cost of putting them into my heart has been exorbitant but not frightful, and certainly less than that paid by Aeschylus’ Agamemnon:
In visions of the night, like dropping rain,
Descend the many memories of pain
Before the spirit’s sight: through tears and sorrow
Comes wisdom over the unwilling soul.
Such poetry is necessary and welcome in the Orwellian times in which we live, times where we are told that black is really white, evil is really good, treason is really honor, truth is really relative. We are as Dr. Johnson would have us, ‘of needing to be reminded more than instructed.’
We need to be reminded that our problems are not unique, that other peoples in far-off lands and long-ago ages either survived them or succumbed to them. So will we.
Here are some reminders.
Drink wine now and again. Jesus did.
Show kindness to all children. Jesus did.
Forgive your enemies. Jesus did.
Do not lie to children. Better, do not lie at all.
Never trust the person who looks back at you in the mirror. He is your worst enemy. You may laugh at him, however.
God made the world not for Himself, but for you. Go see it.
Man makes cities. God makes Mountains. And Jungles. And Forests. And Glaciers. And Canyons. And Valleys.
There is no sin in God’s wilderness unless you bring it with you.
At the end of periods of great pain often lies great joy.
Go to a Church or Synagogue or Temple or Mosque as often as you can.
The world does not care about your problems.
Never refuse a favor.
Break the habit of using foul language.
You cannot love too much. You can, however, love improperly.
The world hated Christ. It will hate His followers.
If you invite Christ to come into your heart, remember that He is a Carpenter. He will bring His tool box. Expect changes.
There are no fools in Heaven. There are no fools in Hell. At death every man will be able to see his life as it really was. Some will rejoice in this knowledge. Some will not.
One either serves God or serves Lucifer. There are no exceptions. Choose. Do so this instant.
Remember that you are mortal.
You cannot know when you will die. You can, however, choose how you will meet your death.
Gold is rare and costly. So is Honor. So is Chastity.
Give away as much of yourself as you can.
You cannot understand Love until you empty yourself.
The world knows its own. Christ knows His own. No one belongs to both Christ and the world.
You are not a Christian because you believe in God. Even Satan believes in God. You are a Christian if you follow God.
Everyone in Hell believes in God.
True freedom is internal.
Life is priceless. Death does not end it.
What comes out of a man is vastly more important than what goes into him.
If you have not read the Bible do not comment on Christianity. Or on God.
When most people say ‘God is love’ what they really mean is ‘Love is God.’
Jesus died on the Cross. The Christian must join Him there.
You know no bondage until you are a slave to sin. You know no freedom until those bonds are broken.
There is never a reason for rudeness or unkindness or cruelty.
Spend time alone.
Being alone is not the same thing as being lonely.
A clean heart will not lie to you.
Both Good and Evil echo for years.
The higher you climb, the fewer the people but the clearer the view.
There is nothing remotely as joyful as being clean on the inside.
You are free to break the Moral Law but you cannot avoid the consequences of doing so.
Call your mother more often. Right now if you can. One day you will not be able to.
Reward the Spirit. But punish the Flesh.
Avoid those who are morally unclean. They pollute all they touch.
Learn how to be silent.
And good Lord, at the very least learn the last one. You need not always give an opinion, proffer advice or submit commentary. Often your silence is telling, and a listener might even learn something from it.
So will you.
The name of my course is ‘8th Grade US History’ or something like that. But the real course of study is life. I will give my students my version of it. They will take what they can use and write their own version of it. When they are husbands and fathers and wives and mothers perhaps they will remember.
They are at that age where they can look at adults and know the things that are right and the things that are not. And they will mark them accordingly.
Perhaps I did the same thing when I was in 8th grade. My teacher was Mr. Mansfield. He smoked cigarettes. Some of the other boys claimed to take a puff now and then. I did not dare. There was something vaguely sinister about smoking. It marked you as a tough guy and more than a little bit of an outlaw. I remember that the guys who smoked—or who claimed to smoke—always got the bad grades. The girls liked them, though.
I was no outlaw then—I became one later—but I still did my share of rash behavior. Once Bobby Kohn and I made hydrogen gas. We would put tin snips from a tuna can into a Coke bottle, add water and Drano and then put a balloon over the mouth of the bottle. The balloon would fill with hydrogen. When full we would take the balloon, tie it off and put on another.
Soon Bobby and I had a small arsenal of floating bombs. We got some fuse and tied about 10 feet of it onto each balloon and let them float away after lighting the fuse. The bomb got about 20 feet in the air before exploding—very loudly, thank you very much.
Once Bobby miscalculated the length of fuse, and the bomb went off while he still held it. He lost his eyebrows and much of his hair. And he did not see very well for a while. But after about a month all the hair grew back.
The last I heard of Bobby was that he had joined the Marine Corps.
When I tell this tale to 8th grade boys every one of them, even the timid ones, beg me for the recipe for hydrogen. Not a chance. They will have to devise their own brands of mischief and not copy mine.
I also refuse to provide them the makings of a crude bomb I constructed before my 8th grade years. And should I say that Bobby helped me? The bomb was small but effective. We tried it out on Saint Anthony’s outdoor drinking faucet. I still remember the beautiful stream of water that flowed when the bomb went off.
And I remember what Father Carroll did when he found out who had demolished the school’s outdoor plumbing. He was one mad priest. When I see him in Heaven I will apologize—for the bomb and also for stealing Holy Water. I don’t think he ever found out about that.
That summer before 8th grade was memorable for pyrotechnics and also for two rites of passage every boy must endure. I kissed my first girl and fought my first fight. I liked the kiss better. Her name was Millie. She had long blond hair and was a bit of a tomboy. She liked me though for reasons that today escape me. I can still conjure up her face.
The fight scared me. All boys will understand. When you know you have to fight there is a sensation that passes through your gut. It is exactly the same feeling a boy gets at his first school dance when he knows he has to meet a girl. You breathe differently and time goes in short bursts. But after the first blow all is well. There is no pain, only a desire to hurt the other boy until he is on the ground. I won that one and became the hero of the day. I lost my next two fights but emerged victorious in my last one—an acceptable record.
Those 8th graders I will stand before today will have similar things to tell their sons and daughters. By that time I will be either dead or well-retired somewhere in northern Idaho. I can see myself living in a one room shack. I will sit on the porch in a wife beater and rock in my wooden rocking chair. In my lap I will cradle a 12 gauge. On a crude stand next to the chair will be a half-empty—not half-full—bottle of Jack Daniels. Next to the bottle will be my Bible.
And what the heck, I might even have a pack of Marlboros next to the Bible.
If one of my ex-students comes for a visit I might—I say might—surrender that recipe for making hydrogen. As for the Saint Anthony’s plumbing bomb, that recipe is only for Father Carroll.
I will tell him when I see him.
And at last I clearly see the awful consequences of one week’s procrastination. And that crime against humanity is exactly what teachers and parents have railed against in students for 6000 years.
And so I have sinned. I have put off until tomorrow those things I should have done today. The results are strewn everywhere in my apartment—homework, essays, exams, quizzes. I stare at these mountains of things with shock and awe. It is enough to make one scream.
And I have screamed. I scream still. At my own sloth. And through all my self-pity those essays are with me yet, tugging at my sleeve like demanding and persistent children.
Ok. Enough hand-wringing. Enough wailing and gnashing of teeth. Time to get down to business. Time to get out the red pens and get to grading.
And time to heed the words of the writer of Proverbs (6:4-9).
Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
…How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
This weekend will be devoted to getting every bit of my work done—and getting to Confession and getting in some miles on bike and foot. There will be little time for pithy commentary on the latest political silliness.
But I do not worry, as such things are an unending stream from which any writer can dip any time he wishes.
This is one of those Indisputable Facts of the Universe that are obvious to anyone who knows anything at all about adolescents.
When girls outnumber boys the boys will compete with each other to earn the attention of the girls. When boys outnumber girls the boys will compete with each other to earn the attention of other boys.
Both boys and girls would be better served if classes were segregated by gender. There would be fewer interruptions caused by boyish vulgarities and female to male eye-gazing.
Now comes this statement of the obvious from Washington.
After a two-year wait, the Education Department issued final rules today detailing how it will enforce the Title IX landmark anti-discrimination law. Under the change taking effect Nov. 24, local school leaders will have discretion to create same-sex classes for subjects such as math, a grade level or even an entire school.
“Some students may learn better in single-sex education environments,” Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said. “These final regulations permit communities to establish single-sex schools and classes as another means of meeting the needs of students.”
Education officials initially proposed the rules in early 2004, pointing to some U.S. research suggesting better student achievement and fewer discipline problems in single-sex classes including math and foreign languages.
And who could be against this? Well, the usual suspects are. Here is blather and idiocy from those masters of same, the National Organization of (Empty Wombed, Lonely and Lesbian) Women. These grotesqueries first try to destroy our children in the womb—NOW’s own version of No Child Left Behind—then go after those lucky ones who got away.
The National Organization for Women says it creates the risk of breeding second-class citizens. The American Association of University Women has said it would “throw out the most basic legal standards prohibiting sex discrimination in education.”
No comment needed from me. My readers can see through such fatuousness.
Anything done in the classroom to lessen the influence of government and increase the influence of parents and teachers is a good thing.
From Bush giving Ted Kennedy a hug after the stupidities of No Child Left Behind to this is quite a leap. And it took him only five long years.
But the best thing Bush or anyone could do to improve our public schools is to demolish the Education Department and get the federal government out of the business of schooling altogether.
I await this with held breath.
I just came off a four-day break and still those essays remain un-graded, not even looked at, a set of forlorn and ignored duties that are now tugging at my elbow like a three year old demanding attention.
What did I do with those four days? Before they began I was all a-wonder about all that free time coming right up. Now that it is passed me by I am all a-wonder about how to find time—what a strange phrase, ‘to find time.’ Is she lost?—to get those pesky essays done.
Time stuns me with her perversity. I have lived through moments when she went haywire, all sideways and slow-mo with fits and starts and ups and downs. Time acted thus when I came upon a murder scene while serving in the Air Force. Some drunk had blasted away at his once lovely wife with a .44 Magnum. I saw the result. That was some powerful gun.
I have lived through moments when she would not end, as if the same instant seemed to stretch itself into Eternity like an unbreakable rubber band. It was like that with the first wife. Or the second. I forget which.
Horace in his 10th Ode had a dim view of time.
Injurious Time,
What age escapes thy curse!
Evil our Grandfathers were,
Our fathers, worse.
And we, till now unmatched in ill,
Must leave successors
More corrupted still.
The old Roman had it about right I think.
Time plays with us. I cannot say if she is being playful like a mother with a newborn or playful like a cat with a mouse between its paws.
In September of 2003 I was seven days out from Cuzco, Peru. I was alone in the Andes walking some 150 miles from Inca ruin to Inca ruin. I set my tent in some pasture among a horde of cattle. The day had been a long one, which is another way to say that time had favored me. She had slowed herself just for me.
I was in some valley with neither water nor campsite. And the road went on forever. Up and up, over hill and dale, always more and more. I was thirsty and tired. Time felt pity at such a fool who would venture out alone in such an inhospitable land. I swear to this day that time pulled a Joshua. She stopped the sun for hours until I found those cattle and their pasture and lots of water. By God, that was a long day.
Thank you, maam.
Alas, those essays still await me, curse them! So it is off to work I go.
But—and there is always a ‘but’—I used the wrong word. What I do is not ‘work’ in the usual sense. It is not the curse of Adam, ‘to toil all the days of my life.’ It is something else, something more, something higher, something—timeless. (There’s that word again.)
Teaching has only one foot in time. The other reaches into the well-springs of Eternity.
Alas! Much to do and only a few days to get it all done. Grading that is; grading and working with new software mandated—a word that means ‘do it or else’—by the Oklahoma City School District.
The idea itself is cool. All teachers in Oklahoma City will keep their grades, assignments, comments, progress reports and such on a server. Anyone with a password can have access to all of this, but only teachers can actually enter things there. So now parents can log on anywhere to see the progress of their child, how many days he was absent and so on.
The problem is that, as with any government bureaucracy, inefficiency and sloth are rife. The software is a bit buggy as well. Questions from teachers to the educrats downtown often go unanswered or misunderstood. Stress rises in the district and among the teachers. And all must be accomplished by this Thursday—thus sayeth the district educrats.
So things are a bit frenzied around here. I will have all the information entered, but ofttimes what happens then is a cyber-mystery. I remember last year when the server simply ‘lost’ all my grades and I had to rebuild everything. That was a great deal of wasted time—one specialty of bureaucracies everywhere.
So I will not be posting today or maybe—alas!—tomorrow. I have many ideas in my fecund mind: an essay on the comparative morality of the Vikings and of our modern age; writing of the battle of Cannae; a discussion of witchcraft; writing about whatever strikes my fancy while sitting at my computer at 2:30 AM every morning—always with a percolator of Joe.
All in due course. For writing is a passion, a hunger that must be fed.
But, it is not sufficient when children and young people only learn abilities and technical know-how in school, but learn no (moral) standards that give meaning and direction to ability. Encourage the students to not only ask about this or that, that is fine, but to above all ask about the Where from and the Where to of our life.
I teach history. Any fool could teach it—and many fools do. One could simply hand the text to students, have them read a section and then give them a standardized test. Done! Now move on to the next chapter.
Quick. Easy. Painless.
And entirely worthless, mere twaddle.
May I ask what is the point of having an adult in a classroom if he will not or cannot give to young men and women whatever wisdom he has accumulated in his life?
Life is a hard master but she is a thorough one. What she teaches cannot be got from books. It must be learned in the old fashioned way, through toil, blood, sweat and tears. There is no other way. Once learned the lessons are seldom forgotten.
The teacher is obligated to pass all of what he has learned from life—the glorious victories, the glorious defeats—on to the next generation. He has no other task. If he cannot do this he is in the wrong line of work.
Children do not know how to live. They must be taught it, just as we were. If a school will not allow a teacher to teach in this way he needs to find a school that will.
All the money and education departments and teacher training schools and ‘no child left behind’ initiatives are as rubbish if a child is not taught wisdom.