Weekly sweatdrops

Little Johnny Slide-Along:

An Allegorical Type of Tale

After six years of teaching English at Huntington Park High School, I can’t help but become amused at all of the political rancor surrounding LA Unified and its “underperforming” high schools. Organizations and individuals with a financial stake in any one interpretation or set of solutions will shout their proposals from rooftops. Many of us on the front lines (so to speak) remain taciturn out of fears of petty recrimination. After six years, I have a story to tell. Like an English teacher, I will communicate with an extended metaphor. This story is about a medical hospital, but it isn’t really about a hospital. The hospital represents a high school. The medicine dispensed in it represents education in the forms of knowledge and the mental skills needed to use it. The other parallels are easily recognizable, especially to teachers who have been at the job for several years.

The story begins with little Johnny “Slide-Along.” Johnny’s parents are concerned that he isn’t functioning well and commit him to the care of “Horse’s Rear End Memorial Hospital.” The Doctors there performed a battery of diagnostic tests and prescribed a medicinal elixir which if taken daily will heal the ailment and allow little Johnny Slide-Along to function successfully in the future. This should be the end of the story, right?

Well, here’s the catch. Little Johnny must actually consume this medicine, more specifically, put it in his mouth and swallow it. It requires an act of human volition that only he can exercise. The doctors can’t do it for him outside of pinning him to a bed and stuffing a medicine filled turkey baster down his throat.

You see the problem comes into play in this way. Johnny doesn’t like the taste of the elixir. It isn’t pleasant to him, and Johnny is accustomed to only doing things that please him and please him immediately. In a world of internet porn, computer games, and MTV, Johnny cannot understand the concepts of long term benefits and delayed gratification. He only understands that the medicine “tastes nasty,” and he therefore doesn’t want to consume it. This is an easy problem to perceive and address appropriately, but not at Horse’s Rear End Memorial. Common sense is a bit elusive at that institution.

The administrators at Horse’s Rear End Memorial Hospital hired very expensive experts to examine the situation. These expensive experts claimed that the problem lay in the delivery of the medicine. They recommended very expensive training sessions in which they would train the doctors to use such delivery methods as, “Here Comes the Choo-Choo,” and “Open Wide for the Airplane.”

Johnny was humored by these games and played along with them mostly because he enjoyed watching the doctors make fools out of themselves. The medicine still tasted nasty, and Johnny simply waited for their backs to be turned so that he could spit it out into a sink or napkin. Johnny’s condition did not improve.

The Administrators were puzzled and decided to hire a new set of very expensive experts who informed them that the problem could be solved by turning the act of medicine taking into a cooperative effort. What the hospital needed to do was find all of the other children who were in a similar condition and put them together into a team of medicine takers with tasks assigned to each team member such as delivery handler, bottle pourer, spoon measurer etc. Johnny was thrilled with this idea. It was rollicking good fun. The adolescents ended up spitting the medicine out at each other and feeding it to the cat; but only one of the youngsters actually consumed it herself, and she ended up consuming everyone else’s allotment in her group in addition to her own. This girl got better, but Johnny’s condition did not improve. Even though he had great fun, the medicine still tasted nasty, and he wasn’t going to swallow it. 

The next group of very expensive experts hired by the administrators of Horse’s Rear End Memorial Hospital was a tad more intelligent than the previous ones had been. They asked Johnny what the problem was, and he told them. Their solution was to coat the medicine with a sugary substance in order to disguise the taste. This seemed to work. Johnny began to take the medicine, but the sugary substance chemically interacted with the medicine leaving it only minimally effective. After a while, Johnny decided that the taste was no longer nasty, but it still wasn’t good enough to swallow. He returned to his hide and spit evasion tactics. Perhaps he was just enjoying all of the fuss and worrying that centered around him. In any case, Johnny’s condition still did not improve.

Finally Johnny’s grandma got involved. Grandma was from a different generation, and she was utterly confused by all of the nonsense. She went to visit Johnny in the hospital. “Listen here, you little brat.” She whispered sweetly in his ear. “Remember that new ipod I promised you for your birthday? Well, you’re not getting it until I know you’ve been taking your medicine. I will be here every day to make sure you do.”

Grandma was true to her word. She came to the hospital every day. She spoon fed Johnny his medicine and then watched him to make sure that he swallowed it. For the first time, Johnny’s condition improved.

Johnny still didn’t like taking the nasty tasting medicine and he whined about it daily. Grandma ignored him. Mommy and Daddy were disturbed by Johnny’s apparent unhappiness. They didn’t want him to feel so bad, and pleaded with Grandma to just give Johnny the ipod because surely Johnny had learned his lesson by now. Grandma finally got annoyed enough with Johnny’s parents that she relented. She turned over the ipod and went back home, shaking her head. Johnny was happy again. He enthusiastically returned to his hide and spit evasion tactics, while his health began to deteriorate again.

So how does the story end? Well, that’s open to debate. There are a number of possible endings.

In one ending little Johnny dies. The parents sue the hospital, and the administrators fire all of the doctors since Johnny was under their care, and he was their responsibility. The administrators hire orderlies and candy stripers to replace the doctors. The replacements know very little about medical science, but they can be trained successfully in such as essentials as “Here Comes the Choo-Choo,” and “Open Wide for the Airplane.”

In another ending the doctors manage to get just enough medicine into Johnny’s system that he survives, but is unnecessarily crippled for life by his ailment. The administrators gloss over the situation and claim great success in curing little Johnny. We’ve all heard this kind of talk “The glass isn’t half empty. It’s half full.” Or more to the point:--“The high school exit exam doesn’t measure everything you need to know.”

It is also possible that Johnny’s parents could turn over the situation to Grandma. But Grandma will need another form of negative consequence. She gave Johnny the ipod already. An ending like that one wouldn’t be appreciated today anyway. Punishment is considered to be so 19^th century. We’ve made such advances as a society since the 19^th century. For instance, we all know how illiterate people were a hundred years ago.

Cultural Conflict, Immigration, and Education: What's going on?

Student Walk-Outs, Boycotts, and the Usual High School Circus Show

This is part of an email that I sent out to friends and colleagues from school:

It’s Thursday. The kids on C track are dismissed until the next school year begins in July. Teachers are no longer being tortured with meetings. We had a whole day session Tuesday – a waste, except that we get paid with tax dollar money and got fed handsomely. OH, the great small learning community conundrum – the point is to create a place where kids can be nurtured by adults who know them and care for them. This will allegedly alleviate the disaffection and alienation of today’s youth. Gee, I felt alienated and disaffected, but I made it through adolescence. Then again, I had parents who insisted on certain behaviors and really didn’t care about my emotional comfort. We didn’t have “gangster rap” in the seventies either. You cannot structure nor legislate such things as nurture and responsibility.

 

The great irony of the small learning community impulse is that good intentions get thwarted by incompetence and ego. – almost thematic in public education isn’t it?

 

I don’t have any great confidence in Mayor Antonio. Yes, he wants to attack the downtown cesspool on Beaudry Avenue, but he still pays vocal allegiance to the pity party mentality – oh the poor children, the schools have failed them. I’m sorry, but when you sit on your ass and do nothing, it is not the fault of the school. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the problem is.

 

Profound cultural differences are being highlighted in the events we have seen recently. Those of us with Leftist political leanings have a tendency to view the world in terms of oppressor vs. victim, but the issues are larger and more complicated than that. One photo with its caption that captured the problem, albeit inadvertently, was one that showed high school girls laughing and carrying a banner that read, “We are hard workers.”

 

“Oh Really?” I said to myself as I studied this photo. “I’ve been teaching you clowns now for close to seven years. Yes, I’ve enjoyed being with you and watching you get older, but I sure haven’t seen much evidence of hard academic work.” Ditching school is considered to be an effective means of getting back at the system? Can anyone truly believe that you are doing “the man” a favor by participating in free public education and punishing the powers that be by stepping outside of it? C’mon people, what’s wrong with this idea?

 

On May first who suffered more? – the citizens of Brentwood or the owners of corner grocery stores in East LA? Let me draw up an analogy, shooting yourself in the foot does not showcase the right to bear arms in a favorable light. Some very fuzzy thinking is occurring in the minds of would-be revolutionaries.

 

A friend who lives in Palos Verdes commented to me, “Oh, well, if they don’t want my tax money to go toward the education of their children, then that’s okay with me.” What could I say in response?

 

A teacher at Huntington Park High School approached me on May Day. Apparently, one third of the student body was absent that day. She has been teaching high school for over 20 years. She prefaced her opinions with an apology. She felt guilty about thinking these things, but she had to confess that if the school district were NOT forced to accommodate poorly prepared children of immigrants, then we would no longer be stretched beyond capacity. We would be better able to run a high school and conduct education expeditiously. She concluded, “I understand the point they want to make, but they are doing a very poor job of making it.” I had to agree with her.

 

What are the cultural differences that are being spotlighted? First of all, I believe (and tell me if you think I’m wrong) that in North America we are used to a certain degree of “grass roots” democratic involvement that does not traditionally exist in Mexico or Central America. Rules of society here are expected to reflect a kind of consensus and rationality. They are not expected to be arbitrary and unreasonable. When perceived as such, we have the freedom to, at least, speak out and initiate various forms of redress to change the rules. I say these things are expected and perceived because whether such democratic powers really exist in a corporate oligarchy is up for debate. Nevertheless, the expectation of justice exists.

 

I don’t see the same expectations in my Mexican friends and associates. The rules of society (and of the classroom) are obstacles in the playing field. - things to get around if at all possible. They must be dealt with in some way, but bribery, special favors, and clandestine tactics are the preferred methods. Laws are not guideposts in any way, but arbitrary, and capricious in nature. This is the expectation. Hence, the shameless use of forgery, cheating, and lies. I have seen this first hand. I know what I’m talking about.

 

“You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back.” We’ve heard this expression in English and understand its meaning, but the underlying meaning runs deeper in the minds of my Mexican and Central American friends and associates. There is a kind of supremacy of personal relationship that is foreign to North American cultural assumptions. Regulations on paper are always subordinate to relationships. Grades in school should mirror relationships in at least some small way. There is no such thing in the minds of many of my students as simply earning scores in a strictly objective sense, no matter how much you explain how it is supposed to work to them. A few of them get it. These are the ones who assimilate themselves more quickly.

 

The supremacy of relationship displays itself when school Administrators from Latin American backgrounds deal with Anglo subordinates. Many just cannot understand why we don’t actively court their favor rather than attempt to discuss policy and call them to task for not fulfilling objective regulations. “How dare we?” They seem to be thinking. In this mind-set, society is one big family in which some members just naturally hold more power than others. Back scratching takes on different forms depending on the power a person possesses.

 

I remember sitting in a bar years ago. I was sitting next to a Latino guy who spoke native English. Somebody came along to invite him to a party to be held later that week. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Let’s have a party. That’s what the Mexican people are all about.” At the time I chuckled at what I thought was an exaggeration. Now, I’m not so sure. Economic advancement requires a degree of consistent planning and suspension of immediate pleasure that eludes the typical macho male. Immediate gratification seems to win the day most every day. The Mexican-American women seem to understand what it takes to plan and work toward the future, but their options are often limited. White collar salaries and child rearing duties stifle their plans.

 

So what do I think of the illegal immigrant issue? We are all immigrants. This is true. Our economy is dependent on cheap labor. This is true. At the same time, I am apprehensive about the Mexico that illegal immigrants are bringing with them – apprehensive enough that I am reluctant to see some kind of open door policy instated.

 

Do I want to laud and hold up American culture as some kind of ideal? – hardly. I believe many of our cultural assumptions are naïve, lacking in understanding of human nature. We have it in our capacity as a culture to stomp another human being to death and justify it with convoluted reasoning and twisted ramifications of legalities; whereas our darker skinned friends would have an instant instinctive reaction of empathy to human stomping – no questions, no reasoning needed.

 

I once gave my students an assignment to find a saying that reflects some kind of cultural value. I encouraged them to find sayings in Spanish and translate them for me into English. Many of the adages that they offered were actually bits of Franklin’s Poor Richards Almanac that had found their way into Spanish. The kids didn’t realize this, of course. But then I read something that I hadn’t heard before. “The heart doesn’t feel what the eyes cannot see.” I was horrified by this. We don’t have any proverb or adage like this in the English language – not one that is held up as something for people to follow.

 

Later, I thought more about the proverb and could see a bit of wisdom in it – wisdom that sometimes escapes us in the north. Human society will always have lies embedded in it – at least on this side of Kingdom come. The context of lies mediates the gravity of them. One way of looking at the proverb is to say that it acknowledges unavoidable guilt as a part of the human predicament, but instructs the liar to regard the emotional state of the person being deceived. Truth is to be valued, yet individual perfection can never be achieved through the injury of other human beings, even if done by honest means. We don’t quite understand such concepts in Anglo culture.

 

Even so, I will not give in to what I see as a “Tijuana-ization” of public education in LA County. In this aspect of human society, I look on the cultural differences between Latin America and ourselves as liabilities we need to help some of them overcome. Our Health care, our safety, and our technological well-being depend on it. The U.S. is guilty of many horrible crimes in its history and in the world today. I don’t believe that the internal problems of Mexico are among them. When it comes to public education, I don’t like seeing these problems imported, and will continue to resist this process.