You’re Not So Sure of Yourself, Are You? Good! Skill of Thought , Part 3

It seems like people value confidence and correctness. We hate to admit we are wrong. We trust people who convince us that they really know what they are talking about. When someone wavers, we see it as a lack of expertise. We wonder if we should believe their opinion. 

That’s unfortunate because doubt is the sign of both wisdom and knowledge. 

Each year, I would ask my comparative religion students to tell me something on which they thought everyone could agree. They struggled. Often, we came down to something like 2 + 2 = 4, although George Orwell might disagree. 

There is a reason why we can’t agree on much and there is nothing wrong with that. It is because questioning, doubt, skepticism, and thinking from multiple perspectives are crucial to strong thinking. 

This does not mean that everything is unknowable. Quite the reverse, one way that we do know things is because we doubt them, test them, rethink them, and apply them. This way we discover what is true and then test it when new questions arise. 

When someone says they hold something as true and have no doubts, I hope the real statement is that they have no doubts right now. They had some once and resolved them. They know that it is likely that they will have doubts again. They are in between doubts. They are checking out doubts about other things and this particular thing will have to wait its turn. 

There is a proverb that says that a fool has no doubts and a wise person has too many. Doubt can be crippling. It can prevent us from taking important action. However, the lack of doubts can make us rush in where even fools fear to tread. When we have no doubts, we may be overconfident and impulsive. A person who has no doubts probably doesn’t know enough – or is denying their doubts. 

Sometimes, we have doubts, but we wish we didn’t. We want something to be true. We need it to be true. We wish it were true – really, really badly. We swallow and silence our doubts because listening to them erodes our fragile beliefs. We know that what we think cannot stand up to scrutiny and we wish it could. That’s a sign that our thinking needs strengthening. That’s just wishful thinking. 

When people change their minds, our politicians “flip” their views, or scientists update or alter what they consider fact, we should celebrate! Wrong is a fact of life. Change is the nature of the universe. Growth is the opposite of death. It is good to doubt and question these and all other ideas. 

Silencing the nagging voice in our head that asks, “What about…?” does only one thing: it marries us to our current way of thinking. Sometimes that works. Sometimes, it is inaccurate, out of date, or just plain wrong. If nothing else, our own humility should compel us to ask ourselves, “How might I be wrong? What is the downside here? What is an alternative way of thinking?” 

Doubt is the seed of learning and growth. Questioning is the road to truth. It is more comfortable to ignore complexity and ambiguity in favor of consistency and simplicity. Yet, our growth as a society comes directly because great minds have challenged current conventions and beliefs and moved us all from darkness into the light. 

If you doubt the truth of this: good! Ask the questions, seek the answers, and keep learning – forever! 

Twenty Years Ago: December 2003

For so many years, December was the most challenging month of the year. The weather turns colder, the weeks of school between Thanksgiving and winter break are hectic, and there are many holiday celebrations. I am not sure this got any better as my children got older. Thus, my level of busy was at its peak, “My school computer froze on me yesterday and it is sitting in the tech office. I have a haircut, interdepartmental lunch, I’m teaching Humanities solo and I need the laptop cart in the computer lab. It is going to be one hell of a day. Oh, and did I mention there is an FAC meeting after school. Oh yeah, need to call the kids’ doctor to set up a nasal spray session for them.”

The dog was still waking us up early – but not enough. He was leaving us smelly surprises, too. He was nearly blind, but had an operation on his eyes that was helpful – and time-consuming. 

We celebrated Hanukkah with family and at temple. I was also getting ready for a special family trip for winter break! We had never been on such a long plane flight as a family. Boarding a dog with significant medical needs was challenging. I kept waiting for the kennel to tell me it was too much. They didn’t say that in December – but they did say it later. 

I noted that, although a lot was going on at school, it was the portion of the day over which I felt like I had the most control, “Teaching is a challenge today, but that was the easiest part of the day.”

Packing for ten days out of town with young children was stressful, “We are going to schlep a ton of bags. We have four small bags, several as little as one of our carry-ons, one large Pullman, a car seat, three backpacks (carried on), and one rolled-on carry-on. Thank goodness we do not have a connecting flight; with so many pieces of luggage, the odds of getting one misplaced are way too good. Unlike my usual strategy, two of the bags primarily have the kids’ stuff and three have mostly our stuff.” It was clear to me, even then, that we overpacked. Oh, well. 

One theme of this retrospective of 2003 is that we had lots of colds. December was no different. One of my children almost always had a cold and either my wife or I would share it. However, this was the first time that our children got a flu shot. That helped! 

As we got closer to winter break, I found I was more and more desperate for the time off, – “I just need some downtime. I just need some time to turn off the real world.” Recently, one of my children felt the same way. These trips are now more about being together than relaxing and decompressing – but that was not the case twenty years ago.  

When we finally left, the kids were great on the long flight “Both took naps, both watched DVD, both nibbled and read and played chess. They are awesome.” They were and are great travelers. I sat between them with lots of activities and things to eat. The trip there was laden with anticipation, which helped. 

The trip itself was wonderful. I think that getting away from Chicago’s gray and cold weather is healthy and helpful. A change of scene is also a great way to feel renewed and see things differently. However, we do make the distinction between a trip and a vacation. While there were some vacation elements, such as the children going to the resort’s kids club, this was most certainly a trip. 

One child had an issue with water in the ear that necessitated a house call from a doctor. We learned that, after a day of play, the kids might literally fall asleep at dinner if we ate too late. One fell asleep and I had to carry him back to our room. 

We celebrated Hanukkah and enjoyed the resort’s Christmas activities. My parents traveled with us, and have over winter break since the kids were born. It was great to be together. I have always been so grateful that my parents have been such an integral part of my children’s lives – and are to this day. 

On the way home, the kids were tired. Yes, they slept, but they were also out of sorts. No one was looking forward to going back to the cold – or regular life. And then we moved on to 2004, as we now move into 2024: with hope, with conviction, with anxiety, and with renewed resolve. 

Happy everything to everyone! 

The Emotional Fallacy: The Mirror in the Media

I was introduced to the idea of the emotional fallacy when studying literary criticism in college. The idea was that, instead of evaluating a work on the characteristics and qualities of the work itself, people sometimes respond to their own emotional response to the work. Thus, we are analyzing our individual and personal reactions and not parts of the work. 

For example, few people regard those highly sentimental movies about lovers, one of whom gets a terminal disease, and we watch their relationship grow as one of them dies, as great art. However, someone suffering from an illness or whose lover, mother, or friend had a similar situation might be touched emotionally. They would identify with the characters and situations in the movie. Their evaluation, therefore, might be a function of their response and not a result of the quality of the writing, acting, cinematography, editing, or other pieces of the craft of movie-making. They like the work because they relate to it. 

Yet, people judge works based on their own emotions all the time. They like things that make them feel good, inspired, or uplifted. They recoil from works that challenge their firmly held beliefs or make them think too hard. Sometimes, they miss the real art, skill, and beauty of the work because they are too caught up looking at themselves. Instead of examining the work, they see a mirror that reflects parts of themselves. 

We identify with a character and then that character becomes a stand-in for us. We think we know how they feel. We know how this plot goes because we have encountered situations like this in our lives. The work feels authentic and rings true because it mirrors our experience. 

Or our values. A work that confirms and supports our view of the world can be more appealing than one that challenges us to see a different perspective. A work that is simple and sweet goes down easier than one that is complicated and depends a great deal on the craft of storytelling. We like pretty pictures more than complex puzzles. 

Have you ever talked to someone who read a book you read or saw a movie you saw and thought to yourself, “Did we see the same thing?”  They may make a minor character into the protagonist because they see themselves in that character. They may impose their view of the world on the world of the story. They embellish the work with their values and experiences and transform it into an extension of themselves. Their response to it is no longer about the work.

Of course, creators want their audiences to connect with their works. They rejoice when their characters and situations are real to people. However, when the response centers on the viewer to the detriment of the work, we are no longer focused on the work – but on the viewer. 

It is not difficult to play with people’s emotions using words, images, music, or story. Advertisers, politicians, and propagandists frequently use anecdotes and compelling tales to manipulate their audiences. They are so good at this that their audiences rarely look behind the curtain to evaluate the vehicles themselves. They only see their images in the mirror. 

They see themselves in the characters and rewrite the story to fit their world, values, experiences, and prejudices. Think about the responses to the first Hunger Games movie when a Black woman was cast as Rue. The book made it clear that Rue was Black. However, many people who claimed to love the book rewrote that fact in their minds. They brought their bigotry to the novel and, when its explicit features were turned into a movie, it no longer matched what they recalled from the book – and they got mad! 

We recast the world in our own image. We rewrite the story to fit our values, wishes, and worldview. We think we know who are the oppressors and who are the victims because of course they reflect what we have seen and experienced in our world. 

And if it is not the same, if the story is not our story, we sometimes ignore those aspects of the text and rewrite it to reflect us. We create a confirming and comforting carnival mirror instead of analyzing the work itself. 

But the real story, the real movie, the real world doesn’t change. It isn’t just a mirror of us – and that can be difficult and uncomfortable to accept. It can make us the pawns of manipulators and Machiavellians. It can make us allies with evil.  

Reading for Treasure: Israel and Gaza

There is so much news coverage about the current conflict in the Middle East. Over and over, I find that my heart is broken. I read an article, see video, and then I cannot take it anymore. I realize that only my distance gives me that privilege, so I face again the horror both in Israel and Gaza and the reverberations around the world. 

It is not a straightforward situation. I chaff against the use of words like “simple” or modified by “just,” or preceded by, “all that needs to…” as if this is a knot that any casual observer could easily untangle. I wish it were so. Who am I to tell people half a world away how to solve problems that are centuries old? 

One way I have found to deal with this situation with integrity is with a “both/and” approach: The Israelis suffered a horrible pogrom and their response to it is causing another horror. The Palestinians have been treated dreadfully and Hamas is not moving them in a good direction. The hostages must be freed and all of Gaza is hostage to Hamas. Some of the criticism against Israel is valid and some is antisemitic. 

I do not see this situation objectively. As an American Jew, I empathize with my Israeli family. Yet, as a Jew, I identify with the downtrodden and see Gaza as another ghetto. Both/And. 

So here are some articles from The Atlantic, a publication I have come to both trust and admire. I am not advertising their publication, rather it has become a mainstay of my reading and understanding of a variety of issues. These articles represent several perspectives and were written through this awful time of war. 

My wish for this season, as we head to Thanksgiving, is for peace for all of us, a return of those held hostage, and an opportunity for voices like the writers below to be heard. Please give them a read. 

“My Message of Peace”

“Even the Oppressed Have Obligations”

“Hamas Must Go”

“The Children of Gaza”

“When Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitic”

“America’s Most Dangerous Anti-Jewish Propagandist”

I am currently reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Twenty Years Ago: November 2003

 I must have had a cold for all of 2003!  November in 2003 was rainy and my son had a cold, too. While later in his life, I would wish for rain to cancel baseball games, in 2003, I dreaded rain because it did not cancel his soccer games. Can you see how much I loved sitting outside watching my children’s sports? 

My elder child was trying to battle her way into the school’s gifted program. She was upset that she was not selected and I had to hide my relief, “There are so many problems with that program. If she was selected there would be more issues than if she was not. Let her do her “gifted” thing in high school. I do not see that those who have been TAP’d have any advantage over those who do not. Often, they are more arrogant and more concerned with grades. Some are brighter, most are not. This is a blessing in disguise.” Of course, my child did not agree – until she got herself into the program in middle school. Then she understood what I was talking about. Oh, well. 

In November of 2003, I was phenomenally busy, “I am fighting the overwhelmed feeling. This weekend, I’ll take my Sunday School class to Willowcreek. On Monday, I’ll get essays. I need to get a Shabbat service ready for 12/5. Mango Street and the Book Circle unit are coming up and I don’t feel like either is fully developed. I am feeling like a ton is on the horizon. My grades are done, the parent notices are due. Get me to the end of the year.” 

I was also preparing our yearly holiday card. Prior to digital photography, getting a good picture could take months: shoot a roll or two, have it developed, reject the results, rinse and repeat. Fortunately, in 2003, I had my first digital camera. However, my three editors/critics could be very demanding; they wanted only their finest images on our yearly greeting card. It took a while to come to an agreement. 

Like this year, November meant a Saturday at Windycon. Since I was preparing to officiate at a bat mitzvah, I was debating whether to see one more mitzvah on a Saturday or travel to the convention. I made the healthy choice and gave myself a wonderful Saturday of celebrating science fiction and fandom. 

It was in 2003 that I integrated my Sunday School curriculum. In 2001, I taught comparative Judaism and in 2002, I taught comparative everything else. Why it wasn’t clear to me that was out of balance then, I am not sure. Perhaps because I was out of balance, too. So, I reorganized religions by theme and philosophy, had five field trips per year, and acknowledged that, since my students were going to many of their friends’ mitvzahs, we didn’t need to go to Reform and Conservative services. They were getting more than enough of those. 

In November 2003, I took my Sunday School class for our first trip to the megachurch in Barrington, Willow Creek. It was a foundational experience for them – and for me. We have been going back to Willow Creek every other year since then. 

The dog’s issues amped up in November. It was clear that the dog was now blind. I joked, “We have decided that we need to hire a seeing-eye person for the blind dog. Well, not really, but poor PJ is really struggling and it will be a few weeks at least until he gets better, if he gets better. It is really tough.”

I took my new Humanities class on a field trip to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. This raised my level of busyness to a brand-new pitch, “Teach until afternoon, meet with the team, come home, go back for the faculty meeting, come home for dinner and give PJ his meds and then go back for the field trip. I’ll be home again around midnight! But it will be a good day, even if it is an exhausting one.” My optimism must have substituted for my lack of sleep. 

If I was questioning the value and manner of grading my own students, the grades my children were earning furthered that process, “Over and over, I question the value of these report cards. In the short story we discussed in Power Reading today, ‘Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog,’ Edison invents an intelligence analyzer and predicts that we will be able to ‘grade people as easily as we grade oranges.’ Isn’t that what it is all about? I read my Humanities kids’ self-evaluations. One thing that came up a few times was their resistance to our grading system. Kids want to be graded. What a shame.” 

It is interesting to look back twenty years and see who was important in our lives then and now – and who we no longer see. We used to spend a great deal of time with neighbors who had kids the same age as our children. There were several families with whom we had both family and couple dates. We don’t see any of them anymore. However, there are folks with whom we were close that we see regularly. Yes, there is a message there: relationships based entirely on the kids didn’t last.

So, teaching, Sunday School, running Shabbat services, getting ready for a Bat Mitzvah, the neighborhood homeowner association (the annual meeting had to be planned), planning winter and spring break travel, taking care of a sick and blind dog, and the kids’ activities made November of 2003 a very long month. I am tired just writing that list. Oh! I noted that I joined the school crest committee at school. Did I ever say, “NO?” 

“Logic is a Wreath of Pretty Flowers Which Smell Bad:” Skills of Thought, Part 2

In my first year teaching high school, I was required to include a logic unit in my public speaking class. The idea was that, when students wrote and delivered persuasive speeches, they had to actively demonstrate that their reasoning was logical. 

Explaining logic to fifteen-year-olds was challenging. However, it turns out that learning it myself was just more difficult. The first time I taught syllogisms, I got things mixed up and had to reteach it the next day. I vividly remember a student who regularly came in for help, arriving by gleefully saying, “Mr. Hirsch, today NOBODY understood what was going on!” He was right. 

Logic is difficult. Logic can be manipulated. Some forms of logic are particularly prone to misinterpretation. Here is a very simple explanation: 

In deductive logic (like that which made Sherlock Holmes famous), a syllogism has two premises. One of these states a general rule, the major premise: All cats have whiskers. It makes a broad factual statement about a group of things or ideas. The second or minor premise makes a claim that is more specific and focused: Harold is a cat. We can use our Venn diagram to reveal that if the group of cats all have whiskers and Harold exists inside the circle of cats, Harold has whiskers. Simple enough! Well…not exactly. 

Of course, we have to be sure that both of these claims are factual. Are there cats that don’t have whiskers? Do we know that Harold is not a dog or a man who has a beard? Things can get muddy when the Venn diagram is related, but not overlapping. 

Try this one: All cats die. JFK is dead. Does that mean that JFK was a cat? This is a silly example and I am sure you were a step ahead of the very young speech teacher and his students. JFK is never shown to be a cat. We cannot reach a conclusion just because two things share a characteristic - and you can’t create a general rule from one example. 

This is where we often go wrong in our political discourse. We hear from many people that a single example proves a general rule. That is where inductive logic comes in; we draw a general rule by drawing conclusions from patterns we observe. This is the scientific method. 

In class, I used a simple example: I looked at the students’ footwear. I would point out that the boys in the front row were all wearing athletic footwear. Then I would note that the boys in the second row also had athletic footwear on. From these fifteen or so examples, I would conclude that all male students in the high school wear athletic footwear. 

Of course, I would be wrong. There would be a student out there in sandals (we were in Illinois, of course, and some kids would be in sandals and shorts well into the winter). I could make the statement (and be correct) that a majority of boys in school were wearing athletic footwear. Of course, many (usually most) of the women in the room were also wearing athletic footwear. 

That is why it is so challenging to create new generalizations inductively. It is why scientists doing research have a very high burden of proof and why their studies are so carefully scrutinized. 

Too often, in our public conversations, we think we have a general rule and are using deductive logic (although we may not use those labels) when we are in fact using specific examples that may or may not be enough to prove a generalization. 

Just because some people cheat on their taxes, does it mean that everyone does that? Just because some people who came from another country got in trouble with the law, does it mean that every immigrant is going to cause problems? Of course not! 

But politicians and advertisers will try to persuade people with powerful anecdotes and examples. They don’t explicitly say that their story represents EVERYONE or applies ALL THE TIME, but they want their listeners to make that logical leap – incorrectly. One testimonial doesn’t mean much. Ten testimonials are more powerful, but still may not be enough. 

Human beings want things quickly. We have learned, sometimes, that a few examples are all we need. I ate pizza two or three times and had terrible stomach aches afterward. So, I stopped eating pizza for years! Eventually, I had pizza again and found it was delicious and I had no ill effects. What a shame that I missed out on all those pizzas! 

We come to incorrect conclusions when we fail to think logically – and plenty of folks benefit by leading us down this illogical path. Fear and anger can make us less likely to think things through methodically. Lack of time can rush us into drawing poor conclusions. If we are invested in the conclusion or have high hopes that something is true, we may change our thinking to reach conclusions that please us. There are many logical fallacies (which we can discuss later) that can trip up our reasoning. 

In times when people debate what is and is not factual, we must slow down and use the tools that thinkers centuries ago developed. We must be like Mr. Spock and use logic to come to reasonable conclusions – and not be suckered into accepting seductive falsehoods that often benefit those who have a vested interest in fooling us!  

Selling the Family Home

My parents just moved. They had lived there for almost fifty years; it was the house I moved into at ten years old and the place my wife and children know as the “family” home. This is a significant and challenging transition for my parents. 

People ask me if I will miss the house. I guess I will. However, I have mountains of photos and more video of events in that house than anyone could ever view. More than that, I have real memories of the people I love gathering at that house. Those memories aren’t staying in the house. I will still have them. 

It was time for my folks to have a home without stairs. It is a wonderful bonus to have a home where someone else takes care of the roof, basement, landscaping, snow removal, and all those homeowners’ tasks that age you. It is great that my parents are moving into a smaller home in a retirement community where they can, should they choose, take their meals in the community restaurant. They will finally be able to enjoy all the good parts of homeownership and turn over the burdens to someone else. 

But not me! This is another reason that I am not feeling sentimental about the loss of my childhood home. My parents’ move makes their lives much better – and it enhances mine as well. They are moving closer to me, but it is far more than that. They are moving into a community with plenty of support for them as they age. Many of the issues I have seen friends face with their parents: moving into a care facility, caregivers, living independently, loss of driving, and many others will be considerably softened by their choice of location. In a very real sense, their move is a gift to the entire family. It makes helping them age well easier, safer, and more reasonable. It preserves their independence and mine. 

I spent some time gathering photos of the “old” house. I waxed nostalgic about my grandparents and many others who are no longer with us and spent so much time there. I took lots of photos before and during the sale of the house and during the move itself. I have not been at that house in more than a week, but like lots of figures who are no longer part of our lives, that house will always be with us. 

Perhaps I am fooling myself. Perhaps, after the new owners move in, I will feel differently. I doubt it – because this was never about a house or a place. I didn’t go to “the house,” I went to be with my folks. Yes, the house was a great place to gather, but we have other places that will work just as well. The house was important because of the people who lived in it. I will enjoy the new house and my folks’ new community for those same reasons.  

I would be remiss if I didn’t also note how grateful I am for the lessons I am learning in this process. My parents moved in their mid-eighties. My wife and I have talked about making this move a decade earlier. My parents, in this and in many other ways, are modeling thoughtful and graceful aging. I am taking notes. It is my sincere wish that they will be our elder guides for many years to come. 

Precious Parking

The high school should really allow all students to drive to school. There is no reason just to limit it to seniors. If there is a space shortage, we should raise money and build a parking structure, just like they have at the colleges. 

There is no way my Precious would take the bus. The bus arrives far too early in the morning and Precious needs to sleep late. Otherwise, we get cranky and foul-mouthed and that doesn’t fly in my house! Walking or biking are just not practical. Besides, Precious has to take sports equipment and a computer and the hot/cold tray that Cook prepares for lunch each day. The bus makes so many stops and is not air-conditioned (or I think it isn’t, I’m not sure) and my Precious can’t take that kind of environment. 

Besides, there is only one bus after sports practice and it goes just about everywhere. It would take Precious a half hour or more to get home on it. That isn’t practical. Precious has tutoring in all the major subjects twice a week, private sports coaching, ACT and SAT tutoring, and frequent meetings with our college helper. I love that college helper. She is making sure that Precious is on top of all those deadlines. Precious doesn’t have to do anything! This college stuff is so stressful. Why can’t we just let Precious into my alma mater and be done with it? Precious will be going there anyway, why do we have to hop through all these meaningless hoops? 

So, I have a friend of a friend who has a little home a few blocks from the school. They charge pay $500 per semester for Precious to park at their house. We were going to let Precious take the Escalade that we usually keep at the lake house, but it’s two years old, so we got a Porche to replace it and Precious will drive that. We’ll just have to use my Land Rover when we are up north. It is a sacrifice we are just going to have to make. 

I wish my friend’s friend’s home was a little closer to the school. As it is, Precious has to walk three blocks. I park there when I stop by and take Precious’s Land Rover to the gas station and fill it up. Precious doesn’t have time for that. I can’t believe how long it takes me and that car always needs so much gas! 

I don’t know what we would do if Precious wasn’t able to drive to school. I can’t get up that early. It is an ungodly time, anyway. None of our people have arrived yet, well Cook has, but that is to make Precious’s breakfast and lunch. Cook can’t be expected to be a driver, too. 

I am concerned that, once Precious can drive to school, the staff will take all the good parking places. I don’t want Precious parking so far away from the building that it is the same distance as the friend’s friend’s house! That would be so unfair! I think kids who park in the nearby neighborhoods should have special spots right near the door when they become seniors. After all, they have been waiting to drive to school their entire lives! 

Twenty Years Ago: October 2003

Twenty years ago this month was a remarkable contrast to my present life. In 2003:

My mornings were hectic and intense. I took my elder child to orchestra at her middle school, ran to my school for a morning meeting with a student club or a parent, and then into my first class. It was a sprint. In retirement, one of the things I enjoy the most is a slow and civilized morning. 

I wrote, “Weekends are NOT a break at all,” and “Days off are never days off.” Now, every day is a weekend and day off! 

I kept my calendar, notes, and contacts on my Palm Pilot and was considering purchasing a Palm Pilot cellular phone! Today, I have all sorts of devices that make that old PDA look like an antique – but I still have it! 

I rode a kind of activity rollercoaster. I wrote that my day could go from highly productive and then, “grinds and collapses.” I was highly dependent on my parents and my wife’s aunt to help fill in childcare. Now, I am spending a lot of time helping my folks. My kids live far away and are highly independent. 

I had an ill and elderly dog that woke us up in the middle of the night, left surprises in the kitchen in the morning, and needed a syringe twice a day. While I no longer own a dog, we enjoy visits from and visits to our daughter’s dog. He is young and active and takes me on a walk – and my daughter takes care of the difficult dog duties.  

My list ran me: “I need to do an oneg and get birthday gifts and all that. A parent meeting this morning after I drop off Q. Field trip numbers today, StageWrite applications. A real bits and pieces day. Nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble.” Now, I use my daily list to give my day structure and I try to keep it short! 

My journal entries were often short. One even ended in midsentence! Now, I enjoy spending time reflecting on the day past and using my journal to help me focus on goals and tasks. My daily journal entries can be a little luxurious. 

Juggled time with family, friends, kids time with their friends, and date night time. Now, my time is flexible and far more balanced. I feel way more in control! 

My children were very young. They were losing teeth, growing physically, and figuring it all out. Now, they are working adults who help me and their grandparents. 

I worked with my children on homework and encouraged them to go beyond just the minimum requirements; “I tried not to hound Q into doing her homework. I played checkers with Jonah while she researched the lightbulb and filled in a math grid. She then read and practiced violin while Jonah set the table and I tried to kill the wasp that had somehow come into the house.” Now, I find I sound like my own grandmother and worry that my children might be working too hard and doing too much! 

“We went to Carmen’s last night and I was stuffed.” Oh, I long for the long-gone pizzeria of bygone days. I love stuffed pizza, but I fear I’ll never have another like Carmen’s! 

I was preparing to be a rabbi-substitute for a bat mitzvah! Our rabbi had just been hired and we had two bat mitzvahs that were scheduled before he was fully on board. So I attended mitzvahs to see how it was done. That role was expanded later: now, it has contracted and I am rarely a rabbi-understudy. 

I was wondering about the internet. When thinking about our school’s annual charity drive, I asked myself, “Can we use the internet to make money for school chest– perhaps send folks to a website?” Amazon wasn’t even a powerhouse yet and buying things on the web was sometimes risky. If only I had pursued this further! 

I was just beginning to see the possibilities of the internet as an extension of the classroom, “I got the idea for an essay tutorial online. I organized it and started it! It is no small project and I will work on it so it is ready for the Humanities kids’ next essay.” I experimented with how kids might use the web both in and out of class. Now, I have a former student running an AI-based educational website! 

I was grading during every free moment. I don’t miss that at all! 

Halloween was a really big deal involving a parade at school, parties, neighborhood gatherings, and of course, the dreaded house-to-house trick or treating. Now, Halloween is no more than greeting the handful of kids who appear at our door. 

While it is interesting to look back, I would not want to go back. These trips into my past journals make me appreciate how much young parents must handle each day. It also emphasizes that twenty years is a very very long time ago. Youth is not wasted on the young; I could not have done what I did today. 

Reading For Treasure: ChatGPT Goes To School

I have written about how I think teachers, and especially teachers of the Humanities, might incorporate ChatGPT in the classroom. TLDR: I think teachers must embrace new technology and help students use it ethically and well. Not everyone agrees with me. Some teachers are clinging to dubious ChatGPT detectors, insisting that all writing be handwritten in class, or attempting to forbid its use completely. Good luck with those approaches. 

Instead, here are some articles that go into both the how and the why of confronting and dealing with our new educational environment. Most of these are by teachers who are reporting from the front lines. 

First, here are two great articles by teacher Daniel Herman published in The Atlantic. In the first, Mr. Herman contends (and I agree) that “High-School English Needed a Makeover Before ChatGPT: I used to make my students write essay after essay. There was always a better way.” The second one is even more direct, “The End of High-School English: I’ve been teaching English for 12 years, and I’m astounded by what ChatGPT can produce.”

Wired Magazine reports on how teachers and schools are using AI tools that repackage ChatGPT for both students and their teachers: “Teachers Are Going All In on Generative AI.” 

For those of you who want to detect students’ unauthorized use of AI, I have bad news: the research reported by KQED suggests that it is far from perfect, “How easy is it to fool ChatGPT detectors?”

If you are not reading, “Free Technology for Teachers,” you are doing more work than you should. This blog is outstanding! Richard Byrne provides a cornucopia of online and computer-based ways to make teachers’ lives better and improve student learning. In this piece, he provides,  “Some Thoughts About AI in Education.”

David McGrath in the Chicago Tribune takes a more traditional approach. He rightfully points out some of ChatGPT’s shortcomings and how this tool might be better suited to places other than the classroom. I agree with Mr. McGrath today. I am not sure his point of view will still be valid in a year or two. What do you think? “How teachers can defeat ChatGPT-using students.”

Finally, here is a different kind of “article:” High school English teacher Kelly Gibson makes TikTok videos about her experiences. She talks about far more than ChatGPT, but many of her videos discuss not only how and why she is using it, but gives very specific information about how students respond. What is also fun is that, if you view these short videos in chronological order, you get a wonderful view of a master teacher figuring things out lesson to lesson and challenge to challenge. Click here to see all of her videos and use the titles to select the ones you want to watch. 

 I am currently reading the Hugo nominated short stories, novelettes, and novellas. 

Feeding Two Birds From One Feeder: How Our Language Reveals Us

Have you ever scrutinized someone’s words? Did you ever pour over a text message or email wondering if the message was intended sarcastically? Were you ever bothered by the way someone said something or their particular word choices? 

Our language matters. The words we choose and the way we communicate them reveal a great deal about our thoughts, feelings, and intentions. How we speak, the way we organize our thoughts, and the tone that accompanies them are as much a part of our message as the semantic meanings of the words themselves. 

One of the most famous examples of this is the quotation from the late President Regan: “Mistakes were made.” The statement neither takes responsibility for these mistakes nor tells us who made them. The statement is in the passive voice; the action is not with the speaker. It is a perfect statement for a politician. The president doesn’t say, “I made mistakes.” The president doesn’t make any judgment about the mistakes. They were just made – by someone, somehow. 

Many years ago, my school was looking for a new administrator, and focus groups were created so different groups could talk about what they wanted in that job. The person in charge of my group said to us, “I want teachers to feel like they are part of the process.” I looked at him and said, “I want to be part of the process.” There is a difference. The person running the meeting looked at me and said, “You know what I mean.” There is a big difference between “feeling like part of the process” and actually having an effect! 

When talking to parents of students, language tells me a great deal. Parents who use “we” when discussing their children’s activities are sending a clear message. We are applying to college. We studied for a test. We are going to practice. The truth is that the parent is not doing any of those things: the child is. 

The tone of parent emails is another place where parents reveal, intentionally or unintentionally, their relationships with their children and their children’s teachers. A parent whom I have never met or with whom I have no personal relationship should never address me by my first name. I have lost time track of the number of times I have received parent emails that read as if they are ordering products from a store or food from McDonald’s. The tone is one of a customer ordering a salesperson to deliver a product. Do parents sending nasty emails realize how insulting and hurtful they are? When speaking with them on the phone after receiving these emails, I realize that their tone has clearly communicated who they are and what is going on in their home. 

Perhaps the most striking and disturbing example of this is the way some media outlets described the people that Jeffrey Epstein was accused of harming. Was he trafficking in underage women or raping girls? “Underage women” is a euphemism for something far more disturbing – why don’t they write that? 

Similarly, the Civil War was not just a war between the states. Although we say the two sides were the Confederacy and the Union, the Union was the United States Army! People were not killed in the Holocaust, they were murdered. There is a big difference. 

Our language reveals and shapes the way we see the world and ourselves. It communicates far more than just the denotative meanings of the words. The whole is far more powerful than the sum of the syllables. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can shape our thinking. We must carefully consider which words we choose, how we weave them together, and the tone we use when communicating – not to trick or evade or cover – but to honestly, effectively, and clearly communicate. 

Twenty Years Ago: September 2003

I love the fall. I love the start of school. I love Rosh Hashana. I love September! The weather cools down and trees start to change color. It is a time of endings and beginnings. 

In September of 2003, we were all starting school. My daughter was starting fourth grade and my son began kindergarten! I started my seventeenth year teaching at the high school. We took photos of everyone’s first day of school – and none of us started on the same day. 

I have written about the start of school before. While I love the start of school, it is not without anxiety. I had several evenings of teacher nightmares. I had spent hours and hours setting up my classrooms and preparing materials, lessons, and lists. 

My Peer Helpers were very busy during the first week of school. They accompany transfer student and escort them to classes, help them get books, sit with them at lunch, and assist them in their acclimation to their new school. I did the logistics of pairing students, writing passes, scheduling lunches, and making sure that every non-freshmen new student had a Peer Helper guide. 

And I had a new teaching partner and two new teaching teammates! The new Humanities team met their large classes in our double classroom! It was exciting, frightening, and exhilarating – but not without challenge. On the first day of school, the Wi-Fi network went down. The kids did not yet have devices, but I was very dependent on my laptop. It was a good lesson in always having a plan B! Glad I was also trained in improvisation! 

The new class was a double period: 89 minutes long, “Wow! Teaching for 89 minutes is exhausting, exhilarating, and freeing! I can imagine that teaching for 42 minutes will feel confined and packed too tightly. Although I had concerns about having too much time, and we did “whip around” a great deal and it was slow, things were neither rushed nor packed too tightly nor too loose or leisurely. We got a ton done and in a reasonable manner. The kids’ letters were awesome too! It is going to be a great year!”

The fall means movement toward the Jewish High Holidays. We have a “Meet the Congregation” Friday night service, choir rehearsals, and lots of planning. September temperatures are unpredictable. It was warm for both the beginning of school and the High Holidays. Neither the school nor the building at which we held services had air conditioning. I wore shorts to school, but I was in a suit for services.  

On the same night as my children’s open house, I helped with the Senior College Night presentation at school by talking about writing college essays. I started at my children’s school and then rushed back to the high school to come in just in time for my portion. Again,  no air conditioning! 

Of course, there were homeowners association meetings, kids’ orchestra rehearsals, Sunday School, soccer, PTO meetings, the Congregational Steering Committee, and the faculty advisory council. Then there are the surprises that create more opportunities for improvisation. My minivan suddenly needed repairs and then, once it was working correctly, the garage door broke trapping both our vehicles, “Okay, so now the garage is fixed but we have an electrical problem. When Quinn turns on her light switch, she blows the fuse for half the upstairs! She’s done it twice. Something weird is going on with her fixture. That is the same fixture the electrical guys worked on when they were last here. Could be a bad switch somewhere. Once again, we need a service person out here. Problem du jour.”

We participated in the annual ALS charity walk in the rain, celebrated my uncle’s big birthday, and went out for Saturday night date nights while leaving the kids with one of many former student babysitters. We struggled to find a sitter on a weeknight for our own open house night at the high school.

One thing the babysitters could not take care of was the dog: I had to give him his shots regularly in the morning before school and the evening before dinner. So when I traveled to Naperville for my uncle’s party, I had to be sure to get back home before the dog had an accident. We started making a trip home after dinner but before the show to ensure that the dog got his medicine. 

The dog would wake us up in the middle of the night, so we increased his insulin – again. My wife would walk to school at 7am and I would get the kids off to their school before getting to my classroom much closer to the bell, “This morning I will bring Quinn over to Shepard for her first orchestra rehearsal. After school, she has horseback riding with my mother. Then the ice cream social. It will be a long day for Q. We have a faculty meeting after school, so it will be a long day for us too!” When I did eventually get home, I would get dinner ready and, once the kids were in bed, grade well into the night. Oh, yeah, I was also preparing to be the rabbi-substitute at a bat mitzvah! 

“It feels like it has been so much longer than a month. New classes, new kids, new course, new teaching partner, new schedule, and on and on. New year too. 5764. Okay. I’m ready. Here we go!”

Heavy Thinking: Skills of Thought, Part 1

One Thanksgiving, a child observed her father making the turkey. The child noted that Dad cut off a big chunk of the back end of the turkey before putting it in the oven. When asked why he did this, the child’s father said, “That’s the way your grandmother always did it!” So, the child approached grandma and asked, “Dad just cut off part of the turkey before cooking. He said it is because that is the way you did it. Why did you do that?” 

Grandma replied, “Because my pan was too small.” 

The flaw in the father’s thinking was that he simply repeated what his mother did without considering why she did it. It was rote repetition without reflection or evaluation. There was a flaw in this thinking that caused him to not only waste a part of the turkey but focus on a meaningless detail perhaps to the detriment of more important parts of the process.

What we think is important. How we think is equally so. In my decades teaching thousands of students and many subjects, I believed that the kids could be successful in school by mastering a specific set of behaviors: turn your work in on time, use an assignment notebook, take notes, go in for extra help, etc. I even made a list of these moves that helped you win the game of school.  

However, sometimes, students who did these things still did not excel. Sometimes, kids who did these things turned in work that was underdeveloped and poorly thought-out. The behaviors were a surface symptom of an underlying process: their thinking! 

I came to understand that the skill of thinking had to be taught alongside the content. How we mentally worked out mattered just as much or more as the intellectual weights we were lifting. It isn’t a matter of just doing something, it is the way we think about what we are doing and why we are doing it.

As a teacher, I understood Bloom’s Taxonomy of Thinking: When I first began to teach it, I put it on a poster in my classroom which looked like this: 

I flipped evaluation and synthesis steps because I thought creativity and connection were more sophisticated than criticism. However, as I came to think about the taxonomy, I also realized that none of these parts were “higher” than the others. They were simply different tools for different jobs. There are times when simple memorization is the right choice. Often, a simple list works far better than an elaborate critique. 

But Bloom’s taxonomy was not enough. I watched students be able to note the processes without deeply understanding the differences between them. Bloom’s labels were just another form of content. There was something else needed. 

The something else, I realized later in my teaching career than I’d like to admit, is a set of thinking skills that take the same kind of regular exercise practice that one uses for physical fitness. Understanding them, labeling them, or being able to use them simply is not enough. So here is a beginning list. I will write more about this in future posts: 

Students must be able to think metacognitively: reflect about their own thinking. 

They must learn to be intellectually flexible and be able to select the right thinking tool for the job. 

They must come to terms with their fear of failure and error and embrace making mistakes – and this skill has huge implications for grading. 

Students must understand the double-edged sword of habit: habit can automate things and it can also freeze things and make change difficult. Practice makes permanent, not necessarily perfect. 

They must be able to take feedback and listen to coaches and helpers. Students must have the humility to always ask themselves, “What if I am in error? Is there another way I could approach this?” 

Students must be their own critics, but not their own punching bags. Their self-evaluations must be focused on improvement as well as acknowledging their goals and gains - not self-flagellation (or false humility). 

They must be able to think quickly and slowly, have good intellectual reflexes, and know when to wait and percolate instead. 

They must be able to see and make connections as Bloom describes – but this also means they have to be willing to take thoughtful risks. They can’t be content to always think it safe. Again, students will not do this if their teacher grades them down for it! 

Students must be curious! They must ask questions and be willing to both find answers and sometimes live in the uncomfortable place of conflicting points of view – or answers that are not satisfying. 

The list is far from complete, and I intend to write more about this. Thinking flexibility and fitness are as important as any content. Without it, the behaviors are robotic repetitions that will not help our children thrive in a world that is changing at warp speed. AI is getting smarter by the day: our children must have the thinking and reasoning skills to keep up! 

Reading For Treasure: Going to College and Searching for College

It is August! College and high school students are heading back to campus. New students are learning how to manage and older students are thinking about the next steps. With that in mind, here are some articles on preparing and going to college as well as a few thoughts for those starting the college search process: 

Lifehacker has a set of very useful “how to” articles for college students, their parents, and future college students:  

“These Online Resources Will Help You Find Free College Textbooks”

 “Stop Believing These College Scholarship Myths”

“The Four Questions to Ask Yourself Before Hiring a College Admissions Counselor”

 “Why You Should Stop Bringing Your Laptop to Class”

“These College Alternatives Can Actually Help You Get a Job”

“Take Advantage of These Tax Tips to Pay for College”

Here are several articles from The Atlantic about college issues: 

 “Why Some Students Are Skipping College” 

“Stop Sharing Viral College-Acceptance Videos” 

“The Toyota Corolla Theory of College” 

“The College Essay Is Dead”

“The Supreme Court Killed the College-Admissions Essay”

Here are some almost excellent and sometimes profoundly honest articles from The Daily Northwestern (which are applicable no matter what school you are attending): 

“On the ups and downs of freshman year”

“Me, Myself and I: learning to be alone in college”

“10 things you don’t want to forget on your college packing list”

And a few good articles from other sources: 

The Atlanta Voice: “Is Dual Enrollment or AP Better for Earning College Credit?”

The Daily Herald: “Safeguarding your college student's health”

NPR: “Affirmative Action for rich kids: It's more than just legacy admissions” 

ProPublica: “The Newest College Admissions Ploy: Paying to Make Your Teen a ‘Peer-Reviewed’ Author”

Here is a link to all the articles I have posted about college. 

Although our Generation Z folks don’t need this note, there are some wonderful and interesting TikToks with all sorts of college advice. Most of what I have seen is very good, but we should always look at all TikTok videos with a very critical eye.

I am currently reading Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund

Twenty Years Ago: August 2003

August 2003 was an exhausting mix of summer and school. It was a swirl of family activity, classroom setup, travel, home improvement, socializing, celebrating, and dog drama. I don’t blame any reader who looks at this piece and says, there is no way all of that occurred in the month before school starts. I found it difficult to believe myself. 

This was a very social month! We got together with ten families (one at a time). We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, the Hancock Building, Illinois Railway Museum, Arlington Park, and the Planetarium. Without the kids, we went to the movies and saw the Broadway touring company of Mama Mia. We had dinner with our dear friend, Dorothy. 

We celebrated my mother’s 65th birthday with a big party at the Chicago Botanical Garden. My brother and his family came in for the event which was held in the garden’s pavilion. It was a fantastic evening. I toasted/roasted my mother with a fun ode in her honor. 

My folks, my wife’s aunt, and the four of us took a trip to the Wisconsin Dells. We took two cars and made a stop in Madison where my parents went to college. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge, rode the indoor and outdoor water slides, took our “dam pictures” on the Ducks, played miniature golf, got an old-time photo, and saw the obligatory water show at Tommy Bartlett’s. When I got home, I started plans to visit my cousin in Florida for spring break. 

The dog continued to need plenty of attention. I became the sole person to give him shots. He continued to have overnight accidents and thus was crated in the evenings. He was angry with me about that. He developed a sore on his cheek. We moved to a vet who was nearby rather than schlepping all the way down to Wilmette. The dog stayed at our new vet’s boarding kennel while we were at the Dells. 

Home projects continued. We finished replacing both the roof and the siding on the house. We also replaced all the gutters. Of course, it rained as we replaced the roof. The banging above my head was both headache-inducing and shook the house such that things fell off shelves in every bedroom. We replaced and repaired ceiling fans, 

On the school front, I had a workshop with my new teaching team. I prepared my classroom and spent a ton of time at school. I made copies of handouts, sent and prepared emails, created decorations, and made name plates and other welcome materials. I had dinner with the Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) group. 

“I did some work at school and got there just after 11. I stayed until just after 3! That place is a black hole. I didn’t have a ton on my list but I did this and that and the time vanished. It took me more than an hour to send all of my e-mail letters from last year.”

Meanwhile, I was still taking adult Hebrew lessons, scheduling field trips to various houses of worship for my Sunday school class, and organizing the congregation’s Friday night services for the upcoming year. And in August, rehearsals for the High Holiday choir started. 

Sometimes, I wrote in my journal that I was overwhelmed, “I feel at odds and ends, unsettled. I don’t know if it is the approach of school, the lack of structure right now for this family, Sunday School field trips, Friday night services. There are a lot of balls up in the air. I worked on lots of this and that today, but I don’t feel like I put any of it to rest. Yes, I got two small tasks off the list but the big ones remain, and GROW! Each task gives birth to a new one once accomplished! I find myself blocking and wanting to NOT do some of this stuff.”

But at other times, I am just rolling with the coaster, “It is amazing the difference a day makes. I spent the morning in school today and got a ton done. Handouts are ready for the first day. I gave the policy packets to Jean’e and worked on the Power Reading word games. I finished the room signs and gave them to Debbie to laminate. My desk is all set up and I am ready to start decorating the room. If I spend a few hours tomorrow, I’ll be in great shape! The only thing that is not EXACTLY there are humanities lesson plans and those must be done collectively. Friday night services are coming along, I’ve made a variety of calls for Sunday School; I will just need to follow up. I have an appointment to take Q to meet with the camp lady too! All my projects are on the burners and cooking nicely.”

Thank goodness those Augusts are behind me! 

Reading for Treasure: The Arts are Critical

Unless you are completely unplugged, you know that the Writers Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are on strike. The people who write, perform, and create our on-screen entertainment are asking for a reasonable, sustainable, and appropriate share of the profits from their creations. Their artistry is critical to the well-being of our nation. I fully support their efforts and strike. 

Similarly, there is plenty of evidence to show that students engaged in art activities in school receive unique benefits. However, not enough students get these experiences. Arts Education is essential to our schools! 

Here are a few articles that prove this point: 

KQED: “How arts education builds better brains and better lives”

“Students with access to arts education are five times less likely to drop out of school and four times more likely to be recognized for high achievement. They score higher on the SAT, and on proficiency tests of literacy, writing, and English skills. They are also less likely to have disciplinary infractions. And when arts education is equitable so that all kids have equal access, the learning gap between low- and high-income students begins to shrink.” 

The New York Amsterdam News: “The Case for Arts Education” 

“Research also shows that children who participate in arts education are more curious, seek out different viewpoints and experiences, and are more socially engaged, says Jamie Kasper, director of the Arts Education Partnership. This means they are more likely to vote, run for office, and volunteer, and they have better life skills, like time management and prioritization.” 

The Washington Post: “How Theatre can teach our kids to be empathetic” 

“Several studies show communication skills are the most essential skills for navigating American adult life — better communicators are hired more often, enjoy happier relationships and marriages, ascend to leadership positions, and possess higher self-esteem. The ability to manage personal emotions and to recognize them in others — also known as emotional intelligence — is a predictor of academic and professional success. These skills are often taught through Social Emotional Learning programs, offered in K-12 schools in 27 states. But they are also a by-product of theater class, according to a recent study from George Mason University and the Commonwealth Theatre Center.” 

Buzz Feed: “14 Ways Being A Drama Kid Can Help You As An Adult”

Public speaking, teamwork, empathy, confidence, humility, reading,  and memorization are some of the skills that kids involved in theatre performance develop! 

Science Daily: “Major benefits for students who attend live theater, study finds”

“Field trips to live theater enhance literary knowledge, tolerance, and empathy among students, according to a study. The research team found that reading and watching movies of Hamlet and A Christmas Carol could not account for the increase in knowledge experienced by students who attended live performances of the plays. Students who attended live performances of the play also scored higher on the study's tolerance measure than the control group by a moderately large margin and were better able to recognize and appreciate what other people think and feel.” 

I am currently reading The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin 

Twenty Years Ago: July 2003

Reading my journal from July 2003 made me feel old and tired. I needed to be twenty years younger to be that busy – and it was summer break! I was also reminded of how distant 2003 was; at least I no longer use a Palm Pilot. 

July of 2003 was action-packed and fun-filled in every domain. My to-do list overflowed. We had a new roof and siding installed on the house. I ordered a new computer, returning to a Mac after several years of using a piece of c. I worked on school projects, schlepped the kids around, and hosted dinners with every family in the neighborhood. 

“So much accomplished today and yet I feel unsettled. I put together the newsletter puzzle piece and fixed the Counseling Website. I got all my at-school tasks done. I read a great deal of Nervous Conditions and I shall finish it today and be able to get back to Kate regarding the choice. Lots of little bits and pieces done. I am glad I don’t live like this all the time. It would make me too scattered, too fragmented.”

In addition, I was preparing for our annual summer trip. I took the kids for their yearly physicals and even the van got its own check-up. I helped my daughter get ready for overnight camp, met with the school Peer Helping staff and my new teaching team, and consulted with the chair of counseling about his website 

The dog was having regular overnight accidents and was diagnosed with diabetes. I learned to administer insulin shots to him twice a day. To keep track of the insulin dose and its effects, I created a chart so we could figure out the correct dose. Finding boarding for him while we were away became a challenge due to his need for syringes. I changed veterinarians because I didn’t have time to schlep to Wilmette constantly. 

I am not a fan of home remodeling or construction, “I hate this kind of work anyway. The pounding, the disruption, the noise and mess. The chance of problems. These “solutions” seem to bring as many issues as they solve. Today siding off, tomorrow roofing, Saturday siding back on. I hope that brings an end to it. Enough already!” 

July wasn’t all work and tasks. It was also highly social. We went out with couples, hosted eight families over for dinners, participated in our block party, ate at Sweet Tomatoes multiple times, and had a Fourth of July party (on July 3rd) because we could see the Deerfield fireworks from our backyard. We marched in the Fourth of July parade with our congregation, had several out-of-town friends visit, and went to Great America, Navy Pier, Northbrook Days, and the library’s summer programs. My folks took my daughter to a special overnight grandparents’ university at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The kids slept at their grandparents and great-aunt’s homes several times. They spent a ton of time at my folks’ house throughout July. 

While the kids were having a sleepover, my wife and I went to see a brand-new musical at the Goodman: Bounce! My wife had been adamant we get tickets. It is rare that she is so excited about a specific play, so I made it a special evening. We had a wonderful dinner and then got excellent seats at the theater. Unfortunately, the play was awful. At intermission, she almost yelled at me, “You said I love Stephen Sondheim!” That’s when I understood why she was so eager to see this play. She confused the two Stephens. “No,” I said to her, “You don’t like Stephen Sondheim. You like Stephen Schwartz.” We adore musicals like Pippin, Wicked, Working, Children of Eden, and others by Schwartz. She is not a big Sondheim fan. “Oh,” she replied, “Can we go home now?” We left during intermission. 

While my parents looked after the kids, my wife and I traveled to San Francisco for a week. We saw my aunt and cousin as well as friends from college. We visited with one of my former students who recently graduated from college. We drove along the coast and visited the Hearst Mansion. As always, we also toured several universities. My wife, in addition to the rest of her duties, helped kids with the college process. We did some wine tasting, sunset watching, and lots of relaxing. It was a refreshing change from our usual routine and I loved the slower and easier pace: the kind of pace I now enjoy in retirement. 

I printed out MapQuest pages to help me navigate the 850 miles I drove on vacation. I tried to check our home answering machine for messages with limited success. I had no way of getting my email without a computer. Disconnected meant something different in 2003. 

Upon returning home, life went back to the summer circus. My daughter attended art camp. The dog started regularly waking us up in the middle of the night to show us the big puddles he created in the kitchen. He also made it difficult to give him his medicine. He was remarkably clever about holding on to a pill and then spitting it out in odd places. 

At the end of July, I began writing my daily journals on my new Macintosh! My son lost his first tooth, we experienced some spectacular storms, and did our best to soak up the summer before August arrived, signaling the end of vacation and the return to the reality of school. 

Forgetting the Painful Past: Strange New World’s “Among the Lotus Eaters”

What happens if you can no longer recall who you are and where you come from? What are the effects when groups’ collective and individual memories are erased? What are the political implications when parts of society retain their history and other parts lose theirs? 

These are questions many people are asking when Black, Queer, and other histories have been removed from public school curricula. Legislators in several states have banned the teaching of subjects that they think will make some children uncomfortable while their removable makes others upset. Clearly, these topics might also make some adults uneasy. 

I don’t usually write reviews, but as I read commentaries on the most recent episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, no one directly addressed how this episode connects to this issue. 

In “Among the Lotus Eaters,” the crew of the Enterprise returns to a place of pain. They must “clean up” the mess they made when they had a very short but tragic visit to a planet in which three crew members died and several others were wounded. This visit seems to have resulted in “cultural contamination” where the iron age culture of the planet somehow has a Starfleet symbol, a clear violation of their non-interference order, the Prime Directive. 

Captain Pike and his crew must face their terrible past and try to deal with their interference in the development of this primitive world. Pike holds himself accountable for the fates of those under his command and accepts the responsibility of setting things right. However, when his crew arrives on the planet, they find these primitive people have phaser weapons and the delta symbol of Starfleet adorns the gates to their castle. Something is horribly wrong. 

Pike discovers the cause: one of the crew members Pike believed had died survived and made himself the ruler of the planet. Pike and his crew are attacked and awaken in a cage – and they no longer know who they are, why they are there, or what happened before. They have lost their memories. 

The dynamic of a ruling class that can retain their memories and a worker class that has no memory seems to me to be a science fiction commentary on our refusal to face our country’s past, whether our relatives were part of it or not. Even outsiders, like the surviving crew member, benefit from and exploit this memory-based caste system. 

When Pike and his landing party confront another worker, the worker rationalizes his lack of memory telling them that memories would be painful. The worker doesn’t want to remember his family, if he lost them. He doesn’t want to feel grief, pain, anger, and unhappiness. Having no memory saves him from this kind of discomfort and makes his toil more bearable. Sound familiar? 

However, our Enterprisians, even without their memories, retain key parts of themselves. Captain Pike knows that he has been separated from someone he loves and instinctually takes leadership. Lt. Ortegas finds strength in her ability to pilot the ship. Dr. M’Benga is driven to heal those in pain. 

When Pike finally confronts the wayward crew member, we learn that the ruling class has been manipulating the workers with fiction about their lost memories. They have used the workers’ lack of history to their political advantage. People without a past don’t cause problems or challenge the rulers. Repressing history and losing memory are the key elements in maintaining this abusive society. 

As our crew regains their memories and figures out how they came to be in this situation; our guide remembers his lost family. Tearfully, he acknowledges that even painful memories are better than none at all. 

In Greek mythology, the lotus eaters were a community that ate a fruit that put them into a drug-like sleep and thus they did not care about important things. They needed to come out of their daze and wake up in order to take real action. 

This episode was about the danger of falling asleep, losing our history, and thus losing ourselves. The danger was not only for the crew of the Enterprise on Rigel VII, but, a comment about our current world.  

We need to wake up! We must not lose our histories and thus lose ourselves. We must not let people erase the past for political power and personal gain. Our individual and collective histories are critical to us and our societies. As Captain Pike notes at the end of the episode, such forgetting is not a natural development. He rightfully justifies altering the situation so everyone may remember and takes the power-hungry despot into custody. 

There has been a lot written about how the newest Trek shows are “woke.” There have been complaints that they make political statements. The original Star Trek in the 60s made bold and clear statements about everything from racism to the Vietnam War. Star Trek and science fiction are, by their very nature, social and political commentary. 

This episode was directly addressing the need to hold on to our history, even when it is uncomfortable to face. It challenges us not to become lotus eaters but to wake up and confront the problems of our uncomfortable past and clean up the messes that we have made or inherited. 

Whether or not you agree with the message, “Among the Lotus Eaters”  does what good science fiction, good Star Trek, and good literature always does: use stories and characters to help us see our world in a new way – and inspire us to change for the better. 

Reading for Treasure: Learning About Juneteenth

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles (and other readings) that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction.

Juneteenth only recently became a Federal holiday. It has been a state holiday in many places for a long time and has been celebrated by the Black community for more than a century. Here are a few articles to help people like me learn about the importance, history, and customs of Juneteenth. 

A good place to start would be Afro’s article, “The story behind Juneteenth and how it became a federal holiday” which gives a good background on the history of the holiday.

The New York Amsterdam News provides us with “A beginner’s guide to Juneteenth: What’s the best way to celebrate?” 

Two very good pieces from The Root continue our Juneteenth exploration: “Cheat Sheet: 5 Things You Must Know About Juneteenth” and “Why Juneteenth Isn’t a Black Holiday, but an American Holiday.” 

Finally, a powerful story about the importance of Juneteenth in NewsOne, “Juneteenth, Jim Crow And A Black Family Who Fought For Freedom.” 

I just finished reading, Being White Today: A Roadmap for A Positive Antiracist Life by Shelly Tochluk and Christine Saxman 

Twenty Years Ago: June 2003

January may be the official beginning of the calendar, but for a teacher, it really starts in August and ends in June. Teaching is a profession that has clear cycles. As a young parent and teacher in June of 2003, cycle was the operative word.  

As we get to the end of the school year, all of the conflicts and issues of the semester move to the foreground. I hate grades. I hate the effect they have on students, their families, and what they do to relationships. It is one of the reasons why I have never used an averaged grading system. 

In 2003, I was using a portfolio grading system. Students would demonstrate their growth by analyzing their work throughout the semester and evaluating it on our skill-based rubrics. Of course, this meant that they had to complete that work. 

There was one student in particular who had failed to turn in so many assignments that demonstrating growth was nearly impossible because there was so little to see. I met with him almost every day on his free period and helped him with missing work. My goal was not a “good” grade by a passing one! I noted in my journal, “It is amazing that this boy is not sick of me yet nor has he become mad at me. It is clear that he needs attention. I have given him opportunities to tell me to stop supervising him so closely but he does not say it. He wants this kind of close attention.” Throughout my career, I met many students like this young man. 

Grades weigh heavily on me. I err on the side of the higher grade if a student is on a bubble. Students used my evaluations and their own and their work to demonstrate what grade they thought they deserved. Most students are surprisingly accurate. Many are harder on themselves than I am. 

For some students, grades are critically important – but not for all. But they were ALL important to me, “I am spending too much time thinking about these kids’ grades and what they want, and how they’ll feel and react. I need to move to a grading system that takes it out of their and my hands more – a more objective system. That will be helpful.” That is why so many teachers use a purely numeric system: it is easier when it is cut and dry. It is also inaccurate and unfair. So, for my entire teaching career, grading was a process, conversation, and a pain in the mind.

If you are related to a teacher, you know that the end of the year is the busiest and most stressful time of the year. That spills into all parts of my life. I developed another cold. I had to close down websites so people would not think we were in school to reply to their requests. At the time, in addition to my own teacher website, I was also “webmaster” for the English Department, the Counseling Department, Peer Helping, StageWrite, and recommended reading websites. I was also putting together a new website for my new class: Humanities. 

June is also a time to say goodbye to retiring colleagues. I have attended every retirement celebration that the school has thrown while I worked there. At the time, the school retirement party was held after graduation. Thus, it was never particularly well attended. People from the retirees’ departments and older teachers would attend, but many people had just spent a day teaching, an afternoon at graduation, and needed to get home to their families. It was certainly one of our most challenging daycare days. Thankfully, my parents had our kids and we celebrated three wonderful careers. 

I was delighted at how our principal talked about each of the three retirees warmly and in great detail with few notes. There was a stark contrast between the two classroom teachers, one of whom was in my department, and the retiring department chair. I wrote about how narrow the teachers’ scope of influence. Neither had sponsored clubs or coached sports. Neither was that involved in building committees or projects. They were very focused on their classrooms, kids, and courses. This was not the case for the department chair, whose influence was far-reaching.

If the year ends in June and starts again in August, then the time in-between is not a “break,” it is project season. Every year I taught I had a list of things that got pushed into summer. I start trying to hit this list as soon as the last bell rings: everyone has their yearly doctor and dentist appointments, all home improvement projects are scheduled, and preparations begin for the next school year. 

My kids were keeping doctors in business that spring. I worked on my new course preparation a few hours every day. We had a new roof and siding put on the house and remodeled a bathroom. Summer was a blur! I wrote, “I don’t feel like I am on break. I worked at the building most of the day yesterday. I straightened out the English website. I think I have a handle on that now. I worked on putting my computer back in order and doing a few other bits and pieces.” I even served on an interview team to fill a spot in our department. 

Speaking of cycles, my son learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels! My brother and aunt visited and it was good to see them. The kids started day camps. We had workmen at the house six days a week! I had a planning session with the Sunday School faculty. Each day was very busy and I noted that I was falling asleep quickly and sleeping soundly. Consequently, my journal entries were often short. I talked about a great deal -but briefly.  

I was planning a summer vacation; my wife and I always took an “annual honeymoon” and the kids stayed with my parents. It was almost always in July. I took a school workshop learning to use Adobe Illustrator. I used it to improve graphics on my websites and to create some functional and fun posters for my classrooms. 

In the wider world, a new musical called Wicked premiered. The Mars rover was launched. I put our car phone, cell phone, and home numbers in the brand-new National Do Not Call List from the Federal Trade Commission. 

But like that list, June was a long parade of all the things that didn’t fit well during the school year. I suppose a teacher’s two seasons are not winter and road construction but the school year and everything else you need to get done!