Fear of Saying (or Writing) the Wrong Thing

The wrong thing. There, I wrote the wrong thing. 

White family and friends, is it possible to get past the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing during this struggle for racial justice? Can we move forward and take action rather than perseverating on eggshells? 

Robin DiAngelo called White Fragility the idea that any mention of racism will cause White people, even White people who call themselves anti-racist, to become defensive, self-focused, angry, and/or deny feedback from people of color. If you haven’t heard Dr. DeAngelo speak about this concept, please watch one of her many video interviews. 

We say to ourselves, “If I am not going to be afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, then why do so many people challenge me when I do something that is anti-racist and helps the cause? It feels like even when I try to do the right thing, I am wrong!” 

The truth is that we will get it wrong sometimes. While our intentions may be good, we may not yet have the skills, knowledge, or context to do what really needs to be done. We must take feedback, learn how to do better, and then try again. 

White people sometimes deflect feedback from others instead of addressing the substance of the feedback. This is a “I know what you are saying is correct, but couldn’t you say it in a nicer way?” Thus white people don’t have to address their attitudes and choices because the feedback wasn’t presented in a pretty enough box. Nope! 

“But I meant well! Don’t I get credit for that? My intentions were good. I am still learning!” Welcome to the road to hell. Intentions are intangible, but impact is real. The focus on intentions is also a deflection. The effect of our choices is the real measure of their power. No one intends to make an error. The intention is minor, the result matters. We must own those effects, regardless of our intentions. 

As we learn how to be strong, thoughtful, and reflective anti-racist proponents, we will fall down – a lot. Rather than rationalizing our mistakes and dancing around the embarrassing moments when our ignorance or racism slips out, we must take another approach. 

DiAngelo talks about asking people of color, “What would it be like if you could just give white people feedback when we showed our inevitable and often unaware racist assumptions and patterns and had us receive that feedback with grace, reflect, and seek to change our behavior? What would that be like? And I’ll never forget this man of color raising his hand and saying, ‘It would be revolutionary.’” 

Think about the power of this concept: instead of the tap dance of deflect, defend, and deny, we instead say, “Thank you, you’re right. I am going to think about this and do better next time.” Of course, saying this means nothing without real action. 

Think about the power of this kind of dialogue: focusing on the core issue, taking our ego offline, accepting and acknowledging someone else’s point of view, giving their words serious thought, and then altering our choices.  

DiAngelo is right: it might be a revolution! 

Learning with E's

People who do well in school are not necessarily the brightest or the best. They are not always the ones who will go on to change the world or be big successes. Sometimes they are. Sometimes, our most successful students are the ones who have learned to play the game of school. 

The game of school has rules: do your homework, be compliant, memorize everything, make friends with (and compliment) the teacher, count your points, and don’t make waves. 

Learning is not on that list. Many a school player will report that learning wasn’t necessarily a product of the game of school. It should be. It must be. 

I made a list of the behaviors that successful students employ to do well in school and gave to students. These are “good student” behaviors and most kids would benefit from adopting some of them. But there is a larger picture. 

When I was working on creating a new course a few years ago, I found that I was reworking and reevaluating almost everything. As I prepared a list of the skills I want students to master, I realized that there were three overarching components to authentic learning and success in school. 

For learning to be meaningful and lasting, students and teachers need effort, engagement, and expertise: the 3 E’s. 

Effort is the easiest to define: Learning takes hard work. Teaching is not a profession for the lazy. No athlete gets better without practice and working out. Practice and rehearsal are what performing artists spend most of their time doing: the performances are only possible because much more effort has been spent preparing for them! 

Expertise is all about skill and knowledge. For teachers, this is employing best practices, tailoring education for the students in the room, staying up to date, as well as being reflective and thoughtful. For students, this is all about practicing and mastering the skills and content.

Engagement is the most difficult of these three to define: Engagement is about making learning meaningful and lasting. It fits the content to the kids. It is about making connections and commitments, and then responding to kids creatively. It is about passion and focus. It is the difference between a 
compliant student and one who is sincerely motivated. 

I suppose you could say this framework is learning with E’s. In a post-COVID educational world, where the censors are pounding on the door, the budget is always being cut, and the number of kids each educator must work with grows almost daily. Designing and implementing curriculum lives in a political and social context. Effort, expertise, and engagement are only the beginning. Education is not easy.  

Pointless

Recently, I heard teachers complaining about their districts’ grading policies. One teacher was against the policy of giving students 50% for missing work. Another railed against grade inflation and giving students points as behavior or completion rewards. 

Whatever you think about these issues, they both presuppose two ideas: that kids should earn points for classwork and these points should be used to arrive at their grades. I would like to challenge both of these assumptions. 

I have written about grading many times. I have asked questions about the side-effects of grades, made an argument against averaged grading, discussed grading’s arbitrary nature, presented the mathematical reality of averaged grades, discussed my way of evaluating students, and presented many stories and examples of the problems of our current grading systems. 

All of these issues rest on the reduction of student learning to points. We use points to make grading seem fair and based on students’ performance. Like money, students receive point payment for tasks: the better the proficiency, the more points. Usually, the total points possible are considered the top grade and students are given a letter grade based on how far away they are from perfect. 

So, a student who walks in without any skills or knowledge and, by the end of the term, has reached the desired goals, would end up with something like fifty percent (a failing grade). That doesn’t seem right, so we break down our goals and give students points for taking baby steps. Some students need more baby steps. These students’ grades will probably be lower.  This is because making more errors costs points, even if the student ends up fully proficient by the end of the term. Thus, the point average grade is really a measure of how quickly a student achieves proficiency. 

Teachers, schools, and districts have contorted themselves to find ways to make this system make sense. The “no zeros” rule is one of those attempts. The reason for this rule is that half of the grading scale is failure; each grade band is ten percent and everything under 60 is failing. Some schools have redistributed that scale more evenly. Some schools have said that practice (sometimes called formative) assignments should not be graded and points should only be given on end-of-unit exams and assignments (summative evaluations). 

How does a teacher determine the value of a point? Is a good thesis worth ten grammatical errors? Why is a question worth two, three, or twenty points? Points are not objective: the teacher makes professional judgments about what activities are worth. Good teachers do this well. Poor teachers can manipulate this – and kids can then manipulate their teachers and the system. 

Rather than learning, students can become grade grubbing point collectors. They must work hard and have a high degree of maturity to see the goal through the point payment. Every teacher can tell too many stories of the students who would negotiate every point. “It’s not about the points,” teacher says. “If the points don’t matter,” the student retorts, “then just give them to me!” Both points of view are misguided. 

Learning is not an average of accumulated minutia. Averaging points, as I have written before, devalues the learning process and penalizes students for taking more time to learn or thinking divergently, even if they eventually succeed in fully reaching the goals. Shouldn’t a course’s evaluation really reflect the student’s ultimate proficiency? 

How do you measure proficiency? What does it look like? The more complex the subject, the more difficult to do. Elementary arithmetic is straightforward. What about high school social studies, science, or literature? Points simplify this problem so completely that the real worth and complexity of the subject is turned into the collection of green stamps. Put your points on a page and trade them in for a prize! 

Points are not aligned with the way the working world measures effectively reaching goals. Many professions use object metrics, like sales and billable hours, there are many things like interpersonal relationships, team contribution, and non-quantifiable results that figure into employees’ evaluation. Is there a job where each thing is translated into pennies and put in a pot and then, at arbitrary times, pulled out and evaluated? There must be. Points are far too seductive not to transcend education. There must be employee evaluation systems that mirror grading. I’ll bet they have the same issues we are discussing here. Ironically, most teachers are not evaluated the way they evaluate students. 

The reason the point system is so popular is that the alternatives are messier and more difficult to implement. Teachers will average themselves into oblivion to prove that their grades are objective.  There it is: to make points unimportant and create a grading system that really values learning and the achievement of educational objectives, we must let go of the idea that learners must be labeled by letter-based categories.  

You can get rid of points but still assign letter grades. I did it. Teachers all over the world have lots of ways to do it. Here is a video of one talking about it. However, if we want systemic wide change that acknowledges that our real goal isn’t an A, but is helping students to be able to learn specific skills and understand specific content, then we must stop tallying the trivia and instead focus on the learning!  

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! 

“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!  

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. 

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: 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 

Reading for Treasure: Articles I Can't Stop Thinking About

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

My theme this month is articles that have taken up residence in my head, that I cannot stop thinking about. I strongly recommend you read them. Many of them will probably end up being the seeds of my own writing on this blog. 

Lifehacker contrasts two thinkers who have confronted evil: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Donald Ewen Cameron. The piece asks what is the difference between being evil and stupid: “Why Stupidity Is More Dangerous Than Evil.”

When I was first hired as a teacher, I told my department chairman that I wasn’t going to give grades. He said I had to, so I said I would give everyone A’s. He said that wasn’t going to work either. So, I tried to make the idea of grades fit with real student-centered education. These two pieces about how institutions of learning are rethinking grades are excellent discussions of this issue: KQED’s “Some colleges mull the idea of 'Ungrading' for freshman students” and Wired’s “The End of Grading.”

Similarly, I struggled with kids’ use of their smartphones in the classroom. I ended up hanging a shoe tree near the door and requiring my students to relinquish their phones during class. This also made taking attendance quick and easy. This wonderful article in The Atlantic looks at “The Schools That Ban Smartphones.” 

This quick article from The Daily Herald addresses a question I have been asking since I moved next door to the school at which I taught and my children attended: “It’s Good For Kids and the Environment. So Why Aren’t More Students Walking to School”

As a follow-up to several sets of articles about gun violence, The Chicago Tribune addressed a part of this issue that does not receive enough attention. While we hear about people killed and injured by shootings, we don’t hear about how those who are shot cope afterward: “Doctors: A firearm-related injury is a chronic and expensive condition, but many victims are forgotten.” 

Two very political articles from The Atlantic fascinated me. As a former debate teacher, the “Gish Gallop” technique that the former president uses is both effective and highly problematic. “How To Beat Trump in a Debate” is a great analysis of more than Trump’s rhetorical style, but the philosophy behind it. Similarly, “Why Fox News Lied to Its Viewers” looks at how ratings and pandering to the desires of an audience were more important than journalistic ethics on the Fox News Channel. Is there a connection here? 

Finally, two more articles from The Atlantic (can you tell that I am a huge fan of that magazine?) about reading. First, “The People Who Don’t Read Books” looks at some high-profile people who are proud that they don’t read. Second, “A New Way to Read ‘Gatsby’” was fascinating to me as I finished Nghi Vo’s magical spin on Fitzgerald’s classic, The Chosen and the Beautiful. Read them both and you will see why this book has staying power. 

Besides The Atlantic, I am reading Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany. 

Humanities’ Calculator: ChatGPT Can Complete Most Class Assignments

OpenAI’s latest invention, ChatGPT, has teachers and professors in a panic, especially English and social studies teachers. If you are unfamiliar with ChatGPT, I assume you have been off-world, in stasis, or locked in a Klingon prison colony. However, since many of my readers fall into those categories, I’ll explain:

ChatGPT or GPT-3 is an artificial intelligence chatbot that is much more sophisticated than any other similar chatbots. ChatGPT can write essays – with citations. It can complete math homework and explain the steps. It can generate fiction, journals, and personal narratives. It can write cover letters, recipes, business plans, programming code, and much more. In short, it can complete many of the assignments that teachers and professors use to evaluate their students’ thinking and analysis skills. 

How should educators adapt? Do they make changes to their assignments? Do they move all homework into the class? Do they forbid the use of computers? Is that possible or reasonable? On TikTok, Twitter, and other forms of social media, teachers are discussing how to respond to the challenges of teaching in a world where a machine can do your homework in seconds. What should they do? 

I asked ChatGPT, “How should English teachers and other teachers who rely on essays to test students' thinking skills adapt their assignments and teaching given that ChatGPT can now do much of the writing (and thinking) for students?”

Here is what it said,” As an AI language model, ChatGPT is not capable of doing the thinking or writing for students. While it can generate text based on a given prompt, it is not capable of understanding or analyzing the content of that text in the same way that a human can. Therefore, English teachers and other teachers who rely on essays to test students' thinking skills should continue to assign and grade essays as they have in the past.

However, it is important for teachers to be aware of the potential for students to use AI tools like ChatGPT to help them with their writing assignments. In such cases, it may be necessary for teachers to put in place additional measures to ensure that students are not simply copying or paraphrasing text generated by these tools. This could include requiring students to submit rough drafts of their essays for review or implementing more rigorous plagiarism detection methods.

Additionally, teachers may want to consider incorporating lessons on the ethical use of technology into their curriculum, to help students understand the importance of original thinking and the potential consequences of using AI tools to cheat on assignments. Overall, while ChatGPT and other AI tools may present some challenges for educators, they should not fundamentally change the way that teachers assess their students' thinking skills through writing assignments.”

While I think all teachers should teach about, “the ethical use of technology” as well as a frank and detailed discussion of what constitutes cheating and the consequences of academic dishonesty, I disagree with ChatGPT’s thesis. I asked it the same question several times and got variations on this same argument. ChatGPT says that the existence of AI tools like GPT-3 should not change teaching practice. I strongly disagree. 

Instead of forbidding the use of technological tools, branding them plagiarism or dishonest, or returning to handwriting in bluebooks, I contend that Humanities teachers must embrace this technology and use it further their foundational goals: critical thinking, argumentation, and communication. 

I was in middle school when calculators became small and cheap enough to be added to the school supply list. And while I knew the steps to divide large numbers, letting the machine handle that work allowed my teacher to not only enlarge the curriculum but to delve further into mathematical concepts and processes – and class became a whole lot more fun. ChatGPT may be Humanities’ calculator. 

Our students can already go online and find or purchase essays on a plethora of topics. Teachers who think they have an assignment that is unique or designed so cheating is not possible soon find that the market has proved them wrong. And while some students crib their work from online sources, which can be detected by plagiarism detection software, others simply provide original essays written by others. The essay arms race is never-ending.

Now ChatGPT can be the worst of both worlds: it is not the students’ work and it is original enough not to be flagged as copying. Time for capitulation, fellow teachers. Skynet has won this war, so it is time to move battlegrounds. 

What are we teaching when we ask students to write? On a basic level, we are teaching language and writing skills: sentence structure, organization, the use of evidence, tone, word choice, and grammar. Above this are thinking skills like argumentation, persuasion, textual analysis, historical and literary context, and the relationship between writer and work. There is more, of course. 

ChatGPT is a new tool with which to achieve these objectives. Instead of rejecting it and banning it from the classroom, why not make it another tool to achieve our goals? How might we do this? 

Use ChatGPT to generate example pieces of work. For some assignments, instead of having students write the essay, ask them to evaluate and improve what ChatGPT writes. Feed student writing into ChatGPT and examine the changes it makes. Give ChatGPT very specific instructions regarding tone, argument, or authorial intent and assess its effectiveness. Compete with ChatGPT. Give students an in-class prompt and then see how their efforts are similar or different from the writing of the AI. 

While I agree that writing will now be more often an in-class task rather than homework, ChatGTP could be part of an out-of-class process assignment. Students must show their steps (outline, drafts, etc.), but must also show where they used ChatGPT and where they used other resources (the writing lab, a tutor, a partner in class, etc.). This kind of assignment would allow students and teachers to go through the process together and break down the steps of good thinking, analysis, and communication. 

I will probably write further about possible ChatGPT connected assignments. I will look for articles that provide ways to adapt teaching practices to this new technology. 

Right now, plagiarism detectors like Turnitin.com may not be able to flag writing by AI. That will probably change. I came across a website that claims to be able to figure out to what degree a piece of writing is most likely written by a bot. I have played with it a little and it has been fooled as often as it was correct. 

Like computers, phones, and calculators, teachers who stick their heads in the mud and refuse to change their practices will only provide students with the choice of how to trick them with minimal conflict. Instead, like math teachers and calculators, we need to embrace this new technology, help students use it effectively and ethically, and refocus our lessons on the most important goal of our classes: competent, critical, and creative thinkers and communicators!  

Reading For Treasure: Education Issues

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Earlier this month, I spent two days back at school working with teachers and librarians and talking to kids about books. It was wonderful, rejuvenating, and exhausting! One of the reasons I started this list of articles was I didn’t want to keep sending my not-yet-retired colleagues articles that I thought they would find interesting or useful. So I post them here instead. My mind is on all the different aspects of education: grading, social and emotional health, classroom practices, athletics, safety, and many other topics. Since my list is long this month, I am limiting myself to a very short description of each article.  

First, some articles that focus on teaching and the teacher experience: 

“I No Longer Grade My Students’ Work — And I Wish I Had Stopped Sooner” in Blavity. “I’ve been teaching college English for more than 30 years. Four years ago, I stopped putting grades on written work, and it has transformed my teaching and my students’ learning. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.” 

“The Case Against Zeros in Grading” in Edutopia. I am shocked that some teachers still need to hear this argument. This article and the accompanying video make it clear: zeros demotivate students and count more than their successes! 

“Why So Many Teachers Are Leaving, and Why Others Stay” in Cult of Pedagogy.. Jennifer Gonzalez shares eight teachers’ stories: four who are leaving and four who are not. These are critically important voices that need to be heard.  

“Stress, Hypervigilance, and Decision Fatigue: Teaching During Omicron And, no, “self care” isn’t the answer” in Education Week. Katy Faber paints a vivid picture of what it is like to teach during this difficult time in America. 

"Why is America the Only Country in the World With Regular School Shootings?" in Eudaimonia and Co via Medium. Umair Haque has gone to school all over the world and shares how American schools are horribly unique. The issues we are having are not functions of adolescent development but of American culture. 

"Pandemic Shadow Syllabus" in Sonya Hubor's blog. This is a short and wonderful teacher struggling with the pandemic point of view piece. Teachers – if you read only one of these, let it be this one. 

A few articles that deal with education’s social context: 

“Young people need power.' Southern students on safety, accountability, and what they need from adults” in Scalawag.  This is a series of statements from young people about what it is like to be in school now. Read what the kids say about their experiences! 

"Is Your Child Too Popular for Their Own Good?" in Lifehaker. While some parents are clueless and others are ruthless, there are many kinds of popular in school and this article explores what some studies say about how popularity in middle and high school translates into adulthood. 

“OP-ED: When It Comes To Book Bans, America Could Learn From Apartheid South Africa” in NewsOne. The comparison is eerie and frightening – and right on the money: book challenges in America today are frighteningly similar to those in South Africa during Apartheid. 

Two pieces that focus on equity in college admissions from The Atlantic: 

"College Admissions Are Still Unfair" Colleges are eliminating legacy admissions, but this will not make things much better. At Amherst, there is a greater percentage of white athletes than in the general student body – and many play sports like crew and squash. Sounds like white affirmative action to me. 

"Colleges Can Fix the Broken Admissions Process They Created" This is a great list of ways colleges could improve the admission process to benefit everyone! 

Two very different focuses on kids and youth sports: 

“Do youth sports really build character? What kids gain from sports depends on adults”  in KQED Mindshift. The benefits of sports participation for kids are entirely dependent on coaches and contexts. This article spells out clearly the nature of adult’s influence, for better or worse, on children. 

“Guys, I Swear I’m Only Transitioning So I Can Cheat at Girls’ Sports” in McSweeny's. This older McSweeny’s satire makes the point well: the controversy over trans students in sports is an invented issue that fans the flames of hate at the expense of kids who really need to be part of the team!  

I am currently reading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds 

Watch Out Parents: Big Conservative is Not Just Coming After Teachers and Librarians

We need to talk about how you are interacting with your children at home. What are you teaching them? How are you modeling well? Are you making the right choices - the best choices? Would your legislators and political leaders approve of how you are raising your children? Do you talk about CRT? Are you too accepting of gender non-conforming behavior or ideas? Would you allow your child to use they/them pronouns? If so, Big Conservative might knock on your door for this kind of thought crime. 

We hear about parents’ choice. That is the rationale for a slew of censorship across more than a dozen states. However, which parents? What choices? For the most part, these book-banning (and sometimes burning) movements are aligned with a far wrong wing political agenda. They do not reflect ALL parents’ choices, just a specific conservative religious and usually white one.  

So this isn’t just about parents having a say in what their kids read in school. This is about ideologues having control over your children’s educations. Teachers and librarians were the first to experience this intense scrutiny and vitriol, but this movement will not end with them. 

You may think, what I teach my children in my own home is not anyone’s business but my own – and you would be right as long as what you were doing was aligned with Big Conservative. But if it is not, your behavior might be labeled child abuse and you as a negligent parent. 

Several states banned children who identify as a gender other than the one assigned at birth from receiving any interventions. They criminalized the act of assisting these children from even exploring anything beyond their gender at birth – even if their parents did it! 

So if you are looking at teachers and librarians and thinking, just pick less controversial texts, just make your lessons about the subject area and not about social issues, know this: that same message will be tailored for parents who don’t agree with the censors and extremists. 

Let’s go one step further: How will these wrong wing censors know you are veering away from their prescribed curriculum? Your children will tell them. The idea that children would “turn in” their parents was common in totalitarian and fascist regimes. Whether it was the Hitler Youth, the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers, or Communist Youth reading Mao’s Little Red Book, this technique has deep roots in authoritarian governments’ control of parenting. 

So as you are confronting those who don’t want their kids to “feel uncomfortable” in school because topics deal with parts of our past that are problematic, this is just the first battle in a larger war for who decides what your child learns – in and out of school. 

As with abortion, immigration, and elections, choice just means sticking with Big Conservative’s point of view; freedom means the right to express opinions that echo specific politicians in a specific party. They are not advocating for freedom and choice, they are creating vehicles to coerce and control – and their reach will not end at the schoolhouse – if we don’t stop it, it is going to ram through the door and enter your house! 

Thank Goodness for Teachers!

The school year is starting. Some of us welcome the “back to school” sales, while others see them as the death knell of summer’s freedom. And even though they are not paid during the summer, schoolteachers have spent an unfair and disproportionate part of it getting ready to receive our children. 

Professors, teachers, and especially public school faculty have become political punching bags recently. Not only is it disgusting and unfair, but it is also sharper than a serpent’s tooth! Public schoolteachers are the masons of success and, as we continue to learn from the pandemic, the foundation of our economy. When the schools stopped, the great machinery of business and industry stalled and sputtered. 

So let us give thanks for those wonderful souls who teach our children. Let us give thanks to those who have earned enough education to join the upwardly mobile and the moneyed upper middle classes, but eschew just earning a living and instead choose a vocation of giving. 

Let’s face it; those who teach could have been bankers, lawyers, doctors, scientists, artists, and all manner of professionals. Instead, they chose service to the children and our communities. They deserve our gratitude – and support! 

Get off their backs! If you don’t like the book, read your child another one. If you don’t like the ideas, discuss your beliefs with your children. While what happens in school certainly shapes children, it pales compared to what happens at home. If what you, as parents, are teaching your children can be so easily washed away by school lessons or activities, that speaks to what is going on at home far more than what is happening in the classroom. 

Consider this: teachers receive and welcome your children, even on the days when things have not gone well, even on the days when your kids were upset with you or you with them, even when you thought that maybe this whole parenting thing was a big mistake, even on the days when your children wondered if you still loved them. To whom did they turn? Their teachers. And their teachers reassured and supported them. You’re welcome. 

I have been concerned about using the term love here because it has been dirtied and maligned by those who cheat on their spouses, swindle their customers, lie to their constituents, and then tell you that you can’t trust teachers. It has been sexualized by those who pay hush money to sex workers and similarly would silence teachers who want to help our children make this a safer and saner society –for our kids and all of us. 

Because, like good parents, teachers love our children. They sacrifice for our children. They are not perfect. Like parents, they range from stellar to so-so. Like politicians, they make mistakes, even in service of larger goals. Yet, like good shepherds, they lead our children to find nourishment, comfort, community, and enlightenment. 

Stop beating up teachers and start extolling and exalting them. They hold our country together. They love our children even when we falter. 

And frankly, some of your children have questions they are afraid to ask you. Some of your children are curious about the books you have stolen from the library and destroyed. They want to talk to you about the concepts you want teachers to hide from them. Banning these ideas from the classroom will not prevent this exploration. It will not stop kids from thinking. It will change their view of their parents.  

Do you want your children to realize that, sometimes, their teachers have their best interests at heart even when their parents are silent and afraid? Thank goodness their teachers are there even when their parents want to shut down the conversation. In the age of the internet, banning books and forbidding discussion will never stop the ideas. Teachers know this. Some folks fear this. There is no stopping it. 

Teachers are the support structure and safety net of our society. As we send our children back to the classrooms, let us be grateful. 

Good Riddence to the 2021-2022 School Year

I dreamed last night that I was visiting my old school on the last day of the year. I dreamed that I was going through offices and classrooms, wishing people well, and meeting new staff members. We joked and hugged and laughed and were all dressed in Halloween costumes. I dreamed that things were just as I left them, but different and better.

But that isn’t the school at which my friends and former co-workers teach. That isn’t the reality of education at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. That was my dream (really), but the truth is that my friends are survivors of a disaster. They end this year with anxiety, anger, frustration, grief, pain, and lots of tears. 

And it shouldn’t be this way. 

Teachers, Counselors, and other school staff are asked to carry it all. They are simultaneously hailed as heroes who will save, protect, and sacrifice for their students with opportunities and weapons and love and knowledge, and then derided as groomers and political opportunists, lazy slackers, and self-serving conspiracy puppets. When it serves the sound bite, they are the saviors of society and when it fits the narrative, they are taking our children into an uncomfortable world of race, gender, and masks. 

And it is too much. 

My colleagues have been carrying the pandemic. Their mantra has been “We’ll make it work,” and “We do what’s best for kids.” They have been performing a high wire acrobatic juggling. Sometimes, their administrators and school boards, and communities have stood by their sides and provided a net. But just as often, those who should be their allies have turned on them and thrown them flaming torches and shaken the tent, threatening to bring the entire circus crashing to the ground in flames and flesh. 

And teachers are exhausted. 

So as the end of the school year approaches, as summer rounds the corner, kids are fidgeting in their seats, and classrooms start to smell of sweat and cut grass, as the looming grading deadlines feel like Kuber-Ross’s stages, let us bid a not so fond goodbye bye to this disaster of a school year. 

Of course, we wish you a relaxing and rejuvenating summer, time with your family, and time to yourself. We wish you health, which has been Sisyphean these past two years.

And we thank you. 

I am not sure I know how to do this. As a retired teacher who left just before the sky fell, I can only half imagine what these years have felt like. For the first time, I have heard several school friends say to me, "I hate working here." As a supporter on the side, I have seen the disrespect and destruction, heard the yelling, and unbelievable thoughtlessness. Alice had it far easier. I felt both guilty that it was you and relief that it wasn’t me and anguish it was happening. People say to me every day – every.single.day – that I “got out at the right time.” I wish you could join me. Right now. 

And we should be concerned that you will. 

Teachers are leaving in droves. They watch their friends and colleagues of decades marching toward the cliff’s edge and feel the pull of gravity. Wonderful, inspiring, passionate professionals are packing their classrooms for the last time right now. As the lockers slam and the sneakers squeak down the hall, they are crying with relief and shame. Accountants are not asked to kill themselves for taxes, but sometimes healthcare folks are. 

And our teachers. 

This is not an exaggeration. I have heard a call for a student strike in the fall. What if students said, “We aren’t going back to our classrooms until it we are safe from gun terrorists.” What if parents said that?  What if teachers, across this nation, said, we will not conduct another active shooter drill until lawmakers stop the senseless stream of school shootings! 

So hear me clearly. Hear it from a retired veteran teacher: Teachers, you have been outstanding. You have made critical differences in children’s lives. You have nurtured, challenged, enriched, advocated – and educated. You have fought the good fight – over and over and over and over. What you have done matters and will continue to matter, even if you are no longer doing it. 

And now it is your time. 

Some of you will return to the classroom in the fall. Some of you will retire. Some of you will watch the stream of buses and kids with backpacks and step out of the line. Some of you will place your own children at the front and focus there. 

And that is okay.

The last bell is ringing. It brings relief and intense sorrow. Set down the load. Rest. Hold yourself and your loved ones. You have been through a war and, although it is not over, we are hoping for a few months of cease-fire. Go to your bunker. Hug your people. Cry. Unload. Recover. 

And this summer – and all that comes after it – do what heals and helps you. 

Twenty One‘derful Years of Sunday School

I am retiring – again. I have been teaching Confirmation Class on Sunday mornings for twenty-one years. When we started the congregation in 2001, we wanted to be a full-service congregation; that meant a religious school, so I volunteered to teach Confirmation Class. 

We began with the curriculum from our prior congregation. It focused on comparative Judaism and comparative religion. I started with the continuum of Judaism. I took kids to Shabbat services at reform, conservative, reconstructing, and orthodox synagogues –and asked them to come to one of our Friday night services. Of course, high school students (and their parents) have many other things happening on Friday nights or Saturday mornings. And many students had been going to their friends’ mitzvahs at the very same congregations we were visiting. We had some very interesting conversations. 

I told students to dress nicely for these visits as they would for a B Mitzvah. When we visited a conservative synagogue for a Friday night service, one of my students arrived in a very short skirt and a bare midriff. I took off my coat as I saw her come into the sanctuary and said to her, “Put this on, you must be freezing!” I learned to be much more clear about my dress expectations. 

We also studied world religions and visited a Catholic Church and a nearby mosque. Through these seven field trips, the connections between all the religions were increasingly clear to the kids and me – and we were exhausted. It was too many field trips! 

In the third year, I decided to do a little of each: we studied some comparative Judaism and some comparative religion. I organized the years around the structures of the religions – and scheduled all field trips on Sunday mornings! One year, we went to an Orthodox Jewish shul, the Catholic church nearby, an Evangelical megachurch, the local mosque, and a Hindu mandir. The other year, we went to the Unitarian church, a United Church of Christ church, the Buddhist temple, the Bahai House of Worship, and a “classical reform” Jewish congregation that still had Sunday morning services. Five field trips a year was much more reasonable. 

And now, ninety-one kids, eighty-four field trips, and 470 class sessions later, I am handing Confirmation Class over to another teacher. Although I still love learning with students, the structure of Sunday mornings has become too restrictive. Both of my adult(ish) children live and work out of town. If I visit them, our time together must be on weekends. It is too hard to find ways to travel to see my kids and be back on Sunday mornings – and I feel way too guilty missing class. 

It has been a fantastic twenty-one years. I have learned with outstanding students. I have worked with fantastic colleagues and parents. I have talked with remarkable clergy. It has been joyous! 

In the beginning, my own children came to Sunday school with me. They would help set up my classroom and then run off to their own. We rejoined each other for the last half-hour, when the entire school gathered to sing. My parents would come to these music sessions, as would the parents (and often grandparents) of many of the students. It was a gathering of the congregation and a highlight of my week. 

I knew almost all of the families well. Once, as class came to an end, I joked with a student, telling him, “I’m going to tell your parents about this.” He looked at me and replied, “I’m going to tell your parents!” What a beautiful thing that he could! 

Every time we would study a religion or visit a different house of worship, I would learn with the kids. The first time we drove up to the huge megachurch, one of my students leaned over and said, “Oh, Mr. Hirsch, you’ve made a mistake. This is a mall!” Nope. It was a church – and it was bigger than a mall. 

I loved the moment that we drove through the gate at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Bartlet. I showed the kids photos. We had read about Hinduism. But nothing could adequately prepare them for the first sight of that magnificent structure. The collective gasp as we arrived more than made up for the long journey to get there. 

There have been challenging and memorable moments, too: the student who asked our host at the megachurch, “So, are we all going to hell?” The time a guide compared homosexuality to heroin addiction and my students were so flabbergasted that they literally began to move toward her. The pastor who was so approachable that one of my students whispered to me, “These are the coolest Christians I have ever met.” The charming and affable host at the mosque who just didn’t sit down, so we had our half-hour discussion standing (and swaying) on our feet. The host who thought, since he had grown up Jewish, that he was knowledgeable about our religion and made assumptions that were increasingly uncomfortable. The wonderful shofar-making activity at the orthodox shul – and the stuffed goat, and bumping into friends and neighbors at the Catholic church. 

One big issue we discussed a great deal is god. It is a very popular and important topic. We explore different ideas about god and different ways to conceptualize theism. I even show the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Who Watches The Watchers” to help us articulate questions and answers about the concept of an anthropomorphic god. 

We didn’t study religion purely academically. The point was to think critically about our own beliefs. We learned about how others answered important religious questions so that we could explore them ourselves. We wrestled with moral dilemmas, talked about what it meant to proselytize, and discussed the line between belief and behavior. The test of belief is how it shows up in our daily lives. How do we walk our talk? How do our beliefs shape our identities and decisions? 

At the conclusion of the two-year class, students get a chance to talk about what they believe. At our confirmation service, they focus on one part of their journey they want to share. Some students talk about god. Some talk about different views of Judaism. Other students focus on some of the questions we asked on our field trips, ethical issues, or their own stories. One young woman started out by telling us that, to her, her mother was god. A young man described his ethical code simply by saying he did his best to “not be an asshole.” Another explored the difference between confirming and conforming. Students sometimes challenged or questioned things they had learned. They wrestled with the concept of what makes something a religion. They described how they navigated conversations about religion with their friends. Year after year, their reflections made me think about my own philosophy and how I could better guide the next group of students. 

It has been a privilege to learn at Kol Hadash’s Sunday School. It has been an honor to study with these students, teachers, and parents. I often said that I am the lucky teacher at the end of the line. I benefited from all the magnificent learning that happened in the classes before Confirmation. From our youngest students learning songs and holidays to studying lifecycle events, heroes, Israel, and wrestling with the Holocaust, students are well prepared for Confirmation Class. I can’t take credit for their brilliance. They have been primed by their families and their earlier classes. I am very proud of them when they stand before the congregation and share their wisdom. 

I am grateful to students with whom I have learned – and their families. Their commitment to Jewish learning is inspiring. I am grateful for the incredible teachers and education directors with whom I have worked – and our outstanding rabbi. For the last three years, I have co-taught Confirmation Class with a teacher who is one of the most able, empathetic, and perceptive educators I have ever met. She will take over Confirmation Class next year. It will be a big upgrade. 

I am only retiring from teaching. I am still very involved in our congregation. I chair our fundraising committee, sing in the choir, and do a variety of other tasks. And if someone needs some help on Sunday morning, I am happy to assist. I live next door, after all.  

When I was a young child, my parents never expected to find a congregation at which they would feel comfortable. When they found Humanistic Judaism, it matched their philosophy and the way they lived their lives. There are so many families like us out there. It gives me such nachas that our congregation and school continues to be a warm and welcoming place for anyone who wants to confirm that Judaism can be celebrated culturally, secularly, non-theistically, and joyfully! 

Reading For Treasure: Winter Break Reading

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

I started creating lists of articles because what I really wanted to do was either to email them to my teacher friends or post them on social media – but I didn’t want to be that retired guy who is always sending me articles I don’t have time (or desire) to read. I often do a short description of the article, but today I am trying only providing a quotation to whet your appetite. Let me know if that matters at all. Perhaps all we need is the title? Nonetheless, these are six good education-related articles worth your attention. 

“Trust the Teachers” by David W. Blight, The Atlantic 
 “What American teachers most need is autonomy, community respect, the right to some creativity within their craft, time to read, and, perhaps above all, support for their intellectual lives. Most would not mind a pay raise.” 

“When parents scream at school board meetings, how can I teach their children?” by Jennifer Wolfe, CNN
“My students know that to move forward toward understanding and engagement, we have to be willing to talk about the hard stuff….Our country deserves people willing to have difficult conversations and solve problems together. We need to turn toward each other, not away from each other into spaces where uncomfortable discussions are treated like a crime. Without civil discourse, we risk tumbling toward civil unrest.” 

“Parents slam state board’s proposal to triple number of annual standardized assessments for students: ‘We must keep testing at the absolute minimum’” by Karen Ann Cullotta, Chicago Tribune
“A state plan that could triple the number of federally mandated tests Illinois students must take in the coming years is being slammed by some educators and parents who say after the recent loss of classroom learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the last thing kids need is more testing.” 

“Voice, Chat and DM: Remote Learning Tools That Make Sense In Person” by Caroline Smith, KQED Mindshift
"But Cohn discovered advantages to her students typing some of their assignments during virtual education. Watching her students’ writing appear on their respective Google Docs in real time meant she could provide simultaneous feedback. The process of editing on the computer — liberated from the messiness of revising on a piece of paper — made the process less burdensome and more enjoyable for her students."

“College Admissions Are Still Unfair” by James S. Murphy, The Atlantic
“There is also an important component of racial justice in dropping legacy preferences. The practice overwhelmingly benefits white applicants and harms first-generation, immigrant, low-income, and nonwhite students. A 2018 lawsuit against Harvard revealed that 77 percent of legacy admits were white, while just 5 percent were Black and 7 percent were Hispanic. At Notre Dame, the class of 2024 had five times as many legacies as Black students.” 

“School Stumbles Upon Chalkboards From 1917 During Renovation, Perfectly Preserved Lessons Provide Rare Look Into Past” Dusty Old Thing
“Construction workers were removing chalkboards– taking them down to replace them with new Smart Boards– when they stumbled upon some older chalkboards underneath. Luckily, they stopped to examine the chalkboards before destroying them, and they quickly realized that the boards were from 1917… Nearly 100 years ago! Stuck underneath layers of other boards, these antique chalkboards had been preserved with the chalk still on them, providing an amazing view of life in a mid-20th-century classroom.”

I am currently rereading The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler  

My Comments at the Township High School District 113 Meeting Discussing Budget Issues and Consolidation of the High Schools

Here is what I said to the Township High School District 113 Board at the meeting on October 19 regarding budget issues and possible consolidation of Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools. I have also included the video of the entire meeting below if you want to hear the entire meeting. 

Good evening.  I am David Hirsch. I joined the District 113 family in 1986 when I was hired to teach theatre and English. I met my wife at DHS and our two children went first to Deerpark and then returned as DHS students. 

The district had inspiring leadership in my first decades: Jim Warren, Linda Hanson, and Anne Reibock held the same value that was repeated constantly: first and foremost, we do what is best for kids. 

I am here to ask the board of education to make doing what is best for the children of District 113 the most important criteria when making all decisions, but especially when talking about consolidating schools, calling for referendums, and dealing with difficult and painful budget issues. 

In education, smaller is better: smaller class sizes, smaller schools, smaller systems. We want our students to be seen, known, and get what they need – before they have to scream for it. We want our schools to be supportive, nurturing, and safe communities. 

One more thing: I am a 1982 graduate of New Trier High School. Mine was the first class after New Triers East and West merged. I participated in the consolidation of the two schools. It may have saved money, but it was not what was best for kids. 

Four years after I graduated high school, I taught at a DHS that had fewer students than my entire New Trier class. Students thrived! Kids were on sports teams and in theatre. Leadership opportunities abounded. Students and staff knew each other even when they didn’t share classes or activities. There was a tight and supportive safety net below every child. 

During that time, our board of education and administration made choices, sometimes difficult and expensive choices, to do what was best for kids – FIRST! 

So tonight, I am asking three things of you: 

First, put the best interests of our children ahead of all other concerns. All decisions must pass the “is this what is best for our children?” test.  If the answer is anything other than a clear and resounding yes, then please find another way. 

Second, clearly and definitively take a stand that consolidating the two schools is NOT good for kids and unequivocally state that no such plans will move forward. 

Third, closely collaborate with your best resource for doing what is best for kids: your staff. The board of education, administration, faculty, and staff must be trusting allies, not adversaries. 

This collaboration has not been nurtured. Jim, Linda, and Anne were experts at bringing everyone together. They were dynamic and skilled teachers, administrators, and team builders. They are the reason we are the only non-union high school district in Illinois. We need that kind of leadership now. 

Glynis and I did not want our children to be swallowed by Stevenson or get lost at New Trier. We loved what we saw where we worked and we wanted it for our children – and yours. 

Do what’s best for kids. Strongly reject consolidation. Engage and embrace your staff as partners. 

Thank you. 

Reading for Treasure: Current Events Two By Two

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

Here are three sets of two articles dealing with some of the most pressing issues in the news today:  

Guns: 

Leonard Pitts, Jr. writes, “The Right to Bear Arms Does Not Extend to Black People” in an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune. He talks about a new book that, “argues that the Second Amendment — which supposedly came about solely as a hedge against tyranny — had at its heart a much less noble concern: Southern states demanded the right to bear arms because they feared rebellions by enslaved Africans.” He goes on to say, “All that talk about “a well-regulated militia”? Anderson told me in a telephone interview that that was just the cover story. State militias had not performed well either in fighting off the British or in defending against a domestic uprising: Shays’ Rebellion. ‘What the militia was really good at, however, was putting down slave revolts.’”

David Frum asserts in The Atlantic that responsible gun ownership is a lie. In his article, “How to Persuade Americans to Give Up Their Guns,” he describes how gun ownership makes people far less safe than if they did not own a gun. He looks at how the group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense is following the path of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He believes that, if properly informed, gun owners can be persuaded to give up their guns, “They need to hear a new call to conscience, aimed not at the paranoid and the extreme, not at the militiamen and the race warriors, but at the decent, everyday gun owner.” 

Education: 

Greg Rolasky reports about an “accidental experiment” in Boston where budget issues forced officials to have a lottery to see who would be admitted into the city-funded pre-schools. This created two groups: a group that got pre-school and a control group. Yup, economists then looked at the differences between these two groups. In this NPR article, “ The Case For Universal Pre-K Just Got Stronger,” Rolansky reports on what they found. 

On her blog, Diane Ravitch published a letter from Teresa Thayer Synder, former superintendent of a school district in upstate New York. In it, Dr. Synder encourages teachers and schools to focus on relationships and listening rather than “fixing” students who have fallen behind during the pandemic. 

Making Fun of Politicians! 

Finally, two wonderful pieces from the always wonderful online magazine, McSweeny’s. First, we hear from a Dickensian Republican, who says, “I Oppose the Democrats’ Plan to Lower Child Poverty. If Kids Want to Eat, They Should Work In Filthy Factories Like They Did in the Good Old Days,” and then, to be even and balanced, we hear from a doubting Democrat who says, “As a Centrist Democrat, I Ran on a Promise to Fix Killer Shower Clowns. But Now That I’m in Office, I Believe We Should Consider the Issue More Cautiously.” Read them and weep. 

I am currently reading Machine by Elizabeth Bear

Everlasting Gifts from Kathy Galvin

One of the gifts we receive from great teachers is that they continue to teach their students, even when they are separated by time and space; they continue to impact our lives. Their lessons become an integral part of our being. They are always with us. 

There is no one for whom this is truer than Kathleen Galvin. I met Kathy my sophomore year at Northwestern when I enrolled in Speech Teaching Methods class. I thought I might want to be a high school teacher. I thought I might want to be many things. I was a nineteen-year-old: part adult, part adolescent, part toddler, and part explorer. 

I found myself in a seminar room in the basement of Harris Hall with two dynamic professors: Pam Cooper and Kathy Galvin. They really had one name: PamandKathy. We sat in a circle and they guided us through far more than pedagogy and curriculum. They modeled how good teachers, good adults, and good people act. They overlooked our immaturity and gently guided us. They taught us to think like educators. They modeled phenomenal teaching and remarkable caring. 

With humor, creativity, and mountains of patience, they firmly and expertly helped us learn about communication, family dynamics, child development – and ourselves. They insisted we become outstanding learners and leaders – and, most difficult for me, listeners. 

They practiced what they professed. Every lesson worked on two levels: the content, of course, and the modeling from Pam and Kathy. Not every professor is a great teacher. Kathy and Pam were virtuoso teachers, pitch-perfect. 

Throughout my almost thirty-four years in the classroom, I lost track of the times I consciously thought, “What would Kathy do?” or “How would Kathy respond?” Over and over, I brought myself back to that seminar room and I recharged my patience and perspective. 

Pam and Kathy got me through a tumultuous student teaching experience. My cooperating teacher was magnificent and a fantastic role model. However, his mother became ill shortly after I arrived and he left for Florida for several weeks. I was on my own and way over my head. Kathy and Pam’s quiet and steady guidance helped me to thrive and learn to navigate solo in the classroom.

Whenever Kathy called me, I knew it was going to be life-changing. She called to tell me about a summer job at a prep school in New Hampshire, which started me on the path of teaching television, and eventually starting at TV class at my school a few years later. She called and told me about a job opening, which started an intense reflection of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to teach. When I decided to stay at my school and change positions, I called Kathy and she recommended my replacement!

Kathy guided my master’s process. Her family communications class not only helped me understand and empathize with my own family but also gave me new insight into hers. Kathy came and spoke to my wife’s professional group, the Lake County Counselors Association about the changing roles of parents in college. I remember Kathy going way beyond discussing helicopter parents and talking about attack and rescue helicopter parents. 

Even years after college, Kathy was still my teacher. I worked with student teachers and Kathy came to Deerfield and coached our pre-service teacher and me. The more time I spent with Kathy, the more I grew. Many years ago, we started having yearly summer lunches together. We shared what was happening personally and professionally.

When we had lunch the last time, I thought about all the students who had studied in that seminar room in Harris Hall - and other places. Many of us are teachers. Many of us have been teaching twenty, thirty- or more years. 

Our students are Kathy’s grand-students. Kathy’s legacy goes way beyond the people who studied with her. She was with me in the classroom every day. I have taught about Virginia Satir’s mobile, used cartoons to teach about communication, and tried to do my best Kathy Galvin impression when that talkative, awkward, slightly irritating, adolescent sidles his way into my room. 

And I kept calling Kathy for booster shots. Thank goodness I am retired. 

There is no way to quantify the gifts Kathy gave me, Northwestern, and the countless students who read her books, studied with her students, listened to her lessons, or were fortunate enough to share a lesson with her. 

Just before the pandemic, Kathy became ill and we could not see one another. Yet, truly, she is sitting beside me. In my teaching, parenting, and pursuit of all that is precious and beautiful, Kathy will continue to be my guide. I am so grateful I got to tell her this at her retirement party just before the pandemic. I just wish we could share retirement.