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.

Learning Not Lecturing

As teachers and professors move back to in-person classes and distance learning becomes a last resort for special circumstances and snow days, we will see what no video chat camera could really show. We will see firsthand how much students have been struggling and families have been in crisis. We must not avert our eyes and pretend that the pandemic never happened. It will be hard work, but if we do not do it, our students will pay the price. So it is incumbent on anyone in a classroom to really reflect on learning strategies that worked and didn’t work during our time apart and before. 

One strategy that needs revision is the lecture. I love this piece from Math With Bad Drawings. It is an “origin fable” about how lectures came to be. Lectures were the way that professors and other instructors conveyed their ideas to their students before there were any other means of doing so. When it was too difficult to produce material to read or enough copies for the class before any form of recording could be made when the students were wealthy white men who going to run the world anyway. In fact, lecturing may be the oldest teaching strategy we have! 

As I researched the effectiveness of lectures, I found many articles discussed how to deliver an effective lecture. The advice was almost always the same: have meaningful slides, using engaging questions, speak in an entertaining and dynamic manner, and so on. In other words, lecture is effective when it is accompanied by other effective techniques. Look at this website from Iowa State!

This article from Edtopia and this one from the Washington Post cite research that should make any educator reconsider the lecture. NPR reported about physics professors at Harvard and other colleges who realized that all they were doing was repeating what their teachers did and their students did not really understand the concepts. All they did was parrot back the lecture! 

The NPR article is an extension of a fascinating radio documentary by American Radio Works called “Don’t Lecture Me” about college lecturing and a college that decided not to use them. If your hackles are up and you are feeling defensive about the lecture, I urge you to listen to this. 

There is a place for lecture in education. Lectures, done well and done for brief amounts of time, can be a good teaching tool. As with many other areas, all generalizations are false: lectures are not universally problematic. 

However, I will argue that the vast majority of lectures are ineffective because the lecturer is not using dynamic teaching techniques. According to research cited in the radio documentary referenced above, only about 10% of students will learn well from a lecture, and it is likely that those students would teach themselves the material no matter how it was presented. Is it possible that the people who most benefit from lectures are the lecturers (and perhaps the institutions they work for)? 

The traditional college lecture in an enormous hall with hundreds of students feels like mass education gone horribly wrong. Let’s not even talk about the tuition cost to the students for such an experience. What is the rationale for not simply recording these lectures and allowing students to view them online? In fact, why not get all these lectures recorded and then allow the teachers to really teach or go do research? 

Maybe there is something else going on here. Many students might love lecturing because it asks so little of them. They don’t have to do anything but listen – and sometimes not even that. I have had many students who prefer not to think, but to just repeat what the teacher said. It is easier. 

If you visit a crowded lecture hall, you might see many students taking notes. You might see others surfing the web, texting, or doing other things. You might also see some who were sleeping. For many of these students, attending the lecture is performative anyway. The professor is only reading from a Powerpoint, which they later publish. Perhaps they even include notes. Students fully understand that they don’t need to see the show, they can just read the script. Is this a good use of their time and tuition dollars? 

Lecturing does make teachers and professors feel professorial. It is great to get up before an audience and show off. It feels good to have children praise and adore you for your knowledge and wit. Of course, they also expect that you will pay them for their worship with grades, preferably good ones. It is fun to have fans, but let’s be honest, impressing children for ego gratification feels low indeed. 

While brief and focused lectures may be necessary once in a while, teachers and students would be far better served if the classroom were a place where learning was interactive and engaging. We used to sit in a little red schoolhouse and write down our lessons with chalk on slates. We don’t do that anymore. Students now have access to every piece of information on the planet. Reciting it to them is far less useful than teaching them how to evaluate and create it. 

Come down from your stage, teacher, and help kids to make their own meaning, forge their own education: more than that special 10% will benefit  - and your lessons will have far-reaching impact.

Reading for Treasure: Dealing with the Unvaccinated

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

My most recent blog post makes the metaphor that the unvaccinated are pissing in a pool in which all of us are swimming. It laments the current stalemate between those who want a COVID-19 free world and those who simply won’t get the vaccine. Here are some articles that further explore this topic. 

The Atlantic’s “Vaccine Refusers Don’t Get to Dictate Terms Anymore” This opinion piece makes a strong case that the unvaccinated should have to pay the price for their choice,  “Americans are entitled to make their own decisions, but their employers, health insurers, and fellow citizens are not required to accommodate them.” The time has come for vaccination mandates by schools, employers, agencies, and others or financial penalties as well as testing for the unvaccinated.  

John Banzhaf, a professor emeritus from George Washington University, goes one step further, “Vaccinated workers, students, airline passengers and others who go out in public should not have to bear the risks and huge financial costs that the unvaccinated are imposing on society.” In his opinion column for CNN,  “Make the unvaccinated pay out for their deadly decisions,” he argues that, “Vaccine refusers should pay more for life and health insurance,” as well as  “If the unvaccinated want to get hotel rooms or board cruise ships or fly on airplanes, they should have to pay more to cover the additional costs of thoroughly cleaning and sanitizing the places they may infect. They should also be charged more because of the added burdens associated with requiring all airlines, bus and train passengers to be masked.” Basically, if you don’t want to get vaccinated, you need to pay for the additional costs you are creating! Yes! 

Inverse provides a specific and highly scientific answer to the question, “How Immune Are You After Having COVID-19? Why You Still Need a Vaccine” The common sense answer is to get vaccinated no matter what. Doubt that. Read this! 

Here's an update to my blog post: CNN is reporting that, "New analysis estimates $5.7 billion price tag for treating unvaccinated Covid-19 patients in the last 3 months." That is a lot of money helping people, many of whom could have been vaccinated! 

Finally, a little hope from an older article from The Atlantic. In, “One Vaccine to Rule Them All,”  Dr. James Hamlin describes research to create a universal vaccine. May this research be successful! 

I am currently reading A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine 

Pissing in the Pool: The Broken Social Contract

Recently, a doctor in Alabama stated he would not treat unvaccinated people. It was simply too painful to watch them die. Many of these people, says another doctor, ask for the vaccine as they are being put on the ventilator. 

It is appropriate to feel sorry for people who have made poor decisions like this. Certainly, there are people who, due to medical conditions or circumstances beyond their control, cannot get the vaccine. But what about the willfully and proudly unvaccinated? What about those who could and should be vaccinated, but won’t? 

What happens when people who have been hateful, hurtful, and horrible need help and those of us who have taken proper precautions pay the price of their poor choices? What is our obligation to the unvaccinated, unmasked, Clorox and Ivermectin taking folks? What happens when some people, who place their own desires, feelings, and “rights,” above the wellbeing of the entire community, fill hospitals to capacity so that there isn't even room for children with cancer?  Should we rush to Texas’s and Florida’s aid even if they are outlawing the very actions that would make their situation better?  

The idea of a social contract is  “(a)n implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection.” While you may never need the fire department, you pay taxes to have one because it helps the community as a whole – and if someday you should need it, it will be there for you. We all get this idea – or do we? 

“But I don’t trust the government,” someone replies. “It is my right not to wear a mask,” cries another. “You can’t make me get the vaccine,” says the third. Yet, people who have these views are treated in our hospitals like any other. Their children are going to school and potentially spreading COVID. They are making it impossible for children or teachers who are immunocompromised to return to school at all. 

At this point, arguing with them doesn’t seem like it is working. While loving responses and listening and acknowledging their fears may be a way to reach them, that does not address the current preventable crisis. And can that be scaled up to address all of them? They have made their choice clear: their individual choice (which they see as rights) are more important than the social good. Me first, us last. 

Last year, the folks making these claims said that COVID deaths were an acceptable cost for reopening businesses and that we should “sacrifice the weak.” More recently, a woman at a Trump rally compared this situation to “separating the sheep from the goats” which is a reference to a parable from the Gospel of Matthew. Ironically, the sheep are saved and the goats are lost. The unvaccinated woman identified herself correctly as a goat. 

Yet, we are paying for and cleaning up their messes – and it is quite expensive! We are spending billions of dollars to treat unvaccinated people and their choices may mean higher insurance premiums for all of us. Should we endorse their logic and put these goats out to pasture?  

We are an interdependent society; our choices significantly affect far more people than ourselves. We are not living in isolation. Regardless of whether you accept the social contract, we are still all swimming in the same pool.  

Why withhold help from those who need it? Why persist in holding a grudge against unfortunate and misinformed people? What good comes out of hurting those already in pain? Is the suffering of COVID a reasonable consequence for being arrogant and super selfish? 

I don’t think hospitals will stop treating willfully unvaccinated people. It is unlikely that large numbers of doctors will refuse to treat them. But there is an exodus of healthcare professionals leaving the field, and that will affect everyone. 

Here’s the issue: Should the willfully unvaccinated get care despite their disregard for the chaos they create or do we back off and let them suffer the consequences of their choices, even though that, too, could be deadly. 

If you run a red light, you get a ticket. If you leave your child in a hot car, that’s child abuse. If you drive under the influence…There are consequences when people flagrantly break the social contract. Defying mask mandates is against the law and prohibiting them is certainly a breach of contract. What about vaccination? 

It’s a lose-lose scenario if there ever was one. Thanks, assholes. 

Reading for Treasure: Looking for a Book to Read?

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

What book should I read? I often use award nominees and journalist recommendations as a way to find good books. So here several lists of books you could read. Many, but not all, are genre lists (my favorite catagory). Many, but not all, come from Tor.com (which is a great source for genre-based information). 

Of course, you could also look at my list of favorite books, but most of these lists are of books written more recently. 

The Hugo Awards are nominated and voted on by the science fiction and fantasy fans through the World Science Fiction Convention. I have found Hugo nominees to be one of the best sources of new authors and works to read. 

The Atlantic has a variety of book lists. Here is their summer reading list. 

The Nebula Awards are given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. These are the awards given by  (and to) the writers themselves. 

The African Speculative Fiction Society’s Nommo Awards recognizes science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors and editors who are “part of the African diaspora.” This is their long list. 

Locus Magazine focuses on the profession of science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing. They have their own awards and provide a very inclusive reading list of books written each year. These lists are wonderful shopping lists for your next book! 

President Obama is a voracious reader. Here is what he recommends. 

Here are the nominees for the World Fantasy Awards. 

The LA Times Ray Bradbury Prize “honors and extends Bradbury’s literary legacy by celebrating and elevating the writers working in his field today.” And, of course, Bradbury is from Waukegan, Illinois! 

The Philadelphia Science Fiction Society along with the Phillip K. Dick Trust give the Philip K. Dick Award to ““distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year…” This article lists the nominees. 

Finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards which are for the best LGBTQ science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature. 

The Shirley Jackson Awards are for  “outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic…”

NPR published this article on "Your 50 Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade" on the same day I published this list!  

Of course, there are many other awards - and awards in many genres! There’s a lot to choose from! Pick one and READ! 

I am currently reading Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark