One Justification for Those Who Came Before Me

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

 George Santayana (1)

         Yesterday, I was having a conversation with my son.  We were listening to NPR and a discussion about taking Alexander  Hamilton from the ten dollar bill and replacing his visage with that of a famous American woman.  I mentioned that we had an ancestor who fought for the South as a Colonel during the Civil War with the given name Alexander Hamilton.  Considering the events of June 17, 2015 and the horrific murder of nine parishioners by a white supremacist in Emanuel Church, Charleston, I asked my son if he was ashamed of our heritage.  He is always outspoken in his disgust with the display of the Confederate Flag whenever we see it.  He believes there is no place for the loyalty to such a symbol of hatred and oppression.  He sees the legacy of the Old South as no less than barbaric and often, because of this, dislikes living in the South.  He said, to a degree, he is ashamed.

         I am a son of the antebellum South.   Ancestors from both my Mother and Father’s side of the family were property owners and slaveholders prior to the civil war.   I am not ashamed of my heritage nor am I puzzled by it.  The status quo in the antebellum South was financially vested in an economic system that has existed since the beginning of human culture.   This is not a justification for ancestral oppression, but an acknowledgement of human behavior that exists to this day.  My ancestry is that of Western European privilege that lived by a caste view of human society justified through biblical and monarchical manifestation.

       Many of us see the antebellum worldview as abhorrent in human terms and inefficient in economic practice today.  It is important that we see such a cultural epiphany as good.  However, to continue our communal evolution away from economic oppression, it is also important that we remember slavery, the justification for economic oppression along with the inevitable horrific consequences.

         Human behavior is human behavior.  We have done many deplorable acts in the name of conquest and oppression.  We continue to justify the status quo in economic terms and resist change due to a fear of material loss.  I told my son that we should not be ashamed of our family history, but that does not mean we endorse their actions.  We should make a conscious effort to remember the antebellum South just for the purpose of preventing the development of oppressive economic systems.    Our knowledge of southern slavery, as well as the de facto oppression of the Jim Crow South, should act as the example that debunks the justification of oppressive economic systems throughout the world.  At first blush, our rejection of slavery should give us the moral high ground.  However, our contemporary practice toward global labor calls our sincerity and our perceived exceptionalism into question.

           In spite of the documented horrors of slavery in the U.S., the practice is very much alive.  It is estimated that there are 27 million enslaved individuals throughout the world today (2).    This represents over 7 times the number of black slaves prior to the civil war (3).  A 1999 United Nations report estimated that there are up to 10 million bonded laborers in India alone. (4)  No, 21^st century United States does not directly participate in such practices, but India is an important democratic  and trade ally. India, the contemporary model of a caste economy, a democratic republic and the home of Mahatma Gandhi enslaves its citizens for the economic gain of industrialists. 

           While U.S. corporations may not endorse slavery, they do perpetuate the preponderance of low wages and poverty throughout the world.  A recent article in Bloomberg Business paraphrased Samuel Palmisano, the chief executive of IBM (IBM) when he said that “Many prominent corporate executives, politicians, and academics have argued that we have no choice, that with globalization it’s critical to tap the lower costs and unique skills of labor abroad to remain competitive.” (5).  I can hear my ancestors justify their addiction to slavery in much the same way.   Although many would argue that sending jobs for low labor costs overseas does not equal slavery,  many laborers might argue that their perpetual economic condition is pretty close.  Even though many in American industry may see these practices as problematic, they feel helpless to change this due to its perceived threat to material wealth.

         Before we sanctimoniously judge our ancestors and their decisions to enslave human beings, it is important that we use their experience as a reason for us to look in the mirror.  The consequences of dominance justified by economic circumstances leaves a trail of human suffering and decimation throughout history.  Reason should tell us that all economic systems invariably fail due to inevitable imbalance in the human condition.  We have been willing to fight many wars to sustain illegitimate and oppressive economies.   It is not necessary to reject our ancestry, but it should be a requirement to remember their actions and the results.  

           I would like to say to my son’s generation that the behavior of ancestors should not produce shame, but determination. Nor should previous human behavior be an excuse for economic behavior.  We should see the example of our predecessors as reason to do better by our contemporaries. 

(1) http://www.iep.utm.edu/santayan/

(2) http://newint.org/features/2001/08/05/facts/

(3) www.pptpalooza.net/PPTs/AHAP/AntebellumSouth
(4)http://newint.org/features/2001/08/05/facts/
(5)http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/02/outsourcing_wheres_uncle_sam.html

Assertive Expectations

            Over the past 22 years I have played the dual role of school based educator and father.   Though both roles have played a roll in decisions as a parent and Principal, what I really have begun to notice is that I am more aware of what I want my children to get from school and what my school should offer students.   I have 3 children, each unique who exhibit a variety of strengths and challenges.  One was an honor student, another was classified gifted and the third is successful when it matters to him.   As a school administrator I have seen a wide variety of teaching styles with a varying degree of success.  However, there is one trait that seems to be common with all teachers who produce successful students.  These teachers do not allow students to settle.

            Instructional strategies have limited results if the teacher does not get to know each student.  Whole class, lecture, centers or small groups lack effectiveness if the teacher does not convince students that they can do better.   A student only buys into instruction if results matter to a teacher, and students can tell.  I recently received a letter from a past student where he told me the most important thing I said to him was that he could do better.  After my 15 + years observing other teachers and reflecting on their success with students, I was relieved that I practiced assertive expectations when I taught.   In my 8 years as an elementary school Principal I have worked with many teachers who practice assertive expectation, but two in particular stand out.   Both teach, or taught fifth grade.   Both used significant whole group teaching strategies.   Neither was satisfied with the results of the class, although both teachers succeeded with their test scores.   Neither was satisfied with wrong answers.   Every student, from the most scholarly to the least proficient, knew that they were going to be expected to seek and find the right answer.   If the students found the right answer they were expected to explain why.  If they did not get the right answer they were asked to try again and told to look at the problem another way.  The students were not allowed to settle for the wrong answer.  

            My own personal experience as a student also encountered such a teacher in 5^th grade.  Mrs. Stewart was hard on me.  She often gave me poor marks for deportment, but never left me to live up to the reputation such marks could develop.  Mrs. Stewart always expected me to do the work and do a good job.  While I had a tendency to blow off work I found unimportant, Mrs. Stewart made me do the work correctly.  She recognized that I had gifts that could encourage me to take such work more seriously.   By 5^th grade I had an aptitude for music and the visual arts.   I drew all of the time and had a strong soprano voice.   Mrs. Stewart often put me in charge of mural projects related to classroom content, this also provided a hint of future leadership capacity, and she set me up as the featured performer in our 5^th grade musical.   I never got a sense that she was ever satisfied with my academic efforts. As a matter of fact, when my Language-Arts teacher attempted to move me up to the advanced language arts class taught by Mrs. Stewart, she sent me right back to my mid-level language arts class.  However,  Mrs. Stewart always encouraged me to work on my strengths.   I left the fifth grade thinking Mrs. Stewart was glad to move me on, but when I finished third in a regional writing contest the next year, her congratulatory letter was the first I received.   In 6^th grade I became an honor roll student with good marks in deportment.   Through junior high school and high school I was typically on honor roll with some straight A report cards.   What Mrs. Stewart did for me was help me realize that my talents provided significant motivation to perform in school.  She taught that I had gifts and that I could use them in a variety of subjects to be successful.

            Now, back to parenthood.  I often think about what it is I want my children to get from school and I have come down to 3 things.  First and foremost, I want my children to understand that there is an exciting world out there.   I want them exposed to wonder, challenge, and possibility.   Children should see things they have never seen before while in school and this should happen frequently.  Second, children should never be allowed to settle for the wrong answer.  When a response is incorrect, students should be expected to find the right answer.  The right answer should never be given to them.  Finally students need to know that good is a requirement and it takes hard work.   When a child works hard to solve a problem or develop a project, they should know that it was the hard work that paid off.  Yes, it is an advantage if the student understands the answer, but it is more valuable if they are challenged beyond what they know.  

All three of the teachers I have highlighted in this installment exemplify what I want my students to learn in school.  If they do learn to explore topics, never settle and to work hard for things that are important, my children will be ready to take on a meaningful life with exuberance, hope and wonder.   I have observed many wonderful teachers and have also felt disappointment when students leave my schools with unfulfilled promise.  As a parent that is the result I fear the most: That my children leave the school experience unfulfilled.    This should be the primary task for teachers:  Know the child, help him understand that he is special, and demonstrate that wonder is the result of the unique individual he is.  It’s a tough job.   However, too many students move on seeing school as something checked off of the list because a teacher did not understand the task.  This hinders opportunities for success in adulthood.  Teachers should not only expect students to succeed, but should demonstrate assertive expectations.

Two Things That Should Not be Political

            One of the most important pillars of the democratic experiment is the premise that learning and inquiry are pivotal for a healthy electorate in a republic. The current actions of those who dominate the political arena at this time in the United States intend to inhibit learning.  One cannot help but assume therefore, that the intention of the majority represents a threat to the authoritarian philosophy of governance.  In other words, those in power are wrong, know it and act to suppress any effort to challenge their authority through intellectual restriction.  This is not limited to our inadequate ideological description of right vs. left.  It is the age-old corruptive influence of power and affluence as the disease that has brought down every significant civilization throughout history.   It is not a Jeffersonian libertarian philosophy that drives this wedge between a republic and their government, but the ancient worldview that believes that dominance is justification for manifest power.   Political domination is the right that supersedes individual rights.  There are two historical actions that authority takes to overwhelm political balance to the detriment of self-governance:  restricting education and science.

            In education, the United States has struggled with a balance of compliance and academic freedom throughout most of our history.  We defined this balance through judicial precedent that agreed that university professors have academic freedom and K-12 educators must follow prescribed curricula.   This was the precipitous governing balance that became the accepted norm of our democracy for over a century.  It allowed intellectuals to explore freely at the college level while it required K-12 policy makers seek a civic and contextual foundation for developing an engaged, compliant and productive citizenry.  This helped maintain a precarious balance between those who found intellectual inquiry an excuse for elitist dominance and those who saw it as a means toward enlightenment.  Political forces have played on this tension from all sides.  The post World War Two civil rights and anti-war movements provided an ironic opportunity for governmental literalists to promote a fear of unfettered citizenry against the need for necessary authority.  The strategy to restrict political intellectual thought through overtaking local and state representation was justified through the unruly action of those demanding a voice. Once such representation was in place the second step was to deny resources that allowed for intellectual exploration that challenges authority.   This has resulted in the radical judicial precedent brought about by Citizens United, encouraging a disengaged electorate, which has tipped the balance toward those who see an intellectual citizenry as anathema to manifest prescription for order. The ante-bellum definition of states rights has resurfaced as a result of the actions taken by those who want compliance, not engagement, from its citizenry.  The forces for the destiny of caste have overcome the democratic justification for reason.

            The recent developments in North Carolina, Kansas, Arizona, Wisconsin and other states are evidence of this.  Not only has the state house dramatically reduced funding for K-12 education; but, it is acting to silence decent by starving intellectual diversity through cutting resources that have been a vital part of the public university mandate.  Poverty, the environment, individual industry and health care are denied through restricted intellectual resources that lessen opportunities to challenge misguided order.

            The current “debate” over climate science and evolution are two examples of the strategy used to justify defunding of education.  The perspective of manifest power is threatened when the narrative debunks the concept of dominant human governance.  This authoritarian perspective promotes humanity at the top of the existential earthly pyramid throughout time. Therefore, any intellectual theory that threatens this perspective is false.  The warming of the earth cannot be due to human action because we hold dominion over the earth and have acted in our interest for the betterment of our world, which is irrefutable, since the beginning of recorded history.   Evolution cannot be true because the God of our Abrahamic Tradition has put us in this dominant position.  Who are we to question God?  The justification for empire, slavery and genocide all derive from a warped interpretation of Darwinian principles.  This, of course, is the ultimate irony.  The concept of survival of the fittest only applies to mankind’s justification to domesticate, not to the Earth’s cycle for rejuvenation and growth.  Recognition of biological evolution and pollution deny our intentional separation from nature as justified by a god of fear and conquest. 

            One of the important legacies of the Enlightenment, and the justification for liberty, was the concept that we cannot know enough.   The premise for Jefferson’s thinking, derived from his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries, was that diverse intellectual perspective represents a good and results in improvement of the human condition.  The pursuant struggle that led to the demise of monarchy over the next two centuries established that the citizenry has the ability to act in its own interest while serving the needs of the greater community and the earth.   The current restrictions placed on intellectual thought in the United States justified through religious literalism and naked self-interest is acknowledgement that intellectual diversity is a threat to a worldview for predestined authority; this while denying the historical inevitably that all empires crumble.

The contemporary political environment has nothing to do with intellectual or political principle.  There are those, in both the Democratic and Republican party, who pretend that this is simply a competition of ideals.  The so-called center keeps their proverbial head in the sand to ensure their material wellbeing while proponents of unquestioned authority take advantage of this timidity to promote their political dominance.  Therefore, resource depletion from the dispossessed seen with the potential to challenge such authority goes unchecked.

The contemporary dramatic reduction of resources in public education and science, along with the collective growth in wealth, represent evidence that that current political action is actually an aggressive attempt to suppress reason for power.  Education and science have to be free from the struggle for political advantage if liberty and opportunity for all are to flourish. History tells us that all republics crumble when thought and evidence are denied. Diverse educational and scientific thought therefore, should not be seen as threats to our way of life requiring control, but as God given requirements that require ongoing investment to survive.