Liminal High School

I want to share with you a quote from the French philosopher Michel Serres and present to you a modest proposal. In his book Parasite (1980/2007, p. 14), Serres writes, “a parasite is responsible for the growth of the system’s complexity, such a parasite stops it … are we in the pathology of systems or in their emergence and evolution?” For Serres a parasite is a source of noise. It can be a disrupting knowledge-less noise, or it can be a productive, meaningful, awe-inspiring noise. What kind of noise is an educational system? Is it one that is pathological, or is it one that creates, invents, emerges with new meaning and purpose every year as the students change? This is your challenge. What kind of noise is your school creating? Is it mind-numbing, standardized, politically-safe and chamber-of-commerce-approved noise which will require more meetings, more classroom time disruption, and more teacher alienation—or is it uncertain, risky, intellectual, creative noise emanating from students and teachers?

My modest proposal for you is this: help your administration do everything to open up your school to new, thoughtful ideas that do not come from sanctioned sources like leadership programs or other outside sources. Instead of latching onto the latest “how to …” and “the secret to …” books, return to the classics and share the vision of different educators. Share with your teachers and students Robert Frost’s vision of education that he develops in “Education by Poetry” (1931). Yes, poets have long thought about the importance of education, and they have never followed easy steps or passed a standardized test. Then turn to another poet, Audre Lorde, and read her “Poet as Teacher—Human as Poet—Teacher as Human” (2009). She will not let you down. You will see teaching differently. Once you do read these, do not stop. Enter the journey that leads you into areas you never thought existed but now seem essential to your life. Once you do this, then create your orchestra and invite teachers and administrators to join you. When they do, and they will because they will see the positive changes in you, the meetings will diminish, the emails will subside, and the noise will change. Then invite the parents, and once the parents are in your orchestra, then the politicians and businesspeople can be held at bay because their vision of an education is the very essence of pathological noise.

Kathleen: Will’s 69.4 and the Many Masks of Utility

Kathleen, I remember “Will” from your dissertation. It is always disconcerting to hear about or see students who value little except that which they think is useful. Then I think of where they got such a notion of life and education. Students who view learning as an economic transaction are only parrots who hear it from adults like their parents, businesspeople, and even sadly their teachers. I want to share a passage from Virginia Woolf’s wonderful book, A Room of One’s Own (1929/1981, p. 47): “She picked a book up now and again, one of her brother’s perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers.” Make sure your students moon over books, papers, and ideas in Spanish, English, or another language. Languages are important to master, but it does not matter which ones. Will is at peace with his 69.4 because he lost the ability to moon over. The difference between Woolf’s fictional female character and Will is Woolf’s character had her mooning privileges taken away from her and Will’s were extinguished through the inculcation of wrong values. Both, though, share this in common. Utility, or the vision of what is useful, was the culprit behind their denial of an education. Woolf’s character was a woman. She was supposed to darn socks, mind stew, and do useful household chores. Will, as a male, is supposed to get an education so he can get a job. Spanish will not get him a job, he so mistakenly has been told and now assumes to be true, so he can buy things and rev that economic engine that defines so many people’s lives. Your task as a teacher is to never use utility as a rationale for why Spanish as a second language or third is so very important. Spanish, like any second or third language, opens up the world to new possibilities and never lets the multi-lingual person down. Every day becomes an adventure when utility is abandoned in education. With utility checked at the schoolhouse door, Will has no more purpose for defining a 69.4 as good enough. 69.4 becomes meaningless, and anything short of fluency is not acceptable, even if he were to turn that 69.4 into a 96.4. Those numbers are the result of a utility-based society; multi-lingual speakers are a result of a better world.