on discourse and friendship

I remember the moments when my opinions on healthcare changed. There were two.

The first was early on in my teaching career. I avoided talking politics with my students - certainly current politics - but for some reason I was sitting at my desk and a student asked me what my opinion was on universal healthcare. I was slightly distracted, checking grades or something, and as she was right there and the class was doing something else, I answered honestly (and mostly parroting what my father believed): that I didn't know, that I was worried about what it would do to taxes and that I didn't trust the government to do a better job than what we currently have. My student, sharp as could be, said, "Miss, that's because you've never had to go without health insurance."

The other moment was not much longer later, when I was talking online to a friend that lives in Canada. He pointed out what I didn't know at the time, that the US is the only first world country that doesn't have universal health care.

These things gave me pause. They were major contributing factors to my changing my mind and the way I thought about the issue.

I have spent the last eight years teaching students how to think critically: how to take evidence as a whole and build a rational, logical argument based on that evidence, and how to determine what counts as quality evidence to begin with. I am routinely appalled by how many adults seem to have zero understanding of this process.

It used to be that when I disagreed with someone, particularly in the areas of religion or politics, I said nothing. Public conflict tends to make me deeply uncomfortable, and I told myself that there was no use discussing these topics - no one would change their minds and it would only succeed in making people angry.

Teaching taught me otherwise. (It is remarkable how much one learns by teaching. Sometimes I think my students taught me more than I ever managed to teach them.) Most people have never had their thought processes challenged. Most people don't automatically check to see how valid a source is. Most people don't stop to ask themselves how much bias they have on a topic, and they don't stop to consider how their privilege or social standing is affecting their beliefs. Most people can't point out logical fallacies, and even if they can, they don't seem to understand that a logical fallacy means an argument is objectively invalid. And the only way to get most people thinking rationally is by pointing out when they are not, and hope that, in return, someone will do the same for you. (The way to fix this is by systemic, high-quality public education, but that's a topic for another post.)

Put more simply: teaching taught me that if stupidity and ignorance isn't pointed out and something done to correct it, it grows exponentially.

There is a balance, though. It works best when the topic discussed is one that neither person is deeply emotionally connected to, as emotion essentially cancels out the rational thought processes of the frontal cortex. The problem is that the biggest social issues and the greatest founts of stupidity tend to be in places where people are deeply emotional. So you have a choice: you can either attempt to engage logically anyway, and hope that the logic triumphs once emotions have cooled, or you can not say anything on the big emotional topics and only start discourse on smaller issues. Sometimes thinking logically about something you're not emotional about can transfer over to things you are emotional about. And regardless, often the people who are watching the exchange benefit from it more than the ones involved.

I believe, strongly, in public discourse. I believe that, for us to move forward as a species, we have to have discussions on topics that affect us deeply, or we are doomed. I believe that refusing to engage or sequestering yourself so that you only hear opinions that mirror your own is a sign of weakness - an inescapable tragic flaw.

And yet there are times when I choose not to say anything, because the person has expressed something so horrifyingly ignorant (and usually hateful) that I cannot trust myself to avoid the ad hominem attack. Sometimes I have enough history with a person that I am not willing to risk our entire relationship just to make a point. Sometimes I know the topic is so entrenched in personal identity that there is almost no hope of change, and I let it slide. Sometimes I hope that someone else will have the courage to say what I don't.

I agonize over those moments. When a cis-male spews hate about a MTF transperson, or when a missionary says that adults should pay for their own food and health care, I cringe. I write out possible responses. Sometimes I hit delete, and I wonder if the point where discourse seems impossible is the point when it is no longer worth remaining friends.

on dreams and inevitabilities

SPOILER ALERT: What follows is the ending scene of Of Mice and Men. If you haven't read the book yet (and you should), don't read the rest of the post.

I've taught Of Mice and Men for five years, now. It was number three in the most banned books in the US in the nineties, not so much for the profanity as for the ending scene. It is always hard for my students, at fifteen, to understand why George has to kill Lennie. I have to logic them through every other option available to George, and even then, some of them don't choose to accept it.

It always brings up interesting personal questions, too, ones I don't share with my classes. Would I, if the situation demanded it as absolutely as George's does, be able to do the same? Would I have that kind of personal strength? Or would I, out of cowardice, choose a route that would be worse for everyone involved?

The thing is, though, that much of the logic depends on the fact that this death is better for Lennie because he doesn't know that it's coming. He dies believing that the dream is going to happen, dies painlessly and instantaneously, not knowing that George has betrayed him. George has to live with the pain, yes, but that's bearable because Lennie does not. It would be an entirely different story if Lennie were aware of George's betrayal, if George, for some reason, had to shoot him in the stomach and Lennie had to die just as slowly and painfully as if Curley had shot him, if Lennie stared George in the eyes until the life finally drained out of him. Or if, somehow, it went wrong and Lennie didn't die at all, but continued to live on with the full knowledge of George's actions.

George wouldn't look so much like a hero, then. Good intentions don't matter much if, in the end, it wasn't the better decision.

. . .

Lennie looked eagerly at him. “Go on, George. Ain’t you gonna give me more hell?”

“No” said George.

“Well, I can go away,” said Lennie. “I’ll go right off in the hills an’ find a cave if you don’t want me.”

George shook himself again. “No,” he said. “I want you to stay with me here.”

Lennie said craftily – “Tell me like you done before.”

“Tell you what?”

“‘Bout the other guys an’ about us.”

George said, “Guys like us got no fambly. They make a little stake an’ then they blow it in. They got nobody in the worl’ that gives a hoot in hell about ‘em  – ”

“But not us,” Lennie cried happily. “Tell about us now.”

George was quiet for a moment. “But not us,” he said.

“Because  – ”

“Because I got you an’  – ”

“An’ I got you. We got each other, that’s what, that gives a hoot in hell about us,” Lennie cried in triumph.

The little evening breeze blew over the clearing and the leaves rustled and the wind waves flowed up the green pool. And the shouts of the men sounded again, this time much closer than before.

George took off his hat. He said shakily, “Take off your hat, Lennie. The air feels fine.”

Lennie removed his hat dutifully and laid it on the ground in front of him. The shadow in the valley was bluer, and the evening came fast. On the wind the sound of crashing in the brush came to them.

Lennie said, “Tell how it’s gonna be.”

George had been listening to the distant sounds. For a moment he was business-like. “Look across the river, Lennie, an’ I’ll tell you so you can almost see it.”

Lennie turned his head and looked across the pool and up the darkening slopes of the Gabilans. “We gonna get a little place,” George began. He reached in his side pocket and brought out Carlson’s Luger; he snapped off the safety, and the handgun lay on the ground behind Lennie’s back. He looked at the back of Lennie’s head, at the place where the spine and the skull were joined.

A man’s voice called from up the river, and another man answered.

“Go on,” said Lennie.

George raised the gun and his hand shook, and he dropped his hand to the ground again.

“Go on,” said Lennie. “How it’s gonna be. We gonna get a little place.”

“We’ll have a cow,” said George. “An’ we’ll have maybe a pig an’ chickens . . . an’ down the flat we’ll have a . . . little piece alfalfa  – ”

“For the rabbits,” Lennie shouted.

“For the rabbits,” George repeated.

“And I get to tend the rabbits.”

“And you get to tend the rabbits.”

Lennie giggled with happiness. “An’ live off the fatta the lan’.”

“Yes.”

Lennie turned his head

“No, Lennie. Look down across the river, like you can almost see the place.”

Lennie obeyed him. George looked down at the gun.

There were crashing footsteps in the brush now. George turned and looked towards them.

“Go on, George. When we gonna do it?”

“Gonna do it soon.”

“Me an’ you.”

“You . . . an’ me. Ever’body gonna be nice to you. Ain’t gonna be no more trouble. Nobody gonna hurt nobody nor steal from ‘em.”

Lennie said, “I thought you was mad at me, George.”

“No,” said George. “No, Lennie. I ain’t mad. I never been mad, an’ I ain’t now. That’s a thing I want ya to know.”

The voices came close now. George raised the gun and listened to the voices.

Lennie begged, “Le’s do it now. Le’s get that place now.”

“Sure, right now. I gotta. We gotta.”

And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.

George shivered and looked at the gun, and then he threw it from him, back up the bank, near the pile of old ashes.

The brush seemed filled with cries and with the sound of running feet. Slim’s voice shouted, “George. Where you at, George?”

But George sat stiffly on the bank and looked at his right hand that had thrown the gun away. The group burst into the clearing and Curley was ahead. He saw Lennie lying on the sand. “Got him, by God.” He went over and looked down at Lennie, and then looked back at George. “Right in the back of the head,” he said softly.

Slim came directly to George and sat down beside him, sat very close to him. “Never you mind,” said Slim. “A guy got to sometimes.”

But Carlson was standing over George. “How’d you do it?” he asked.

“I just done it,” George said tiredly.

“Did he have my gun?”

“Yeah. He had your gun.”

“An’ you got it away from him and you took it an’ you killed him?”

“Yeah. Tha’s how.” George’s voice was almost a whisper. He looked steadily at his right hand that had held the gun.

Slim twitched George’s elbow. “Come on, George. Me an’ you’ll go in an’ get a drink.”

George let himself be helped to his feet. “Yeah, a drink.”

Slim said, “You hadda, George. I swear you hadda. Come on with me.” He led George to the entrance of the trail and up towards the highway.

Curley and Carson looked after them. And Carlson said, “Now what the hell you suppose is eatin’ them two guys?”

mini place poems

My students have moved into a (very brief) poetry unit. After we've read a few, I tell them they have to write a poem based on a place - real, imagined, it doesn't matter - because that tends to keep them from cliché, abstract, emotion-based pieces.

Before I give them time to write, I have them brainstorm about my classroom, and model how I would turn that brainstorming into a poem, using their input. I'm rather amused at how they turned out this year. (The last one falters in tone a little, but I was very tired by the end of the day.)

. . .

Walls of stormy blue, with explosive stars
Above Egyptian tombs,
Tattooed with a kohl-black lexicon.

. . .

Stars are dangling haphazardly
From a cratered ceiling, and polar
Winds make the moons wobble.

. . .

James Dean glances over glowing crescents
Of strung stars, the scent of Paris
And a pickle. 

simple summation

I rarely post about my job on here--partially because it's prudent, partially because this blog is a kind of escape.

Another blogger, however, has managed to sum up the way I feel about it in two simple sentences:

She fled. I stayed and fought the lions.

I've seen many people flee over the years--this one more than many--and at least for awhile, I have many more lions to fight before I will do the same.

Confessions of an English teacher, vol. 1

Part 1, drafted 3 days ago

The Scarlet Letter kept getting mentioned recently, for some reason. It's been buzzing around.

I remember hating it in high school. I figured that it wouldn't hurt me to read it now, and that I might actually enjoy it.

Dear lord. I am two CDs in to the audio book, and I am DYING. It's not even to the actual "book" yet--it's still the introduction, called "The Custom House"--and it's the most horrifically boring thing I have ever listened to. No significant action, not a single intriguing character, just meandering, awful, dull prose.

I am completely screwed if I ever have to teach it. When some kid asks, "Miss, what's the significance of that portion of the text?" I'm going to be hard-pressed to come up with any other answer but "hell if I know." It seems to exist merely because Hawthorne enjoyed the sound of his own voice.


Part 2, as of this evening

Shortly after writing the above, I broke through "The Custom House" and into the actual novel (novella? It seems short).

I hate it a bit less, now, but not much. There are, at least, characters worth noticing, and something in the way of action. However, the overwhelming fire/brimstone/devil imagery is SO DAMN OPPRESSIVE. It's his go-to metaphor for nearly everything.

Additionally, anything having to do with Puritanical values is currently rubbing me entirely the wrong way, so I'm mostly in a state of agitation at the narrow-mindedness of the characters as I'm listening to it. (Perhaps it wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't know that these are the types of people our country was founded by, and partially why in contemporary times we have such ridiculous debates about things like gay marriage and death penalties for women getting abortions.)

Anyway. I think this is failed experiment, though if I change my mind about the book once I'm done, I'll be sure to let you know.