Academic capitalism: College Acceptance Letters Glitzy - Rejection Letters Brutal

In these economically perilous times colleges are more worried than ever that the most desirable students will reject them in favor of other suitors.

The response has been an upgrade in the acceptance "packages" set to students. As these get more glitzy the rejection letters (or emails!) are getting more brutal, according to an article today from the Associated Press and syndicated in Yahoo News.

AP: College admissions officers are jazzing up their acceptance notifications--sending out fancy certificates, T-shirts, tubes of confetti, or Internet links to videos of fireworks--in an effort to inspire loyalty and lock in commitments from today's fickle and worried high school seniors.

Some admissions officers say rising competition and the economic downturn are forcing them to devote more money and attention in paper acceptance packets. Worried that the economic downturn might scare some students away from private schools like St. Bonaventure, admissions director James M. DiRisio upgraded his college's T-shirt package this year.

Meanwhile, Rick Shaw, Stanford's director of admissions, says the college is trying to reduce waste by encouraging the 20,000 or so rejected applicants to take their bad news electronically, though it will send a formal letter if a student asks. "We are saving a lot of trees," he explained.

Fixing our National Education System

Nicholas Kristof in a recent article, Our Greatest National Shame in the New York Times has declared that fixing our national educational system is even more important than fixing our national health system.

Kristof claims that many innovators are doing many of the right things at the K-8 level, though he is not certain that they can be "scaled up". The real problem he states is with High Schools.

What is the problem? First, great teachers count much more than anything else. The important attribute is a kind of 'withitness' that connects teachers to their charges. This counts more than prior education or intelligence or SAT scores.

Second, our current way of selecting teachers has nothing whatsoever to do with this. There is a huge disconnect between the marks of a promising teacher and the criteria we use (teacher certificates, Praxis exam scores). So we should scrap all of that! (That's a great idea, but for Kristof is merely a throwaway line).

Now, while noting that the disconnect between relevant criteria and actual selection practice exists primarily at the K-8 level and the real problem is with High School, he cannot seriously think that teaching algebra or physics or other demanding secondary school disciplines has more to do with 'withitness' than with understanding algebra or physics, which in turn must have something to do with prior educational achievements and even SAT scores.

Moreover, his solution to the problem is more effective measures for good teachers. I should think that this mistaken idea is how we got into all of this stuff about graduate record exams, certification require ments and Praxis exams in the first place.

How about a radical solution: stop measuring teachers. Go after a bunch of 'with it' folks, and for high schools, also very smart and highly educated ones. Rely on general criteria and human judgment to select them -- that's what 'with it' types do and trust.

That said, the “national educational system” Kristof refers to does not even exist, never has, and with any luck, never will. Unless I misread the constitution, education is a reserved power of the states.

The federal government has until recently been very chary about centralizing educational authority. It has tended to couch its interventions as aide to the states on issues of overwhelming national importance such as vocational education and national security.

No Child Left Behind and its kindred efforts are unconstitutional on their face, as many state level officials acknowledge. For the most part states have fallen in line because without federal money they cannot provide what a contemporary education requires. I do not know a single educational administrator at any level that thinks NCLB is anything but a disaster.

Where the federal government can be helpful is not in offering further intrusions into state educational efforts, more tresting requirements, more standardization, but rather in offering inducements to states to modernize the entire apparatus of state governance to establish "smart" educational networks much as we are now working on smart buildings and smart energy grids.

The best starting point is to realize that most of the really important learning resources from communications media to museums and universities, serve entire regions. The region, not the arbitrary school district, should be the organizing unit of smart schools. Let's encourage the states to establish regional consortia and to fade out the monopoly of the local school districts. As the central cities and suburbs become ever more differentiated by social class, the local districts are no more than the means to manage and perpetuate educational inequality.

Multi-district regional schools, under regional authority established by the states, have created amazing models for regional schools. The Harrisburg PA High School of Creative and Performing Arts, run by a consortium of 29 districts as a regional charter school, draws on all of the arts infrastructure of the region and draws kids from both poor central cities and rich suburbs. Internet technology can further enhance the scope and reach of schools under regional authority.

As in the case of charter schools, targeted federal incentives can move the states to create more of these regional solutions.

Meanwhile, pumping all of the stimulus money into "scaling up" ideas into coercive federal programs operating through the local districts only keeps gross educational inequality in place.

John Dewey and NRA CEO: Best Friends Forever?

As most readers of this blog know, John Dewey isn't exactly a beloved figure in conservative America. Recently, Human Events Magazine asked a panel of scholars to vote on the "most dangerous books of the 19th and 20th century." Dewey's Democracy and Education showed up at #5 on the list, just behind Quotations from Chairman Mao and The Kinsey Report.

And so it was that I was quite surprised, while doing some research on the connection between Dewey and Thomas Jefferson, to discover a new edition of Dewey's little book on Jefferson (The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson) published by Palladium Press, an "official affiliate of the NRA" and the publishers of a series of "immanently affordable" (perhaps after the recession?) titles known as the Firearms Classics Library.

The new edition features a fresh introduction by Wayne LaPierre (standing to the left of Cheney in the photo above), the current CEO of the National Rifle Association. LaPierre, as it turns out, is quite an interesting figure. In 1995, he referred to federal agents as "jackbooted thugs", which prompted former President G.H.W. Bush to resign from the NRA. Today, in addition to his NRA duties, he is the current host of Crime Strike, a television show "which fills in the details where Cops and America's Most Wanted fail." (One wonders: what exactly is the intellectual space that Crime Strike occupies?)

Now, if LaPierre were a passionate dyed-in-the-wool fan of Dewey's work, it would be extremely surprising. As it turns out, however, LaPierre didn't introduce Dewey's little book out of any affection for Dewey, but rather out of affection for Jefferson. The Living Thoughts is simply a collection of remarks by Jefferson that Dewey felt were particularly notable. For a variety of reasons, Jefferson appeals to a wide political spectrum, and Palladium Press and LaPierre must have felt that The Living Thoughts was an appealing collection.

There is a certain deliciousness about all of this. Dewey didn't select the remarks found in The Living Thoughts haphazardly; he selected them because they were, from his perspective, especially notable and worthwhile. By republishing Dewey's selections, then, LaPierre and Palladium endorsed (albeit perhaps unwittingly) a Deweyan spin on Jefferson.

All of this is just a trivial bit of fun. But the book that underlies it, The Living Thoughts, is worthy of more attention, as is Dewey's connection to Jefferson. Why did Dewey choose particular Jefferson selections that he did? Did reading Jefferson have any kind of an influence on Dewey? I've been starting to look into these questions recently. Hopefully, the answers that turn up will be interesting.

Open the gates: Immigration as economic recovery?

As so many of us, I am attending to economic issues these days.  In truth, I just can’t escape them.  I read a description of the “Obama plan” and pay careful attention to what the plan might mean for schools (through support to states and special ed funding).  Or I watch Congressional hearings with overpaid and unsuccessful CEOs and am appalled.  (Is “appalled” strong enough?)  Or I check the weekly email that my investment company sends and simply refuse to wrap my head around what that means for my personal (lack of) net worth.  Mostly,  I remember that I am being paid for a job I love, lock into an attitude of gratitude, and remind myself to be more generous than I ever have been in a time when many others have little to give.  Sometimes, though not often, I read something sensible.  I read something sensible the other day and it resonated with some Dewey “discovery” I was doing for another project.

 

Tom Friedman’s NY Times column on February 11^th (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/opinion/11friedman.html) suggested that one answer to our economic woes was to loosen immigration limitations, especially for those who are highly talented in skills and ideas that can fuel entrepreneurial efforts and spark new industries.  He says he got this idea from an Indian national who notes that many Indians, Chinese and Koreans have the educational background and the will to work hard in the American tradition.

 

Friedman says this:

 

While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”

 

After reading Friedman’s editorial, I happened to delving into Dewey’s Correspondence.  I came across this from a letter in 1919 to Professor Raymond Moley, a recent Columbia Ph.D.  Dewey was talking specifically about the Polish Study in Philadelphia but more generally about attitudes toward immigration:

 

"My own conclusions, personal, are not optimistic, and I don’t think there will be any improvement till the Americans get over their optimistic complacency, and their unwillingness to tell the truth in writing about the immigrant question.  The complacency consists in regarding the immigrants as constituting the problem and Americanization simply as a problem of assimilating them.  Going by what we learned as a sample, the following problem is almost wholly one of reforming the environment of America into which the foreigners come.  This isn’t easy because the church and the big business interests cooperate with the politicians to keep the immigrants isolated and therefore in easy subjection …”

Friedman and Dewey are both asking us to reform “the environment of America” and to understand that immigrants are not and have never been the problem.  I confess that I resonate to Friedman’s “solution.”  I want to open the borders, not control them, and certainly not to shut them.   I don’t understand how “free markets” can be the answer to improving schooling within the US but not the answer to improving economic functioning.   Open up the borders, grant the visas, and let’s see who can create new businesses and new jobs.   The people who emigrate to the US will come because there is opportunity here.  That’s what we represent.  And those with the energy and ideas to create opportunities for themselves will almost surely create economic possibilities for those among us who simply want to work for a wage.

 

Oh, and on a slightly different, but surely related topic, I came across this from a letter Dewey wrote to his children from Japan in 1920 about social and economic conditions in that country:

 

"There is no doubt a great change is going on, how permanent it will be depends a good deal upon how the rest of the world behaves.   If it doesn’t live up to its peaceful and democratic professions, the conservative bureaucrats and militarists who of course are still very strong will say we told you so and there will be a big backset.  But if other countries and especially our own behaves decently, the democratizing here will go on as steadily and as rapidly as is desirable." 

 

Here’s how I read it … and I agree.   The best (and first) thing the United States can do to encourage democratic interaction and economic freedom is to model that in every way possible.  We have some work to do …

Education Spending in the Obama Stimulus Bill

From Chris bowers at Open Left comes this useful sumary of the education items in the stiumlus package:



Education for the 21st Century:

Economists tell us that strategic investments in education are one of the best ways to help America become more productive and competitive. This bill will make key investments to help states avoid teacher layoffs and other damaging education cuts in this recession, help make college more affordable, and make other key education investments.

Preventing Teacher Layoffs and Education Cuts by the States

Prevents teacher layoffs and other cutbacks in education and other key services, by establishing a $53.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, including $40.6 billion to local school districts using existing funding formulas, which can be used for preventing cutbacks, preventing layoffs, school modernization, or other purposes; $5 billion to states as bonus grants for meeting key performance measures in education; and $8 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education.


Making College More Affordable

Increases the higher education tax credit to a maximum of $2,500. Also makes it available to nearly 4 million low-income students who had not had any access to the higher education tax credit in the past - by making it partially refundable.

Increases the maximum Pell Grant by $500, for a maximum of $5,350 in 2009 and $5,550 in 2010.

Adds $200 million to the vital College Work-Study program.


Investing in Early Childhood Development

Provides $1.1 billion for Early Head Start and $1 billion for Head Start, which provide comprehensive development services to low-income infants and preschool children - thereby providing services for 110,000 additional infants and children.

Provides $2 billion for the Child Care Development Block Grant to provide child care services to an additional 300,000 children in low-income families while their parents go to work.


Providing Other Key Education Investments

Provides $13 billion for Title I grants to help disadvantaged kids reach high academic standards - ensuring that in this period of tight state and local budgets these vital services are maintained.

Provides $12.2 billion for grants for IDEA (Special Education) to increase the federal share of these costs, and prevent these mandatory costs from forcing states to cut other areas of education.

Where are Teachers' Voices in the National Education Debate?

From the Bellingham Herald http://www.bellinghamherald.com/291/story/786150.html

Print version - Sunday, February 8, 2009


Feb, 7, 2009


Where are teachers' voices in national education debate?

LORRAINE KASPRISIN / THE BELLINGHAM HERALD


Discussions surrounding the problems public schools face have become dichotomized in the national debate with teachers increasingly demonized and their professional expertise belittled and often ignored. The recent disagreements over the choice of a new Secretary of Education in the Obama administration along with the petitions that were circulated reveal the immense animosity and polarization of that debate.


Rather than a rational conversation on a direction for alleviating the problems that face the public schools, the problem has been presented as a great showdown between the forces of "good and evil." Even the mainstream media were not immune to this seduction. Newspapers and magazines like the New York Times and the New Republic have presented the decision over a new Secretary of Education as a battle between the "new reformers" and the "old establishment.


"Who are the new reformers? Apparently from these publications, they are the outsiders who wish to see the schools privatized and turned into a commodity on the free market. They cry out for high-stakes testing, accountability measures, merit pay for teachers, vouchers, and the expansion of charter school experiments. Who is the "old establishment?" They are the teachers and their unions, the education schools who educate them, and the local school districts that represent the public. They are seen as advocates for things like more equitable funding and smaller class size.


Nowhere in this debate do we really hear the voice of teachers whose relationship with children, their parents and the community are carried out everyday on the grassroots level. Ultimately, it is their actions in the classroom with children, and the understanding they bring from their professional knowledge and experiences that will really make a difference in the achievement of children.


How do we reconstruct the public debate that brings in their voice? With this in mind, I would like to raise six questions for readers to consider if we are to redirect the public debate.

-- Why are individual teachers often acknowledged while teachers collectively often demonized? The teachers union has been projected as a huge monolithic power structure that resists any reform on behalf of children. Unions, of course, are the mechanism that workers in our society have for a chance at equal participation in the power structure. Why are teachers as workers seen as such a threat to a schooling system of a capitalist society?

-- Why are professional expertise and training seen as a threat to reform? Why can't we talk about the nature of the professional knowledge that is required to teach effectively in a multi-cultural, multi-racial democratic society that is constantly reinventing itself? How can the institutional structures that are politically set, and out of the control of teachers, be made to be more conducive with what teachers know about the developmental learning stages of their students? Without a serious conversation at this level, the charges and counter-charges are useless and banal.


-- Why does so much of the discussion on teacher incentives rely on a business or corporate model? The assumption that if teachers receive merit pay, they will perform better has been repeated as an unexamined mantra throughout these debates. Of course, teachers should get more pay. But all teachers deserve a decent wage for what they do. Are teachers going to be more motivated because they earn more than the teachers down the hall? Perhaps, what inspires teachers' work is the support they receive, the respect they have earned, the opportunities to learn more from each other as part of their daily work, the collegiality with their colleagues in purposeful dialogue and goal setting, and the voice of the profession in decision-making over meaningful changes that will bring about real achievements for children.John Goodlad, the longtime critic of American schools, has called this process "educational renewal" as opposed to "educational reform."



-- Why are experiments like new charter schools articulated in the public debate as the prerogative of one side only? In reality, many teachers across the nation participate in these initiatives and are part of these experiments.


-- Why is the high-stakes accountability movement allowed to appropriate and dominate the language of accountability?In today's climate, to argue against high-stakes testing and its effects is seen as an argument against accountability itself and used as an example of the status-quo. Why can't we take a serious look at what accountability can and should entail as a moral responsibility to assure equal chances for all our students rather than success on a high-stakes test?


-- Why can't we openly and honestly discuss the class disparities in this country and the legitimate concerns of parents and communities over the achievement gaps in student populations without using it for exploitation and a pretext for privatization and corporate gains?


-- Why can't we openly and honestly debate the public purposes of schooling in America? If advocates for the privatization of schooling really want to take public education in this direction, then let's debate what that means for the future of this nation's public school experiment.


At the beginning of President Obama's new administration that harbingers change and collaboration, a new national conversation is needed that brings all voices to the table. The dichotomization, polarization, simplification, and demonization must give way to a new, more inclusive public conversation that includes the voice of teachers and their communities on a grassroots level.


Lorraine Kasprisin is a professor in the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. She is also president of the Educational Institute for Democratic Renewal and editor of "Journal of Educational Controversy."

Must we obsess about student test scores?

This is a cross-post from Chip's Journey. It connects with Amy Shuffelton's very interesting post below about testing children. I share her daughter's evaluation of the whole process.

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For too long, US education policies have defined progress in terms of student test scores, while ignoring the things that really matter. We've operated on the misguided belief that "learning the basics" is best accomplished by a narrow skills focus and micro-management of test scores.

This occurs despite the fact that few of us would be satisfied if our children could successfully answer multiple-choice questions, but failed to develop intellectual curiosity, cultural awareness, practical skills, a philosophy of life, a strong moral character, emotional balance, social fitness, sensitivity to social problems, or physical fitness. What a tragedy then, if the focus on skills per se (as with the failed No Child Left Behind Act) were not even necessary. What if one could help the whole child develop, including teaching basic skills? What if our current irrational obsession with testing actually stood in the way of the things we truly value?

The start of a new administration in Washington is a good time to ask whether we have the schools we need. Above all, it's not a time to seek ever-more efficient means to produce incremental gains in test scores.

We have an alternative to that in our own history. One of the best program evaluation studies ever conducted was the Eight-Year Study, research conducted between 1932 to 1940 by the Progressive Education Association (PEA). Thirty high schools participated. Instead of narrowly-defined subjects, there were broad themes of significance to the students. "The starting point of the curriculum would be life as the student saw it" (Benedict, 1947, p. 14). Moreover, the schools were community-based. "The schools believed they belonged to the citizens of the community" (ibid, p. 17).

The students from the experimental schools did only slightly better on standardized test scores, but they showed major improvement in other areas, including intellectual competence, cultural development, practical competence, philosophy of life, character traits, emotional balance, social fitness, sensitivity to social problems, and physical fitness. Students from the most progressive schools showed the most improvement, more than those in the somewhat-progressive schools, and much more than those in traditional schools.

Outcomes of the study included better forms of student assessment, innovative research techniques, new ideas for curriculum, instruction, and teacher education. But above all, it provided an answer to the questions above: It is possible to help the whole child develop, without losing basic skills. In fact, schooling can be conceived in such a way that teachers and community members are learners as well. Doing that appears to be the best way to help the individual learner, not drilling on perceived deficits, as we do now. And yes, the irrational obsession with testing actually stands in the way of teaching the things almost every parent, teacher, or citizen truly value.

References

Aikin, Wilford (1942). The story of the eight-year study. New York: Harper.

Benedict, Agnes E. (1947). Dare our secondary schools face the atomic age? . New York: Hinds, Hayden & Eldredge.

Testing

In a week of large steps for Americans, my four year old daughter took a small one. Thursday, I drove her to the psychology department of a nearby university, where she took her first test. On her behalf, my husband and I have applied to gifted schools in the Chicago Public Schools system, hoping she’ll be selected to attend one next year when she starts kindergarten.

Of course, it’s not the first time she has been tested. Within minutes of birth, like all children born in contemporary US hospitals, she’d been given the Apgar test. She got a perfect score, and when the doctors told us she had exceptionally good color for a newborn, I felt an unreasonable flush of pride. My husband commented later that he too was amused to find himself proud of her Apgar numbers, but we couldn’t help it. After more than 20 years as students, our emotional response to tests of any sort were well primed.

All the same, last week’s intelligence test felt monumental, a significant turning point in my daughter’s life. It was the first collection of data on her mind. Until Thursday, her mind was uncharted, unrecorded, and therefore private, her own. Her teachers have told us about what she draws, how she plays, her social skills, and how she’s developing in terms of school readiness, but that’s anecdotal. I’ve written emails and letters about her to family and friends, again anecdotal. I think about her thinking, but until now, her mind has been territory solely for her, her friends, her family, and others who know her personally and care about her. As of last week’s test, however, her mind is a public enterprise. Data has been collected, and the Chicago Public School System is the first of no doubt many institutions to start passing judgment on how she ranks compared to others. Expectations are different. Her mind, in one important way, is now public.

We could “go off the grid” educationally speaking, of course, but I believe strongly in public schooling, and I want her to be part of it. The test drove home what a significant choice that is.

It felt monumental to me, at least. I’d told her that she was taking a test, and told her that she should do her best but not worry too much about it, and she followed my instructions. She was curious, interested, and proud when the tester told her she’d “done good work”, but to her the afternoon seemed to be a lark – a chance to leave preschool early and spend extra time with her mom, with the promise of a cookie later, with the chance to run along the sidewalks chasing the geese that were wandering the campus.

After the test was over, my daughter and I set out in search of the treat I’d promised. We sat at a table in the student center, and she ate two doughnuts. (Not usually allowed, but I figured there ought to be some reward for conforming to adult expectations so cooperatively.) “Mommy,” she asked, “am I done taking tests now?” “Yes”, I answered, “that’s the only one . . . well, no. No. No, you’re really not done. Not at all. I mean, you don’t have to take any more before kindergarten, but once you get to school there are lots more. Lots.” I stopped talking, rather than scare her to pieces about this whole schooling enterprise. That evening we went to a basketball game, where she ate popcorn and danced in the aisles when the cheer squad performed. When we got home, she threw up.

Apply Obama pragmatism to Mideast

A great use of Deweyan pragmatism at work -- published by my friend and philosopher of education Mordechai Gordon -- published in today's New Haven [CT] Register:

IN the past few weeks, President Barack Obama has emphasized his commitment to being a pragmatist when it comes to tackling the pressing problems our country is facing.

When asked on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" how he would respond to the criticism of Democrats about his economic recovery package, Obama said, "If people have better ideas on certain provisions — if they say, you know, this is going to work better than that — then we welcome that." He repeatedly has stated he is open to any creative ideas that would help turn around the recession.

Obama's pragmatic approach is not new. During the campaign, he stressed his intention to review policies of President George W. Bush that had not worked and a willingness to try innovative solutions to ongoing problems. For instance, Obama pointed out that not negotiating directly with Iran and increasing sanctions on it have not helped deter Iran from trying to develop a nuclear bomb. He insisted it is time for the United States to try a different approach. Similar suggestions were made by Obama regarding policy toward Cuba and Pakistan.

Will Obama bring the same pragmatic approach he has advocated for the economy and Iran to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? It is too early to tell, but the initial signs have not been encouraging. Other than his commitment to deal head-on with Gaza and the larger Middle East conflict, we have no indication Obama or his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, are willing to shift toward a more pragmatic course to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Indeed, the message they give is that the United States will continue to give Israel unconditional support and refuse to negotiate directly with Hamas.

What might a pragmatic approach look like? Clearly, the actions of the Bush and the Clinton administrations, which quietly stood by as Israel continued to build settlements and maintain its occupation of 3.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, have not worked. Likewise, the U.S. policy of not negotiating with terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah or "rogue states" such as Iran and Syria has not helped make the region more secure and stable.

A pragmatic approach entails a fundamental shift in perspective, requiring both Israelis and Palestinians to renounce violence and military solutions and recognize that negotiation and compromise are the only options that can lead to peace.

Such a shift would mean that the United States abandon its historical practice of showing Israel favoritism and giving it unconditional support. For example, the Obama administration should openly denounce Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip and the enormous restrictions it has placed on the rights and liberties of 1.5 million Palestinians. It should meet with the Palestinian leadership in Gaza to try to persuade them firing of rockets aimed at civilian populations in Israel is not only immoral, but counter productive.

One option Obama might consider is calling a peace summit in which the United States would exert significant pressures on all sides to make concessions and reach an agreement.

Such a summit could be modeled after the 1978 Camp David accords and include representatives of Hamas so that all the relevant parties would have to speak to each other and negotiate directly. The guiding principles for this summit would be the creation of an independent Palestinian state side by side with Israel and a lasting peace agreement between the two nations like the one Israel has with Egypt and Jordan.

I suspect Obama's pragmatic approach to solving the economic crisis as well as other national and international problems will be a great asset for him. Adopting such an approach will protect him from being wedded to failed policies, as his predecessor was, that are based on ideological beliefs or falsehoods.

Obama said it best when he stated "you can't simply have the same reaction over and over and expect different results." I would urge Obama to heed his own advice in order to finally stop the cycle of violence in the Middle East and bring about a just and peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mordechai Gordon served as a paratrooper in the Israeli army during the 1982 war with Lebanon. He is a professor of education at Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden 06518. E-mail: mordechai.gordon@quinnipiac.edu.

Unfettered Joy

(Cross-posted from http://technopaideia.blogspot.com)

"I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere." (Barack Obama; Dreams From My Father; 1995)

I find this particular aspect of Barack Obama's character especially compelling. Like many of my friends and professional colleagues...although not all, I see truth as socially constructed--perspectival and pragmatic--and find myself considerably impatient with people who believe that their own view of the truth is intrinsically superior to another equally-functional truth. The awareness of the reality that truth reflects experience as much as it reflects exterior "reality"--a major deconstruction of positivism that is also known as the hermeneutic circle--is, to my mind, the primary achievement of education. Educated people--like Barack Obama--understand that truth-seeking requires an openness to the way that reality is seen by others--and a reluctance to dismiss the statements of others as wrong or false based solely on the fact that those statements are different from one's own. Such an awareness takes time to develop--it is metaphysically counterintuitive and undercuts the traditions and habits of individuals and particular social groups. It requires a rejection of the tribal instinct that leads humans to distrust strangers, an further evolution of consciousness that has taken the species many millenia to achieve and which is clearly still beyond the grasp of many in our country and abroad. It seems especially difficult for people who achieve or inherit financial wealth to accept, for it requires an acceptance that such success may reflect the luck of the situational draw as much as it reflects one's ability or merit.

If it were easy for humans to adopt the perspective of others--if empathy with all humans regardless of situation were instinctual rather than aquired--if following the golden rule were easy rather than an enormous challenge--we wouldn't be constantly at war with one another, whether in the streets of Chicago or in the middle east.

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(Chicago Tribune, 1-19-09) WASHINGTON — A celebration of democracy quickly became an Obama family sing-along as the future first family danced, sang and channeled their inner Otis Day on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday.

The two-hour "We Are One" concert offered the family several moments of unfettered joy, whether it was Michelle Obama's delight at hearing Stevie Wonder sing or President-elect Barack Obama's attempt to teach his young daughters the "American Pie" chorus. The typically reserved Malia Obama even laughingly complied as her father tried to do the bump with her at one point....

As the entire National Mall danced to Garth Brooks' rendition of "Shout!" Barack and Michelle Obama showed their daughters how to do the dance made famous in "Animal House." Even the president-elect's mother-in-law, the stoic Marian Robinson, threw her hands in the air and laughed.

When Wonder appeared on stage a few moments later and played the opening chords of "Higher Ground," Michelle Obama jumped to her feet and motioned for her family to do the same. Soon the entire Obama clan was jamming to the 1970s funk song.

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It brings me great happiness to see Barack and his family enjoying themselves as he takes on one of the most difficult jobs in the world. While I do not envy them the responsibilities or loss of privacy that comes as they ascend precipitously to the heights of celebrity, I do empathize with the tremendous enthusiasm of so many here in Chicago and around the world at the possibilities this represents. The celebrations in Washington--while certainly scripted to some extent and caught in the nets of spinmeisters and image consultants--are, for many, truly celebratory: an occasion on which to focus on possibilities rather than pessimistic realities.

(Chicago Tribune 1-19-09)"...Bono, the Irishman and lead singer of U2, injected the only seemingly unrehearsed political note to the day. Just after Obama's wife, Michelle, blew him a kiss, he said the election of Obama represented "not just an American dream — also an Irish dream, a European dream, African dream, Israeli dream and also a Palestinian dream."

Many Americans--especially those who preferred John McCain's (or even George W. Bush's) fixation on national defense--can't understand the exuberance of Europeans for Obama--and dismiss African-Americans' pride as merely another instance of jingoism or even racism. But these cynical Americans are missing something vital and sacred: the real power of shared hope and the belief in the possibility of transformed human affairs in a global community. They are missing the importance of these events--the many references to Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., for example--as potent symbols of this possibility. Their "realism" has become a barrier to the idealism that could flow from their deepest desires, if they could only give themselves permission to dream.

Seeing the Obama family relishing these moments provides--for me--an opportunity to project my own dreams onto them. Certainly these dreams will not be easily realized, and these people upon whom I project those dreams are just people--mere mortals thrust into the center of the world's attention by the exigencies of time and place as much as by their own strivings--but I don't really care right now. Most of all, I am allowing myself a few days of shared joy--with the Obamas and with the entire world--and allowing myself to believe in our shared dreams--in the hope that if enough of us do believe, reality itself may be transformed.

(Chicago Tribune, 1-19-09)"In the course of our history, only a handful of generations have been asked to confront challenges as serious as the ones we face right now," Obama said. "But despite all of this—despite the enormity of the task that lies ahead—I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure, that the dream of our founders will live on in our time... For in these monuments are chiseled those unlikely stories that affirm our unyielding faith — a faith that anything is possible in America."