So maybe you had to be there, for the real performance.

Background: I rewrote the lyrics for Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love” to fit my group’s presentation topic at a teacher leaders seminar. It was a smash hit. Here I re-perform it, agonized looks and all.

(Go ahead, let the half-painted ceiling above me distract you–my house and I are both rather unpolished, it seems.)

Even while my gum and hair lines are rapidly receding I am finding assurances that my professional existence is at least interesting.

I don’t really need assurances of the usefulness of me beyond the sheer demand for me from around the house here–garden, N, shed, N, N, car, N, garden, N, lawn, N, garden, N, groundhogs (garden), N, and the big M of Marriage. But validation from my work world (even while my developing philosophies lean towards undermining mainstream educational models) is nice.

My three recent examples:

I had a week-long student teacher last week. He left this note on his last day when he lead the classroom for the whole day while I was away: “Thanks so much for this opportunity, it really was wonderful. I think I have decided that I would like to teach middle school.”

A note from the school-board member parent of one of my students: “I know last week was National Teacher Appreciation week but I think we should celebrate teachers all year long.  I want you to know that B has thoroughly enjoyed having you for a teacher.  She enjoys your interactions with her, your sense of humor, and your willingness to indulge her sense of humor.  The other week she said to me, “Mom I’m having the best year yet in school,” let me tell you that hearing that from my 13 year old is incredible!  She credits her teachers for this and she specifically mentioned you.  Thank you for making this a great year for B and one where she has been able to develop her negotiating skills–Reeses cups–and to expand her knowledge as well as love of reading.  Thanks!” (The Reeses Cups scoop: The student and I had a debate about whether they were food or candy. I finally conceded that they were food after she gave me one and a half pieces of the … food.)

After I receive it in the mail, I’ll be reviewing a Cuisinart hand mixer provided to me by an online business that sells lots of things like computer desks and furniture and that wood basket I reviewed a while back.

It’s taken me a while to decide what item in the price range available to me to review; nothing offered by the online store was clicking, and I was beginning to feel as though receiving and reviewing nothing would be much better than free, unnecessary items.

But then our old hand mixer died while M was making chocolate cakes for my students, outstanding cakes we ate yesterday while watching The Outsiders, in which the kids drink beer and eat chocolate cake for breakfast, and I just knew what I’d review.

Can’t wait!

Today not for the first time I required my students to write a letter to me.

“Any topic, any length,” I said. “Then read in your books.”

One student who is quite vocal in his distaste of me wrote:

“Dear Mr. Jacobs,

Sincerely,
T.B.”

I filled in the gap for him, in my response: “I think you’re a great teacher. I have decided to give you $5 every day just to show my appreciation.”

Another student wrote this after her short letter saying that she wanted to read instead of write: “PS. Shave your head it looks like theres grass growing on top through cement. NO OFFENSE!!”

I responded, “It’s marble.”

At the beginning of this school year I labored under the duress of my district’s males’ “ties required” dress code. I wore the ties grudgingly and rejoiced greatly when the requirement was removed back in November.

I have worn a tie to school on maybe one day since then.

Today, after school, after I’d changed into my biking shorts and t-shirt, one of my students wandering the after-hours hallways stopped long enough to say, “This is strange. I never see you when you’re not, like, wearing a tie.”

?

The basketball teams of two educational systems I associate with have progressed to high levels of tournament competition. The excitement is palpable.

Yesterday my whole school stopped in its tracks to listen over the intercom radio to the final three minutes of the close high school game. Students normally rowdy and inattentive in class quieted each other and concentrated fiercely, raising their eyes and arms to the tiled ceiling and muttering prayers of “Please, please.” When the home-town team won, cheering erupted throughout the school, and when we were finally dismissed for the delayed class change, students in the hallways jumped up and down and reminded each other, “We won!”

I heard one student say, “For the first time in my life, I’m proud to be from this town.”

Along a parallel vein, a practicum student observer of my classroom has kept me up-to-date with his college’s basketball team’s surprising ongoing success. “The whole campus is caught up in it,” he said. “Everyone’s excited.”

The sense of community surrounding these successes is mounting and enveloping. One teacher during my school’s morning announcements earlier this week notified everyone that that afternoon the police department would be escorting the team’s bus around town before the bus would head out for yesterday’s victory: “Come out and support our boys!” she said. And the nearby college emailed me yesterday to suggest I rally around a computer this coming weekend to join fans worldwide who will be watching and cheering on the team. Have a party, they said–and send us a picture (I’d maybe win a t-shirt).

So this weekend majestic things are supposed to happen. “The boys” will defend what’s good and right and just (us) by bouncing a piece of inflated leather on an expensive and finely-finished floor with clearly delineated lines and then throwing the ball into the air and (“Please, God, make it go in!”) through a circle of metal.

I can’t imagine doing or watching anything more important.

I’ve gotten some blank stares from colleagues recently when I’ve alluded to a thought that’s been pickling in my head over the last several months. Maybe the thought’s too anarchist in a public school situation for them to get it.

It’s not that my school district isn’t doing a good job at educating the public. In fact, I think it’s a stellar educational system. And it’s not that I don’t like state standards or testing or even AYP. Believe me, I see their merits.

Rather, it’s that the mantra of being “learner focused”–click here for typical clanging ding-dong–rings for me as hollow as a clapperless Kid Caller. Just call me the paradox of critic-from-within.

The problem with “learner focused” is that its lasers of precision drilling bore specific facts and skills into little children’s mental kidneys to forge test-ready humanobots at the expense of the greater freedom that resides in human potential. Instead of students reaching their own potential through creative self-instigation, “learner focused” education studies the student to find how the student can best study for the upcoming standardized student success model. Forget that little individual there on the class roster–we need good test scores, dammit. And, students, we’re going to use punishments and report card carrots to make sure you’re with us on that.

Even the latest nationwide kick, to streamline states’ various standards of learning into one academic code, keeps beating the same withered donkey. As NPR reports, “The guidelines are part of a push to iron out the jumble of state standards and raise expectations for American schools…. If proponents have their way, third-graders across the country will understand the function of adjectives and adverbs, while eighth-graders will be introduced to the Pythagorean theorem. More broadly, the standards are meant to prepare kids for the possibility of college.”

Now, gaining skills and learning facts and for some of us even going to college is probably in some way important, but there’s a lot of discussion out there about alternatives to public education’s fundamental premise of “gotta get those kiddos ready.” I haven’t really researched any of them, but my sense is that at least one or two of the alternatives share the belief that external motivators–grades, punishments, praise–are more detrimental than fruitful, as writes Alfie Kohn in Unconditional Parenting.

My own school’s discipline program and grading system–certainly effective, efficient models–exemplify such external motivators. As a teacher can I motivate my students with my discipline and grade book prowess? You bet. Is it satisfying to know that the majority of my students buckle down on assigned agreeable tasks primarily because there’s an “Or Else” lurking in the corner? Not really.

What would happen if schools disbanded into small, intimate learning communities without curriculum but with a cultivating, literate thirst for relevant, interesting knowledge? At least kids would still learn to read, according to one Psychology Today scholarly blogger. And one unschooling mom says they would turn out human.

A student essay I graded recently suggested that kids know they’re not getting what they need from school. In the essay, about a person from the past whom he’d bring back for a day if he could, B.S. (no joke) wrote that he would like to know why Thomas Jefferson’s “unique style of architecture” was so French influenced.

“Why were there so many pillars?” he wrote. “While we were in Monticello I would ask about some of his unique collections. Like wine, why did he collect it? What was his favorite? Maybe Merlot or how about a nice white Zinfandel. Those would be interesting facts to know. What textbook would that be in? Also he had a lot of books, What were his favorite books? Did he read every book in his library? Also who was his favorite author? Again things you don’t learn in school.”

He continued, “Would he be a democrat or a republican? What would his vote be for health care? What were some influences for the declaration? Was he scared when he wrote it? Things that aren’t in a text book.”

Does it sound like this kid needs a looming report card to motivate him to explore and gain knowledge?

—

Epilogue

His wasn’t the only interesting one among the batch of essays:

K.S. wrote that Michael Jackson “was atacked by the media constintly.” In the next paragraph she described her visit with the brought-back-for-a-day Michael: “Finally, I would ask who the true Michael Jackson was. It would be a visit made for telavision broadcasting!”

A.H. also wrote about Thomas Jefferson, although in her story he pops out from behind a bush and asks, “Hello there would you like to spend a day with your good old pal Thomas Jefferson? And I be like heck yeah!”

They go to the mall to get him some modern clothing, and “by the end of the day Thomas has on a jacket that says Hollister and his jeans are American Eagle. When we were done shopping, Thomas say, ‘Where in this great big world of wonders can I get a cup of tea? … So we go over to the Bugar Place and order our food.”

A.H. does go on to discuss history with Thomas, and they end up on the “starirs of the Jefferson Memorial with the sun seting. The sky was a perfect pink and purple. Thomas let out a big sigh….”

And finally, N.C. believed that bringing back George Washington would allow George to learn about today’s weapons and “change how things played out” by making weapons more sophisticated and even advancing the development of flying cars. When George first “fell out of a time portle,” he asked where he was, and what N.C. was doing.

“This is my house and that thing is a television.”

“What’s a television?”

“Something that plays tv shows.”

“What a tv show?”

“Something on TV.”

After a tour of modern local life–“He was probably 90% sure he was in the future when he saw [the town]”–they ended their day on an army base, where George was sucked back into the portal. Along with him went the whole army base, and “then stuff began to change and the world was different. There were now flying cars and other neat stuff.”

And since I’m all for unfocusing, let me pull in yet another snippet, this one by a student of a colleague “S.A.” (again, no joke) in an essay titled “Let’s Bring Back Jesus!”: “So I can understand what all pasture Berney means in church.”

While explaining what “legitimately sought” means, I mentioned to my class that “I accept bribes, if they’re high enough.”

“How much for an A?” one boy asked.

For my Teacher Leader Workshop final project, my study group will be presenting about servant leadership.

“I’m good at writing new words to popular songs about topics,” I told my group mates at our first meeting. “Maybe I could do that for this, too.” I described the time in college when, not realizing the assignment would count as a major class grade, I quickly wrote some lyrics for the guitar riff from Collective Soul’s “Shine” for a presentation about empathetic listening. I performed it for class, and the professor loved it.

“We’ll let you do that part of the presentation,” my group mates said.

I started brainstorming–and found that “servant leadership” easily fits in place of Bad Company’s refrain “Feel Like Making Love.”

But I really had no clue yet just what servant leadership was, and so I read (and just finished this afternoon) The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader by James C. Hunter.

“I really like this book,” the book’s back cover quotes Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership Board Chair Jack Lowe, Jr. “Servant leadership is for people of action and this book is a practical guide to actionable servant leadership.”

While the whole book is biased towards the miracles of big businesses, the military, and Presidents Reagan and G. W. Bush, it’s also full of humorous and meaningful quips, quotes, and thoughts.

And, in its heart, it’s all about Jesus: “I have studied great leaders from many fields, including the military, education, religion, politics, business, and athletics,” writes Hunter. “I have studied mystics and sages from the past and present in my search to uncover the true essence of leadership. Then one day it dawned on me that I should look at what Jesus had to say about leadership” (71). And what did he say? In Mark 9:35, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

“That’s great!” I can imagine Jesus saying, picking up the book and miraculously turning to the page where he is quoted (70). “Someone’s listening! But how the hell is it that I am so glorified in a book that also extols Wal-Mart and Nestle [see “Controversy and criticism“]? Hmmmm. Sounds like a personal versus corporate ethics dilemma to me.”

But anyway, foundational to servant leadership, writes Hunter, is love, which he defines as the “act(s) of extending yourself for others by identifying and meeting their legitimate needs and seeking their greatest good” (86). This is “volitional love,” which is “the choice, the willingness of a person to be attentive to the legitimate needs, best interests, and welfare of another, regardless of how he or she happens to feel on certain days” (85).

In the context of leadership, Hunter notes, that means being patient, kind, humble, respectful, selfless, forgiving, honest, and committed (1 Corinthians 13).

Well. I think the Bad Company rewrite will be perfect.

It’s not stuff just of juvenile fiction or sociological and theological theory.

First, though, the juvy notes:

The Black Book of Secrets tells of a young boy who meets up and then works for a pawnbroker of the most unusual sort: he pays money for secrets. As they enter a small village and establish their shop, they find that central in all of the sellers’ secrets is the evil land owner, lender, and otherwise filthy man who monopolizes the townspeople.

However, in spite of his insistence that all he promised to do was buy their secrets, the townspeople come to see the pawnbroker as a messiah who they’d hoped would end their troubles for them. As their frustration at his inaction mounts, he explains, “However bad the situation, I can’t change the course of things. Just be patient.”

And in fact, the evil man’s evilness does eventually come back on his head, and the townspeople rise up against him even as he is killed.

This would be “retributive justice,” writes Howard Zehr in his Changing Lenses: A New Focus for Crime and Justice. “We assume that offenders must receive their ‘just desserts.’ Offenders must get what is coming to them.” And if that means we can get rid of the offender, good. It is “just” that the evil monopolizer winds up dead.

The Black Book of Secrets is a bit more complex than that, however. Towards the end of the story, when the evil man himself comes to pawn away a secret, the broker welcomes him in and lends him his ear. Even he has a right to request and receive the same relief I offer anyone else, the broker explains to the wary young boy.

Zehr would call this a hopeful glance towards restorative justice, a first step in a long process of involving “the victim, the offender, and the community in a search for solutions which promote repair, reconciliation, and reassurance.” In other words, the evil monopolizer, in his seeking relief from the pain of his own story, could be turning towards right relationship with the townspeople, in a Zacchaeus sort of moment.

However, the evil man then violently steals the book in which all of the secrets are recorded and, against the urgent pleadings of the pawnbroker, picks up the broker’s pet frog, which fatally poisons him.

Is this justice? Sweet revenge? An alluring execution of the “myth of redemptive violence”? Walter Wink writes in The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millenium that according to the myth, “we need a messiah, an armed [with a frog?] redeemer, someone who has the strength of character and conviction to transcend the legal restraints of democratic institutions and save us from our enemies…. So great a threat requires … an avenger, a man on a white horse [with a frog?].”

Whatever it is, The Black Book of Secrets seems to be a reassurance that what goes around, comes around. It’s a common perspective.

Take last week, for instance. The one day that school wasn’t canceled was a parent conference day, and my one scheduled parent meeting revealed to me that I don’t enjoy being bullied.

The parents, upset by the possibility that I might limit their son’s (in my mind excessive) bathroom pass use, exercised a variety of thinly disguised threats (I was one of my principal’s “employees”; earlier in the year they nearly hired a lawyer for another situation with their son and the school–over a “petty” issue, the dad said; and “kids text and email each other to gang up on specific teachers or students,” said the dad) to convince me that they were supportive of their son’s good behavior in school and that their son can use the bathroom whenever he wants.

I must say, besides the fact that I knew they were difficult parents of a troubling student yet decided not to request their son’s other teachers or an administrator to attend the meeting, I handled the situation extremely well. A bit of pleasantry and polite listening and responding as if the threats were just friendly comments seemed to me to be the best immediate option even if it did probably give the parents the impression that I was a naive airhead.

(That’s not to say no one else ever thinks I’m an airhead or naive in any of my other environs. At the lumber store earlier on the same day of the parent conference, for example, I tried following the worker who was taking my sixteen-feet-long boards to cut in half. He had left a few of them for a second trip, and so to be helpful I finagled them onto my shoulder, didn’t see where he disappeared to, floundered around off balance and afraid of falling on the ice, and finally jumpled the boards onto a nearby pile of two-by-fours to wait until he came back to find me.)

After I thanked the parents for coming in to talk with me and they left, I desperately needed affirmation–which came to me from some other parents who dropped in, from another teacher who affirmed my team leadership, from one of my administrators who asked how the meeting went.

“I didn’t want to come in while they were here,” he said, “because that can give the parents the feeling that they’re in control and the teacher has no power or is in trouble. But I knew it was two against one up here.”

“It felt like it,” I said.

“They’re raising a monster,” he said. “Their son is going to be the high school student who is totally drunk at every party. They think he is untouchable, but he isn’t. I hate to say it, but he’s going to get what’s coming to him, and they don’t want to hear anything about it from us.”

Unfortunately, it seems, “what goes around, comes around” is inheritable.