Yesterday I signed up for Facebook. I went with a moderately eccentric sixty-something image and suddenly felt anxious about not getting friended. What a stupid term, anyhow. Suddenly, anxiety turned to panic when the "recent activity" on my page showed that I'd changed my profile picture five times. How insecure is that! And silly, since I moved to a small rural village to avoid the social dance. Finally, I figured how to delete "recent activity." But other problems arose. I phoned a friend who friended me electronically. But she’s also coming over today to help me learn the electronic ropes. That's what friends with flesh and heart do.
Earlier in the day, I'd spent several hours with my webguy trying to master the technology of arranging my blog site. It's slow going, but I hope to have the site tidied up in the next several days.
Why am I doing this? I came here to live the contemplative life. If Thoreau were living today, would he blog? And why should anyone care what I’m barfing up in a blog about education reform? The closest we’ve got to caring about education reform as a people is Waiting for Superman—a sentimental docu-infomercial for charter schools that tugs at the heartstrings of viewers by telling the sad stories of children living without hope or opportunity. The filmmaker bashes public schools without a single word about the abdication of leadership or lack of a just and rational education policy over the last fifty years. He concludes by saying that the one-word answer to the problem is—“YOU.” Huh?
Last night I heard on the news that two assailants beat the Russian journalist and blogger Oleg Kashin more than fifty times with a metal bar. For speaking out against government policies, Kashin got his skull, jaw, and ankle smashed. His fingers were also broken and some of them torn out.
U.S. blogger Ariel Cohen wrote, “Kashin was my Facebook friend, although I don’t necessarily like his writing that much. But it was a shocker to found (sic) out that someone whose face you see online almost daily was almost murdered.” http://blog.heritage.org/2010/11/10/oleg-kashin-russian-martyr/
We don’t get our skulls broken in America, although one guy stepped on the head of a young woman dragged to the ground for protesting alongside Rand Paul’s car. More often, we get our faces laughed at or rejected. Was the Waiting for Superman filmmaker trying to say that we all need to go out on a limb to demand better schools for our children? Why didn't he point out that we've never been taught in recent years how to care for ourselves and our principles as a people?
So why do the five-hundred residents of my small town care about each other even if they aren’t best friends? Maybe living by the Pacific reminds us that tides change and that the sea and the slippery shelf offshore are unpredictable. What I learned in the ten years since moving here is what I wish I’d learned in school. Beginning Monday, I will be sharing these small-town lessons with you. Like how Mrs. Smith, the spunky Blue Swede ruled with an iron feather. And what a field of cows taught me about education reform. My hope is that the blogs may become an entertaining and provocative diversion from all that face time.
1 comment:
i haven't seen waiting for superman, i really want to though. nothing like blaming the victim. i really feel that is the majority of people's response to education reform, blame the victim. meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor get poorer...i have a lot of things i'd like to share and discuss with you. last year, i got out of the school i'd told you about. i don't remember how much of the last year there i had told you about. but speaking of getting ones' head bashed in..there was a fight in the hall over a stolen $20 mp3 player, a few teachers and myself were returning to our classes after lunch duty when the fight broke out. a colleague of mine was going up the stairs, just as the fight had begun, she was knocked down the stairs and trampled, by students in a hurry to see the fight. the students' were given a stern talking to and the next day...well business as usual. my friend and colleague suffered several tramas to the head, has severe headaches and vision problems. this incident occured a little over a year and a half ago. so i got out. i took an elementary school position. so now i've seen the other side...we are in crisis mode here and i don't know how to impart this to the public..but your words resonate, "the children are not the future they are the present!"
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