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A Parable of Learning Without Limits
by Trudi Richards
San Francisco, California
2002
To Mary Helen and Ricky
The Sacred Books of the East are nothing but words.
I looked through their covers one day sideways.
What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through.
If you have not lived through something, it is not true.
- Kabir, 15th Century
Fear not the path of truth
for the lack of people walking on it
- Arabic saying
Our future is going to be the future of truth,
and we're going to walk on that path,
and we're going to fill it
with travelers.
- Fadia Rafeedie
-----------------
CONTENTS
i. HOPE
ii. GRANDFATHER
iii. ST. DENIS
1. CHILDREN
2. THE DOOR OUT
3. COMMUNITY
4. ACTION
5. LONELINESS
6. CHILDREN'S PRISONS
7. SPECIALIZATION
8. THE LOST YEAR
9. MRS. CARAWAY'S SCHOOL
10. SUCCESS, OR FREEDOM?
11. RITE OF PASSAGE
12. PEACE
13. GENERATIONS
14. TALKING WITH MOD
EPILOG
------------------
i.
HOPE
This book came about from the mixing of three streams that poured
themselves together into this fishy, sometimes limpid story.
The first stream is my journey with my twin daughters through
the American education system. For twelve years I ran along the
slippery bank, watching helplessly as they thrashed about, disappearing
and resurfacing, in the rapids and muddy sinkholes of the San
Francisco public schools. The second stream is my journey as
the daughter of an educator - my mother was Mary Helen Richards,
founder of that playful, demanding and revolutionary approach
to learning and teaching, Education Through Music. For most of
my life I wandered beside that grand torrent, now and then testing
the water, always careful not to be swept up by its lyrical force.
The last stream is my existential journey as a seeker of meaning
in life, a student of the Argentine humanist Mario Rodriguez
Cobos (Silo).
I passionately wanted to write this story - but with these three
currents roiling in my brain, it took me a long time to sort
out exactly why. Twenty years ago, as a young mother horrified
by the world into which I had brought my children, I discovered
Silo's path of active nonviolence, and realized I had to do something
to help transform this world. For years, however, I thought I
had to do it the way my mother did, and make my contribution
as an educator. I wanted to be a key player in the education
revolution, developing a humanist approach that would include
her work as a major element.
That idea held a kind of violent attraction for me - it seemed
at once a pure and necessary crusade, and an impossibility. I
had to do it, but where would I ever find the time? Although
I love working with young people, I never got a teaching credential,
and if truth be told, don't enjoy classroom teaching. I wanted
to write a story about my experiences, but I felt I ought to
do something concrete. A story has no practical value unless
someone happens to read it and be moved by it.
It was only when my father died recently that I finally saw
the difference between my mother's path and mine, and managed
to dismount my leaping charger and accept my humble role as a
simple story teller. Perhaps, by trying to emulate my mother,
I had been trying to keep her alive for my father. She was the
subject of his life: he wooed and won her, and became "the
wind under her wings" - he was the father of her children,
her breadwinner, her housekeeper, her organizer, her childsitter,
her manager, her editor, her admirer, her biographer, her lover,
her beloved. After her death, he even put off his own passing
for four years, until he had finished writing the story of their
life together . For whatever reason, when he died, I understood
with great relief that I did not have to single handedly transform
education - that I could simply write the story I wanted to write.
My mother also wanted to write the story of her work, since
people often asked her why she developed Education Through Music.
But by the time she began to write that story, she was beginning
to lose her memory, and the effort caused her great frustration.
I tried to help her organize and edit the stories she wrote.
They seemed to belong here, along with my own story - but since
they are so uniquely her own, they are really another volume,
which I have titled Wake Up Singing . In them the boundary between
reality and fantasy may be blurred - but who is to say one kind
of truth is more valid than another?
My earlier misunderstanding about my life work did have positive
consequences, since it spurred me to do considerable research
on current trends in humanistic education. I have included a
resource list at the end of this book because, although I did
not use this research to develop a specific educational proposal,
what I discovered thrilled and humbled me, and gave me even stronger
grounds for optimism. I saw that with our without me, the education
revolution is well under way, regardless of the impression one
might receive from the media or from proponents of traditional
education.
What I discovered is a subtle but pervasive force, like a happy
little mutant plant infiltrating the soil, breaking up even great
slabs of ancient rock with its carefree, persistent growth. Feeding
this growth is an enormous desire for change - a desire shared
by parents and children, students and teachers. As a result,
experiments in humanistic and holistic education are thriving
and growing everywhere, in public and private schools and in
a variety of community learning centers and home school resource
centers around the world. Young people in these alternative educational
environments do well - often far better than their counterparts
in our traditional public schools. They generally score well
on standardized tests and frequently go on to excel at college.
The only catch is that these experiments are not available to
most young people. Alternative education is viewed with alarm
and mistrust by the proponents and controllers of traditional
public schooling, who determine what is available to most of
our children. These traditionalists range from the politicians
- and their media buddies - who see the "education crisis" as
a convenient diversion tactic, to the parents who believe their
rhetoric of disaster and their demands for "higher standards" and "accountability," to
the great beneficiaries of the education crisis, the educational
testing industry.
I agree, education is indeed in crisis - but not because our
children cannot regurgitate enough right rote answers to "compete" in
the international marketplace. Compulsory traditional education
is in crisis because it cuts our children and our teachers off
from their own energy and creativity, replacing the sheer joy
and challenge of real learning with years of outrageous and fearful
drudgery. Too many of our schools submerge our children and teachers
in a suffocating atmosphere of violence, denying them the opportunity
learn to live together in cooperation as free and happy people
on this earth.
Yes, we do need "higher standards and accountability." But
it is we who must be accountable to ourselves and to our children,
we who must live up to truly human standards. We must provide
learning environments that will allow all our children and teachers
to achieve their human greatness. To do this we need to make
humanistic and holistic alternatives available to everyone, regardless
of wealth, race, ethnicity, or any other condition.
This story is my contribution toward that end, a murmur in the
living current that may someday carry the possibility of learning
without limits to all human beings.
ii.
PRELUDE:
GRANDPA and the POSSIBLE FUTURE
"We don't have to stop here! We can just go back and back..."
Grandpa is wonderstruck. An old man in a loose gray suit, his
bitter face amazed, he is standing in the middle of the broad
wooden boat on the endless, bright desert, the Ocean of Time.
He can hardly wait, so ready is he to begin the journey back
to see his parents and theirs and all the generations of our
ancestors, making amends and reconciling everything with everyone...
His whole family is here with us - his youngest son, my gay
uncle who committed suicide; my mother - innocent, despotic and
humble; my uncle the Christian Scientist healer, who died painlessly
of liver cancer; my grandmother, holding everyone like a bouquet
of roses. And my grandfather, standing there like a child who
has opened the door to wonderland. He wants my company on that
intricate journey back and back, reconciling all. I would love
to go with him - and perhaps someday I will - but today it would
keep me too long.
I am going the other way, to tell more recent stories - stories
to open the Possible Future.
iii.
SAINT DENIS
In the great Cathedral of Saint Denis on the outskirts of Paris
the kings of France are buried, and above them rises the Light.
When St. Denis had his head chopped off there in 208 AD, there
came a great explosion of Light - and he arose, picked up his
head, and walked to the place he wanted to be buried... They
say it was he who first said "God is Light."
It was close to the year 2000 when I was there with Jorge. We
had one day left in Paris; a French lady we met in a restaurant
told us we must see St. Denis - so we took the Metro the long
way to the end of the line.
The parish of St. Denis serves over 10,000 people, mostly immigrants,
from Africa and the Middle East and all Europe. Massive and simple
in line, the Cathedral rises out of the shabby neighborhood;
nearby is a glass and steel shopping mall.
We enter through the heavy wooden doors. Inside, the Cathedral
is vast and dim; in its echoing spaces, the Light is felt more
than seen. Far away, in the apse at the other end, the priests
chant and carry out their rituals. The gothic windows ringing
the walls are filled with battered whitish glass.
Just inside the great doors, steel pedestals hold lighted panels
that explain about the Cathedral. It is famous for its early
stained glass, which was mostly destroyed in wars. A museum of
dead kings fills transepts, the apse, and the crypt.
Jorge wants to visit the museum first. Finding the turnstile
near the front of the Cathedral, we pay the business-woman behind
the desk, and pass through the security gate.
We descend into the crypt - a place of the Dead. Here we are
surrounded by stone. Low ceilings, arches of stone, slabs of
rock inscribed with the names of the dead kings and ministers
and royal sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles. Cramped
doorways lead into dimly lit tombs. Here the noise of life does
not penetrate - the air is silent, and smells of mold. There
are thousands of names, Jorge wants to read them all. But the
Dead make me nervous; I acknowledge them briefly, and move on,
impatient to go up.
We emerge finally into the apse - it too is overflowing with
the Dead. Marble kings and queens of the Dark Ages compose themselves
on marble beds, robed and crowned, staring upward, hands pointed
in prayer, having long ago lost hope of going anywhere, while
the Renaissance royalty struggle with their marble drapery, naked,
writhing, and neurotic. Here are the Medicis, and Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette... agents of the miraculous, "culture" conceived
in the compost of suffering...
In the darkness near the rear of the apse, we find the Tree
of Life, virgin stained glass, glowing like a flower.
We leave the museum of the Dead, passing unhindered through
the security gate, into the Cathedral for the living.
Looking up, high into the vaulted spaces, trying to see all
around us at once, we grope our way down a side aisle toward
the rear of the Cathedral. There we cross to the center aisle,
and begin to walk toward the front again, between the rows of
wooden pews. Slowly, slowly - here? I suggest - or maybe here?
Jorge keeps walking. Finally he says "Now we can sit" -
and we take wooden chairs near the front of the Cathedral, directly
under the great vault of the arches high above, where space intersects
itself, a portal to Heaven.
------------
Outside, it is raining lightly, and I feel a great joy - because
I have glimpsed my privilege. I walk with Jorge, enjoying the
rain and the gray old city and the bright empty mall. It is early
evening. Two girls are descending into the ground on a moving
ramp. "Metro?" we ask them. "No - Parking," they
tell us, smiling. "Ou est Metro?" Jorge lurches in
his primitive French. "La bas" they point, laughing,
as they vanish underground.
We keep walking in the direction they pointed - but I want to
tell Jorge my secret. Sometimes, when I tell him my thoughts,
he responds by thinking, which Annoys me. So sometimes I say
nothing. But this is different. I know he will be interested,
and I am only a little embarrassed, to denude myself like this. "Wait
a minute," I stop walking. "I want to tell you about
my experience in the Cathedral."
"Ah, I knew something happened to you," he acknowledges.
"It was something very simple, but also wonderfully complex," I
tell him, choosing the words for this marvel, which is so clear
in my mind. "I've always assumed, in trying to figure out
what I'm supposed to do in my life, that I had too many ideas,
too many images - far too much for me to actually do. So for
years I've been trying to narrow them down, to see precisely
what little doable thing might be my work, my special job. But
I just saw that, quite the contrary, my job right now is to write
everything down, to articulate, very thoroughly, all my images
about humanizing education. It's really so simple a proposal,
yet incredibly complex to carry out, and wonderful!"
I am filled with delight, here in this young rain, in the French
shopping mall.
"Ah..." says Jorge. He understands, which is very
good.
That is how I gave myself permission to write this book - as
a venture into the art of alchemy, and for the absolute pleasure
of it.
1.
CHILDREN
The world exploded
Then it came back by a waterfall.
It was a happy and a sad thing.
It was fine.
- Jessica, age 3
Everything begins with children.
It was the early '80s, the time of the Bomb. I had two-year-old
twins - unbearably adorable little girls - who had of course
changed my life.
A friend told me they came from a far star, reluctantly, and
only because it was I who called. I liked that. But they were
here, in San Francisco, with me and my equally helpless husband,
and I was living in terror because the Bomb might really fall,
and they would suffer hideously and die before my own helpless
eyes.
Then, waiting one day at a dreary bus stop, I saw a beautiful
poster. It said, "Peace is possible. It's up to you." It
bore a drawing, in colors, of a hand, with middle and pointer
fingers raised and thumb extended, making the shape of a dove
with flaring wings. In a beam of daring, I wrote down the phone
number.
I called when I got home; a man named Homer answered. "But
look," I asked him, "Do you really think we can do
anything to change things?"
"Of Course!!" came the ebullient answer.
I was stunned with joy. An opening!
2
THE DOOR OUT
Homer was a volunteer with a humanist organization called "The
Community for the Equilibrium and Development of the Human Being." The
Community was unusual in a number ways - not the least of which
was its remarkably elongated name. But what interested me was
its focus: it seemed to be neither social activism nor spiritual
discipline - neither exclusively inward nor outward - but both
at once. This suggested to me something I particularly sought
at that moment: balance. I wanted liberation, but in a form that
would not upset my life!
For the last fifteen years I had been anything but equilibrated.
In the madness into which I had been initiated in the early '70s
by my innocent LSD investigations, I had been forced to confront
a terrifying absurdity: the non-meaning into which all of us,
if we peer a little beneath the surface, are born, and in which
too many of us apparently die, without ever suspecting that we
have lived an entire life in a trap.
Ever since this unwilling awakening, I had been trying numerous
purported ways out. But each had brought me up against a new
increment of suffering. Most recently I had been following a
charismatic young guru of Jewish parentage who said he was Lord
Shiva. But although he talked about the Light and bringing world
peace through prayer, he also expected me to leave my children
and husband, and follow him.
I tried hard to imagine this level of devotion - but it proved
beyond me. I was bound, head, heart and body, to my family -
especially to my children. My mother-cord, like some miracle
mountaineering tether, seemed to be indestructible. I left the
guru.
But now something was badly missing.
I wanted other people who were looking together for the Door
Out, people who had seen clues and signs of one, and who sensibly
ignored the signs that pointed off cliffs.
I went to a "healer psychologist."
"Yes," she told me, "for some people Shiva is
appropriate. For others he's too extreme. Look for something
with more balance."
That is when I saw the poster, and called Homer.
------------
Checking out whatever Homer was doing took me a while. After
fifteen years of misadventures in seeking a way out, I was suspicious
-like a shipwreck survivor, clinging to a rotting splinter of
the wreck, being hailed suddenly by a crowd of happy people in
a big, sunny lifeboat. I was fearful of letting go of my splinter,
in case the boat and its riders proved only another mirage.
But Homer threw me a line. He needed a graphic artist in his
business, so I began working for him at his home in the Sunset
District. He lived with his wife and two children in a big house
with a basement office, sending out junk mail for a living. Homer
was abrupt and enthusiastic; his wife, Mary, had a plain and
generous peace about her. They were both dedicated to "humanizing
the earth," whatever that meant - and there was an atmosphere
of purpose and welcome in their home. I liked being there. I
envied their breathing in that atmosphere together, as they did.
My husband Steven and I had separate obsessions - mine was the
Door Out; his was music (or perhaps music was his own Door Out).
I bided my time. Whatever I tried next had to be safe. Homer
and Mary invited me to their Community meetings, but I preferred
to sit and wait, typing out their coupons on a gigantic orange
typesetting machine.
Then, finally there was an invitation that sounded OK. It was
to the viewing of a video called "Faces of the Enemy."
The meeting was held in the "locale" on 16th street
in Noe Valley. These Community people used odd terminology, like "locale." They
also followed the works of Silo, an Argentinean writer and thinker.
The part about following someone was ok - in fact, I liked following.
Let someone else make the decisions! But still I had my doubts.
Someone from South America? Yes, I was a California "liberal," from
a proudly open minded family, and we did like to think of ourselves
as free of all prejudice. Certain prejudices, however, were so
much a part of me, like the ground I walked on, that I did not
even recognize them. Although I had been to Europe and to India,
I had never been south of the California border, but I had a
feeling of distaste about that unknown part of the world. Did
anything dignified and cultured come from down there? I had always
assumed - like all well-educated Americans of that time - that
the US was the best, most civilized place in the universe, that
I was extremely lucky to live here, and that the only place with
more "culture" was Europe. I imagined all people from
Mexico on south as drunken and loud, with uncultured accents
and no education.
But my curiosity and my psychic loneliness got the better of
me. What I encountered that night at the video showing did not
fit my preconceptions.
-------------
I circled the block around the "locale" several times
before I got up the nerve to park and go in. The locale was a
wood-paneled office, with a group of chairs facing a television.
Ten or fifteen people were there; I chose a seat a safe distance
away from the rest. Presently a British-sounding fellow stood
up and gave us a congenial welcome, and then we watched the video
- about war and the effects of war, how war has shaped cultures,
twisting humanity in against itself for eons in paroxysms of
fear.
It was a horrible scenario.
But, amazingly, I ended up with a feeling of hope, rather than
the usual defiant despair I associated with leftists. Because
it seemed that, despite this plague of fear, even despite this
latest horrible dream of apocalypse via the Bomb, the people
here were optimistic!
Perhaps even better, they were friendly. It was not an aggressive,
cult-crazy friendliness, a friendliness aimed at gaining my allegiance.
It was an open handed friendliness that seemed to be without
expectations. After the video a young woman, Sybil, sat down
next to me. She told me she had just found true love - which
she had never before believed possible. In the same way, she
said, we could bring about Peace. But we had to start by believing
it was possible. She showed me a thin gray book called The Internal
Landscape. It was by that Argentinean, Silo; she said it would
tell me about their work.
That night I read it almost without stopping, cover to cover.
It was poetry. It was about meaning in life, about giving without
expectation, about ending suffering - about the Door Out.
3
COMMUNITY
After that, the Community became the beginning of the end of
a way of life for me. To be sure, I had grasped at this lifeline
because I thought it would be safe - and safe meant not rocking
the boat. I didn't want to admit that I was living a double life.
Even though, in my own interior reality, I was floundering alone
in the icy waters of my search for meaning, I pretended I was
riding cozily in a tiny boat with Steven and the babies. I thought
perhaps the humanist vessel could tow us along behind. Then I
might visit that idyllic sparkling cruiser now and then. But
I would always return to my private little boat.
I didn't say much to Steven about the Community. He had had
enough with Shiva.
But I was privately delighting in my new direction, which I
hoped I would be able to maintain from our little boat. I began
to aspire to be a kind of "mystic/activist." This was
not how the Community officially framed its work, but it was
how I experienced it. For me it reflected a unique balance, which
led neither to a wasteland of burnout, nor to an ivory tower
of self-obsession (which had been my experience with several
of the inner "ways" I had explored). The Community
focused on one's whole experience of living - which, after all,
does include both inner and outer.
So I went to Community meetings and other get-togethers now
and then, after "work" in Homer's basement, and Steven,
who I believed was uninterested, knew very little about it. But
that was ok. Couple relationships were like that - you just had
to make the best of them.
That summer, in 1984, the Community had a 4th of July picnic
in Golden Gate Park. I brought my twins, now almost three. Homer
and Mary and their two small children met us there, and we sat
on the shaded grass under an oak tree, alert for toddlers falling
out of its wide arms.
People began to arrive - alone, in couples, a few with children.
One of them was a balding middle-aged man from Argentina, Jorge.
Argentina again - I believed it was South America. Jorge looked
more Irish than Latino, but he was speaking Spanish with his
girlfriend, a bland-looking American woman. We sat on the grass
and talked, I have no idea about what. That evening I brought
the twins back home, and forgot about Jorge.
I continued to work in Homer's basement. I did volunteer work
for the Community, designing a brochure in the Community colors,
orange and black on a white ground - giving it a light, open
feeling. I had seen their other locale on 16th Avenue before,
another small office with a wall painting in those colors.
Something bothered me about that place - it was the painting.
It reminded me of Communism. Indeed, the Community's written
materials did talk a lot about "solidarity" - a definitely
Communist concept. The painting was of a banner-waving, marching,
smiling mob of young people, looking happy together - but not
at all appealing to my taste. I was an American, and Americans
were individuals, individualists - not to be swallowed up in "solidarity"!
Of course I did not object to the abstract idea of solidarity
- it was the inevitable association with Communism and the almost
equally dangerous Socialism that bothered me. It was not even
that I objected rationally to Communism or Socialism - it was
more of a gut reaction.
I mentioned this to Mary, and she seemed troubled - didn't I
want to work with others in solidarity? I tried to explain, it
was not that I didn't want to work with others - I saw more and
more the importance of that, and how my own search for meaning,
my own "spiritual" search was inevitably also social,
was not something that I must or could do in isolation. In fact
I saw that my past 15 years of "search" had been leading
me more and more into a lonely and schizophrenic introversion.
When I had not been "blissed out" in meditation or "oming" for
world peace with a group of other isolated people who were otherwise
aloof from the dirty world, I had only experienced a deeper and
deeper loneliness.
It had been a miraculous transformation for me when I first
began to work with the Community: my inner torture - the torture
of living in a world about to blow up and cause unspeakable suffering
to my beloved children - had totally and illogically lifted.
It had been like the sudden vanishing of a thousand tons of oppression,
that first ray of sunlight through the Door Out.
Regardless, however, I still had this antipathy for anything
that might lead to that empty and godless plight, Communism -
or to that almost-as-bad other thing, Socialism. I knew very
little about either one, just that I felt a kind of antipathy
for them. They were "political." Which meant artless,
heartless, and intrinsically dehumanizing. And was that not what
we were trying to get away from? I tried to explain this to Mary
- and she became thoughtful, but had no solution to offer.
Homer invited me to join the Community as an "active member." I
asked what that entailed - and his answer seemed safe enough.
An agreement to work together, meet regularly once a week and
participate in whatever activities I could fit into my life.
Why not, I said. So the next afternoon, with a few friends in
Homer's basement, all of them already members of the Community,
we did the "Ceremony of Declaration."
The ceremony was casual, although it did involve reading something.
But I liked ceremony; and the main thing was that these were
friendly people, working toward this amazing concept of a world
without nightmares. Peace. It was definitely worth risking a
little taint of "solidarity" - perhaps not such a bad
concept if you could break the association with Communism. Maybe
even Communism and Socialism were not such bad concepts. It was
just that in practice Communism had apparently devolved into
something dehumanizing in those vast countries under its sway,
the Soviet Union and China... and Socialism, like marijuana,
was likely to lead to that deadlier "dope," Communism.
The ceremony was simple. Homer handed me a typewritten sheet,
and asked me to read the paragraph printed on it aloud. It would
have been embarrassing to hesitate after having agreed, and besides,
I trusted Homer. So I read:
"The Community has been defined as the group of people
oriented toward the study, perfecting, and teaching of a system
useful for the equilibrium and development of the human being.
This system is a doctrine, a feeling, and a way of life.
I have verified that these affirmations agree with my own experience,
and so am interested in participating more actively. This will
be positive both for me and for enlarging our common work."
In answer, Homer read in his jocular, tenderly humorous voice
from a small red book. Listening, I felt a strong sense of rightness:
"Then receive this brief teaching. There are three pathways
to suffering. Human beings suffer for what they believe has happened
in their lives, for what they believe is happening, and for what
they believe will happen. That is, they suffer through memory,
through sensations, and through imagination.
But the things they believe are illusory.
To break the illusion, the human being needs a discipline that
can be practiced at all times.
You must practice this discipline in daily life by following these rules or
Principles:
1. To go against the evolution of things is to go against yourself.
2. When you force something toward an end you produce the contrary.
3. Do not oppose a great force; retreat until it weakens, then advance with
resolution.
4. Things are well when they move together, not in isolation.
5. If day and night, summer and winter are fine with you, you have overcome
the contradictions.
6. If you pursue pleasure, you enchain yourself to suffering. But as long as
you do not harm your health, enjoy without inhibition when the opportunity
presents itself.
7. If you pursue an end you enchain yourself. If everything you do is realized
as though it were an end in itself, you liberate yourself.
8. You will make your conflicts disappear when you understand them in their
ultimate roots, not when you want to resolve them.
9. When you harm others you remain enchained, but if you do not harm anyone
you can freely do whatever you want.
10. When you treat others as you would have them treat you, you liberate yourself.
11. It does not matter in which faction events have placed you. What matters
is for you to comprehend that you have not chosen any faction.
12. Contradictory and unifying acts accumulate within you. If you repeat your
acts of internal unity, nothing can detain you.
To understand and apply these Principles well, we recommend
that you participate regularly in the works of the Community.
These works illuminate and strengthen.
We also advise you to study our books, documents, and guidelines.
And now, I welcome you as an Active Member of our Community."
Then we all hugged each other - and I began my active participation
in the Community.
4
ACTION
"And what is it to humanize the earth? It is to surpass
pain and suffering, it is to learn without limits, it is to love
the reality you are building. "
- Silo, The Internal Landscape
Positive, nonviolent action is a decision to Live. It is an
enormous leap out of suffering - out of the painful default which
we commonly accept as our lot.
My entrance into the Community had simply made concrete my decision
to do something, the decision that set me free from the unbearable
fear of catastrophic loss in which I had been submerged. That
choice brought the privilege of beginning to discover and define
- at the age of 37 - exactly what I wanted to do with my life.
It would not be until three years later, when my little girls
entered first grade, that I would begin to focus on education
as my particular passion. But before that I was to find myself
confronting two more forks in the road - although now that I
think of it, what else could I have done?
-------------
It was Mary who first spoke to me about the School. She was
giving me a ride home one day, when she said, without preamble, "Do
you want to join the School?" I had heard people around
their house talking about the School. The word carried an allure
- as of something not for everyone, something important and mysterious.
It also sounded dangerous.
"I don't know," I replied, "What is it?"
"It's for those who like this work and want to teach others," was
her succinct answer.
I would have said, "Of Course!" without hesitation.
That was exactly what I craved to do. And I was gratified that
they had at last invited me. But that word "join" -
that was where the danger lay. It warned of being sucked up and
swallowed whole, losing my particularly American birthright:
my individuality.
I told Mary I would think about it. Even if I knew that I would
say yes, I had to show myself I had the choice. At home that
night, I dutifully asked myself, do I want to do this? The answer
came without a second's delay: YES!
-------------
This time it was at the Seasonal - a party with Homer and Mary's
numerous friends near the time of the Winter Solstice. Our purpose
was to celebrate, along with thousands of other humanists all
over the world, the quiet revolution of nonviolent transformation.
Mary and Homer stood before their gathered friends, and I stood
with two or three others who were entering the School, facing
Homer and Mary, our backs to the others. Homer read:
"You have fulfilled the requirements necessary to officially
become a Member of the School. At this time, I invite you to
meditate, and forego your intention to enter if you do not intend
to fulfill this more advanced plan of work and study. Remember:
No one has chosen you, and neither has anyone opposed your admission.
Consider that just as you now postulate yourself, if later you
are no longer able to fulfill your commitments, you should exclude
yourself from the School. If you think, feel and act in the direction
of the School, if you carefully contribute to the enlargement
of the common work, then enter. If not, then withdraw. "
At this point Mary read:
"I will now recite your commitments:
1. To study the Doctrine.
2. To follow the Principles in your personal life.
3. To teach others.
4. To make the annual contribution.
5. To participate in the weekly meeting.
6 To be silent regarding the personal matters of other Members of the School."
Finally Homer concluded, "Now I ask you (and you will respond
by taking one step forward or backward): Will you cross the threshold
or remain outside?"
I stepped forward. Again, I felt a deep inward confirmation,
a rejoicing at this action. I knew that I was choosing to give
the world what it most deeply needed: a decision to help end
humanity's suffering - which of course included my own.
5
LONELINESS
I came to the second fork in the road by surprise. My personal
life was OK - most of the time. At any rate, I was not actively
looking to change anything. Steven, an affectionate father and
kind, if distracted mate, made no objection to my work with the
Community. I'd fallen in love with him several years earlier
when he had offered me the powerful and endearing quality of
knowing what he wanted - a wife - and wanting me to be that for
him.
Over the years, however, we had begun to move in different directions.
While I kept groping toward personal peace, he had become a devoted
musician. When he was not at the keyboard, he would spend his
time immersed in mental composition, or going out with musician
friends. He seemed to channel all his emotionality into his music.
That left him generally unavailable for heart-to-heart interchange
with me - except when I would threaten to leave him, which now
and again I would do out of sheer loneliness. When I resorted
to that extreme - which, since I was addicted to the "security" of
having a husband, I rarely dared to do - he would become a different
person, opening the door to his sweet being. I could never resist;
I would once again relent and give it another go. And once I
was securely with him again, he would retreat back into his shell.
This had been going on for some years. It was frustrating -
but most of the time, it was tolerable, and the situation felt
safe. And there were the children. So I simply pushed aside the
gnawing feeling that I should be somewhere else.
------------------------
By now it was October, and there happened to be another meeting at the Church
Street locale. It was one of the weekly meetings, led by Mary and Fernando,
a thin Chilean with an open, kind smile. We were maybe ten people, and we
sat around a table and talked. I do not remember what we talked about - except
that it had to do with living our daily lives, and with working together
for nonviolent change - within us and around us.
At the break I found myself outside in the warm night, talking
with Jorge. Jorge, the Argentinean I'd met in the park. I was
surprised at the vital link that sprang up between us - words
and understandings flowed as if a bright river joined us. I was
startled and enthralled. I remember thinking, "if only I
could communicate with everyone like this!"
When the meeting wound down an hour later, while we were all
still sitting around the table, Jorge asked, "Does anyone
want to go get something to eat?" Without thinking, I responded, "Sure,
I do!" No one else seemed to be hungry. So Jorge and I went
together to the Haystack Pizza Parlor.
We sat in a comer booth, ordered pasta and Greek salad, and
talked - about our lives, our children. He had two children,
but they were older, and living in Argentina. He asked me about
my marriage; I said it was OK, I was not seeking anything else.
We talked about how we had each gotten involved in the Community.
He had come to California in the 70's, as a political refugee
during the time of Argentina's "Dirty War." I told
him about seeing the poster and calling Homer. Then, suddenly,
we were kissing.
How much longer we talked - an hour or two? - I don't know.
But we seemed to have been caught up within an irresistible current,
a crystalline torrent that laid siege to the Abyss itself. When
we left the restaurant, I knew - we knew - that we were going
to make our lives together. It was inevitable.
That same week, with great trepidation, I left my marriage,
bringing the twins with me. In this I was supported by the social
convention that the children go with the mother - but in truth,
I simply could not conceive of leaving them.
It was not that I saw Steven as undesirable. He was simply inaccessible,
and this left a great gap in my emotional life. Until now, I
had been unwilling to leave him, for I was afraid of being without
a man. Perhaps he found in me what I found in him: comfort. But
probably he stayed with me mostly for the children, whom he loved
and would never have abandoned.
At any rate, we had for years tried to keep our existence stable
- but in doing so had effectively neutralized ourselves, so that
neither of us could move on in our lives to where we truly needed
and wanted to go. It was only now, having met Jorge, that I was
able to summon the courage to move on. I have to admit that I
might well never have done so without having first found another
relationship to move into, one which offered the unbelievable
reality of a shared direction and an open emotional connection.
It was without the remotest doubt that I left . At the same
time, I could not even begin to reconcile the great burst of
freedom in my own life with Steven's agony at the vanishing of
his children - or with the children's own aching pain and perplexity
at the loss of their father.
6
CHILDREN'S PRISONS
When Jorge and I got together, Chris and Jessica were just three
years old. They were enthusiastic, wild and gentle children -
quite "normal" but, of course, extraordinary as well.
At birth, they had been two months premature. Obviously they
were impatient - or perhaps it was just too small in there for
their roiling spirits. At any rate, they emerged at two pounds
each, and went through a harrowing two month stay in neonatal
intensive care. But when they came home, tiny and golden, I knew
they were perfect in every way.
At that time Mount Zion Hospital was conducting a developmental
study of "preemies," and I accepted the offer to participate.
So until they were five, we would go to the clinic every so often
to visit with a young woman named Julie, who had them sort blocks,
draw pictures, choose items from boxes, answer questions, tell
her what they saw, tell stories. They both tested high in all
areas - motor, cognitive, emotional - and Julie and the other
researchers were enchanted with them.
To my eye, of course, they were beautiful beyond measure - sparkling,
creative, playful, and - with each other - competitive. I was
looking forward to their schooling, with its fabled opportunities
to learn and grow, to create and become, to make friends. I knew
their experience would be different than my own unhappy, lonely
years at school. I was sure they would love school in every way.
When they were almost five, I enrolled them in Buena Vista,
a Spanish bilingual public school. Since their step dad was Spanish
speaking, and our newborn son Johnny was certainly going to be
bilingual, we thought it would be good for the twins to have
the same opportunity. (As it turned out, Johnny did not grow
up bilingual, because Jorge forgot to speak Spanish with him.
Jessica and Chris, on the other hand, did eventually learn a
great deal of Spanish at Buena Vista.)
Kindergarten was great. Chris and Jessica started out in separate
classes - and they both relished the school day, which was mostly
play. Their teachers were creative and sincere. I was delighted.
It was when they entered first grade that the blow fell: school
suddenly became Work. It was the Puritan crackdown. Children
were no longer supposed to play - school was serious. Chris and
Jessica - and I, feeling their suffering - were instantly miserable.
We tried everything - classes together, classes apart, changing
teachers, conferences, special attention. No one seemed to know
exactly what was wrong. The teachers and school administrators
seemed to be fine, caring, even devoted people. And they were
the first to admit that Chris and Jessica were bright and creative.
The problem was, dammit, they wouldn't buckle down and work!
They wouldn't do what they were supposed to do. They still wanted
to play. They were presenting problems for which the teachers
either had no solutions or no time.
Of course, being the kind of twins who run in opposite directions,
they expressed their misery in different ways. Chris wouldn't
or couldn't learn to read, while Jessica developed a disturbing
habit of snarling at her teachers and classmates.
The year eked on. Second grade came, and went, with more and
more problems and failed solutions. For third grade we tried
once more putting them in separate classes, with no improvement.
My dream of school as a wonderful experience for my little girls
had become all but a distant fantasy. Then, that October, both
of their teachers approached me. They came independently - but
each told me the same thing: "I'm worried about your daughter.
She has no energy, and she never smiles. She just lies there
with her head on her desk, and refuses to do anything. Maybe
you should take her to the doctor."
That set off my alarms. I knew there was nothing wrong with
my children - at home they played and bounced around ceaselessly,
laughing, chattering, fighting, creating complex imaginary worlds,
drawing and painting. Each commanded a copious vocabulary, and
in their bird-like voices they would articulate to anyone and
everyone their multitudinous ideas and questions and interpretations
of reality. School obviously imposed a pernicious distortion
on their daily reality - it was a Bad Environment. I decided
I would indeed take them to our pediatrician. But not because
I thought they were sick. I would take them because I knew that
somehow, in some vital way, the schools were sick, and I knew
doctors had clout in that system.
Sure enough, the doctor told me there was nothing wrong with
the children. It was just that some schools were no good. He
would get them into a good one - West Portal. He knew people
there, and would write a medical letter that would get them in,
despite the unfavorable racial quotas.
My hopes rose - maybe that would do it. We changed schools mid-year
- never an easy move - but I saw no other option.
At West Portal, we again found wonderful people - both teachers
and administrators. The principle, in fact, was an old friend
from the children's first year at Buena Vista, an enthusiastic,
sympathetic, creative woman. I was sure her school must be great.
She assured me the girls would have fine, caring teachers at
West Portal. So for the second time that year, Chris and Jessica
entered new classrooms. Chris did love her teacher, Miss Mills;
Jessica was unimpressed with hers, but at least did not start
out snarling. They began their readjustment.
Of course, joining a new class in mid-year is always difficult,
and I was prepared for some problems. But I hoped they would
be temporary. So it was with a sinking sensation that, a few
weeks later, I received the request for an IEP for Chris. The
IEP (Individualized Educational Program), they explained to me,
was a wonderful opportunity. It meant my daughter was being considered
for the label "learning disabled." They suggested that
perhaps she was dyslexic. Even the principal and Chris's beloved
Miss Mills wanted to put her in the "special" class.
They also suggested it wouldn't hurt to put her sister in that
class too - maybe a bit later. And, they assured me, it was really
a fine opportunity for them both. The special class was smaller,
with more attention for each child - and they got ice cream every
day! The ice cream part sounded more than a little suspicious
to me - but, well - I tried to convince myself, maybe this was
really what my children needed. Maybe there really was no stigma.
Maybe it would be wonderful.
7
SPECIALIZATION
My friend Myra is a special ed teacher. Twice last year she
was bitten by pupils, hard enough to draw blood, and each time
spent an entire day at the hospital being tested for hepatitis
and HIV. Most school days she returns home bruised, sore and
exhausted from being attacked by one or more of her seven-year-olds,
whom she often has to "restrain" before they can hurl
themselves at the nearest littler child, or out the window. She
knows that if the parents find out she has laid hands on their
child - even if it is clearly to save him from harming himself
or someone else - they might well succeed in having her fired.
She also knows that what her children long for more than anything
is a loving embrace - and that, of course, is the most forbidden
of all. So she powers her restraints with her inexhaustible love,
and pours love into them through her unarguable voice and her
crackling stare and her boistrous humor. Myra lives for her work
and her children. She says it doesn't matter that she has no
time or energy left for an intimate relationship - let alone
for having children of her own. This is her calling.
For "special" children, strong and loving teachers
who are dedicated enough to survive them are a rare gift. Children
like Myra's do need something "special" - but the current
system clearly fulfills neither the desperate needs of most of
the children, nor those of their teachers and parents. Teachers
like Myra persist in their magnificent work despite the countless
maddening obstacles planted in our educational system.
-----------
I was visiting my friend Louise when I happened to tell her
about the IEP for Chris. "Wait!" she commanded. "Let
me give you something." She went to her bedroom and returned
with a book, The Magic Feather - the Truth about Special Education. "You
have to read this first. Promise me you won't do anything or
sign anything until you've read it."
The Magic Feather is an expose on special education in the United
States, written by the parents of a child who was placed in special
ed early in his schooling. Louise had been given the book by
a friend when the "authorities" had tried to put her
own child on the special track in preschool - he was hyperactive
and definitely a "problem" in any classroom. After
reading the book, Louise had refused the offer. Her son was still
at large in the system - an energetic canon ball, but brilliant
and joyful in his obnoxious way.
I read the book - and panicked. It was a convincing expose of
a system designed, with every good intent, to respond to a great
and growing need - but a system which seemed to have been misused
and misdirected to the point that it was unable to fulfill its
intended purpose. Granted, this book was written in the eighties;
and undoubtedly certain aspects of the system have changed since
then, hopefully for the better. At that time however, according
to the book, one of the system's fundamental drawbacks was that
special education had become one of the more popular ways to
pipe money into needy schools, which received a considerable
sum for every child enrolled in special classes. This situation
fueled an almost irresistible temptation in the public schools
to label as many children as possible "special," whether
their difficulty was mild or severe, proven or hypothetical.
One criticism that gave me great pause was the irreversibility
of the process. According to The Magic Feather, once a child
was in special ed, it was almost impossible to get him or her
off the special track and back onto the "normal" one.
One couldn't just try it out. This was especially unfortunate
for the children who were put in special classes because they
simply didn't fit in, or because they had "learning differences" -
the children who did not respond to the traditional linear teaching
and learning models, and therefore required extra, different
attention from their overworked, underpaid, inadequately trained
teachers.
The book also convinced me that my little girls, who already
agonized over being the among smallest in their class, would
not benefit from the distinction of being labeled "special." Nor
would they benefit from an environment that threw together children
in tremendously varying conditions - from the severely emotionally
disturbed and violently disruptive, to the physically and mentally "challenged," to
those with mild "learning differences," to those extremely
creative children whom school simply bored to the point of furious
disgust or at least sullen non-cooperation.
I took my daughters out of the new school. Well-meaning though
the teachers and administration might be, they obviously didn't
recognize what this book seemed, quite inarguably, to demonstrate:
that not only special education, but our entire educational system,
was inherently, profoundly flawed - and to the serious detriment
of its most vulnerable, sensitive children. I was a believer
in public education - but I was not about to sacrifice my children
to the monster it was apparently becoming.
8
THE LOST YEAR
What now? More and more parents were trying "home schooling." After
reading a number of articles, and locating a local home schoolers
group, I decided to join them.
At this time I was working as a freelance graphic artist. We
needed the income, or I would have been able to give more time
to the home schooling effort. As it was, I subscribed hopefully
to a philosophy which placed total faith in each child's intrinsic
desire to learn. I fervently told myself that the children's
curiosity and delight in discovery would spur them to learn what
they needed at a pace appropriate to their development. I imagine
this does work for many - especially for those who school their
kids this way from the beginning. But Chris and Jessica, perhaps
needing, like the swing of a pendulum, simply to recover from
three years of institutional torture, seemed to want nothing
more than two things. One was to play - which was, according
to the most out-there educators, exactly appropriate, the indispensable
foundation of all learning. That was fine with me. But - oh most
horrible of horrors - they also wanted to watch TV. Both of these
things they did, with determination and devotion.
As I learned from talking with other home schooling parents
over the years, good home schooling for young children seems
to require a great deal of parental participation. I was too
busy with my other work to play with my children sufficiently,
and too disgusted with TV to join them in front it, to help them
watch critically. Not only was I working at various freelance
jobs, but I was drawn more than ever, as if with the force of
a high power vacuum, into our humanist work.
-
- Jorge and I were writing, editing and publishing a journal called Human Future,
in which we gave publicity to ordinary people who were doing great things for
life and humanity - people who were unlikely to be covered by the mainstream
media because what they did was neither violent nor scandalous. We also tried
to expose corporate opportunists who called themselves "humanists" solely
for the positive image. Human Future absorbed even more time and attention
than my freelance jobs. And now, with the obvious failure of the school system,
the transformation of education became more and more of an passion for me within
our publication. I wrote and thought and read and obsessed about it.
Paradoxically, this seemed to be one of the main factors that
kept me from giving my all to the home schooling effort. But
I had to admit something else: I did not really want to do home
schooling, at least not the single-family variety. Home schooling
theories were intriguing - but the home schooling parents I had
met seemed complacent about having found an answer for themselves,
and none too interested in trying to transform the educational
situation in the society around them. Of course I could understand
this from the point of view that home schooling requires full-time
involvement, leaving no time for other commitments. But at the
same time, since my life had changed so dramatically for the
better when I decided to help change things for others as well
as myself, I felt deeply that meaningful education must not only
include, but be based upon, the experience of serving and helping
others and working together for the greater good.
So I kept looking for other people who wanted to help change
things in education. I personally knew many parents who were
agonizing over their kids' woeful experiences in public education,
and who were looking for alternatives. I talked to parents at
home schooling "Park Days" and on occasional field
trips. I called friends from my children's former schools. I
published an article inviting readers to contact us and explore
the possibility of "co-op home schooling." I received
plenty of agreement that it was an interesting idea - but little
interest in doing anything. Meanwhile my children were "goofing
off," playing and watching TV. This might have been OK -
but I could not see them learning anything, and worse, they complained
of being bored and lonely for friends.
-
It was at that point that I interviewed Mrs. Caraway.
9
MRS. CARAWAY'S SCHOOL
Mrs. Caraway was the director of an internationally acclaimed
children's center in a neighborhood well known for violence,
drug abuse and poverty. Her center was the only child care facility
in the city that stayed open all night, and it could be that
way because Mrs. Caraway was always there.
It was around 1990 when I interviewed Mrs. Caraway for Human
Future. When I walked into her office, she was sitting at her
desk, her back to me - a compact black woman with white hair,
talking on the phone. I stood wondering if I should tell someone
I was here, but there was no receptionist - only a changing tide
of people, mostly black mothers and little children, filling
the hallways and drifting in and out of the office. Feeling out
of place, I stood and waited, looking around at the shelves of
file folders, desks and chairs layered with papers and books,
children's art on the walls, one window onto the sandy courtyard.
At last Mrs. Caraway hung up the phone. She wrote at her desk
for a moment, then, majestically, turned in her chair and impaled
me on her stare. I said hello and told her my name, reminding
her of our interview appointment. "Well, sit down and we'll
talk," she informed me.
She was generous with her time, despite the incessant flow of
people in and out, with their questions and comments about everything
from the leftover salad to the six-year-old whose mother was
in the hospital for a crack overdose. Mrs. Caraway told me about
her school: what was important there, and what was different
about it - a school that brought together children and parents
of all races and ethnicities, all social classes and economic
levels, all conditions, from "normal" to severely "special." At
Mrs. Caraway's school, children studied disciplines they loved:
dance, martial arts, music, art, theater. And they were expected
to give their all - to live up to what was best in them.
I was impressed by that visit with Mrs. Caraway - both by what
she said and by what I sensed, being there. More than anything
it was the palpable human warmth in that place. Perhaps this
had to do with what Mrs. Caraway called the "extended family" -
a way of living, characteristic of African societies, where all
the parents care for all the kids - and care actively, not just
as a nice thing to say. Whatever it was, I knew, just from being
there, that in this place life was fiercely treasured. That here
children could begin to transform their lives.
Recognizing in Mrs. Caraway's school many of the elements that
I wanted to see in education, I told her of my attempts to find
other parents who were interested in creating new educational
possibilities. She agreed that new possibilities were direly
needed - the public schools were a disaster. But she insisted
that as long as the public schools were there, people would use
them no matter how bad they were, rather than do anything else
that took a big effort. I argued, wanting encouragement - but
she was unmoved.
Finally I asked her if my own children could attend her school.
Well, she said, I had to recognize that it was only an afterschool
program - but my daughters would be welcome there. I was delighted,
although I wished ardently that it were a full time school. It
was the only educational environment I had so far experienced
that felt human. Mrs. Caraway recommended a public school in
the same neighborhood, Washington School, as an academically
excellent institution governed by a no-nonsense principal. So
we visited Washington, whose strict structure appealed to me
after our amorphous year of failed home schooling. We outfitted
Chris and Jessica in white blouses and blue plaid pinafores,
and they entered Washington. After school they took the school
bus to Mrs. Caraway's school.
Washington must have been a shock. Two little "dayglo white" girls
(as a friend put it) plunged into an overwhelmingly black environment,
where the blond children could be counted on the fingers of one
hand. Chris and Jessica, at age 9, were courageous - they made
some friends, and progressed in basic skills; Chris learned to
read, and from that time on read with voracity. They also indignantly
reported being taunted on a daily basis by little boys who called
them "white pig" and other metaphors for their innate
despicability. This bothered me, but I thought it would be worse
for them to change schools yet again, and hoped the experience
would be "good for them" in the long run.
And years later, I was surprised by my relief when my teenage
daughters both told me they were grateful for that experience.
Jessica said that being at Washington had helped her to understand
African Americans better. "They're not 'them' any more," she
said. Chris said simply, "It was humbling." And besides,
their tormentors provided both my children with a powerful motive
to study martial arts, which later became a passion for them
both.
It was at Mrs. Caraway's school, though, that my heart was opening.
My daughters were always relieved to arrive there - none of the
trauma that assaulted them at Washington occurred at Mrs. Caraway's.
Not that everything was perfect there, of course. Far from it.
Mrs. Caraway was not an easy person. She tolerated no sloth,
no slippage. Not a believer in tact, she was mercilessly direct
and sometimes sarcastic, and the fear of her cruel tongue peppered
the air. The necessities of time and money, of which we were
all made unwillingly aware during the compulsory monthly parents'
meetings, hovered like a blight. Parents and teachers found themselves
personally struggling with all the issues of the times - from
gang violence and racial tensions to families who suddenly found
themselves on the street.
But something irresistible was also happening - an insistent
pushing up through the ground on all sides, a springing forth
of souls. It was that children were truly respected. Not tolerated,
not put down, not ignored, and certainly not coddled, they were
unambiguously respected as human beings. No subhuman behavior
was allowed. Mrs. Caraway and her embattled teachers expected
those children - even the smallest, even the most severely handicapped
- to do their absolute best. Accordingly, they shone with a rare
light.
---------------
All this time, I continued to be beset by a growing desire to
start an entirely new kind of full-time school, available to
everyone no matter what their financial status, where education
would be deeply relevant to people's lives. I wanted schools
to teach people how to be happy and free. I wanted to cultivate
in children and parents and teachers that impulse for generous
action which lives in every human heart - that passion to simply
give to others, and to the world.
This dream, this necessity, was not about reform. It was not
about changing the current system. It was about developing an
entirely new way of learning and teaching - a new model. I knew
I would have to seek support and participation outside the system,
which obviously would not be interested in replacing itself.
I also saw that this was a project that was far beyond my very
limited abilities. I kept looking for other parents and teachers
who were interested in creating something new. But Mrs. Caraway's
assessment continued to prove true. Most parents and teachers
seemed to be too entangled, too inextricably trapped, in the
system - whether they liked it or not. Many could not even conceive
of anything different. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough. But
my attempts to find others who were outraged enough to do something
seemed to drop forever into a vacuum.
10
SUCCESS - OR FREEDOM?
In the fall of '98 I learned about the Edison Corporation. The
same grasping genius who created Channel 1 (which advertised
brand names to children during class time while "teaching" via
TV) was happily squeezing yet more profit out of public school
children. The nationwide trend toward letting big for-profit
corporations take our public schools into their own hands - for
their own profit - had been growing over the last few years -
and school officials were now welcoming this outrage into our
own San Francisco public schools!
Worse yet, many parents did not protest this policy - perhaps
out of a kind of sighing hope that "they," the corporations,
the consumption-production profiteers, might improve things,
might somehow make the world safe for our children, and teach
them how to "succeed." And this was understandable
- where all else had failed, and our children's present and future
were at stake, what else could we do? Some said, if the for-profit
corporations can make a difference - even if those racketeers
clearly love money more than they love our children - let them!
I did not feel this way. So I wrote a long and passionate letter,
which I sent to the editors of three mainstream daily papers.
In the letter, I pointed out that one of the main rationales
for this trend, namely that the corporations would encourage "healthy
competition" among our schools, was clearly flawed.
"It should be obvious," I wrote, "that competition
breeds WORSE - not better - products and services. Take the biggest
and most successful of all: MACDONALDS. Are those famous burgers
known for their excellent quality, their pure ingredients, their
fine taste? Or aren't they just cheap and fast, a nutritional
void in a wrapper? Remember - what measures success in our society
is not quality, but profitability. Competition is geared toward
success - but success is measured not by quality for everyone,
but by profits for a lucky few. And yet they claim this will
improve the quality of public (for everyone) education."
I went on to attack the value system that forces us to live
this way, pointing out that our schools developed along with
the Industrial Revolution, as a way to feed the profit machine:
to churn out ranks of workers who would just follow directions.
Higher education was there to train a select few to design and
manage better production/consumption systems. Everyone - given
the promise of reward and threat of punishment - would be smart
enough not to question authority...
I appealed to readers to join me in trying to DO SOMETHING about
this outrageous state of affairs. "Let's dare to imagine,
let's collaborate on some new recipes for education, let's replace
that bland and poisonous Edu-Burger with delicious, life-giving
Food," I raved.
It felt great to write that letter. But after I wrote it, and
they did not publish it, I did a mental double take - wait a
minute, what am I doing just sitting here writing letters? This
is the time I've been waiting for ever since my children took
the unfortunate plunge into the educational cesspool. If they
can do it, so can we. It is time to do something: we have to
take a decisive giant step, a leap of faith - and launch a prototype
New School.
I was sure this was the moment. But such a leap cannot be taken
alone - as I soon learned.
Charged with determination, I called the State of California
for information about starting a charter school. A week later,
a hefty manila envelope arrived in my mailbox. Pages of instructions,
legal requirements, suggestions, histories, deadlines, grant
application forms... It was not long before I realized that I
was not up to this yet. Starting a charter school - or any kind
of school - would require both a strong central team and a large
body of supporters, including parents, prospective students and
interested teachers. I had found a number of people who had expressed
interest in a project having to do with humanizing education
- but I needed more than interest. I needed an active team of
people who felt as urgently about this as I did.
And I had to admit that the only way I knew to find people was
to write, to send out a message. So both with relief and some
ebarrassment, I went back to writing and researching, hoping
to finish the book within a few months and somehow publish it...
11
RITE OF PASSAGE
"We have everything - but we feel empty inside."
-a student from Columbine School, Littleton, Colorado
It was a few weeks later that something happened that profoundly
impacted one of the larger, sleepier ethnic collectives in the
United States. A thundering kick in the stomach, it sent us reeling,
wrenching us into a new, unwelcome awakeness. This jolt was not,
perhaps, comparable to the great wake-up call that came of September
11, 2001. But it held a particular horror for the group it most
impacted: white middle class America, the original Dreamers of
the American Dream.
-
A friend who was raising her children in the mild suburbs of Santa Clara Valley
called to tell me the news. "Have you heard what happened?" I had
heard nothing, but her voice warned me of something I did not want to hear,
and I put up my guard. It did no good. It was worse than anything I might have
imagined. A massacre, in the heart of our own land, among children like my
very own. Two disturbed teenage boys had shot and killed twelve students and
a teacher in an affluent upper middle class high school in Colorado.
Why did this particular tragedy hit home so hard with me and
so many of my friends? In my own San Francisco neighborhood over
the last few years several young people had been shot and killed,
only blocks from my home. I had been horrified, and had gone
to Mass and cried with their mothers as they trailed the casket
down the dusky aisles of Saint Mary's. But I had always comforted
myself that it was their children - the gang members, drug dealers,
poor immigrant children, victims of racial and ethnic discrimination
- who were "at risk." Not my children.
What was different this time was that the children who died
in Littleton were just like my own children and my sister's and
brother's children. They were the children of our dreams, to
whom we had given everything.
When I was growing up in a white middle class suburb in the
'50's, we were taught, and believed, that in America we lived
in safety. This was the land of the virtuous and lucky - the
only really safe place in the world. Bad things might happen
in other countries, where there were wars and violence and people
were starving. But here, in the land of the free, life was safe
and good. We could be assured that if we in our turn were good,
if we did as we were told and always shut the door behind us,
we would grow up happy and contented, in peace and comfort. The
evils and dangers of life might be realities in another, distant
world, but would never touch us.
Since the '50s we had learned, of course, that even here terrible
things do happen to people like us - especially to those who
are in any way different, people with the wrong sexual preference,
people who are too old or too young, or who are just unlucky
or unwise. We had been disillusioned to a degree. But it had
never really sunk in so utterly, until the Littleton massacre,
that even in the heart of our dreamlands, any one of us can be
touched by life's dark side, just like anywhere else on earth.
Of course there's some truth to the banal image of Americans
as ignorant, materialistic consumers who value things of no consequence
over life and love - an image which has unfortunately become
popular abroad, thanks to television and a small number of flashy
and insensitive tourists. But if we look deeper, we find something
different. According to legend, Americans are a strong people
who believe in freedom, in equality, in the pursuit of happiness,
in honesty, in hard work, in justice, in standing up for our
rights and the rights of all people. That is the role that the
rest of the world is waiting for us to model.
-
- And a significant sector of the American middle class is striving to live
up to that role, actively doing whatever they can to live nonviolently and
consciously on this earth. Macro-sociologist Paul Ray conducted surveys in
the '90s indicating that more than a quarter of our population fits this discription;
he calls this sector the "cultural creatives." And in our efforts
to humanize our world, Americans have a tremendous advantage: we have access
to tools, to information, to time, to influence. In this country, perhaps more
than anywhere else in the world, we have the real possibility to do something.
12
PEACE PILGRIM
We are all cells in the body of humanity - all of us, all over
the world. Each one has a contribution to make and will know
from within what this contribution is, but no one can find inner
peace except by working, not in a self-centered way, but for
the whole human family.
- Peace Pilgrim
After we'd been together several years, when the children were
all in elementary school, Jorge quite suddenly had a bout with
cancer. They took a tumor from his thigh, and he underwent several
months of radiation and recovery. After the initial shock, Jorge
himself seemed quite unconcerned, assuming that all would be
well - as it was and, many years later, still is. I myself, however,
spent those months in agony. I felt as if I'd lived my entire
life in an illusion - an illusion that if I lived right, nothing
really bad could happen to me - like losing one I so dearly loved.
It seems not even Littleton had been enough to rouse me from
that particular illusion.
About a year after Jorge's surgery, my friend Louise, who had
given me The Magic Feather, gave me another book. As I read it,
I wished I'd read it during that time of fear and despair. One
thing it conveyed with great clarity was that one is never given
a problem to which one is unequal - that problems are opportunities
for growth.
Louise - my longtime friend, bosom sister and arch enemy. When
we were roommates, we alternately poured out our hearts to one
another, and took violent offense at each other's infuriating
domestic crimes. But for all our ups and downs, Louise knew me
well. One day, coming across a book she'd read a while back,
she decided this was the book for me. "You will love this
book, Trudi," she Announced. "It's your kind of book." It
was called Peace Pilgrim - her life and work in her own words.
It was an unpretentious looking book, bound in dark blue. On
the cover was a photograph of an old woman walking briskly toward
the camera, smiling. A country road stretched behind her through
open fields, disappearing beyond the boundaries of the picture.
She had an unnamable expression on her face - as if offering
some good secret. On her tunic were lettered th |
