Failure By Any Other Name

As a teacher, this is the time of year where I give out final exams and watch my students sweat out (not nearly as much as I’d like) their preparations for their final grade in the class.  Some students are in a pretty good position and therefore, are a bit more relaxed entering the fray.  Other students are on the border line and to whatever extent they are concerned of passing or failing, they approach the test accordingly.  Yet, one more category of student exists that trumps all of those – the senior in danger of failing.  This senior can run the gamut, from almost pathologically worried to blithely unconcerned.  Yet, for the latter, their failure and failing to see the importance of the situation is not entirely their fault.

From the early years of our education system, chances are given ad nauseam.  Last chances are given in primary and middle school – the social promotion the reader may have heard education leaders and specialists deny exists any longer.  Yet it does.  Many administrators have approached the end of the year with the best intentions.  “This year, a parent will not browbeat me into passing their kid” or “This year, I will stand firm and say that little Timmy cannot take part in sixth (or eighth grade) graduation ceremonies.”  Yet, again and again, school districts “knuckle under and crawl” to the demands of the parents who approach school officials like defense attorneys. 

Once in high school, a freshman student has been taught over the course of the last eight years that in the end, things will work out, they will pass, they will move on.  Parents are equally lulled to sleep by this expectation to the point, they barely come to the school any longer except to send one last salvo of objection and indignation at a school system that would fail his/her child.  The later in the school year it is, the greater the outrage.  It would be comical were it not done at the expense of a child’s sense of their own entitlement.  After years of being passed along by over-sympathetic, misguided or pressured teachers and administrators, the young minnow reaches the twelfth grade with visions of cap and gowns, graduation ceremonies and parties and the ultimate freedom they constantly crave but secretly fear.  The parents, by this stage, only come to the school for rewards or other recognitions of their child’s greatness.  They have put in the work to ensure that nothing trips up their student’s path to success.  Surely, no teacher would fail a student in the senior year.

Yet, they get the personal pronoun wrong and it creates the tension that characterizes the last months of school.  In my case this year, both students were given multiple opportunities to bring up their grade but they did not take advantage of this.  Both child and parent have been conditioned by the failings and lack of moral toughness of the school system.  In an effort to constantly fret over the short term, we’ve created a monster incapable of considering the long term.  A naturally egotistical and self-absorbed demographic is catered to with immediate considerations, with no thought to the long-term impact of our actions upon the student and their work ethic. 

It is the end of May and I have two seniors that will not graduate.  I look at them and it pains me to think what we have wrought.  They have been looking forward to the senior year and all the accolades that comes to a person who legitimately matriculates towards college or a career. Yet, they will not make the connection between their efforts and their results.  What will happen to those two students?  Will they understand why they failed?  The student’s parents are no longer a concern because the student is now an adult.  Yet, what tools have they been given to deal with their upcoming failure?  In the next week, I will see the anguished jeremiads of students and parents (and administrators) and the real tragedy is they are crying about the wrong thing.

To Filibuster or Not to Filibuster

In an article for the Boston Globe, Joshua Green railed against the filibuster, a congressional procedural tactic of the minority party to prevent something coming up for a vote.  In his article, well written and occasionally humorous, Mr. Green details the many bills and measures that would have been passed were it not for the dreaded filibuster.  He further hammered the point that the Republicans have filibustered proposed legislation over 85 times.  However, his article is not entirely partisan and instead rests on the very nature of a filibuster.  He even quotes a University of Miami political professor (I normally call them pundits) who declared Congress was not functional any longer.  Here is a little history lesson – there has not been many moments in history when Congress operated the way Mr. Green romanticized it did. 

There are a couple of things to take from this article.  One, Congress was never meant to be a well-oiled, highly efficient body capable and often producing hundreds of laws a session.  It is designed to be cumbersome, time consuming and dysfunctional.  The House of Representatives was originally conceived as the people’s house, in much the same way as the House of Commons within the British Parliament was designed to represent the great unwashed, the hoi polloi if you will.  Representatives were given only two year terms.  This does two things.  One, it makes representatives more panicky and more likely to make decisions in a knee jerk response to immediately mollify their constituents.  Second, it allows the public to more quickly vote out or re-elect a representative, based on their legislative actions.  However, any political body that is directly answerable to the public must be counter-balanced, as it were.  Here is where the Senate comes in.

The Senate, prior to 1916, was not elected by the people but rather by the representatives of his/her state.  Senators serve six year terms and as such, are much more deliberate and exacting in their legislative output.  This was meant as a check on the sometimes impulsive nature of the Lower House.  The Senate, a more powerful form of the British House of Lords, was meant to prevent the government from going into directions that, upon further reflection, it would prefer not to go.  To do this, one thing that is missing from the Senate that is prominent in the House is the powerful Rules Committee.  In the House, the Rules Committee set up the guidelines of how a bill is argued, including how long debates will last.  The Senate does not have this committee in the way it is seen in the House.  Without the power of the House committee, the Senate can not easily put the brakes on the consideration of a bill.

The filibuster requires the majority party to have at least sixty votes to end the stalling technique.  This is called a cloture vote.  If the majority party can muster the votes, it can break the filibuster.  Mr. Green bemoaned all the things that did not happen because of an obdurate Republican minority in the Senate.  However, we are talking about things that had barely a majority support or, otherwise, a cloture vote would end the delay.  It also suggests that some of the opposition to much of what was filibustered was comprised of bi-partisan support, given the margin of defeat.  While we have a winner-take-all system in our government, we also fear the potential of a powerful majority.  

Many people take swipes at our Congress.  Mostly, it is against individual members of Congress, not necessarily their own elected members or the Congress as a whole.  Critics cry about the ineffectiveness of the Congress and often, advocates will champion a sad-sack case as representative of the damage being caused.  Yet, they miss the point all together.  Not only are the government in general and the Congress in particular not designed for the needs of the individual (it is responsible for the well-being of the whole), it is also not designed to blithely and thoughtlessly succumb to reactionary pressure.  To change the government or, worse, change the Constitution is a serious thing and must only be embarked upon after a most deliberate consideration.  It is the way Congress was meant to be.

To see the article referred to in this article, check out:

bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/05/17/taking-word/QrHaNvodpWOtRXy6bTKZ3M/story.html

In Honor of My Sainted Mother

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same.
            Pearl Buck

How do you write about the importance of a parent?  What makes it more perplexing is that I’ve never tried.  However, thanks to an act of Congress back in 1914, when it determined that the second Sunday in May should be in honor of mothers, I have the opportunity to describe what is not easily describable.  Being on the other side of 40 and with no children, yet, I’m also encouraged to find out, to whatever degree I turned out well, what my parents did to make this happen. 

My mother grew up in the South, a small town in north Louisiana in a conservative, blue collar family.  If it is true that the southern culture places great emphasis on public decorum, then my mother learned an important lesson.  I always detected a little formality in how my mother interacted with others and I always appreciated her lessons in how one talks with authority figures, older people or complete strangers.  In some ways, she’s been a source of my feelings of what is proper and what is expected and needed in public.  Some of my students think I’m a bit rigid in my demeanor and what I expect from them but I like being a little old fashion in this way and I get this, in part, from my mother.

 
Another characteristic I’ve inherited from my mother is her personality.  My mother could talk to anyone and do so as an equal.  As a young kid, I was at times embarrassed by how friendly she could be because I did not understand yet the importance of speaking to people and letting them see your empathy and interest in their lives and the stories they tell.  I grew up in a variety of neighborhoods and my mother always encouraged me to find the worthiness in everyone around by the way she treated others.  It has been said that I’m the same in the way I speak to just about anyone, ask many questions to know about their lives and their work.  That spirit to speak to anyone was engendered by my mother.

One of the most important lessons my mother taught me was independence and tenacity.  My mother is a unique case.  Growing in a world where the expectation of women were in the home, she broke out, pushed herself out into the work force, overcame many challenges in her life and rose above and persevered.  She was not stoic.  She was verbose and angry and showed her struggles but she also endured.  I mentioned in another article about Friedrich Nietzsche and his theory about the importance of suffering.  It develops, clarifies and demonstrates character and that is what happened to my mother.  She has clawed her way through great difficulties and shown herself on the other side of it as an amazing woman. 

If I may say so without being an egotist, I’m independent and tough.  Part of it is a product of my surroundings, part of it from my time in the military and part of it from my years teaching high school but the base was built by my parents and typified by my mother.  Yet, she is sweet and caring and sensitive to those around her and nice, perhaps to a fault.  I’m not sure any of my students would characterize me as sweet so perhaps not all of my mother’s lessons stuck.  And, my mother is not perfect.  Our relationship has not always been the best and I’ve not always been a good son but I’m very proud of her and proud she is my mother.  And it is my hope and my belief that I’ve done her proud.

The Court Takes on the Arizona Immigration Law

Last week, the Court heard arguments regarding the controversial Arizona immigration law that required people in Arizona, upon police instructions, to show proof of residency.  The case has political implications as well.  If the Court rules in favor of the law, it could be the second major defeat of an Obama administration measure (assuming the health care measure also loses in the Court).  If the Court rules against the law, it could force Mitt Romney to be more vocal about the need for comprehensive and federal-dedicated measures to stop the flow of illegal immigrants at a time when he is trying to tone down the rhetoric to win over more Hispanic votes.  However, as usual, these conversations have deeper complexities that I would like to discuss. 

I’m not too far removed from the old country myself and as a historian, I’m intensely interested in immigration history.  Therefore, I think I’m speaking from a certain level of sympathy and understanding.  Additionally, our struggles with immigration (illegal or otherwise) are also being experienced throughout Europe as well.  If anything, the difficulties in countries like Germany shadow the U.S. struggles.  However, states like Arizona are taking a harder line, themselves hardened by years of problems stemming from the large presence of Latin American immigrants.

I have a bit of a different take on the issue.  I spent seven years teaching in a predominantly Mexican-American school.  From time to time, we discussed immigration.  My students were torn – those whose family entered the country legally were miffed at having waited the time required, paid the money ordered, dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s and arrived here legitimately.  They were irritated that illegal aliens had foregone all of that and broke the law in their first step into their new country. 

 

However, all that said, it might be a moot point and that too might affect the election.  The Pew Institute (www.pewresearch.org) released some startling information about the flow of Mexican and Latin American immigrants into the United States.  The Institute said that Mexicans are leaving more than entering into the United States due to a variety of reasons; among these are the recent economic issues and stricter anti-illegal immigration measures.  However, things are transpiring in Mexico that is also affecting the number.  First, the Mexican economy is doing quite well, certainly growing at a larger rate over the last five years than what is seen in the U.S.  From 1980 to 2010, the Mexican per capita gross domestic product has risen 22%.  A sign of a growing prosperity (in any country, let alone Mexico) is that the fertility rate has dropped dramatically.  In 1970, the rate was 7.3 per woman – compared to 2.4 in 2009.   

The Pew Institute went further in suggesting we will never see the numbers of Mexicans coming across the southern border like we have in the past.  Yet, it still leaves a perplexing question.  What should we do with future and current illegal immigrants?  During President Bush’s first term, he suggested the concept of an amnesty program and while he was torched by Republicans, the Democrats said nothing in support of a plan they have suggested since.  Others have suggested the punitive measure of hunting down and deporting illegal immigrations as President Dwight D. Eisenhower did in the aftermath of the bracero program after World War II.  That plans sounds like it would cause more problems than it would fix.   

However, what can be done, in the course of official business, is to ask people to show their identification.  I’ve traveled a bit and in every country I’ve been to, I’ve understand that I must show identification upon request by officials, including police.  To suggest that such a program would be inherently racist and lead to profiling, is assuming that America’s police and government officials are inherently corrupt and ambivalent to their obligations and duties.  It must be a hard way to go through life. 

The Reading List – The W’s, Y’s and Z’s

Well, this is the last of the "book" list postings.  I hope you've taken something from it and I want to continue to encourage readers to recommend anything missing. 

Happy reading!

Ross

All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber

Night, Elie Weisel

The Eye of the Story, Eudora Welty

Collected Stories, Eudora Welty

Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Collected Poems, Richard Wilbur
Letters, Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
The Complete Poetical Works, William Wordsworth
Fides et Ratio, Karol Wojtyła
The Jeweler’s Shop, Karol Wojtyła
Person and Community, Karol Wojtyła
Veritatis Splendor, Karol Wojtyła
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Waves, Virginia Woolf

Collected Poems, William Butler Yeats

Germinal, Emile Zola