November 26th (Langston Kessler Thomas's 6th Birthday)
So, at the request of Art Leo, I'm doing the blog thing to chronicle my time at Agassi Prep. Okay, I'm not really prepared to trash anyone--hopefully you can wait for the book version of that (don't hold your breath).
The summer slid into inconsequential fall and often I think about the places that I/we left behind. Certainly Marin County seems 30 Light Years away, and Catlin Gabel is at least at the edge of this solar system. Educationally we are even further away from the pencils, paste, and purgatory of 1st Grade in Robbins, Illinois. Don't get me wrong, the projects are probably the fondest memories that I have of my life, if you can factor out the alchoholism and poverty. However, my current tenure allows me to see inequity with new eyes.
I like to tell people that I was in the first class of Head Start. I'm not quite sure if that is true or not (as if there were classes of Head Start kids marching off to Yale or Stanford), but it was a big deal when it came to our town. My step-father, an ersatz bricklayer and electrician, did one or the other to the abandoned Certified Grocery Store. New plaster and paint spackling the entry way. I don't remember much about those few months, because that was about how long we were in that building. I do remember the newness of it. Call it War on Poverty or just getting what we deserved. Mark Clarke and Fred Hampton, the Black Panthers in Chicago, were trying to do the same thing in the City, but they died in a hail of bullets thanks to the Cook County Sheriff and the FBI. We don't require that level of attention, discredited or otherwise, to put together a school here in Vegas but who knows.
The great thing about Vegas and where the school is is it's similarity to those early years growing up in Robbins, Illinois. http://www.city-data.com/city/Robbins-Illinois.html. I remember loving my school back then. Sure, Lincoln School (not named for you know who but for some other Lincoln) was old and dilapidated, but it seemed pretty substantial to me. Not some fly-by-night portable units wheeled to the site by truck or pack mules, but a large overburdened building that looked like it had been there for years and years. Lincoln Elementary, which is where my father also went to school, could boast five stories with wood floors, with three generations of African American families as pupils. In fact some of my teachers were my dad's teachers. Can that be done again? Not just a one room schoolhouse but the permanence of those school buildings where generations of teachers educate the children of the sons and daughters of the town or neighborhood. The problem of course is that those old schools, like Lincoln and Turner Elementary in Robbins, were built to look like the factories that we were supposed to take our place at once we graduated: U.S. Steel, Ford, Wyman Gordon, Alcoa, etc.
Back to the Future:
Today, we have schools that are still shaped like warehouses rather than structures that are meant to inspire and shift our thinking about what schools and schooling should be. Hell, what learning is supposed to be. Why are most schools such uninteresting looking places?
Last week one of my students, lets call her Aisha, asked me to forgive her during the Wednesday Dress Day because she did not have a tie; her mother could not afford one. I felt like I was punched in the stomach because the ties were about three bucks. But there she was, one of the smartest kids in the 5th grade with no tie, reciting the CoR over and over as she and her classmates went to the front of the multipurpose room to sign their names on a sheet that I lost, but wanted to use to track the malefactors. The point was, as I told them, "not having your dress uniform (after 15 weeks of school) was disrespectful." To be honest, I just think it is forgetful, but we are all tools of some system or other, right?
The day before yesterday, yet another Dress Day, Aisha told me, "Look Mr. Thomas, I have a tie!" How about that. Discipline and respect. All of the other kids had their ties and dress shoes, too. So much for my Progressive Educator tag. A little fear and loathing (and consistency) goes a long way. This whole idea of making something that will raise us all up may be a dream, yet I'm down for it. Having us all pretty much look alike in skin tone does make a difference.
I see this blog, "Learning By Heart," as a search for meaning as we create a school that does something that no other school is doing. Perhaps we'll do the same damned thing that every other school does. I pray not. If that is the case I pray that I be drawn and quartered, and like Mussolini, hung up in the middle of a Boulevard (West Lake Mead in this case) with piano wire. I pray that I not give in to the sameness of every other school think, as other educators in my position have done. I pray that I can keep people around me who will challenge me just as much as I challenge them. I pray that someone will draw me into their confidence and tell me what they really think. Kids do that. Parents will often do that, even if they are affected by the fuzz and static of being "advocates" for their own children. Other teachers, I pray, may or may not do that--because they are worried about losing their jobs. Not all, of course. Mr. Victor (not his real name) could care less about whether I will fire him or not. That's why he's important to keep around.
Maybe you know this already but I'm in the middle of trying to create a high school as well as run an elementary and middle school with these other folks. Since becoming Executive Director of the entire school a few weeks back, my mission is to transform American (U.S.) education by what we do. I don't have enough hubris to think that I or we can do that. When I do think about that prospect I also think about Dr. King's final speech where he says, "I may not get there with you..." I'm sure that I'll be along for at least most of the ride.
Here goes...
Namaste,
Brian
