A new means to the same end

To preface my weekend filled with nothing but exploration and fun, I want to explain that in reflecting on what I want to get from my year of travel, I have shifted my focus in a striking new way.

Luther always speaks about growing each student holistically, where each class is supposed to develop you more and more as a person. And while I have personally experienced the cumulative feeling of synergy through my classes at Luther, the layering of perspectives and vantage points from which to understand a situation, my year of traveling has prompted me to experience this in an entirely new way. Instead of relying on the classes to build off each other, I am putting more of a focus on my life and the perspectives I can glean from my own experiences.

So, onto my homework-less weekend.

It started with a baseball game with friends Friday night. We had fantastic, cheap tickets right behind the Nats bullpen. From this perspective, we learned that stub hub is a great place to get tickets; that one should never go to a baseball game hungry (unless you’re fine with a much lighter wallet); that an infield home run is awesome, especially if it’s for your team; and that a good game is made better with friends.

Friday ended with a group of us on the patio. And you can be sure that, when in D.C., someone will always start talking politics.

Saturday started with coffee and a meeting with the professors. From there, a few of us got together to productively recount our childhoods by listening to every song we could remember from the early ‘90s and on into our high school years.

After that, we decided to see what all the hype was with Adams-Morgan, with a friend of Jacklyn’s who is stationed at Fort Myers. And while we were out, I couldn’t help but notice hairstyles. Between the close crew-cut of the army and the styled flip of the wealthy, it was hard to not notice the two groups intermingled at the bar.

Sunday started with an introduction to pho noodle soup at Pho 75. There I came to understand that billions of people are not wrong in liking the soup and that I need to learn to golf, if even for the ability to talk about it.

From there, I visited Kramer Books, a little book store/coffee bar that’s known via word-of-mouth throughout Washington. And by my account, it lived up to expectations.

Walking around the city was the next focus. And from that, it became obvious that the best way to experience and appreciate the city is during a lull. Because we were free from deadlines, appointments, and anything remotely like a schedule, we were able to meander through the city, seeing the fountain at Dupont Circle, watching the avid chess players, see a Luther-student-like man laying down next to a tree with a book in hand, see the extra-friendly squirrels that live near a geometrically-shaped pond, and take time to look at the portraits and read the bios of former presidents, guessing at what our current president’s bio will read in the future.

And finally, when my weekend of learning was over, I set down to do my homework.

ED playing to its strengths

There is frustration at ED. Not with any specific person, but collectively, I think people would like to see more done. They’ve put up with years of criticism for No Child Left Behind and worked with what must seem like a constant influx of political appointees. And with political appointees come different ideologies and a renewed focus on fiscal responsibility. But this “responsibility” is sorely misplaced, as ED contributes only 10 percent of schools budgets across the country. While this is still a large amount, it is hardly enough to make sweeping changes in schools across the country. Despite this, there is still a focus on the money side of education.

ED should instead play to its strengths. It is constantly churning out information – information that would be immensely helpful to schools looking to update and improve their education systems. Given the successes of many charter schools, one should realize that their successes are coming from a new, tailored, way of doing education.

In reading John Dewey’s Education and Experience, he asserts time after time, that an education is intended to not only to promote future educational expansion but also to build of past experiences. In the past, education has focused solely on the former, but it went about this in a rigid system that was not structured around the experiences of kids. For example, sitting quietly in rows of desks, copying sentences from a book doesn’t play to children’s natural propensity to be energetic, social, creative and active. This is not to say that a classroom that lacks structure and all dull educational lessons is a better alternative. But in designing an educational system, one should take into account the previous experiences of those being taught. Structure is good, and it ought to be present in education, but it should be created in a way that takes into account the students’ unique set of experiences.

Also, just like you and I don’t like to be told what to do from “the boss,” the process of educating students would be greatly aided by a school system that is build upon understood rules. In this way, there would be fewer moments where teachers need to exercise their authority, making for a frustrating, tension-filled situation, and instead more situations where students make the choice for themselves to follow the rules.

Some of you may be thinking, “that all sounds great, but you’re still in the theory stages, Magie. Wait until you test it out.” But how many of you have ever explained “natural consequences” to a kid? I know I have, and did this summer with many of the kids I worked with as a VISTA. As an AmeriCorps worker and not a teacher, I really had no power over the kids. So when they acted out, I didn’t ever send them to the corner, yell at them, send them to the principal’s office, or anything of the sort. Instead, I did what I could to redirect them, and explained the consequences that would naturally flow from the actions. To one nine year old boy, after spending 15 minutes trying to avoid reading, I said “if you’re not going to read with me, I don’t want to waste your time here. So we can just go back to class.” He started reading. One girl was rude to another, but when told that “that was really mean to say. I really don’t like when people say those things,” she stopped. Natural consequences help kids make their own decision to behave, helping them develop critical thought and the teacher with an easier job since they didn’t have to have a battle-of-of-the-wills.

Many schools have used artificial incentives to get kids to behave, whether its tickets they can use for some game in the future or stars for good behavior. These can be good at getting kids to do what you want them to in the short run, but lead to two major problems: 1) what do you do with kids as they begin to see through the façade?; and 2) this seriously impairs a student’s ability to make their own critical judgments in the future. Yes, they can follow rules, but they can’t judge whether a rule is just, evaluate whether something is worth their time and energy, and they’re indoctrinated with the idea that as long as they aren’t caught, they escape all consequences. Thus, the idea of natural consequences is lost.

Women and Poverty Hearing: A motivation and need disconnect

If you saw a child and his mother on the streets in rags, with sunken eyes, asking for food or to get out of the rain, any normal person would offer to help in some way shape or form. Why, then, do we as a collective body give up, virtually ignoring the plight of an entire group of people, when it comes to helping on a large scale? I get that it becomes more difficult, and I understand that enabling and incentivizing a lack of work-ethic is a legitimate concern for many people. But regardless, these people, children included, are still struggling.

On Tuesday morning, there was a Senate Finance committee hearing on women and poverty, specifically focused on TANF reauthorization. Four witnesses testified, each offering their experiences living and growing up on some form of government aid. Most notable of them was Wess Moore, author of The Other Wess Moore. They spoke of how they were able to “make it” only because they were given just enough aid to support them through their time spent getting an education and bettering their career prospects.

Speaking as a college student, I can’t imagine ever bridging the 4-year-next-to-$0-income time gap that is college if my family was homeless. How could I justify going to college, when it would mean not working to support my family that is still in serious need or when I am racking up debt in amounts I had never seen before in my life? All of these still ignore the fact that my going to college would already be like swimming upstream after a 10-inch rain because I wouldn’t know many people who are choosing the same path and could offer information or help.

Considering that these serious roadblocks to the American Dream are still in place, the committee was attended well where it didn’t count and poorly where it did. While the committee audience filled every chair, even spilling over to the press tables, the chairs at the front were all empty, save four. And during the final minutes of the hearing, there was one.

I get that poverty is a tricky issue, and I get that the economy has been hard on lots of people, even ones who aren’t labeled “poor.” But these people are still there, especially during an economic downturn, and they’re hurting more than the rest of us.

Inspiration

I hear that it can, at times, be difficult to stay inspired at ED. That may be due to the fact that it only supplies 10 percent of the average school budget and has many political appointees, not to mention the fact that these employees work day in and day out without getting to see the fruits of their labor: the students.

Monday marked yet another opening of an art exhibit at ED, reminding all the ED employees of the reason they work hard each day. Basically what goes on is a formal presentation, with speakers from within the department, from Maryland’s state superintendent – where the art came from – and from two of the students that had their art displayed. My department was in charge of running the show.

In a much appreciated change of pace, I was out of my cubicle, away from papers, and not sitting down. Instead, I helped escort the caterers into the building. And while I was doing this, Secretary Arne Duncan just happened to be arriving to work, and so he said “Good morning” as he walked past. NBD.

I thought the presentation went smoothly, but after having Jackie ask me exactly how I thought it went and what I would have done differently, I realized that I need to pay more attention to my initial, critical instincts and critique things all the time– at least the ones that I’d be in charge of, or things that I can learn from criticizing – just like I now do with written documents.

After that, I ran off to an intern meeting with a White House staffer that works here at ED on Hispanic achievement in the U.S. school system. There were just under 10 interns there, myself included, all coming from interesting and impressive backgrounds. We are all in different departments, so most of us were seeing each other for the first time. Unfortunately, this is also an area in which ED struggles generally. LBJ, the main building, is spread out. There isn’t a truly common area, save the cafeteria, and if work doesn’t require people to interact, they don’t get to see much of each other.

But back to the content of our lunch. The conversation was all over the place. Some people wanted to talk about charter schools. Others about small villages in Texas that are basically like islands of third-world poverty in the United States. I asked what he knew about school teachers’ acquisition of Spanish, considering the fact that one in five public school students is Latino. This was of particular interest to me because of my job as an AmeriCorps VISTA. I worked in Austin, which is a small town that has seen significant increases in its Hispanic population in the last 20 years due to the packaging plant. The teachers were provided access to Spanish-language classes, but it was hit-or-miss in terms of who took advantage of it. Austin has seen serious tension at times, but typically is complacently separate. He had said that towns like my own, small, rural towns that are new to diversity, are struggling the most. Many teachers are staying mono-lingual, despite the fact that the first step to relating to and educating a student is t be able to communicate with her.

So the question becomes, how do you motivate teachers to take this step? To start, I think that much of this will come with the next generation. If it’s any indication of the greater scheme of things, there are more than a handful of students here at LCWS that speak Spanish. I think that because of the time that we’ve grown up in, we’re acutely aware of America’s comparatively weaker position globally. My generation has realized that learning another language will only be helpful in the future. And this will help, but there’s always more to be done. What else can be used to inspire teachers to do any and everything they can to meet kids on their own level?

Leadership at ED

Wednesday of last week, I attended a leadership meeting among staff in various departments of ED. It was an inter-departmental meeting, intended on sharing successes found in one area in the hopes that they would be useful to others. This is a really great practice, especially for ED because it is really scattered. Not only are there different buildings, but the headquarters, LBJ, where I work, is sprawled out with long hallways. So if you don’t work directly with someone, chances are you don’t seem much of them at all. Then, from an employee’s point of view, I really appreciate the facilitated opportunity to think out loud and have a discussion about how best to lead within the agency.

The same kind of weekly-discussions of relevant, but not frequenly discussed, topics occurred this summer during my time working with the Minnesota Literacy Council for AmeriCorps. Each week we focused on a different topic (race, working with multiple ages, brain development), each adding a layer of context and understanding to the work we did every day. This way, we were hopefully making a conscious effort to be aware of these issues and work in a way that best deals with them.

But back to the conference. To my new-to-the-agency eyes, it seemed to be a productive meeting, and there were lots of things I took note of for myself. Most notable was to stay in step with technology. You don’t know where it’s going next, and if you stay with the old, not only are you losing time while you’re working in the old way, but you’ll most likely have to invest more time and energy into catching up. The example used in the meeting was to have open-source documents, which seem scary because anyone can see them and anyone can add to them. But they do wonders in terms of keeping people in the know. Having one, centralized location for information keeps everyone up to date. And coming from my office, there are more than enough copies of documents that get shuffled around between edits, the idea of open-sourced documents greatly appeals.

So to put it into practice, I think I’ll make a better effort at using my phone as an agenda/planner. Even since I’ve been here, I’ve made more than a few lists of things I need to do, groceries I need to buy, ect. But I lose them. I like having things written out, but there’s something to be said for having everything consolidated in one place, especially if it’s not going to get lost as easily as my papers.

Goals for the semester

I recently realized that while I had lists of things I wanted to do and see as well as a general idea of what I wanted to get out of the semester, I have not yet articulated exactly what I want to get out of it. So, in an effort to fulfill my educational requirements, I hope you will indulge me in a few minutes of my thinking.

First of all, I want to be my own information source. I’ve well enough taking in information in classes and in using advice from other people, but there’s a point where I want to be the gate keeper. This broad topic includes three specific areas:

1) News flow, in that, I want to seriously increase my dedication to reading the news and editorials from various sources every day. I’m living in a city that doesn’t let you forget that important things are constantly happening. I am finding that keeping up on my reading to be a lot easier with a hard copy than on the internet. So I just may have to buy a subscription when I’m back at college.

2) Understanding the reality of law making. And this is, in part related to my goal with the news. Now, I know I’ve heard my fair share of complaints about congress, and I know I’ve even had some of my own, but I want to really understand how the process works in reality, so that I can make a judgment for myself when I read a headline that says “So-and-so blocked this bill today”

3) Education policy. If I’m going to truly take advantage of my time at ED, I need to seriously wrestle with what I think to be effective means of educating youth. There are tons of information, research, and meetings on policy to be absorbed and taken in at ED.

Finally, I want to better develop my own understanding of how I think politics does and should work. I know that this is a lofty and challenging goal, and one that is not likely to be completed this semester. But I feel like I have been too complacent in accepting that the two are different. I think this is due in part to my personality, but also to classes that, while doing a great job of pushing kids to be idealistic in how they lead their own lives, don’t reconcile frequently enough the realities of dealing with society. Theories are fantastic and can provide a great framework, but they need to work within a society with real experiences.

Recommendations, expectations, and reality

So if you’ve talked to me at all during the last few weeks, you’ll know that I am a collector of recommendations on anything. Food, books, places to see, things to do, ect. So in an attempt to shift gears, I started to make use of these and start to find some of my own.

Recommendation #1: Ben’s Chili Bowl

Since starting my job, my boss has been telling me Ben’s Chili Bowl is a Washington, D.C., must see. So Friday night, friends and I decided that there wasn’t a better time than the present to start making use of these recommendations. So well past our regular dinner time, we set out for a new part of town to find our dinner, but ended up with dinner and a movie.

So we get off at the U Street metro stop. Everything normal so far. But on our walk to Ben’s, we’re pretty certain we saw what was about to be a drug deal that was quickly stopped by the cops on the street. (Don’t worry Mom!)

But quickly we arrived to Ben’s, which was jam-packed with chili-craving people. And while we had stood out with our preppy clothes on the street, we better fit in with the average customer on the inside.

And so, did Ben’s live up to expectations? Yes. Not only were the cholesterol-exploding french fries and chili dogs filling, but I appreciated the excuse to expand my expeditions in the city, a key goal of mine for the semester.

So after we had done all the damage we could to our mountain of chili fries and our stomachs were full near to the point of pain, we headed back to the metro – now it’s movie time.

What makes this incident particularly funny is the conversation that took place only moments before life interjected itself into our lives. Jackie and I had started in on what was, by now, a reoccurring topic: that we love the city and can see ourselves living here in the near future. So as we’re discussing all the things we love about the city as we rode down the metro escalator, we see what turned out to be a police officer doing what he could to try and get a man to stand up. Seems only slightly odd, and that was all it was, until we got off the escalator and were in full view of the man sitting down. “POLICE BRUTALITY! CALL ANOTHER POLICE OFFICER! I JUST WANT TO BE VISIBLE.”

I think the final line is what strikes me the most. There are people living on the streets all over the greater-Washington area, and you especially see them at night when they’ve found a place to spend the night. I’ve been affirmed all my life. My mother is always supporting me; my brothers are always there to have a conversation with, even if it takes a bit of prodding J; I’ve done well in school and it’s been met with recognition. This does not even count the affirmation I get that when I say hello to someone, they respond. In sum, I cannot even imagine the personal affronts he and others living on the street experience every day.

Recommendation #2: Georgetown

To finish off Friday night, a group of us decided to go to the much-anticipated Georgetown. And because none of us had ever been, we relied on the recommendation of a random guy on the street for our choice of bar for the night. And the place itself was everything you’d expect from a bar in Georgetown – classy and expensive. We had a great time, but I hardly think it will be on our list for the future.

Recommendations #3, 4, 5: H Street Festival, Co Co. Sala, and Opera in the Outfield

So I’m realizing that this entry is getting a bit long, so for your sake and my sanity tomorrow morning, I’m going to throw rush through the last three, even though they deserve a much better attention.

H Street. This ended up as a fail, but ironically had looked to be the most exciting thing of the weekend on paper. The Weekender touted that the festival would be filled with cultural experiences, great food and drink, good music, the usual onslaught of activities used to entice the sight-seer that both wants to experience the world, but in a managed, comfortable way.

To preface our experience, many of us had gotten 5-6 hours of sleep the night before, spent three hours standing in Regan National Airport, and hadn’t had lunch until about 1:30 or 2 p.m. To make matters worse, we hadn’t had caffeinated coffee until 3, and we couldn’t find a metro stop that was within 14 blocks of the festival. Good lead in, right?

So after our tired bodies finally reached our goal, the most effort we could muster was to walk the length of the festival, not stopping at any of the exhibits for more than a minute or two.

Co Co Sala. Sunday morning I had what was easily my most adventurous and tasty meal here: chocolate smores French toast, bananas drizzled in cinnamony caramel, white chocolate raspberry dessert, and two fantastic morning cocktails.

Opera in the Outfield. While we were a bit reserved initally about this outing and thought that, instead, H Street would be fantastic, this was the perfect outing. We had a bit of culture in seeing a live opera performed. And it was on the big screen at the Nats Stadium, which gave it a more relaxing, take-it-as-you-want-it atmosphere. The weather was perfect. And it was free.

It's about time

While I was walking across the mall last Sunday, having just left the anger, madness and hilarious misspellings that were the Tea Party rally in Washington, D.C., I said to a friend, “We need to get a rally of our own.”

Thank you, Stewart and Colbert for helping out.

Among my liberal friends, there has been the shared, but quiet, message that: the recession was harder on the U.S. than we expected; that the effects we are seeing now are from an economy broken well before Jan. 2009; and that many an economist has said that, no matter the rhetoric that was used to sell the stimulus, without it we would be far worse than we are today.

These messages, despite their accuracy, are simply too tempered to really get energized about. Until Oct. 30, 2010.

So Thursday night, a group of us got together to watch The Daily Show, which isn’t out of the norm. In an eerily – but most likely planned – similar manner, we had ourselves been hype-ing-up the show because former President Clinton would be the guest. Unknown to us, we were about to see the culmination of two weeks’ worth of random movie clips in preparation for Stewart’s “big announcement.” We were ecstatic to hear that, not only would we stop hearing about the announcement and find out what it was, but that it would take place just in time – both for the elections and while we are in D.C.!

Finally, we’ve got a rally of our own.

The grind

So as Monday morning came, I felt as though I was headed off to the typical – but actually one-week-long – grind that was my workweek. A coworker and I had started editing a 50 page agenda for an upcoming conference in ED regarding alcohol, drugs and violence. Through editing this, I really came to see not only how far off some academics and school administrators are from understanding the college partying scene, but also how influential capitalism has had in every aspect of life, even at the department.

To preface, this agenda is a culmination of schedules, speaker biographies and abstracts for each of the presentations. And each of these parts has been written by an educated professional, and probably has been edited and looked-over even before coming to us.

So as we sat down to each go over and correct our half of the agenda, we, or I, came to find out just how specialized the task of editing had become.

Prior to this, I had thought that editing was common sense. I don’t exactly remember taking grammar classes in school, but I just figured that any mistake could be found by asking myself, “does this sound right?” As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I’ve already written on how astounded I was to find out that what I thought were archaic ways of abbreviating the states are actually the AP way, but there’s also the fact that website is not web site, nor is it Web site, Website, or Web cite; the Web is not the web; that hyphens are used when you’re trying to use two or more words to describe a concept when they precede a noun, like a bluish-green eye, but not when you’re saying that the eye was bluish green; that, in the same fashion, when a title precedes a name it is capitalized, but when it follows, or is not connected directly to a name, it remains small; and the list goes on…

Needless to say, there were, and still are, many subtleties that elude me.

Each of us took two days making corrections to our half of the document. This is not to say that the people that had worked on it before weren’t smart – they were, many of them had a Ph.D. or some variation. No, rather that editing professionally has become specialized. To the untrained eye, one might catch a mistake because it sounds wrong or it seems inconsistent. But to the well-established editor, even the finer mistakes stand out like mismatched socks.

And if not, there’s always a citation in the AP Stylebook.

So in thinking about senior year, I just might buy the 2011 stylebook to use for the Gadfly – that way we have an official editing style with which to adhere.

The first weekend

So after my birthday celebrations the night before, I decided to start early with making the best of my semester. I woke up promptly at 7 and began my weekend. To start, I got out all the magazines and newspapers I had accumulated or been given by people at the office. I was surprised at the number of free newspapers, some of which are wholly devoted to listing off all the events for the weekend.

With highlighter in hand, I combed over the pages, finding things that caught my attention. The word "free" routinely attracted the tip of my pen. There are so many free things going on in the city, so long as you can find them. At one point, I was almost frustrated that I couldn't go to everything and take everything possible in, but here is where I will begin to develop a palate.

"Sorry Decorah, Iowa (which is the appropriate way to "abbreviate" I according to AP), I love what you have to offer, and I go to tons of events, but here I can begin to choose." Luther is great for making sure that events don't overlap and everyone is able to, within bounds, participate in everything they want to. But the real world is about choosing. Choosing a career path. Choosing a job. Yadda yadda yadda, I'll start with choosing my weekend plans.

(Which happened to be going to a jazz concert in Rosslyn; grocery shopping for red meat and guacamole; going to a the Joaquin Phoenix movie with friends, only to find out I had read the time wrong, so we ended up watching The Tillman Story; starting Sunday off with a visit to the Tea Party March on the Mall; and watching some Sunday-night football - Go Redskins!)

Hello legality

In the days leading up to my birthday, I was thinking that not going out at midnight would be alright; I would be fine waiting until the next night to celebrate. But as my coworkers heckled me about my birthday plans, my eagerness to use my clipped ID and yellow papers grew exponentially.

So at midnight, despite our early work schedules, a few friends and I went out to the closest bar we could find. It wasn’t as much of a dive as I had expected, but it was just as exciting as you would expect a Thursday night to be.

We spent the last minutes of September 9^th standing outside the Continental bar and promptly at midnight we walked through the doors. We showed the bouncer our IDs and with his question of “Is it September 10^th?”, was certainly not as excited about my birthday.

After not more than a few minutes sitting at the bar, we each had a shot in front of us, courtesy of a guy across the bar. Free is certainly a nice way to start what will certainly prove to be an expensive habit.