Number One Problem

“What’s the biggest problem or challenge you face?”

“Pot. Growers are often negligent parents and their kids often need the most remedial and behavioral support in school.”

When I interview teachers and administrators, I frequently ask about problems and challenges, and I’m often surprised by the answers. I anticipate that humdrum things like incompetent colleagues, angry parents, blockheaded administrators, or recalcitrant unions cause the biggest headaches, but they usually don’t.

On the west coast, I interviewed several teachers and administrators, and two administrators at two different schools surprised me with the same answer to my question. What’s the biggest problem you face? Pot.

Given conversations about the decriminalization or legalization of marihuana, we should listen carefully to this response.

Our local NPR affiliate has a morning call-in show. Today’s topic is the legalization of marihuana. Rational callers point out the dangers of alcohol and tobacco in order to minimize the danger of pot. One caller described the attitude in Holland: “Teenagers use pot for a few years, but then they outgrow it and get on with their lives.” She seemed to think this was fine, the result of a rational policy.

As someone who has taught high school students for nearly 30 years, I can tell you that “using pot for a few years and then outgrowing it” is a pretty glossy face on what is too often a tragedy. No, it’s not the tragedy of alcohol poisoning, car wrecks, lung cancer, and the other dangers associated with alcohol and tobacco. It’s more subtle than that. It’s a tragedy of lost idealism, loss of will power, disaffection. It’s watching someone you admire, respect, care for, even love, fade from view, unable or unwilling to think, to feel, to participate, to do. Grades tumble, absences increase. Yes, they come back. Usually. But who knows how damaged, how hampered? Brain trauma can take years to heal, if it heals at all. Are we certain that the results of pot smoking are benign and, if not benign, reversible? Based on my experience as a teacher, I would say that they’re generally not.

Drugs affect different persons in different ways. There is no universal human response to, say, pot. Just as there are angry drunks and friendly drunks and “functional” alcoholics, there are those who manage to soldier on despite years of heavy pot smoking, and those who quickly fade into near-oblivion. Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg are the exceptions, not the rule.

The concept of a “gateway” drug is a cliché, it’s also true for too many young persons to ignore. I used to teach history at a community college, and the criminal justice majors—many active, part-time police officers already—had to take my courses. If you want to know what dealing with the excesses of drugs and alcohol, including pot, are really like, talk to an officer. I’m sure you’ll get a range of responses, but you’ll also discover that the pro-pot propaganda is just that.'

This doesn’t mean that our current laws and policies are rational or good. There are strong arguments in favor of decriminalizing or legalizing marihuana. We restrict alcohol and tobacco use and automobile driving and voting for teenagers because we recognize, correctly, that they—on the whole—do not have the forebrain development necessary for the executive functions needed to contend with these things safely and effectively.

We shouldn’t lose sight of what’s at risk, especially for young people, if we mistake public policy and law for health.

Two Identical Roads: A Frosty Poem

Okay, my students tell me I have to share a pet peeve with you: "The Road Not Taken" is NOT a poem about a courageous individual choosing "the road less traveled."

It is a poem about the workings of memory.

You come to a fork in the road. Each path is the same. Exactly the same. "And both that morning equally lay / In leaves no step had trodden black." There is no road less travelled. There are two untraveled roads.

 

It's only much later, in your fallible, malleable, self-justifying memory that you create "the road less traveled" in order to justify your own myth of yourself in order to tell others how you took the road less traveled. When, in fact, you did not.

The past seems inevitable once we have passed through it, and, to ourselves, we seem like its heroes for making the choices we made. But the present gives us only opaque choices that we have to make in ignorance of the future. At least according to this poem.

Stop making the poem's point true by mistaking its truth naively. Okay?

Instinct, Creativity, and Ethics

Do human beings have instincts? Not reflexes (like the nursing reflex), but complex, innate behaviors like nest building?

I don't believe so.

Animals have no apparent choice in fulfilling the demands of their instincts. A beaver cannot choose not to build a dam. Behavior and instincts in animals may clearly evolve, but this evolution does not occur in the conscious choice of the organism.

Human beings certainly have innate desires, drives, reflexes, some of which may rise to the level of near-instinct. We may think of so-called "survival instincts" in humans. But, in every case, a human being may consciously choose to override the demands of these. Human beings may neglect their offspring, go on hunger strikes, immoliate themselves... I cannot think of a single example of a complex, innate behavior that a determined human being cannot consciously overcome. Can you?

The terrible examples above, however, point to the possibility of human freedom. If we may choose to override natural urges and behaviors for the purpose of self-destruction, even for a noble cause, then we may also choose to override these urges and behaviors for creative and ethical and self-sustaining ends.

Giraffes don't wake up in the morning and say to themselves (translating from giraffe), "Today, I'm really going to try harder to be a better giraffe." But human beings do this every day--not to do this, in fact, may work to reduce our very humanity. From this point of view, animals are perfect, and humans are highly imperfect. Yes, biologically, we are animals or animal-like. But ethically, creatively, there's little comparison.

What Rudolf Steiner Really Said About Education

A quotation from Rudolf Steiner on education that should be more widely known:

"Another aspect is that the crux of anthroposophical education is its method. The schools apply a certain method. It is not a question of any particular political direction but purely and simply of method. It is also not a question of any particular religious creed, or of seeing anthroposophy somehow as a religious creed. It is simply a question of method.

"In the discussion that followed my lecture cycle my answer to questions on this was simply that the educational method represented here can be applied anywhere, wherever there is the good will to introduce it.

"If this is done on the one hand, and if on the other hand—in order to create an understanding in wider circles—it is clearly emphasized that this is the proper method and that it is being applied in a school that can serve as a model, if these two points are given the main emphasis in the programme, if it is stressed that every school could use these methods and that a model school could demonstrate how fruitful they are, and if things are worked out neatly, then I believe that something could be achieved even in Switzerland. And then on the basis of these two points educational associations ought to be founded everywhere. But it would have to be made clear to everyone that the aim was not to found as many private schools as possible to compete with the state schools. In Switzerland such a thing would be regarded as something very peculiar and it would never be understood. But there would be an understanding for a model school which could be a source of inspiration for a method of education. Progress cannot be made in any other way. It is important to present these things to people in principle again and again and wherever the opportunity arises.

"I believe it would be a good thing if you could always give the greatest prominence to these two aspects. They are perfectly true, and much damage has been done to us by the constant repetition of the view that Waldorf education can only be carried out in schools apart from the main stream, whereas I have constantly repeated that the methods can be applied in any school."

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA260/English/AP1990/19231228b01.html

Following My Students’ Lead

I continue to learn lessons from my students about paying attention to my work.

Several years ago I taught early modern history to a class of 11^th graders. I brought in Voltaire’s Candide to read a couple of chapters, just to give them a sense of Voltaire’s mind, wit, and language (in English translation). This particular group insisted that I keep reading. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, reading a couple of chapters a day, we finished the book.

I had read Candide—or handed out a couple of chapters as background reading—before this in similar courses, and I’ve done it since, but no group responded like that class. Something in Voltaire spoke to something in them. Fortunately, I had the good sense to go with their enthusiasm, not to deny them and stick too closely to what I had planned. Their interest then spilled over into all our work together, and they left happier about history than most classes I’ve taught. Further, I read Voltaire, through my students, with fresh eyes, and I was able to appreciate, understand, and research his work in a way that went far beyond my old undergraduate reading.

Similarly, in the same course (but with different students), I read Prince Hal’s soliloquy from Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part I,” the one that begins, “I know you all and will awhile uphold the unyoked humor of your idleness.” Hal foreshadows his own maturation, letting us know that his dalliance with Falstaff doesn’t speak to his whole being. When he’s called to greater things, he’ll shake off his adolescent behavior and lead as the heir to the throne of England. This isn’t just a fictionalized image of a medieval king. It’s also a mirror of what 10^th and 11^th grade students often go through as they mature, shaking off their own adolescence and rising to mature expectations.

Again, I intended only to touch on this king, this play, and this soliloquy, then move on with my course. Our brief conversation about Hal, Falstaff, and the play fired the students’ imaginations, however, and we ended up reading and then performing the play. It would never have occurred to me to read or perform one of Shakespeare’s history plays with a group of high school students, but they practically insisted on it. And, again, I had the good sense to run with them, not to obstruct their interest with my own notions of what I thought we were going to do.

This may all sound lovely—and it was—but it’s trickier than simply indulging every adolescent whim. For every genuine enthusiasm there are probably a hundred red herrings, tangents, and digressions. The trick is to know your students so well that you can tell when their interest is genuine and when it’s expedient or temporary. To stand so lightly but firmly on your own feet that you can change direction when the world asks you to. Then, thanks to the appropriate guidance of your students, for a few blessed days or weeks, you feel like a real teacher.

Chasing Insight is Hard and Joyful Work

(This article was written for and appears in the IATEFL-Hungary (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) journal "Melting Pot" for December 2012.)

In a well-known story, Archimedes, asked to determine whether or not a crown was made of gold or of a cheaper alloy, could not destroy the crown to assay it. So how could he determine whether or not the crown was pure or alloy? Imagine him puzzling over this apparently insoluble problem. Then, watching the way his body displaced water as he lowered himself into a bathtub, the answer struck him. He is said to have exclaimed, “Eureka,” “I have found (it).”

He realized that if the crown and an equal weight of gold displaced equal amounts of water, then the crown was genuine. If the crown displaced more water than an equal weight of gold, then it was at least partly made of a less dense, less valuable material—say, silver.

This story is supposed to demonstrate the lightning-like swiftness of insight, granted to geniuses like Archimedes, but, perhaps, not to you and me. Some research in creativity focuses on such “ah hah” moments. But there’s a lot more to it than this, and the research of eminent scholars like the late Howard Gruber focuses on the context in which such moments of discovery occur. (One of his books is appropriately called Creative People at Work.) (For the purposes of this article, I am using the word “insight” when I could use, variously, “imagination” or “inspiration.”)

Some of the following points are worth stating because, however obvious they may be, they are essential and instructive.

First, Archimedes stated the problem clearly for himself—or had it stated for him. Honing our questions so that we understand what we are asking and so that we are asking about things that really matter to us put us on the path to insight.

Second, however brilliant he may have been—and he was probably among the more brilliant humans ever to live—Archimedes had a store of knowledge and experience, an education or self-education, perhaps acquired over years, at least about things like the differing densities of metals and about water in bathtubs. You simply can’t have insights about matters of which you are ignorant. And, very often, insight comes in recognizing a solution to a problem in one area—the purity of metals—with an insight in an apparently unrelated area—displacing water in a bathtub. A broad and deep education—not necessarily schooling, but education—provides the background from which insight may arise.

Third, Archimedes chose to live with the possibility that there was an answer to his problem, and that he could discover it. Some problems have solutions that are only discovered years or even centuries after they are first posed. Some problems, perhaps, have no solutions. Regardless, if we do not approach problems with the understanding that they may be solved, we are unlikely to garner any insight.

Fourth, Archimedes spent time puzzling over this new problem, working on it, we don’t know for how long. Picture him staring at the crown, hefting it in his hands. Picture him exhausting what he knew about such matters. How many days or weeks passed while the obdurate crown sat there, untested? Insight is generally granted to those who exert themselves, not to those who seek instant gratification.

Fifth, he let the problem go. Minimally, he decided to take a bath. History is full of insights granted to those who take a walk, go to church, doodle in the sand, plow a field, lie back in a bedroom watching a fly, pick burrs off a dog, or simply take a bus or streetcar home. [In order, those who received inspiration or insight on these occasions are Beethoven, Silver (the Post-It), Woodland (the barcode), Farnsworth (TV), Descartes (Cartesian plane), de Mestral (Velcro), Kekule (chemical structures), and Einstein (mass-energy equivalency).]

Sixth, Archimedes had and recognized an insight. Chances are good we each have several insights per day, although of a lower order than Archimedes’, but neglect to recognize them, to write them down, or to pay attention to them.

Seventh, he recognized the truth of his solution even before he had worked out the details and put it to the test. This is common—that a researcher will recognize a solution, or a composer will “see” a symphony whole—even though it may take weeks, months, or even years to demonstrate the solution to a problem or to complete the written score.

It could easily have been the case, for example, that even though Archimedes knew he was correct, he was unable to prove it—if the difference in the amounts of water displaced was too small to measure using his antique equipment, for instance. In that case, he would have had to invent some new, more sensitive balance, conduct several trials, and think things through to eliminate error. But all of this thinking and work come after the moment of insight.

[We don’t know exactly how Archimedes solved the problem, what method or apparatus he used. A simple solution available to him was to balance the crown with an equal weight of gold in air and then transfer the balance, gold, crown and all, into a tank of water. If the crown and the gold unbalanced under water, he could conclude that their densities were different and that the crown was not pure.]

Eighth, we assume, he was willing to do the work necessary to prove that his insight was right, and not content simply to sit in a taverna and hold forth on his (untested) brilliance.

Ninth, he did the work, successfully. (He could have been willing but unsuccessful, leaving it for later generations to prove him right.)

Insight, then—which we may also call at least a lower form of inspiration—is one moment within a larger context of inquiry and meaning. It is the pivot, we could say, between the work that leads up to it and the work that follows and tests it.

Is it possible to generate insight, or does it just strike, like lightning? Perhaps we should discuss this question in terms of probability. Is it possible to increase the probability that we may, through insight, solve the problems life poses us?

Let’s examine Archimedes’ story with this in mind. If he was unlearned and ignorant of concepts of density and displacement, he could not have solved the problem. If he was unwilling to tackle the problem, for any reason—laziness, an assessment of its difficulty—he could not have solved it.

Harder to appreciate, perhaps, if he had not taken a bath, he would have been less likely to solve it. (It’s possible that he could have chained himself to his desk, endless cups of coffee at his elbow, and simply thought of a bathtub, but life and history tell us that this simply isn’t a good way to solve problems that require insight.) After an effort to understand and solve the problem, he moved on to other, more practical matters. He stood up and moved. Possibly, he “slept on it,” perhaps for more than one night.

He was open to the possibility that a mundane matter, like taking a bath, could illuminate a seemingly unrelated matter, like comparing gold with alloy.

He trusted his judgment—when he had an insight, he recognized it.

And he was willing not merely to let the solution waft through his mind, but to do the work necessary afterward to put it to the test, to prove it in the real world. We don’t know much about how Archimedes actually accomplished this, but we know from the experience of others that such insights, however immediately they strike us, can take weeks or months to engineer into real-world solutions.

If we focus only on “eureka” or “ah hah” moments, then we run the risk of removing genius to a realm beyond that of we mere mortals. If we are too egocentric, we may wait, with increasing frustration, for insights that don’t materialize—or we may mistake our fevered daydreams for true insights.

If we focus, however, on the education and work that lead, potentially, to insight, and recognize the work required to implement and test insight once attained, we are more likely to gather insights of our own. And we are less likely to mistake illusion for insight.

The pursuit of insight may seem like a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Life is fine as it is, so I don’t need insight and the hard work it entails.

It’s not so simple, however.

All knowledge, in the end, is the result of insight; if not our own, then someone else’s. When we were young and eager and curious and flexible, we gathered insights all the time and thought nothing of it (sort of like the way we stopped at nothing to learn to walk, despite failing for months and months, falling and falling. If we had to accomplish something so physically demanding today, would we do it? Or would we simply rationalize our lack of motivation as inability?). When we were children, it was how we formed a picture of the world.

As we age, we tend to calcify, to ossify, to become less playful, less open to insight. But we needn’t let this change overcome us. Although it’s hard work to pursue insight, the path is clear, and it’s a joyful one, too—so joyful that Archimedes, possessed by the joy of his insight, was said to have jumped out of his bath and run naked through the streets of Syracuse.

Teachers and Karma

I got this question a couple of weeks ago from a former student:

Mr. Sagarin, I wonder if you'd write a post about karma in education - as in what Steiner really had to say about the karma of the children versus how karma is used to explain a number of things that happen in the school, or a child's life, which may or may not have anything to do with the child's karma. Thanks!

Karma, destiny, or, in Emerson’s word, “compensation,” regards not only the past but also the future. To the extent that we believe in it or find evidence of it, karma provides a background to all human relationships. (And, if we actively disbelieve in it, but it exists nonetheless, then a.) it still provides a background to all human relationships and b.) we can be sure the consequences of our disbelief will find us and compensate us.)

Karma has to do with a world in which freedom and chance play roles, but in which human beings are not free from the consequences of their acts and decisions. When Steiner discusses teacher-student karma, he does not say “Waldorf teachers” and “Waldorf students.” His view is that every teacher-student relationship is a relationship of destiny.

In at least one place, he tells the teachers at the Waldorf School that they are teachers because they had “too much antipathy” in a past life to those who are now their students. It is not clear from the context whether or not he means this to be true of all teachers or just those to whom he was then speaking.

It seems to me there are at least three illustrative cases of what we might call “too much antipathy.” 1.) In the middle ages, some men and women, monks and nuns, cloistered themselves and withdrew from human society in order to develop themselves and aspects of culture that were necessarily hidden from the hurly-burly of everyday life. In doing this, they necessarily turned away from—expressed antipathy in their actions toward—those not cloistered. This is not a judgment, but a situation for which present compensation may be due. 2.) Military leaders necessarily disdain human life in order to perform their function—ordering a charge that results in the death of combatants, friend and foe, for example. This, too, is clearly an antipathetic gesture, and one which also demands compensation. And, 3.) Some people are just anti-social so-and-sos and need to learn better.

Often, student-teacher karma may have to do with past life relationships, but, clearly, it may also have to do with the creation of relationships that will be worked out in the future. Unless a teacher has genuine insight into this situation—and I have met far, far more teachers who are guessing than I have teachers who really know anything—he or she is playing with fire if he or she pretends that any behavior or consequence is “karmic.” If it's karmic, it’s all karmic.

Steiner also discusses human relationships in karmic terms outside of his education lectures. For instance, he says that two persons who knew each other only in old age in one lifetime may wish to establish a relationship as childhood friends in another one.

The idea that karma could be used to justify nonintervention or passivity in the face of inappropriate behavior in a classroom or on a playground is nonsense. In particular, Steiner is clear that this earthly world is not a world in which any spiritual concept or understanding can be used to justify violence of any sort.

Steiner is clear that a teacher’s job (not simply a “Waldorf” teacher’s job) is to intervene with whatever wisdom he or she can muster to assist the students in his or her care in overcoming their past karma and establishing “good” karma for the future. Intervening in another person’s karma is a tricky business, perhaps off-limits in adult relationships, or permissible only in rare circumstances, but it forms the basis for part of our work as teachers, whether or not we acknowledge it.

Our job is not to guess about another’s karma, but to so alter ourselves that we are capable of intervening in the life of another only healthfully. For this to be a reality, we don’t have to believe or disbelieve in karma, or rationalize our interventions according to it as a concept. We simply need to be more insightful than we presently are, regardless of where or whom we teach.

Finally, if karma exists, non-intervention is not an option; it is a sin of omission. As teachers, we are called to assist the students in our care, and ignorance or cowardice or denial won’t help us. If a student in our class needs assistance, we assist him or her. In the absence of perfect knowledge, karma can provide a conceptual framework for this assistance, but not a rationalization.