May 2010 Archives

Fort Benning

Georgia

The playground behind the school is filled with the beautiful noise of children. It's a simple playground covered with swings, slides, and young children chasing each other around a sandbox. They are the sons and daughters of America's soldiers. A car drives by and the children stop playing. They stretch their necks to see if a parent deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan has returned home. The hardest game played at Fort Benning is the waiting game.

I am greeted at the fort's middle school by a group of children who serve as a welcoming committee. One tall boy is eager to show me a colorful blend of pastels hung on the wall. A soldier is hugging a child and the sun is drawn with a large smiley face. "That's my daddy and me," he says proudly. I later learn that the boy's father is in Afghanistan and soon his mother will be deployed to Iraq. He is among the 1.7 million American children who have a parent serving in the military

"Who will watch the boy?" I asked.

A 7th grade teacher who has taught at Fort Benning for over 30 years takes my question in stride. "It's not uncommon that children have both parents deployed; he will be watched by his grandmother."

War is always hardest on children. According to a White House estimate, about 900,000 children have had one or both parents deployed multiple times. Once upon a time a child would slowly raise a solitary hand and waved goodbye to a father sent off to war; today children wave goodbye with both hands.

Fort Benning is a massive military installation and is home to the United States Army Infantry Center and School, a place where young men and women quickly learn that all fighting begins and ends on the ground. General Patton once lived and studied at Fort Benning. Old Blood and Guts must have been a good student because what he learned at Fort Benning would eventually help defeat the Nazis and restore democracy to Western Europe. I drive pass his former house and see a child's bicycle on the front porch. A young officer and his family now occupy the famous general's house and I wonder if his son or daughter was at the school playground.

My tour guide is Dr. Dell McMullen, the Georgia/Alabama district superintendent of DoDEA schools. Dell is intelligent, charming, and living proof that humans do not need to consume potent energy drinks to display vitality and force. I am informed that there are seven schools located at Fort Benning, each belonging to the Department of Defense Education Activity, a rather unique school district that covers the globe and serves the children of military service members and Department of Defense civilian employees. DoDEA and DDESS (Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools) operate 191 schools in 14 districts located in 12 foreign countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Over 8,700 educators work very hard to educate and comfort more than 84,000 students struggling to live and learn in a world unique to military families.

I quickly learn that a soldier's child inhabits a place few civilians can fully comprehend because we do not walk in their shoes or mark kitchen calendars with deployment days. My students study global issues, see images of war and natural disasters, listen to the voices of politicians and pundits, and discuss the political and economic machinations that guide the destinies of nations. But we are largely spectators to a dangerous world and do not share the pain felt by the children of the brave men and women who serve our country. The pain of wondering if a car bomb exploding in Iraq will mark the end of a family's nightly ritual of placing X's on the kitchen calendar. Or the agony of wondering if a Taliban sniper has his scope aimed at mom or dad.

Dr. Dell McMullen points to a large tower. "Would you like to jump from that?" she asked.

The 250-foot drop tower is called a "Free Tower" and it is used to train paratroopers assigned to the Airborne School. The tower seems to poke through the alabaster clouds. If Fort Benning is a cathedral to generations of infantry, the tower is its spire.

"No." I answered softly. My thoughts keep returning to the young children at the playground and to their teachers. The DoDEA teachers are truly a special breed of educator who make me proud to be called a teacher.

Life during wartime has traditionally affected the population of an entire nation and its people shared the burdens of pain and loss. We are no longer a people at war as much as we are a nation at war. A minority of brave men and women do the fighting and their children suffer the grief and deprivation of loneliness. It is a heavy burden.

I return to the middle school and once again must pass the playground. The children stop playing and stretch their necks to see who is in my car. I wish I had a parent to bring home.

I wish all our military personnel a safe and healthy Memorial Day. You are in my prayers and your children are in the care of so many wonderful teachers.

Posted by Anthony Mullen at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

New Jersey Turnpike

Passing the Joyce Kilmer Rest Stop

I am traveling through New Jersey heading home. The turnpike is an easy road to follow because exit signs are clearly marked and I can steer a steady course on the straight road. It's much more difficult to navigate the mind of a politician because roads labeled north and south too often head east and west.

My radio is tuned to a local talk radio station and a bombastic politician is responding to a teacher who asked him a question about possible teacher layoffs in the New York City. The congressman steers away from the question and decides to talk about charter schools.

"Charter schools should be promoted and expanded," he says, "because public schools are not productive, do not reward merit, and do not provide competition."

I was hoping to hear what the lawmaker had to say about layoffs rather than listen to another discussion about charter schools.

"It's time for schools and public school teachers to change because the public is unhappy with the performance of our schools," he concluded before a commercial break.

The fact that the congressman's state is on the fringe of complete dysfunction due to political corruption and ineptitude is never mentioned. But the art of using hyperbolic rhetoric to obfuscate personal incompetence has been the aegis of politicians throughout the ages. Better to focus on schools and teachers than matters lethal to the body politic.

But it's all a ruse. Charter schools are essentially no better or worse than local public schools. A few charter schools do better than the local competition and that's probably a good thing for the fortunate student attending such a school. Other charter schools fail due to the same dynamics that cause all schools to fail: poor leadership, insufficient funding, apathetic students and parents, and a lack of quality teachers. The literature about charter schools is voluminous and predictable: Studies funded by charter school proponents favor charter schools and studies funded by opponents of charter schools do not favor charter schools. A more objective meta-analysis of charter schools has been undertaken by the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009. NAEP is considered the gold standard of educational testing and the results of their testing demonstrate that charter schools, on average, do not outperform regular public schools.

The politician returns to the airwaves and doesn't skip a beat. "People are unhappy with schools and demand change."

I can't argue that some people are not happy with our nation's public school system but the vast majority of Americans respond that they are pleased with their local public schools and can fondly recall a teacher who made a positive impact in their life. Can the same be said of Congress or a politician?

I continue to steer a steady course on the turnpike. I tried to navigate the mind of the politician on the radio, but the path of his words is littered with detours and dead ends. Roads labeled north and south did head east and west. Is it any wonder that we are all lost and confused?

Posted by Anthony Mullen at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Long Island National Cemetery

Pine Lawn, New York

My mother died and then she disappeared. The last time I saw her was when she was lying on the kitchen floor. I thought she fainted because the oven door was open and the room was very hot. I did not realize at the time that a cerebral aneurism had burst and had taken her life. I was a nine-year-old boy and not expected to understand the role serendipity played in death or allowed to attend her wake. My mother's funeral mass was crowded with friends and family and my hurriedly purchased suit did not fit well. I remember staring at her casket and wondering if she was wearing her favorite blue dress. I wanted to open the casket and place a photograph of my brother and me in her hands but was afraid to look at a dead person. I watched the hearse take my mother away to a place called Long Island and was then taken to a neighbor's house. I always regretted not leaving the pew and placing the photograph in my mother's hands.

The Irish are strange mourners. Some treat the dead as though they have never left and others pretend the dead never lived. I grew up never seeing a photograph of my mother or hearing about her life. She died and then disappeared. But the small grave stone in front of me is proof that she once lived and had two small boys who called her Mom.

It's Mother's Day and it is cold and raining in New York. The cemetery is usually crowded on special holidays but today I see only a few people standing solemnly under umbrellas. It is a perfect day to speak to my mother.

A lot happened last year. I was invited to the White House and met the president this year; he was friendly and joked with your youngest grandson. I spent a year traveling throughout the country and visiting some foreign countries. I tried my best to remind people how special teachers are and what they mean to children. What? Yes-I really did meet the President of the United States. But you know that; don't you? I turned fifty this year. Can you believe your youngest son is fifty? I'm sorry you only lived to be thirty-eight. What should I say to all the teachers who are mothers? Yes, I do hear what you are saying but the rain is making me wet. You were once a teacher? I did not know that. Oh...yes, every mother is a child's first teacher. I must leave now but will be back next Mother's day.

I leave the grave site and head toward my car. My mother was right. She never taught in a classroom but was my first teacher. Every mother is a child's first teacher and every classroom teacher is a surrogate mother to all children. Is it any wonder why a teacher is so special in the hearts of children?

A belated happy Mother's Day to America's teachers.

Posted by Anthony Mullen at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Jackson

Mississippi

There is a man in Jackson who fixes broken watches. Time may heal all wounds but it takes a special man to heal time.

My Timex did not cost much and the repair bill will probably cost more than the price of a new watch, but a time piece that has served me faithfully over so many years deserves a better end than the bottom of a trashcan.

The thin man selects a small minute wheel from a box filled with tiny parts and places it next to a larger hour wheel. The teeth of both wheels align perfectly. The craftsman connects the two wheels by inserting a pin through a small opening. He snaps a waterproof lens over the dial. "All finished," he said.

I watch the second hand come alive and sweep across the round face of my analogue watch. The repairman gently places a worn jeweler's loupe on the counter and holds the watch next to his right ear. "Sixty beats per minute, "he said softly, "the same as a healthy heart."

"I didn't think the watch would ever work again," I said.

The son of an itinerant watchmaker walks toward the cash register. "Most things can be fixed if people weren't so quick to throw them away."

I will miss my visits to the South. It is a beautiful and timeless place. The land is still home to long lines of freight cars, front porches with swings, soft warm winds, and people who enjoy drinking sweet tea. And Southern folk are a generous and resilient people who see value in broken things.

I have traveled to the heart of the South to find out if a broken school system can be fixed. The state that takes its name from a mighty river has a long history of poor people and poorer schools. In 2007, Mississippi students scored the lowest of any state on the National Assessments of Educational Progress (NAEP) in both math and science. In 2008, Mississippi was ranked last among fifty states in academic achievement by the American Legislative Exchange Council's Report Card on Education, with the lowest average ACT scores. However, 92% of Mississippi high school graduates took the ACT and 3% took the SAT, in comparison to the national averages of 43% and 45%, respectively.

What's happening in the Magnolia State? A future filled with the hope of a college education seems to be on the mind of many high school students living in a state with the sixth lowest spending per pupil in the nation and little support from the federal government. A federal government that once took pride in desegregating schools in Mississippi has now abandoned its students and schools. Now that white and black children are drinking from the same water fountain, the federal government and Hollywood movie producers have headed home.

But Mississippians are not ready to throw away their schools or children. They want to do what Southerners do best-fix things right.

I am attending the Mississippi Teacher of the Year Symposium at the Jackson Hilton. The event is organized by the Mississippi Teacher Center and its director, Cecily McNair, is planning a rather unique meeting of educators. The audience will include distinguished classroom teachers, administrators, policy makers, academics, and state education officials working together to improve teacher quality and student learning. What a unique idea: A gathering of educators from diverse areas of expertise spending time listening and learning from each other. I feel a bit uneasy as I watch the assemblage of educators gather near a breakfast buffet.

I mention to Cecily that I have never attended a symposium that allows teachers to be part of the process to help design programs and policies to improve education on a state or national level. I commend her initiative to bring together so many professional educators committed to helping children with no strings attached.

"Thanks-we always ask teachers to be part of initiatives that impact teaching and learning, "she said. "To do otherwise is like asking an architect to draw plans for a new school without consulting teachers first-probably not a design "best practice."

Indeed. I complain to her that few states welcome the opinions of classroom teachers and it's a rare sighting to see so many different education professionals nourishing each other at the same breakfast table.

"We believe it's much better to "measure twice and cut once" than it is to "build it now and fix it later," she replied.

Cecily speaks of architects, measuring, and building. She is a daughter of the South and knows how to fix things.

"What's one of the projects you will be working on today?" I asked.

Cecily's eyes ignite with the radiance of enthusiasm. "We are working on developing a statewide teacher evaluation system and are so glad to have the opportunity at our Teacher of the Year Symposium to 'hear the voices' of our exemplary teachers. After all, they know exactly what "effective teaching" is -they're doing it everyday!"

Something very special is happening in the state of Mississippi and federal education officials should take notice. Educators from diverse professional backgrounds are coming together to fix a school system broken by a legacy of destructive state and federal policies. The poor and the wounded are gathered to repair broken schools, mend the lives children, and heal ailing teachers. And these hard-working educators need the financial support of the federal government. We should not ask the state of Mississippi to enter a "race to the top" when the federal government has placed it in last place.

There is a man in Jackson who fixes broken watches. He grew up poor and never had the luxury to throw away something that could still be fixed. And that is story of Mississippi.

Posted by Anthony Mullen at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend