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I Escaped a Cult Once, Can our Country do the Same?

The happenings in the world have sent me toppling backwards — years backwards — into the fear and frustrations and seemingly inescapable situation of my past. Of the cult I grew up in and the people who were taken prisoner by its promises and leadership.

I know what a cult can do. I know the appeal of a leader who focuses on your innermost desires and vows to put an end to your most paralyzing fears. I know what that kind of leader can do.

I know how his testimonies speak to good people with legitimate concerns. I know how his scripture touting soothes, how his pulpit pounding activates, how his charisma intoxicates.

How his promises to carry you, save you, deliver you from evil are so very welcome in our dark world. How the traits he embodies (or at least professes) — strength, charisma, Godliness — are just what you’ve been looking for to bring you — to bring everyone — into the promised land.

But he’s no Moses.

Nor is he the chosen one to lead anyone out of darkness — despite the genuine hopes behind those who support him.

But be wary of the “Hope” this man holds aloft with his dazzling promises.

I’ve lived among false promises such as he proports. I’ve watched my family — and countless others — fall under the weight of sincere hope, falsely met.

I was speaking recently with a friend of mine who shares my past and also overcame it — and is as equally worried (and furious) about what she sees unfolding as I.

In her own words, “The exploitation of a good heart is the vilest of crimes.”

And I agree.

I’ve seen far too many good hearts (then and now) used as ammunition; I’ve seen too much real hope twisted to poison. I’ve seen too many rational heads uprooted, unhinged, and made ready to destroy others — and themselves. United with him, it becomes “Us vs Them,” and the fallout is deadly. Families torn apart. Friendships. Self worth. So many lives destroyed.

And the motivations I see now are the same as the motivations of the good hearts who found themselves entangled in my childhood cult: To align more closely with God’s commandments and Christ’s teachings and traditional family values. At least that’s what so many of those who follow Trump are seeking. Despite the fact that his promises resemble nothing of Christ’s promises. Nothing of true Christianity.

White nationalism is not Christian. Prejudice and pride is not Christian. Political power over moral duty is not Christian.

Christ asked that we protect the weak, include the marginalized, serve the downtrodden. We are supposed to be good stewards of this earth, not blatantly ignore — or participate — in its destruction.

Trump’s platform is the reverse of Christ’s message. But the lambs have laid down with the wolf by the millions.

Half our country has fallen victim to a leader whose ability to bend and break wills is mind-blowing in its potency. And the fallout has already begun.

And, sadly, I’ve seen it all before.

But this time, it’s not the hearts and lives and futures of a (relatively speaking) small congregation in Texas at stake. It is the vast population of these United States. And it is not only our freedom that is threatened, it is the very soul of decency.

Yes, the happenings of this past week — and throughout the past four years — have sent me toppling backwards into a time and place in my life where my freedom was nonexistent, my future bleak and seemingly out of my control, my frustrations at those who couldn’t see the truth, overwhelming.

But this isn’t my past. It is my present. And I am terrified about what my future might hold.

I was able to escape a cult like this one once before. It took courage, unmitigated strength, and a willful refusal (every single day) to listen to the sugar-coated lies of those who would eagerly lead me astray. I had to guard myself at every angle, lest they slip the Kool Aid into my mouth, lest they place the blinders over my eyes.

I pray our country can now do the same.

But, y’all… I’m really, really scared.

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I am Here to Listen, Learn, Speak Out, and Support

I feel so strongly and ache so deeply for my friends, family, and students of color. I want to help. I want to do more. I can’t imagine the pain and exhaustion. The frustration. The fever.

I can’t imagine being a member of society, upholding a social contract with a society, that refuses to acknowledge my value and worth beyond my ability to fuel a sports franchise or fill a quota.

Can’t imagine being looked at like my skin, hair, eyes, speech, culture don’t measure up.

Can’t imagine driving or jogging or shopping or simply chilling in a country that believes that because my skin has more melanin, my motives are monstrous and mustn’t be trusted.

And now, these last couple days, I can’t imagine seeing and hearing people I thought were friends and allies complaining about the funeral of a murdered black man too closely resembling a “state funeral.”

The death of George Floyd became the catalyst of a much–needed revolution. He did not sign up to be a soldier. He deserved so much more than a brutal death at the hands of a man corrupted and influenced by privilege and power. But now, in death, George Floyd deserves to be celebrated. He’s become a hero in a war that never should have been. And he deserves to rest in peace.

His memory cannot and should not be left to lie uncelebrated. Cannot and should not be left to lies driven by hatred in attempts to villainize his life and corrupt his memory and the cause that has sprung from the ashes and dust of too many black bodies unjustly killed for too many dark generations.

By laying his body to rest, I pray we are laying to rest all the silent complicity of white privilege. I pray we are at the beginnings of an end to the blatant and latent racism that has driven this nation far too long.

I pray we continue to debride the wounds and break up the scar tissue. It’s not comfortable, not for any of us. It stings sometimes. It hurts. But for our friends of color — Oh-God-Have-Mercy — I can’t imagine the bone-weary acres and acres of buried bruises, inherited pain, and fresh wounds. So. Much. Pain. So. Many. Wrongs.

So while I can’t speak for my black friends and family and students… I can speak out for and with them. I can give them my support and my love and my voice. I can proclaim at the top of my lungs that #BlackLivesMatter. That they are important to me. That their equality is important to me. That justice for those unjustly killed is important to me.

I loudly proclaim I AM NOT COLOR BLIND. I see you, hear you, ache with you, and stand with you. I am ready to help, to do whatever I can. You have a friend and an ally in me.

0

when men hold bibles as weapons of oppression

Y’all, I’m terrified.

I’ve been on the side of white men in power suits wielding the Bible as a weapon before. I know on an up-close-and-personal level how dangerous a man who has fallen in love with power and believes he’s unstoppable can be. How quickly he finds allies, how quickly he finds weakness, how he uses everything in his arsenal to his advantage and against yours. I’ve lived in tyranny under the guise of Christianity.

When I was seventeen years old, I didn’t have the power to stop it. The only power I had was to run. To run away to another home. A sanctuary. At fifty-four years old I have the power to stop him. I have the power to vote. I have the power to speak out. I have the power to march. I have the power, but I can’t do it alone.

He’s already gotten away with so much more than I would have thought possible.

When he was elected three-and-a-half years ago I cried and cried and cried. It felt like mourning. It felt like death. I was terrified of what he would do. But I was assured the country had checks and balances in place to keep Trump from doing too much damage. That seems not to have been the case.

I’ve watched the POTUS navigate this country completely without moral compass, violating law and constitutional rights and human decency, time and time and time again. And then, this week, when he declared himself president of law and order and decided he would “dominate” the people he was elected to serve… when he marched his smug self and his police force (his long-dreamt of military parade) out of the Rose Garden and onto the property of St. John’s Episcopal Church, a church dedicated to humanitarian missions and serving those in need within its community, to hold up a Bible in blatant mockery of everything Christ stands for — I knew. I knew we have come to a dangerous tipping point.

I’ve seen men hold Bibles up as weapons of oppression and hatred before. I’ve lived it. And I know the havoc it can wreak. A man who holds a Bible like Hitler and seeks domination and absolute law and order squashes every liberty you’ve ever known. Will rob you of every dream you ever had — if you let them. Don’t let them.

If you are of voting age and you see the slippery slope the feverish, power-hungry philistine in office is trying to steer us all toward, you need to exercise your power, use your might: VOTE. Vote and GET HIM OUT OF OFFICE before he does irreparable harm.

Don’t run away like I did at seventeen. Don’t seek sanctuary somewhere else. THIS is a land of promise. A land of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL. Not the few. Not the white. Not the patriarchy. Not the men wielding bibles as weapons.

Stand up. Fight for your freedom. Fight for your dreams. Fight for YOUR country.

VOTE. MARCH. SPEAK OUT. PROTEST.

VOTE.

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My Nature is to Prune and Grow, Bloom and Let Go

God grant me the serenity to stay true to my nature and out of the fray. Help me to avoid getting caught in the snarling hailstorms of blustering blowhards.

I’ve been avoiding a lot of news and newsfeeds lately. I’m careful what I watch, who I follow, where I click. There’s too much negativity out in the world. I prefer fresh air, like-minded friends, and diversionary television.

So I take early morning strolls, comment on babies and good books, and watch Peaky Blinders and Dateline — shows where I can revel in my violent hidden tendencies with a giant bowl of popcorn and couple glasses of wine.

My morning walks are my salvation. They center my soul and keep me from losing my shit. I focus on the glory of God’s nature, not the gall of the human variety. There’s goldenrods and Queen Anne’s lace in the empty lots, and often deer — ears and hooves high and tremulous — crossing the stretch of asphalt round the back curve. There’s even a fat butterscotch cat who thinks he’s a lion. He leans into the hillside, stalking me, then bolts out in a daring display of puff and whisker. And then there’s the birds. So many birds. Starlings, maybe, or finches and wrens, weaving good morning ribbons in the air above me, the birdsong and banter restoring poetry and peace.

Nature makes it so much easier to forget the anxiety, stress, and claustrophobia I feel inside my world. Forget the unchecked egos, bitter orange lies, animosity and entitlement I see outside my world — inside television and computer screens. Forget the politicians heaving insults like planks from their podiums at press conferences. Forget the friends sliding insults like splinters beneath their fingers on keyboards. All aiming to injure. To maim. To show they’re better than the other person.

But sticking with my nature makes it easier to handle. Easier to sidestep the bile and settle the rancor stirred up in my soul. Stay true to my nature. I was born a pacifist, a lover, a nurturer. Give me calm, give me quiet, give me family. Give me the mornings with the mist on the river and a sliver of gold on the horizon and I will wait for the sun to climb. I will search for goodness and light.

But I can defend myself if needed. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. If your aim is to dismantle joy, if your aim is disrupt peace and spread poison, I will take action.

I won’t scald you like the midday sun. That’s not my nature. No, in due course, I will slice you away like the poisonous deadwood and self-serving fungus you are. You will not poison me or mine. You will simply find yourself detached — from my heart and my country.

That is my nature — my violent hidden tendencies when push comes to shove. I hack off dangerous, parasitic infections and move forward.

As I sit here on my porch, fresh from my walk, my pruning sheers in hand, a crow caws somewhere off in its own dark wood. It’s what crows do. It’s their nature and they can’t change. The sky layers itself in whisper-gray felt, harbinger of the coming storm.

Follow your nature, and I’ll follow mine. Some things — and people — must be severed and left where they fall.

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Hearts of Darkness: What has happened to our humanity?

I just read an article about an Idaho school whose teachers dressed up as Trump’s Border Wall. Another group from the same school dressed as Mexicans, complete with sombreros and mustaches and maracas.

As a citizen, my lip curled. As an educator, my gore rose. As a human, my wrath raged. This is totally and completely unacceptable.

What has happened to our humanity?

What has happened to us? The land of the free and the home of the brave? The land that welcomes the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free?

I guess we don’t anymore.

Trump is promising an executive order to abolish birthright citizenship. This president whose father was an immigrant. (Could he abolish his own citizenship, I wonder?) This president whose wife — actually TWO of his wives (Ivana and Melania) — are immigrants. (Could he likewise abolish Ivanka and Barron and Don Jr and Eric’s citizenships???)

The poetic justice just might be worth the insult to humanity!!!

But, no. No it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be worth the insult to humanity (tempting though it may be…) and it wouldn’t abolish their citizenship. Because let’s face it… they’re the immigrants and anchor babies of acceptable color. They aren’t Latino or Black or Middle Eastern.

And that’s what this “illegal alien” war he’s waging is really all about. Trump spouts his pie-in-the-sky Space Force rhetoric all the time; the reality and irony is his “space force” exists already — and is waging war right here on planet earth against “illegal aliens” whom he and his followers are all too ready to demonize. “Aliens” who are entirely human.

And those who side with Trump — they are not. They have lost all semblance of humanity.

Those teachers who dressed like Trump’s Wall…  those citizens turning a blind eye to the ongoing disaster of immigrant children separated from their parents at the border… those fellow Americans casting their ballots in the midterms because they don’t want minorities in their land or in their governing bodies…

They have lost all semblance of humanity.

 

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I will not Hush My Mouth

To the person who dressed me down today for my dissatisfaction with and absolute disgust of the current POTUS:

Whew! I’m glad you got that off your chest. I wouldn’t want to cause you any pain by perhaps encouraging you to try to see the other side of things. The side that isn’t white and male and in control of policies and procedures and pretty much anything and everything you ever take for granted because you resemble that establishment.

You see, I’ll respect that man when he respects my gender. He shows me no respect so why should I give him mine?  Oh, that’s right, he thinks because he’s big and powerful and rich he can just take it. Grab me by the p**** and demand it.

And let’s talk a bit more about respect, shall we? I believe he shows absolutely no respect for the office of the presidency. He parades himself around like he’s the cat that swallowed the canary. And we the people are the canary. He is dangerous. Deadly, even. I respect the danger he represents. I do respect that.

You say I should remain quiet. I should not voice my opinion. The way I see it, that is exactly the way Hitler grew into the powerful monster that he became. By spreading his “Fake News” and terrorizing anyone who spoke out against him. Too many kept their mouths closed until it was way, way, too late. I will not stay silent.

I owe him no loyalty. I am not a sworn member of the military. I have the ability to speak against him in public if I so choose. It is my right. And as I see it, it is my responsibility. I hail from a place of extreme oppression. A place where men told me when to be seen and when to be heard and how to behave. Where education was wasted on women because our place was barefoot in the kitchen with a baby in the oven and a roast on the stovetop. And I’ll be damned if I’m going back to that place.

You worry about my students. You worry that by speaking my mind I am teaching young minds to disrespect authority. Here’s the thing.

First off, I don’t prosthelytize in my classroom, if that’s what you’re implying.  I don’t talk politics in my classroom – or at least not partisan politics. I remain neutral when it comes to right vs left, republican vs democrat.

But we do look at all sides. We deal with a lot of themes in the novels that we explore – themes related to man’s inhumanity toward man: prejudice and hate and dominance and greed and violence and bitterness and war. A lot of these naturally lend themselves to discussions about the political climate of our world, of our nation.

But I do my absolute best to speak for both sides. And in the South, most kids hear nothing but one side. They know that side well. I encourage them to do research, to educate themselves, to question everything and then decide for themselves what they think and believe. Not their parents. Not their teachers. Not their preachers. Not their classmates. Themselves. THAT is what education is for: building critical thinking skills.

As far as friending my students on Facebook, that’s pretty much frowned upon in this profession of mine and it doesn’t happen — nor would it if it could. That’s just weird and that’s just wrong.

But when my students have graduated, when they are ADULTS then they can friend request me. Not before then. And just like you, they can block me if they don’t like what I have to say. Or they can choose to engage. Or they can choose to scroll right on past.

You say as a teacher I hold sway and influence over young minds. I hope that is true. I hope my influence is in showing them how to think — not WHAT to think. HOW to think. How to research and analyze, explore and question, sift and weigh all the options.  If I ever try to tell them WHAT to think, then I have crossed a line. I have become my own worst enemy. I have become HIM.

I love my students dearly. I only want the very best for them. And them using their minds to form their opinions, rather than having opinions spoon-fed to them by the establishment, is ultimately what is best for them. That is not teaching them to disrespect authority. That is teaching them to think for themselves. The two are not synonymous.

Yes, sometimes my emotions get the better of me on Facebook. Sometimes I react to the man in the oval office’s tantrums or his 3 A.M. rants or his pompous, smug face or his endless strings of lies.

And you’ve got me thinking… Yes, you speak the truth. I guess when I react to him, when I vent on social media, I am mirroring his small-mindedness. That is shameful and it discredits me and I need to do better. So for that, I appreciate the note. I appreciate the heads up. I will try to do better.

But as for my speaking out against him — as for my statements and beliefs about the sorry excuse for a president we have in the oval office, that will not stop. I realize my opinions are not to your liking. I get that. I am not, however, sorry for them.

This nation gives us all the freedom to speak. When we stop speaking, we run the risk of our nation turning into an oppressive, dogmatic dictatorship, much like the one in which I was raised.

A place where only those in power have any say whatsoever. Where individuals become slaves to the whims and whips of an elite few. A few who believe they are the chosen ones. (Chosen ones as in belief in manifest destiny and God-ordained right and all that jazz and bullshit, not general election chosen one, btw. I can see you jumping all over that term…)

No, I do not believe in people who believe they are the chosen ones. That’s just entirely too dangerous for my liking. And for the rest of my life, I will fight, and I will speak out, and I will never give up. I’ve been silenced before. But like I said in that blog I wrote back in November of 2016, I’ll be damned before I go back to that hell again.

Thanks for hearing me out…

2

My Experience with Undocumented Students: Why I Love our Dreamers

I’ll never forget my student who explained to me how he came to America for an education.  He raised his hand politely when we were discussing the negativity in our hallways following Trump’s election. He had overheard students chanting “Build that Wall.” He overheard students telling other students to go back where they came from. He overheard one student boldly hold up her head and explain that she wasn’t Mexican and she wasn’t illegal. My student walked quickly past. He was both.

Back in my classroom, he felt safer. He felt braver. He explained to me and to his classmates that he had come from Mexico ten years prior with his father and his uncle while the rest of his family had stayed behind. He missed them all terribly, but the entire reason for coming to this country was so he could get a quality education. Back home, he explained, that was not possible. There were classrooms without electricity. There were schools without running water. If you wanted math skills beyond a fourth-grade level, he explained, you had to pay for private school. His family didn’t have that kind of money.

So he and his father and uncle came to America. He studied and he learned. He struggled – sometimes with the material, but most times with the hate. He just wanted people to understand.

He is one of the kindest-hearted, hardest-working students I’ve ever taught. He is exceptional, but he is not an exception. I’ve taught many students like him. Students who know and understand the value of education. Students who come to America to come to school, to sit quietly, to do their work, and to soak up any and all knowledge they possibly can. I wish I had more students like them. I would gladly fill my classroom with dozens of these young men and women. They know and understand what the world looks like without access to education.

It looks like poverty. It looks like violence. It looks like drug cartels and narcotic trafficking. It looks like where they came from. And they want change. For themselves, for their families, for their country.

So they work. Hard. They learn. Well. They are respectful and teachable, and tough. They don’t whine when they don’t get an A. They work harder. They come for tutoring. They ask for remediation. They never ask for a grade. They work for one.

The same can’t be said for perhaps seventy percent of my natural-born students. There has been a drastic shift in the mentality of parents and students in the United States in the seventeen years I’ve been a teacher. Parents call and email regularly these days with complaints. They aren’t happy with little Johnny or Jill’s grade They gripe and complain and bellyache that we aren’t fair, we’re too tough, we’re on power trips, we aren’t accommodating enough. Their children gripe and complain and bellyache, as well. Parental attitudes passed down like genetics, multiplying like a cancer.

Somewhere along the way, the idea of the American Dream has gotten soft and fuzzy. We used to have a Puritan work ethic, a nose-to-the-grindstone mentality that built our nation into the powerhouse it used to be. These days, our work ethic is pitiful, not Puritan.  Folks seem to believe they can sleep walk through their lives and simply reap the benefits of being American: good education, good jobs, good pay, good living conditions.

I see it in my classroom every day. Kids who want everything handed to them: the notes, the answers, the grades.

And this lazy philosophy, this twisted version of the American Dream, is currently on display in our oval office: a spoiled rotten and ranting adult-sized child who’s never worked an honest day in his life and who finds fault in anyone and everyone but himself.

Our American Dream has mutated into an American Nightmare.

Yesterday, Trump destroyed the authentic dreams of thousands of young adults like my student, individuals who understand and embody the true nature and characteristics of the American Dream — hard work and sacrifice — better than most of their American counterparts. Their only fault is they aren’t American.

Then again, didn’t our forefathers house the exact same fault? Didn’t they arrive on America’s shores searching for a better life as strangers in a strange land?

The decision to end DACA has tremendous repercussions on honest, hard-working, deeply committed individuals who have the potential to improve the world in immeasurable quantities if only they are allowed access to the ways and means to do so: education.  Individuals like my precious student.

Which brings me back to those parental complaints a few paragraphs back, I tend to agree with them. We aren’t fair; we are on power trips; we are not nearly accommodating enough — to those who are willing to work for the American Dream and understand its potential the most: our young, undocumented immigrant students.

Contact your representatives. Let them know you stand with DACA and our undocumented immigrant students. Please.

1

Old Times Here shouldn’t be Forgotten: But they shouldn’t be Celebrated Either

I spent the good part of my week trying to decide how I feel about the proposed removal of confederate monuments.  I was raised under their shadow, and they were touted as the good old days, back when modern day inconveniences and turmoil didn’t exist.  An impressionist painting of perfection.

I grew up in a small Southern town. It had giant magnolias, columned front porches, and an annual spring pilgrimage where visitors toured antebellum houses amidst blooming azaeleas and sweeping hoop skirts.

It was all nostalgia and watercolor sunsets and giant oak silhouettes. It was the land of cotton where old times are not forgotten. I was a ten-year-old with a mad crush on Scarlett O’Hara, and it all looked so pretty to me. It felt pretty to me. It was pretty perfect to me.

Frankly, my dear, I was wrong as fuck.

‘cuz it ain’t just whistling dixie we’re talking about here, folks.

It’s hate wrapped up in a pretty plantation package with a taffeta bow. And yes, people love to paint that heritage and history soft-focus picture of the gallant South. Love to talk about those good old days of prosperity and tobacco and cotton fields as far as the eye can see. To look back to the days of fine gentlemen in gray who knew how to act like fine gentlemen and lovely ladies in lace who knew how to act like lovely ladies.

But the problem with soft focus is, it’s fuzzy, y’all. The clarity’s not there. Sure, it shows the barbecue parties at Twelve Oaks and grand, double staircases. It shows the gallant young men marching their way into battle to defend their women and their land. It shows the rolling, red clay hills newly plowed with cash crops aplenty.  It shows all that highly-touted history and heritage.

Which is why they demand that these statues remain. They want to honor these outstanding generals who fought to protect the South’s genteel way of life. That genteel, civilized way of life where the fuzzy brush strokes sweep right past the whipping of the field hands and the raping of the house slaves and the selling of “darkie” children for the price of a spirited roan stallion. Where infant slave children were used as gator bait. Where an entire population (or at least those who survived) was raped, broken, beaten, maimed, and sold like chattel

Yet they continue their chant of history and heritage. Not hate. Never hate.

It’s history, yes. But it is also totally and absolutely hate.

So I say take them down. Take down all the Robert E Lees and Stonewall Jacksons, the Nathan Bedford Forrests and the Jefferson Davises. Put them in a museum somewhere.

They need to exist. They do. Because they need to remind us to never repeat such a heinous system of government again. Because that’s what it was: heinous.

Take them out of our town squares. Out of our city centers. Definitely out of our hearts.

Put in their place empathy, compassion, love.

And then put yourself in the place of descendants of slaves. Imagine yourself in their shoes, with whole histories of manacled and murdered ancestors lost and forgotten beneath that marbled pedestal of pride and privilege.

Imagine yourself a descendant of an untraceable ancestry, split, broken, drawn and quartered at the whim of the white man– husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, infants, siblings all lost. Where are the monuments to them? To their sacrifice? For sacrificed, they were — readily and continuously to maintain that sweet southern way of life.

No, the only monuments their descendants will see in nearly every southern square around, all honor the men who led the campaign to maintain the status quo — the dismemberment and death of their people.

If you still think those statues should remain where they are, I am ashamed to call you my neighbor. And you should be ashamed of yourself, too. It’s disgraceful.

And the South has seen enough disgrace. It disgraced itself when it seceded from the union. It disgraced itself with its Jim Crow laws. It disgraced itself with the incorporation of rebel flags into state flags.

For the love of all that is holy, let’s do something right this time around. Take the damn things down and put them somewhere where we’ll remember not to celebrate them, where we’ll remember that all that is gone with the wind needs to STAY gone with the wind.

 

 

 

2

Choice Cuts in Education: Discrimination is Alive and Well in the State of Georgia

In the state of Georgia, discrimination is alive and well and driving our school systems. And it’s not what you think.  Schools don’t discriminate against students based upon race, creed, color, economic status, or national origin. But they do, however, quite openly discriminate based upon course load.

You see, Friday afternoon, I opened an email from the State Department of Education and what I read blew my mind and hurt my Humanities heart. I am outraged and appalled.

The email states, and I quote, “In the past, funding has been provided by the legislature Tfor one AP exam for all low-income students enrolled in Georgia public schools.  Recent legislation redirected this funding to support only STEM related AP exams for all students regardless of economic status.  Hopefully, this notice will provide time for you and your administrators to explore other funding sources to support your non-STEM, low-income AP student exams.”

Wait, what?  “Recent legislation redirected […] funding to support only STEM related AP exams[…] regardless of economic status?” Excuse me?

I had to read the email twice. And then I had to seek confirmation from my principal to make sure I was indeed seeing what I was pretty damn certain I was seeing? Because it seemed impossible. Impossible to believe that our state would take away funding from our worthiest and neediest students. Students who have been diligently bettering themselves, year after year, through education. Students who have been climbing their way out of the darkness of poverty by taking challenging AP classes (and yes, many of these students take STEM classes, but not all) just to have the final rung on their ladder toward success removed: the ability to test, receive college credit, and get out of the vicious cycle.

And just what is so special about STEM anyway, that it supersedes all other course work? STEM — that educational juggernaut that harnesses the four horsemen of accomplishment: Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics. Those subject areas that in recent years equate to the Holy Grail of education, warranting such teacher and student incentives as signing bonuses, higher salaries, excess funding, partnerships, scholarships and now, apparently, AP exam exemption status.

Believe it or not, high levels of rigor exist outside STEM classrooms, ladies and gentlemen: critical thinking skills, advanced problem solving, the ability to gather and evaluate evidence, interpret and apply that evidence. These skills occur in other subject areas, too.

Yes, STEM is vital. I get it. It drives innovation and industry and helps keep the United States at the top of the global leaders. But STEM is not the only thing that keeps us there.

The Humanities and the Arts teach us what it means to be global citizens. Courses in history, literature, music, philosophy, language, rhetoric, and art provide instruction in civility, altruism, ethics, reflection, adaptability, etc. They strengthen our ability to communicate – with ourselves and with other nations. They keep us balanced. Without these valuable tools, we quite likely would become a nation fueled by xenophobia and driven entirely by rationality.

And what could possibly be wrong with a nation that looks out for its own best interest, driven entirely by the bottom line, you ask? A lot.

Read Jonathan Swift and you’ll find some answers. He warned us over and over of the harm that can befall mankind if we only use the rational parts of our brains.  Read “A Modest Proposal,” where he pens a brilliant, satiric remedy for an over-populated Ireland by suggesting the Irish Catholics breed children (something they are already so naturally good at) for the soup pot and barbecue joint and monetary gain. Completely rational and cost-effective, mind you.

Read Gulliver’s Travels. Within its pages, there are multiple accounts of societies driven by — and completely destroyed by – the pursuit of science and technology and ice-cold rationality.

Read: it’s fundamental — and as a humanities course, it’s a dying skill.

Not all of us are STEM people, nor should we be.

And I’m not a STEM hater. Far from it. Some of my best friends are STEM people. So is my daddy. Hell, so is my daughter. But I’m here to tell you we need balance. Humanities and the Arts deserve a place at the table too, folks.

And, to bring it all back to Advanced Placement, where my argument began, our state legislature and DOE have taken Humanities and the Arts off the table for our economically disadvantaged students. They will be force-fed STEM or they will not eat. And that is wrong.

These exams are not cheap ($93 each), and while there are reduced costs in place for students who qualify through the Free and Reduced Lunch program, the biggest incentive – one free exam for each economically disadvantaged student testing – is no longer available thanks to our state’s new STEM reallocation.

I’m sorry, but STEM is not the Be-All and End-All of education. It should not be funded at the expense of other disciplines. Nor at the expense of our economically disadvantaged students.

 

 

 

 

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