I encourage you to share this post with others.  Related posts: May 17, June 3, July 22

Today’s Minneapolis StarTribune headline says it all: “School districts to decide.  [Gov] Walz’s order allows online, hybrid or in-person classes“.  Now comes a month of figuring out how/what to do in Minnesota’s over 300 public school districts, for near a million students and school staff, not to mention all other entities whose clientele are young citizens, most especially parents.  And don’t forget legions of contractors for this or that.  The general data from the Minnesota Department of Education is here if you are interested.  It will be an intense month.

Now the decision making goes back to the individual school districts to decide.  There will be lots of opinions. Succinctly, your own school district will be unique.

Our Governor Tim Walz was a public school teacher, and that is a good thing.  So, in his early years, was his predecessor Mark Dayton.  They and many others know the territory and the dilemmas.  Nobody is or will be perfect.  We will test our ability to work together.

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The following idea came recently from my long-time friend Marion Brady.  Marion is my elder, with a very long history in public education.  He sent me the following idea for educators.  I would encourage readers to visit Mr. Brady’s website and learn more about him and his ideas, and to share this idea with others.

When face-to-face schooling isn’t possible

There’s no getting around it. Firsthand experience is the best teacher. If what’s attempting to be taught is worth knowing, it’s going to be complicated. And if it’s complicated, firsthand experience isn’t just the best teacher, it’s the only teacher.

That’s the main reason most adults remember so little of what they were once “taught.” Information delivered by teacher talk, textbooks and computer screens is dumped on kids’ mental “front porch”—short-term memory—but gets no farther. To be useful, information has to be interesting enough to be picked up, taken inside, and a place in memory found for it that allows logic to access it weeks, months, or years later.

That rarely happens. Most classrooms are purpose-built for delivering information, making it hard to create firsthand experience. It’s even harder to do it via laptops, which goes far toward explaining the usual failure of virtual, remote, and distance instruction.      

Alfred North Whitehead, in his 1916 Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association of England, identified a fundamental problem with traditional schooling:

“The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.”

Schooling’s bottom-line aim is societal survival in an unknowable future. Survival requires new knowledge—continuous evolution of citizens’ mental models of reality. An honest look at the world today says time is growing short for creating schooling that teaches kids the most important of all survival skills—how to turn information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom.     

That’s doable, but it requires changing the primary aim of middle school-level instruction from covering the content of the core curriculum to improving the ability to think—to hypothesize, generalize, synthesize, imagine, relate, integrate, predict, extrapolate, and so on.

There are dozens of thought processes and countless combinations of thought processes that make humanness possible, but they’re not being taught because they’re too complex to be evaluated by machine-scored standardized tests.

Make maximizing adolescents’ ability to think the aim, and the resulting efficiency from the sharpened focus will be revolutionary. Reducing the hours each day devoted to the soon-forgotten conceptual chaos of the core curriculum will make available a big chunk of time for programs keyed to individual learner interests and abilities.

Dealing with Covid-19

Nothing really substitutes for face-to-face schooling, but when that’s unwise or impossible, learning’s fundamentals still need to be respected.

–          Real-world experiences

–         Teachers or mentors who ask thought-stimulating questions

–         Keeping a journal

–         Instruction paced by learner understanding rather than the calendar

–         Learning teams small and intimate enough for dialogue—”thinking out loud” about matters of significance.

Textbooks, teacher talk and laptop screens give kids a steady stream of information, but it’s been “processed.” The interesting, creative, intellectually challenging work has already been done, leaving nothing to do but try to remember it.

Would newspapers publish completed crossword puzzles? What the young need that they’re not getting is “raw” reality to chew on—reality in a form that lends itself to description, analysis and interpretation.

Primary data—the “residue” of reality—provides it. However, for kids to engage, data has to come in the form of puzzles, problems and projects, with lesson aims they consider important enough for attention to be paid, and content interesting enough to be self-propelling.

But guidance is necessary. Teams of teachers with varied expertise need to monitor the teams and sometimes comment or pose questions.

Below is an illustrative activity consistent with the above that meshes with existing middle-level curricula and bureaucratic requirements.

Use the present crisis to give education back to educators, and make middle-level schooling’s aim maximizing the quality of thought, and adolescents will demonstrate abilities only long-experienced teachers knew they had.

A Project: Town Planning, 1583

Big idea: Humans shape habitats that then shape humans.

Age group: Middle school and older learners.

Instructional organization: Small, three-to-five-member work teams.

Technology requirements: Broadband internet access, laptop computer.

App: Zoom or another screen-sharing program

Primary data: Page 2 at https://www.marionbrady.com/documents/AHHandbook.pdf

Oltman Junior High School July 28, 2020

I ask you to read this Indiegogo link , and then donate to John Noltner’s project “Peace of My Mind: Cry Out”.  I highly recommend this initiative, which will be open for contributions till early September.  I’d recommend acting early, and letting others know about this through your own networks.

I met John when he sat next to a me at a 2009 meeting of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers,  He was just beginning a venture called A Peace of My Mind, photographing  and interviewing people “exploring the meaning of peace one story at a time.”  His story is within the Indiegogo link.

In 2011 John Noltner published his book, “a peace of my mind” consisting of his photographs and interviews of 52 persons of peace.

Minnesotans would recognize most of those featured in his book, which I have owned since its publication.  People I recognized in the book are as follows: the McDonald Sisters, Flora Tsukyama, Mel Duncan, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Sami Rasouli, David Harris, Kathy Kelly, Marie Braun, Zofar Siddiqui, Melvin Carter, Jr (father of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter), and Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman.

John expanded the reach of his project nationwide, interviewing and photographing 63 Americans across the country.  His second book was published in 2016.

Both publications have been very successful.

John’s work has expanded into a variety of settings across the country, but Covid-19 has caused him to have to re-vision his continuing program on peace.  This is the reason for his new initiative, which I support very strongly.

The project now proposed by Mr. Noltner, the purpose of this blog, richly deserves your support.

Do read the descriptor (link at the beginning) and then act.

Congratulations, John, on your continuing efforts for peace within and among all of us.

I’m just an old guy with a computer, but I try to be thoughtful about what I write.  This particular post began as a draft on Tuesday morning.  I was going to publish Friday, under the headline “Protests”.  The seeming Declaration of War by the President of the United States. attempting to divide Americans into two warring “tribes”, mine subordinate to his, most recently targeting Seattle, brings this amendment.  Except for the placement of the photos, what follows is virtually identical to the earlier draft.

There is a great deal more to say, but let this be a start.  And if you have the interest, I also recommend three previous  post, Schools (July 22), Racism (July 7) and John Lewis (July 19  ).  Several upcoming posts, the first tomorrow, on contemporary politics from my point of view, will flesh out my feelings on the upcoming elections (plural).  Today’s Just Above Sunset, “That Reality Thing”,  is as always worth your time.

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May 30, 2020. Gandhi Mahal area at 27th and Lake Street Minneapolis MN.  The restaurant would be between the two folks walking, about one block away.  Photo by Dick Bernard

This week the Portland OR protests were daily news.  (See POSTNOTE 4)  Now it seems that troops need to be sent in to save the city from the protestors.  perhaps this is the Current Occupants idea of the convenient war he needs to help win reelection.  We are being played for suckers.

Now the President sends in federal troops – at least people who look like such – into Portland, with plans to send them into other cities supposedly under attack.  And very dark political ads I see every day, with “I approve these messages” from the President of the United States.

I think the earlier military cleanup for the photo op with the Bible in the vicinity of the White House was simply practice for what is happening now, and I am increasingly of the mind that the damage and destruction following the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day was an initial demonstration of using protests as vehicles to discredit peaceful protest through use of agents provocateurs who blended in to commit the acts of mayhem on the streets of Minneapolis.

Beware the bright, shiny objects dangled to disrupt and confuse.

Just Above Sunset  (“The Protection Squadron” July 22) gives a good summary of what is happening, and the danger thereof.

Portland is not hard to fact check.  Yesterday I simply called a friend who lives in Oregon not too many miles from downtown Portland just to get an assessment of reality, which is very different than the sound pieces you get from television or from the presidential podium at the White House.

I have some recent experience.  Here in my own metropolitan area, after Memorial Day, protest erupted in the wake of the George Floyd murder in south Minneapolis (the four policemen involved are under indictment).

The restaurant of a good friend of mine was torched by someone: burned to the ground.  My friend was a pillar of his neighborhood, a very unlikely target of any local.  In fact, it wasn’t until the day after the protests began that his restaurant burned to the ground.

My wife will attest that I worried about rumors that the violence 20 miles away would spread the night I first saw flames on television.  I am embarrassed by that fear I had that first night.  My concern, that night, was white nationalists, exploiting an opportunity to make trouble.  These are the kinds of people we saw taking the State Capitol in Michigan – thugs masquerading as patriots.

The next day, and several times subsequent, I have driven to the area of the protests.  The dominant vision past the wanton damage to what seem to be mostly small businesses catering to the surrounding community, was of a community getting to work to clean up the damage.  The surrounding residential streets were untouched, though I am certain there was plenty of fear in those houses the night of broken glass and flames.

My friend is hard at work beginning the process of recovery and ultimately reopening his restaurant.

Meanwhile the theater of the absurd that is the current White House, tries to conjure up visions of chaos, confusion, and fear of the unknown other. I’ve been thinking of this when I see the clips of the supposed chaos in Portland; the feds in to bring back order; when I know, from my well-informed friend in Oregon, the bigger and much less demonic depiction of what is happening in a small area of Portland OR – protestors, almost all peaceably assembled, with the usual sprinkling of unknown agents provocateurs up to no-good.

I think we witnessed the same in Minneapolis some weeks ago; and in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House even more recently.

Beware the ‘bright shiny objects’, drawing you away from reality.  Make a real effort to learn the facts.

POSTNOTE:  I spent a lot of post-9-11-01 years involved in a group that did plenty of protesting about the Iraq War.  I know the drill.  All is not quite so simple as it seems.  One size does not fit all.  Years ago, I wrote a series that I called Uncomfortable Essays    These were primarily to my friends in  peace, justice, environment, sustainability and global cooperation communities – people I deeply respected and still respect.

The last of these essays were written during a time when I was becoming skeptical of the effectiveness of the method of engagement called protest.  It didn’t seem to be the most effective way to achieve change.  We gathered, heard speeches, walked and went home…and that seemed to be the be-all and end-all for most participants.  The protest seemed to have become the sole action.  If you are interested in what I was thinking then, go to those Uncomfortable Essays (link above), and read #15, 16 and 17 found on pages 37-47, all written in 2012.

To my friends in the movement, of which I remain a very active part, I simply offer the essays as an opinion to consider.  I didn’t, and don’t consider the writings as definitive in any sense.  Basically, though, they were appeals to think things through; to expand action beyond simply making some sign and walking in a street somewhere.

They are especially timely today.

Gandhi Mahal community meeting room July 7, 2020. photo Dick Bernard

Gandhi Mahals aspiration for its community – this room of the restaurant was not destroyed, but like the rest of the block needs to be demolished and rebuilt. Photo June 30, 2020, by Dick Bernard

POSTNOTE 2: Those who know me, know I was no stranger to nonviolent protests and demonstrations, from the wake of 9-11-01 to 2012.  Here’s one such gathering, I think it was in 2006 in south Minneapolis.  I’m the pole guy at right.  I was then President of the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers.

May Day Parade, Minneapolis, 2006. It was an unseasonably cool day, possibility of rain. The posters, which I have in posterity here at home, were the creation of Dr. Joe Schwartzberg, who is behind me, holding the Citizens for Global Solutions sign. Joe died in 2018.  His work lives on.  See the website The Workable World Trust.  Joe was also one of the founders of Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, 25 years old this year, and is being recognized at this years National Veterans for Peace Convention August 2-9.  .Registration information here.

POSTNOTE 3: About noon on Saturday I was out and about, and noted a crowd by the Woodbury City Hall.  It was not a large crowd – perhaps a couple hundred – it turned out to be a Black Lives Matter march about to begin.  At one point, briefly, my road trip was delayed while the group crossed a busy cross street.  A young lady, white, probably college age, was the traffic marshall.  She was very pleasant, but no nonsense.  It was a minor inconvenience.  Good for them, I felt.

POSTNOTE 4:  This came from Nancy and was included in my Mary 31 Post, “Learnings”:

from Nancy, May 30:

Here’s a post that I saw on Facebook today — very important message:

‎Jesse Haug‎ to Lowertown, Saint Paul
9 hrs
A reminder that on nights like these, there are multiple distinct groups in action, with distinct goals and behaviors. Do not confuse one with another.

I’d group them into at least 5 categories.

1/
ACTIVISTS: They have clear goals, at least in their own heads. They are out to be heard and noticed. They may be nonviolent. If there is property damage, it will be targeted. Diff activists may have diff targets, but it won’t be indiscriminate.

2/
GRIEVING CITIZENS: They aren’t (yet) organized activists. They’re hurting deeply. They haven’t been heard. They have more anger than they know what to do with. They may cause unjust damage, even though their anger comes from a place of justice.

3/
ROWDY IDIOTS: They don’t give a shit about justice. They just want to fuck shit up. They’ll mingle with the activists, even though activists are ultimately a nuisance to them. They’ll come like moths to a light any time things are going off the rails.

4/
CHAOS AGENTS: Like rowdy idiots, they want to fuck shit up. But like activists, they have a goal and are self-controlled. They’re here to escalate, create an opening, make others look bad. Prime examples: alt-right instigators and crooked police. (There’s overlap.)

5/
PROFESSIONAL THIEVES: Whenever there’s chaos, there’s an opportunity to make a buck. Some of the “looting” has actually been well-organized, coordinated hits: post a lookout, designated grabber, getaway car.

6/
There may be more groups I’ve overlooked.

I say all of this to point out the danger of using the word “protesters” for everyone out there tonight. If, for example, you say, “protesters need to stop burning buildings,” which of these groups are you are referring to? Be specific, not vague or generalizing.

Above all, be careful that you do not wrongly ascribe to ACTIVISTS and GRIEVING CITIZENS the actions of the other three groups. That is just what those other groups want.

The need for justice is real. The grief is real. Take them seriously. Respect them.

Addendum: just in case it’s not obvious, the first two groups are the vast majority of people out there — but the last three cause the vast majority of damage.

Yesterday, Molly sent me a single page tribute to John Lewis.  Take the time: John Lewis (click to enlarge).

On July 24th, 8 p.m., on YouTube and Facebook, troubadour Larry Long presents the premiere film of a live performance of The American Roots Review at the Mane Theatre in Lanesboro MN.  Details here. (scroll down – on right side of page).  POSTNOTE: This program was Friday evening.  It may be archived, along with other programs, at Larry’s website.

There is much more to be said about both John Lewis and Larry Long.  Two witnesses for peace and justice.

The Minnesota Primary Election begins one month from today, August 11.  Details.

The Democratic Convention is August 17-20; the Republican August 24-27.  Details (weblinks) at the July 1 post.  Other posts on the topic of Election 2020 are at July 3, 7 and 9, and there will be more in coming months.  Check back every week or so.

Years ago I scrawled out a personal assessment of myself and the American Political “Scrum” – the mass of people who make up the ‘body politic” of this country.  I could ‘gussy” this up, I suppose.  But I like it as it is.

You can see “ME?” as I defined myself at the time.  Today, I’d probably move my ‘spot’ a bit more to the left, but not a lot.  Our country seems far more polarized now – I have my opinion, you have yours.

I’ll leave it at that for now.  In coming days and weeks I’ll more define the R and the D from my own perspective, and Biden, and local and state and other races and their importance.

In the end “we, the people” make the difference, and in the end, we all get what the majority of us thought we deserved.

POSTNOTE: This afternoons e-mail brought the following, from Carol, published in July 10 St. Paul Pioneer Press:

“A July 3 letter writer (“Out-of-date lists”) tries to cast doubt on future election results by suggesting since a million dead people erroneously received federal stimulus checks, “mailing out ballots to everyone” could lead to similar results. Stimulus checks were sent out (hastily) based mostly on IRS tax rolls. Recipients did not request them.

The writer seems to imply the state is similarly mailing actual ballots willynilly to those on an outdated list. On the contrary, what we received in the mail are applications for ballots, which we can fill out and return if we choose to. The ability to vote by mail on request (“absentee” voting) has been Minnesota law for some time. The only difference this year is that, because of the pandemic, the state is encouraging this method by sending applications to registered voters.  There are layers of safeguards for voting by mail. Is it possible that someone could receive an application for a recently deceased relative, fill it out using their personal information, forge their signature, mail it in and receive a ballot? Only by risking the very real possibility of going to prison.

I suggest that the writer call the Secretary of State’s Office if there are further things he does not understand. They seem quite willing to answer questions.”  Carol Turnbull

Dick: Absolute certainty: there will be endless scams and schemes to mislead and deceive.  It has already begun and it will only intensify.  Be certain you cast a ballot, and that your ballot will be a well informed one for each and every office for which you can vote.

(I requested absentee for both primary and general this year – possibly second time I can recall doing that.  The process of me (Minnesota) was very easy and quick.)

COMMENTS;

from Rebecca: I like your cartoon of the political scrum.

from a long-time friend ‘out west’: Hi Dick, I am a center-right progressive in the ilk of Teddy Roosevelt and Ike, and as such, I have always been a registered Republican.  Always have been and always will be.  When the southern racists who parked in the Democratic party because of their hatred of Abraham Lincoln moved over to the GOP, I then started voting mostly for Democrats.  But I still find it useful to remain a registered Republican because of the stuff they send me which allows me to understand what they are trying to accomplish, which I can compare with the Democratic position on the same subjects.

from a long-time friend in England:  I am not saying don’t bother voting – democracy only works when people vote after all – but somehow & barring last hour revelations or worse it seems to me the election has been lost for president Trump already. I like your sketch & it feels like you are not the only one who has shifted leftwards even if not by much. It doesn’t take much to reverse the last election.

It also seems to me that president Trump has outlived his usefulness what with tax cuts, decisions regarding the Middle East & stuffing the Supreme Court. To the movers and shakers he has become an embarrassment & a liability. He has been divisive from before day one dividing the world, the US, the administration & lately even his “own party” – assuming he has a party other than himself. Who could have imagined Republicans forming lobbies & action committees to make sure he is not re-elected!? Finally his niece is coming out with a book which indicates the family is also divided.

Here’s what the Financial Times had on one front page this weekend & you would expect conservatives to be attacking her viciously instead while some do have issues with what she wrote (earlier), still on the whole they seem to be of two minds & agree with much of what she professes.  Also, here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend,

from Steve: I don’t know how I missed sending a note to you after your Political Scum note. I was just going through emails trying to make sure that I hadn’t missed a constituent request or comment. I loved your drawing. I remember making a drawing on a poli sci exam in college., Not as sophisticated or fun as yours, I had fascists and communists meeting as totalitarians at a point on a circle, each arriving by separate paths around the circumference. What kind of circle are we talking about these days. Seems to me that the politics of this administration in Washington is found on a tangent, far from a rational/ideological scheme.