#360 – Dick Bernard: Returning to the Eighth Grade

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April 15 we were invited to an event at Friendly Hills Middle School in Mendota Heights MN. “Telling the Story of WWII and the Holocaust” was the event: “An Interdisciplinary Project between Language Arts & Social Studies” involving eighth graders in five classes at the school, each of whom had worked on a particular project for the preceding three weeks, culminating in their own museum display.
It was a fascinating program: great learning and great public relations. I congratulate the students, teachers and school.
I remembered back to the 1960s when I taught 8th graders for nine years. Yes, the ‘genus and species’ remains the same: kids are kids. I remembered further back, to 1953-54, when I was in eighth grade. The same….
We went from display to display. They were as one would expect, many very nicely done. In 1953-54 and my last year of teaching, 1971-72, they would have been assembled in roughly the same way: paper glued on pieces of recycled cardboard, etc. But such a gathering would be very unusual.
The difference, and it is a huge one, is technology and accessibility to research data. In 1953-54 we perhaps had one old encyclopedia on which to rely, and no copy machines, or newspapers to clip from. No television and (to my recollection) no movies. Such projects would be very difficult and thus very unusual. Only in recent years would you see, as we saw on Friday, kids with laptops and movies pulled off of the internet. Pretty incredible.
We didn’t have time to visit every display. There were a great number of displays and a great number of visiting family members. At each one I visited, I asked the student what was the most interesting thing that he or she had learned. Every one of them was able to answer the question confidently.
World War II was a long time ago. One student said her great-grandfather was in the War. Even though that made sense to me, it still took me aback. My oldest Uncle in the war – my Dad’s brother Frank – died at age 26 on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. I was 5 years old when the war ended in Europe in 1945; and when I was in eighth grade in 1953-54, my uncle Art, the youngest family member to join the military in June, 1945, was only 26, and not yet married. Time flies.
At Friendly Hills, students picked from a potpourri of potential topics. The brochure said:
“We have discussed
Why do people look for strong leaders when times get tough?
How can “good”people get caught up in “bad” things like the Nazi movement?
How are the ideas of community, identity, discipline, and power connected?
How can the ideas above also lead to conflict among people and nations?
What is our responsibility when we see things happen that are against our values?
How can each of us take ACTION to stand up for the things we believe in?”
These are all good questions for all of us.
A number of students did their research on the dropping of the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945.
One of them was taking a poll, where respondents could pick one of three choices:
“1. Yes, I think it was a good decision[to drop the bombs], and it helped end WWII.
2. I don’t really like what we did, but I don’t have a better solution for it.
3. I think it was a terrible idea to kill so many people to destroy two major cities.”
I picked #3, and joined three others in so voting. #1 had 5 votes, and #2 had 20. Our 29 hach marks added to the conversation.
I felt and feel that killing someone else is never a solution…it only creates a new problem. But that’s not a very popular concept.
War, then and now has its moral dilemmas. The morning after the display the paper had a front page article about the Libyan leaders disgraceful use of cluster bombs against its own citizens. Nestled in the same article was reference to our own countries recent use of cluster bombs in places like Afghanistan. There was nothing about who developed and later perfected and profited from the cluster bomb concept.
Late today came a photo montage of the reality of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Let us never forget.

#359 – Dick Bernard: Teachers and Teaching – searching for "truth"

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April 11, 2011, found me in a hotel near Bernalillo NM. The hotel offered complimentary newspapers, and as I usually do I picked up the local paper, in this case the Albuquerque Journal.
Front page, front and center, was a “Beyond the Classroom” story about teacher Kathleen Cox, and her 12 year old student, Elizabeth, whose Mom is struggling with cancer. [To read the article, and the editorial which follows, you need to sign on for a temporary access pass, which is a very simple process.]
The column was a wonderful story about a teacher going above and beyond. It had absolutely nothing to do with test scores, or classes. It had everything to do with relationships. And most likely Elizabeth was not able to perform academically as she normally might have because of difficulties at home. Kathleen was doing what she could.
I migrated, as usual, to the editorial page or the paper, and the lead editorial was titled “Most Important School Unit is Accountability“. It was an interesting counterpoint to the lead article on the front page. It was about bean counting, and holding people accountable for the number of beans.
Therein seems to lie the struggle in contemporary public education. Relationships versus quantifiable data (“accountability”).
Of course, there has been massive effort over the last few years to figure out some way to get rid of “bad” or “ineffective” teachers. It is some kind of generic label, and I have yet to hear someone say publicly the name of the “bad” or “ineffective” teacher(s) they have in mind. They just must be out there somewhere. Apparently Ms Cox is not one of those marked for extinction, but we really don’t know.
I was in New Mexico to talk with retired teachers of the the National Education Association. Enroute from the airport to the conference center a retired teacher from Nebraska was remembering some teacher who’d made a big difference in her life. It just came up in conversation.
One of my handouts was a list of positive school employee qualities generated by teachers at a 1999 leadership conference I had led. I had asked the participants to think of a school employee who had had a particularly significant impact on them. Having thought of this person (it could be any school employee), I asked them to come up with a one word descriptor of that person: what was it about the employee who made a difference in their lives? In all there were about 60 participants. Only one of the 60 could not think of a single education personnel who he had positive feelings about. I have no idea why this was. The purpose of the exercise was not to probe or value judge but just to establish criteria used by teachers themselves.
In all the teachers identified 47 different characteristics of educational personnel who made a difference in their lives. Here are the characteristics, as identified by the participants: OUTSTANDING-BEHAVIORS-OF-EDUCATION-PERSONNEL
If you look at the qualities that made a difference in school personnel, one is hard pressed to find a single quality that emphasizes directly or indirectly test scores or such as that.
The employees who were remembered were the ones who were very positive in their relationship with their young person.
Is there a need for accountability? Absolutely.
Are there school employees who shouldn’t be school employees? Of course. In a cohort of millions of school employees serving 50 million students, there is without any question at all less than desirable “apples”.
But until the labelers attach names of actual people to these supposed “bad” or “ineffective” anonymous teachers, I am going to challenge them every time to show me the evidence.
They don’t show the evidence, because they can’t…or are afraid that they might be wrong in their judgment.

#348 – Dick Bernard: Part 17. Garrison Keillor "…and all the children are above average"

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Today’s newspaper brought news that Garrison Keillor might, just might, retire in 2013, leaving Prairie Home Companion (PHC) in the hands of someone else.
Precisely when Garrison will no longer be part of the picture is an unknown, probably including to himself. But as someone a couple of years senior to Keillor in age, I can attest that he is not getting any younger; he’s no longer a kid.
I was one of the lucky ones who first saw him in the olden days of PHC (which began in 1974). The first time was in the fall of 1977, probably at Macalester College in St. Paul, where you could walk in off the street to buy a ticket, and find a good seat as well.
I was never a regular at Prairie Home Companion, but I showed up a great plenty, and during my time as Director of the Anoka-Hennepin Education Association we once hired the show band, “The Powdermilk Biscuit” bunch, to do a dance gig for our teacher’s association in Keillor’s home town of Anoka MN. Those were the days….
Once, I saw him crossing the street at the Swayed Pines Festival at St. John’s University in Collegeville MN. It was in late April, 1979. Here’s the snapshot, for the first time in public! (Click on the photo to enlarge.) St. John’s is where Keillor first went on air late in the 1960s, and it is in the heart of his mythical Lake Wobegon.

Garrison Keillor late April, 1979


I signed my first Anoka-Hennepin teaching contract in the office of the Superintendent July 21, 1965. The office was in the same school Garrison Keillor had attended high school and graduated from a few short years earlier. A few years later I would begin to represent in teacher union work some of the same teachers who had Garrison as a student. Of course, at the time I had no idea there was such a person as Garrison Keillor, nor would I till he began to be noticed ten years or so later.
While Keillor’s Lake Wobegon is a collage of bits and pieces from many places, there has always been a very heavy foundation of Anoka in his sketches of Lake Wobegon. I know this, since I moved to Anoka in 1965, and except for three years absence 1966-68, I either lived or worked in or near the suburban community till the early 1980s. Too many of the characters and geographic images are far too “spitting image” to be successfully denied.
Keillor’s forever and ever signature is his description of the good people of Lake Wobegon, where “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
I have no idea how he came up with this phrase so many years ago, but it is clear to me, living in our contemporary society, he had us “nailed”. We seem, collectively, to think we are all exceptional. Maybe we all have exceptional qualities, but basically we are just people, as Garrison Keillor is.
As is true with most of us, the now-famed Mr. Keillor probably came across as very much an average and ordinary kid in those school years. One or more of them did their part in helping him develop his own latent but immense talents; as they and legions of other teachers in other places and times have helped others develop their own talents. Having taught myself, I know we basically try to do our best with everyone. We don’t always succeed. But often we do, and more often than not we touch someone in some ways we will never realize.
Teachers and indeed all the supporting staff in public schools do an immense service.
Thank school employees.
(As I’ve been writing this I’ve had as background music the work of another commoner who took her talents to the next level. Take a listen.)

#346 – Dick Bernard: Part 16. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

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Sunday afternoon, enroute to other things, I found a cartoon I had saved for some reason back in March of 2002. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

About the same time I found the cartoon, came a CBS “60 Minutes” segment on a New York City experimental school that pays $125,000 a year. You can see the segment here.
A few hours earlier, a couple of folks had forwarded on a Nicholas Kristof post on the same general topic. One suspects that he had access to the same general source as did 60 Minutes.
The previous day my local legislator and some in her audience were lamenting being unable to get rid of “bad” teachers….
The song goes on and on and on and on: get rid of unions, and so-called “tenure” laws which give “bad” teachers life-time no-cut contracts and all will be well.
Having been in the trenches for many years, including growing up in a family whose Mom and Dad were public school teachers (and excellent ones, including their public citizenship), I know that the cartoon catches the reality far better than the high-falootin’ philosophizin’. For assorted reasons, the Power that runs things cannot abide its Public Workers having any status even roughly equivalent to it. It, including that angry Dad in the cartoon above, demands a subordinate class.
It would be truly nice to have a substantive conversation about ideas such as the $125,000 teacher in every classroom. The way things are going, when that $125,000 goal is reached; poverty level will be, perhaps, $130,000.
I have all of my Mom and Dad’s old teaching contracts – there are 71 of them in all. I pulled them out for the year I graduated from high school – 1957-1958.
1957-58 was Dad’s 28th year of teaching. He had been serving as “Superintendent” of many tiny schools since 1940-41.
We had lived in this town before, from 1945-51; in the interim, there were three other places, till Dad and Mom got another contract here. In addition to doing the assorted kinds of administrative things that go along with administrating even a tiny school, Dad had to teach two classes, as well as Drivers Ed, and he had to Coach sports. The latter was something he wasn’t interested in and was not good at, but there would have been no Basketball or Football had he not taken it on.
There were about 45 students and two other teachers in his tiny high school; my Mother taught the elementary (most elementary kids, including three of her five children, were in the Catholic elementary school down the street.)
That year Dad was paid $4800 with no fringe benefits and, excepting a one year contract, no legal protections whatever. At the end of the year his reemployment was completely at the whim of the local school board.
For Mom, it was her 17th year as a teacher – the off years were to bear and raise we kids. Her salary was $3000.
Likely there were plenty of people in that little town who were envious of this two-income couple.

Bernard family 1958. Mom was then 48 and Dad 50.


They lasted three more years in that place they were content to be, but their contract was non-renewed by the school board for some reason they had no right to know, and off they went again.
Teachers everywhere and in every age can tell similar stories. Even the ones who confide to their friends that they don’t like the Union, are the first ones to call for help in times of trouble.
Trust me. I know.
Something else has become very noticeable today. In the relatively short time I watch TV each day: the ads heavily focus on the “me”. No longer is it adequate to be covered only by a group insurance plan (if you are so fortunate as to be in one). Now the rage is to build a plan to your own specifications. Etc. Of course, with sophistication of data management, such things are possible these days. On the other hand, such schemes are just further evidence of the breakdown of our society into a mass that is the have-nots, versus the truly elite individuals who are the haves, and who believe they have earned and deserved their right to make choices.
This is a time of back-sliding. It is only a matter of time before there will be a reaction, and it won’t be pleasant. Unions didn’t happen because of benevolent and enlightened management. Quite the opposite.
One reaps what one sews.
Teachers, their unions, as well as other employees and their unions as well, may be open to criticism, as any other persons or entities are open to criticism, but we will all rue the day Unions go out of existence or are stripped of their power. Most of us are, after all, subordinates, and Wisdom does not necessarily follow Power.

Minneapolis Star Tribune cartoon September 25, 1995


This series began with Part 1 on February 17. It will likely continue.

#331 – Dick Bernard: Part 1. "On, [the public employees of], Wisconsin!"

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Thursday afternoon, February 17, we went across the Mississippi River to see a music program at a local suburban St. Paul elementary school. The performers were about a hundred fifth graders, one of whom was our grandson. The audience was classmates from other grades, and the usual assortment of parents, grandparents and others. It was standing room only in the gymnasium.
It was a great program – they always are. Classroom teachers, and all public school employees, on average are genius level when it comes to working with kids. The average civilian would hardly last a day with one-fourth of the students a normal teacher is assigned each and every day. Ditto for those cooks, custodians, secretaries, Principals, etc., etc., etc. Occasional problems? Sure. There are, after all, nearly 50,000,000 kids in those places called “school”.
Thursday we watched one of this large elementary schools music teachers work his magic during the impressively choreographed and timed program with his young charges. Thursday evening the program was repeated.
Teachers – indeed, all school staff – are to be celebrated.
But those same employees are certainly not to be tolerated if they get uppity, and wish to share a tiny bit in the riches of this country.
Across the river, down the road perhaps 300 miles in Madison Wisconsin, at the same time I was listening to my grandson and his classmates, teachers and other public employees were engaging in rarely seen huge protests over an arbitrary attempt to strip them of rights and benefits under the guise of balancing the state’s budget. At this writing, it appears that the employees, with the help of Democrat legislators who literally left the state to prevent the dominant Republicans from achieving a quorum, will manage to at least minimize their losses in the short term, and bring powerful public attention to the problem of attempts to break unions, particularly unionized public workers.
I taught public school (Junior High) for nine years, followed by 27 years of representing unionized public school teachers. Union dues paid my salary and helped fund my private pension. I grew up in a teachers family, and on and on and on. So I am not unbiased when I cheer on those valiant souls who challenged the Wisconsin Governor and hopefully cause he and his slash and burn allies to regret their move (such unanticipated results do occur from time to time.) It’s past time to take a stand.
Public workers are essential to the public good, and not ‘essential’ as defined by those who would wish them to work as, truly, “public servants”.
Many years ago I heard the issue defined well by a colleague: “public employees are the last to reap the benefits of prosperity, and the first to be burdened by the costs of recession.” He was speaking an abiding truth. The public employer gets the leftovers, if there are any, and were anti-union forces to get their way, the good old days of “come to the table and beg” would again become policy.
Probably half of my nine years of teaching were in those “at will” days where the teachers got what the school board wished to give, which usually wasn’t very much.
By happenstance, my career as union staff coincided exactly with the beginning of collective bargaining in my state, and while both sides made mistakes that first year nearly 40 years ago, and later, we did learn, and collective bargaining has worked reasonably well ever since.
Actually, it would work even better for ALL parties, including the public, were the bargaining playing field opened to include all of the abundant issues which face public education, but managers are afraid of bogey-men that exist in their “minds eyes” about allowing practitioners to – horrors – have a say in education policy.
Get rid of bargaining? Honest managers would agree that unions bring stability to employer-employee relations generally. I know. I did the work, and I know people who worked on the other side of the table back then.
I applaud those courageous workers who when faced with an arrogant challenge by a wet-behind-the-ears new Governor took to the streets and made the national news.
May they be an example to their colleagues everywhere.
The writer taught junior high school geography from 1963-72; and from 1972 to the end of his career in 2000 was field representative for the Minnesota Education Association/Education Minnesota. A career long primary interest has been positive relationships between public schools and the public at large. In addition to this blog site, he retains a site with ideas for better public school engagement with the non-school community. You can access it here.

Dick Bernard: Looking at Public Schools from Outside the Walls

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To easily find this page in the future, simply enter the letters OTW in the search box for thoughtstowardsabetterworld.org.

UPDATE July 13, 2012
These are thoughts gathered over time which may help generate additional thoughts and ideas for readers.
1. Thoughts on Organizing:
A. An assortment of thoughts on The Future for Public Sector Unions – Part A: The future for public sector unions Part A
B. Early comments after June 5 on The Future for Public Sector Unions: The future for public sector unions C
2. Uncomfortable Essays here
3. Archival Items on building Community Relationships here.
4. Index of assorted thoughts on organizing at this blog site: Outside the Walls Blog Organizing
5. A message to younger teachers: AssociationYoungTeacherJuly12
UPDATE: August 22, 2012: Excellent commentary, Opening a New Front, on teachers, students, parents and the 2012 election can be found here. The writer, Alan, is retired, a former teacher. His posts, including this one, are long but I’ve found him to be an excellent source of information almost every day, and have subscribed (free) for a long while.

Original painting courtesy of Marie Thielen, Minneapolis MN. Lauzon School, Badlands of SD, between Custer and Edgemont.


INTRODUCTION. This site, commencing May 3, 2011, replaces and is now the primary site for the still-existing-and-functioning Outside the Walls website (2002-2008). Contact site owner Dick Bernard with your suggestions and ideas (see business card below for contact information). If you wish to be a part of an e-list which may become an information sharing group, please provide your contact information.

DICK BERNARD INTRO: one minute 46 second video
Brief Bio: DickBernardBioMay11001
PURPOSE: This page is a continuation of earlier work (see next paragraph) which conveyed ideas from outside the Public School walls to help build positive relationships with the large majority of citizens who have no day-to-day relationship with the public schools.
OUTSIDE THE WALLS (the original site). After retirement from teacher union staff work in January, 2000, the author of this site, Dick Bernard, became interested in helping public schools, in particular, get more positively involved in what he calls the “Outside the Walls” community. This is described here. This site was active 2002-2008. There are approximately 59 short essays, each with timeless ideas, at this site, each describing some means of better connecting with the 75-85% of the population who have little direct contact with public schools. (See the last Archive here.. The four posts are examples of all the others, and, like the others, all still apply to the present day.) Here’s a suggested “lesson plan” for using the archived ideas: OTWideasWeb
INAUGURAL IDEAS MAY, 2011: Reader suggestions and content contributions are solicited for future use:
1. Thoughts on National Teacher Day, May 3, 2011, from Dick Bernard. Follow up column dated May 7 here. UPDATE: Comment on National Teacher Day May 8, 2012 here.
2. Floridian Marion Brady, is very, very actively engaged in education reform issues. His website is here.
3. OTHER OUTSIDE THE WALLS GROUPS AND ACTIVITIES can also be publicized here, such as a joint venture between retired and active teachers, students and community members, World Citizen’s Peace Education program for school teachers. World Citizen, of which I’m vice-president, is in process of moving its training program onto the internet. This process will take place during 2011-2012.
4. This can also be a space for ideas perhaps not noted in other venues. For instance, in 1984-85, there was a highly successful “Year of the School” called “Ah, Those Marvelous Minnesota Public Schools“. It was a year-long public relations campaign, with many ideas which, though many are now dated, are still worthy of revisiting. They can be found here: 1984 Revisited001
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you stop back again, soon.
Dick Bernard
dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom

#278 – Dick Bernard: Muslims of the Midwest: From the 1880s to 2010

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Back on September 5, 2010, I posted “A Close Encounter With a Mosque“, remembering a friendship in the 8th grade in Ross, North Dakota in 1953-54.
In the mysterious ways such things work, someone saw the blog post, liked it, and on November 13, 2010, I found myself on stage at the annual celebration and awards banquet of the Islamic Resource Group of Minnesota (IRG)*, and my blog post** printed in their program booklet. I said to the assembled group that I was both astonished, and very, very honored to be with them. The evening was a powerful and inspirational one, with very good attendance considering the first major snowstorm of the season had just struck us here in Minnesota.
“Mysterious ways” indeed. I have long believed that there is no such thing as a “coincidence”. Everything has some purpose. Some would call this “luck”, or “fate” or attribute good or bad occurrences to something caused by a higher power, using that same higher power to justify good or bad actions.
Whatever the reason, I felt very privileged and humbled to be in that hotel banquet room last night.
There is a formulaic aspect to such events as IRG’s celebration: food, speeches, awards….
These all happened last night.
I chose to notice who was in that room, and who it was that really made IRG a success. They were, by and large, young people: people in their 30s or younger. Yes, there were the ‘gray-maned’ folks like myself and my spouse, but this was a celebration by and about youth.
There was another aspect of this gathering that stood out for me. This was a group that was about understanding, not fear and division; a group whose intention is to promote dialogue rather than positioning and taking sides. To be for, not against. The “Building Bridges Awards” were for Media, Education, Interfaith, Community Leadership and the “IRG Speaker of the Year”. Four of the five Award winners were young people.

This photo and following: people recognized for their work with IRG



Keynote speaker Daniel Tutt, himself a young person, helped us to understand some of the reasons for the dynamics which lead to the politics of division, which in turn lead to the kinds of campaigns which exploit the issues of such as the Ground Zero Mosque (why I wrote the previously mentioned September 5 blog post), fear and loathing of “illegals”, Gays, etc., etc., etc.

Daniel Tutt


Daniel knows of what he speaks. He is program director of the national program 20,000 Dialogues, a program of Unity Productions Foundation.
As Daniel was speaking it occurred to me that the major controversial wedge issues, like the “Ground Zero Mosque”, suddenly went silent immediately after the election November 2.
Before November 2 they were eminently useful, politically. Now they aren’t, but simply put on the shelf till the next election….
There is a window of opportunity now to, as IRG emphasized, “Build Bridges”.
Indeed, as I heard last evening, those bridges are already being built, as Emmett and his family and Muslim Community in rural North Dakota were building from 1902 forward.
Whatever your issue, talking – dialogue – is a strong part of the answer of breaking down barriers. “Building Bridges”.
* – The IRG website is currently under re-construction, but still includes useful information about the group.
** – On November 13, I updated the September 5 blog post to include some additional information.

#267 – Dick Bernard: A troubling juncture for our country.

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I am overwhelmed with political information – it has to be like being overrun by a tsunami (without minimizing the latest tragedy in Indonesia). The instinct is not to master or control the incoming data, but how to survive it.
I won’t run and hide, but after the election, my guess is that I will go to the e-inbox, pick “select all”, then click “delete” and start over. Literally thousands of e-mails will bite the dust (oh, I have them all backed up, just in case…but it’s like most paper stuff I have around here. They will probably never be re-looked at. A post-election project.)
But there is something very, very troubling to me as we lurch towards the culmination of what is probably the most important election in our history: willful ignorance.
It is abundantly documented in valid surveys from very credible sources: massive numbers of people are clueless about basic facts about real things that are very important, but believe the untruths anyway. I see this over and over and over again.
Somebody forwards an item which easily and quickly can be debunked. They obviously believe it, otherwise they wouldn’t forward it in the first place.
Vicious stuff appears in the e-mailbox – it’s easy to distribute these days.
Surveys show an astonishing percentage of people have an upside down view of what is real. They do not have a clue about the simplest of political, economic or other facts.
When challenged with something supported by fact, they’ll say things like “I’ll believe what I want to believe”.
I could send along the data, but I know that it won’t be read. People have shut down, mired in their own reality, probably trusting their closest friends or, worse, sole sources of information, which may be deliberately conveying untruths, or have similarly been duped by some invisible figures hundreds of generations up their e-mail chain.
I’m already over 300 words in this blog post and it is already too long for a letter to the editor, as letters to the editor are limited to, often, 150-250 words. One can’t even develop a thought in that length of letter – one has to spew sound bites that are interesting or provocative…and besides present a particular point of view. Common letter to the editors reflect the poles, not the middle.
A common limit for outside submissions for newspaper columns is 600, perhaps 700 words, unless you own the paper or the editor wants you to write a piece. I try to keep my blog posts under 600 words.
Facebook and Twitter? A sentence or two max….
Many of us will vote based on our fantasy on Tuesday.
Many of us will not vote at all because it’s too complicated, or, or, or….
One can only hope that after the barrage of advertising lies, some semblance of good, balanced government will come out the other end.
At this moment, I’m not very hopeful.
I sent in my ballot yesterday. It was preceded by a lot of hard work, trying to figure out the person behind the names, and the consequences of voting for him or her.
Please do the same.
Preceding posts on the topic of Election 2010: September 29, 30; October 5, 15, 18, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29. (Just click on the date in the calendar in the right hand column, or you can simply place the cursor there, and read the title of the post.)
557 words.

#266 – Dick Bernard: Moving towards Rationality, Civility and Dialogue…or mired in Contempt?

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I walked away from a TV commentary show a few hours ago. The host is someone I like and respect; his guests were four leaders from a few of the infinite number of different organizations that claim to be of like minds, but really have very narrow, poorly thought out, and often opposing agendas.
The talk was about whether or not Social Security and Medicare were “socialist”. Three of the four guests had anti-socialism as a key tenet of their anti-government rant. Of course, none would touch Social Security or Medicare, always going back to their tried and true ‘talking points’. It ended with the usual result, which I first saw in the old “Crossfire” days of the 1990s, where NO ONE was LISTENING to ANYONE ELSE, DEFENSIVE and TRYING TO SHOUT EACH OTHER DOWN. The good idea of debate ended up very badly. Personally, I learned nothing.
Life is far too short….
Right before that, Cathy and I had been to an Interfaith Forum on the topic of denominational beliefs on Life after Death. Five panelists, friends and clergy all, took on the topic. They were Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Lutheran and Congregational. It was a great pre-Halloween topic and it seemed there were about 200 of us in attendance. The Pastors talked, then there was opportunity for table talk, then then there was Q&A from audience to panelists. If I was to boil it down to its essence, it was respect personified. We all have our beliefs; we are sitting together seeking to understand; we were not throwing rocks at each other, as would have been the case in those vaunted “good old days” before tolerance was cool.
Two days earlier, nine of us had gathered at an office conference room in suburban Maplewood MN to watch a recent film about Haiti, and then to discuss what we’d seen.
The film, Poto Mitan, has five narrators. With a single, brief, exception, they are the only ones who speak, and they speak one at a time, telling their powerful stories. They are “Poto Mitans”, all poor women in Port-au-Prince who talk of survival against all odds. They speak in Kreyol, subtitled into English. The segments are separated by brief but beautiful and powerful prose read in English by Haitian author Edwidge Danticat, backgrounded by film of a woman braiding another woman’s hair.
Poto Mitan is a powerful film which our discussion leader, Jacqueline Regis, said brought her to tears when she first saw it. It was so mindful of her own mother and her own growing up years in Duvalier’s Haiti.
After the film we viewers dialogued with each other about what this film meant to us. There was nothing profound said, but the evening was profound. There was lots of respect among we diverse folks whose only commonality was an interest in Haiti. Our conversation reached no conclusion: it didn’t need to. When we walked out the door, the conversation was our conclusion: food for thought. Out of the gathering did come a proposal to a larger institution to use the film as centerpiece for a program on the first anniversary of the January 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti, but that was just a proposal for someone else to implement, or not.
Oh if only we could re-learn the almost disappeared skill of dialogue.
So…What is “dialogue”?
I often go back to a great quote I found in Joseph Jaworsky’s 1996 book, “Synchronicity, the Inner Path of Leadership“. Preceding the chapter on “Dialogue: The Power of Collective Thinking“, Jaworsky includes the following from David Bohms “On Dialogue”:
“From time to time, (the) tribe (gathered) in a circle.
They just talked and talked and talked apparently to no purpose. They made no decisions. There was no leader. And everybody could participate.
There may have been wise men or wise women who were listened to a bit more – the older ones – but everybody could talk.
The meeting went on, until it finally seemed to stop for no reason at all and the group dispersed. Yet after that, everybody seemed to know what to do, because they understood each other so well. Then they could get together in smaller groups and do something or decide things.”

#261 – Dick Bernard: Honor and Respect for those of the GLBT Community

/in , , /by

Today came an unexpected video featuring Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. (There may be an annoying ad for a few seconds prior to the 2 1/2 minute clip. Just let it play through.)
The video speaks profoundly for itself.
It reminded me of a copy of a letter which came into my possession some years ago, and which I again came across recently while sorting assorted papers.
The letter was dated July 26, 1991, and was written anonymously to a prominent Catholic Pastor in a major city. The Pastor has long been dead, and the letter was found among his papers. I know the name of the Priest and his Parish, but in this post nothing which identifies either will be included. It is the content which is important. It is not known if the writer was male or female, or if the meeting suggested in the second to last sentence was ever held.
The letter is intended solely to encourage personal reflection and action to change hearts and minds and policies, too. It is from one person to another. It has application to us all.
July 26, 1991
Dear ___:
This letter is in response to your June 16, 1991, [church bulletin column] which has left me deeply saddened. I am referring to the News Item about the Presbyterians rejecting the ordination of Gays, etc., and the fact that you found this rejection “especially encouraging” and “The ___ Plain Talk – nice sounding words that are used to hide the real nature of sodomy…alternative life style, sexual preference, and so on….”
There are many things I would wish to say about the Church – about power and authoritarianism, about narrow sexual boundaries, about celibates speaking to conjugal love. But I fear it “would fall on deaf ears”. So I shall just speak to you from my heart.
I am Gay – as are 10% of all the parishioners’ you gaze out upon on a Sunday morning (or any other day). You shake our hands and wish us “Peace”, but you do not know us because we are invisible. Gay people who belong to [our church] are not ordinarily out marching in Gay Pride parades. We do not belong to Act Up which recently came to [the church] and embarrassed you and us by their radical rabble rousing. They represent the tiniest minuscule part of the Gay Community; they do not speak for anyone but themselves, anymore than Bishop LeFebvre spoke for all Catholics.
We are lawyers and doctors and librarians and brick layers and computer operators and musicians (and, yes, we are also Priests and Religious in the broad community). We sit quietly in the pews and listen to sermons (good ones!) about loving one another and how much God loves us. In the [parish hall] we shake your hand and say how glad we are to see you (and we are!) and receive your ebullient greeting in return. But you don’t know us.
We are proud to have our own [names recognized for accomplishments] up for all to see in little bronze plaques. We belong to [this church] and are thrilled to be a part of your visionary and splendid building program. But you do not know us and do not love us in Christ.
We sing in the Choir, serve on your Boards, are Eucharistic Ministers and Lectors, are enthusiastic members of the Youth Group and support [this church] financially. But you do not know who we are. You do not know us or love us.
We do not choose to be Gay. Why on earth would anyone choose to be Gay? Why would anyone choose to be a member of a despised minority, to be isolated, maligned, rejected, hated, outcasts in our own Church or even in our own parish? No, we have not chosen to be Gay anymore than you have chosen the color of your eyes.
The Lord God made us just as we are – Gay and straight. He did not say we are “intrinsically evil” (though the official Church does). He said “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” and “I have written you on the palm of my hand and you are mine.” He did not say anywhere that He meant only straight people.
Homophobia is a horrid word. Often it is overt and blatantly ugly. But more often it can be subtle and hidden: Love the Gay person and hate his/her lifestyle. We are all of a piece, [Father], just as you are. Our actions, our loves and loving flow out of who we are, just as yours do. To compartmentalize us and say we are human beings made in the image of God, intelligent, caring, passionate – and then to say we must not ever show anyone that love, and sometimes show it physically, seems nothing short of ludicrous. it would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
Hypocrisy is ugly, too, particularly when it thunders down from the highest places in the Church. Gentle shepherds have cried out against it in anguish (the Hunthausens and Weaklands and McNeils and Currans and Callahans), but they are quickly overpowered and forced into submission and silence.
And where is Christ in all of this?
I beg you to go into the chapel in a quiet time – to sit in the very presence of Jesus Christ. Ask Him to tell you how He feels about us. he did say, “I want to gather them under my wings as a mother hen gathers the chicks and you would not.”
I honor you, [Father] as a pastor of great vision, but I weep for you and the Church when true Christ-like qualities of compassion, mercy, understanding, acceptance, and unqualified love are crushed by allegiance to the narrow boundaries of the power structure of the Church. Perhaps when you sit before the Christ, He too will be weeping.
I go on loving this Church and staying in it because it is Jesus Christ. You must not try to drive me out when it is He who invited me in.
I do not sign this (though I deplore anonymous letters) because I fear subtle retaliation. Before you go, I will come to you and tell you who I am. In the meantime, you do indeed know me, but you do not love me.”
Related post is here.