#257 – Dick Bernard: Voting

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This letter of mine appeared in the October 13, 2010, issue of the Woodbury Bulletin, our local newspaper. Our suburb of about 60,000 population would be considered as prosperous, with a great number of school age children and a correspondingly great number of younger parents who have very good jobs and live in nice houses.
“A year ago – November 3, 2009 – I voted in the [local school district] ISD #833 School Board election. I always vote, and I was aware, this time, that the polling place was like a mausoleum on a slow day: empty and quiet.
There were ten candidates for four open seats on the South Washington County #833 School Board last year.
When the votes were tallied, the numbers revealed that only 6% – one of every 16 – eligible voters had even bothered to go to the polls. The candidate receiving the greatest number of votes polled 3% of those same eligible voters. That person sits in office today because one of every 33 local citizens took the time to vote.
The turnout was a disgrace.
The election was, in my view, an abominable development, a black mark on this affluent community of ours with a very large (in relative terms) percentage of school age children. If we don’t care who represents our kids interests, what do we care about?
(My bet is that virtually no one in this town could name, without going to the school district web site, the person I identify above. This is no reflection on the individual, it is a reflection on we citizens.)
Everyone of course can have their own excuse for not voting last year, or ever. There are always excuses.
There are also good reasons: like an emergency hospitalization on the day of the election, or such; but mostly we’re talking about excuses.
And when one adds in those who vote with absolutely no knowledge of who they are voting for, we are looking at a democracy that is not well.
In a very short while we again go to the polls.
It is expected that far fewer will vote in 2010 than voted in 2008, though the stakes for all of us in the upcoming election are very high.
The marquee races (Governor, Congress, our State legislators and the like) get almost all of the attention, but they are not the only races:
This year we Woodbury voters are being asked to select one Judge from among 24 candidates in the 10th Judicial District.
Sixteen citizens have filed for two Woodbury Council positions; and there are six candidates for Mayor of our community.
These are much more than first or last names on lawn signs.
This message is a plea to citizens to not only vote, but to vote well-informed – to actually know something about the person for whom you are filling in the blank on the ballot Nov 2.
We have the right to vote in this country; we have the responsibility to vote well informed.”

#254 – Dick Bernard: A DVD Drama at the Basilica of St. Mary

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Last Sunday on the way into Minneapolis’ Basilica of St. Mary for Mass I stopped by a small group of people collecting a DVD Archbishop Marriage001 earlier sent to all Archdiocese Catholics. The DVD lobbies against the supposed threat of Gay Marriage, and promotes a Minnesota Constitutional amendment mandating that marriage be restricted to one man and one woman*.
I dropped off my DVD and asked Lucinda Naylor, who ordinarily sits near us in the Basilica, if I could take her picture (below).

Lucinda Naylor, at right, October 2, 1010, Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis


Lucinda had unintentionally become famous a few days earlier when she had written a Facebook entry about the DVD. The entry came to the attention of her employer, the Basilica of St. Mary. There was a meeting between the Pastor and Lucinda, and the result was her suspension from her part-time job as artist for the Basilica. Her liturgical art work for years has been a staple part of the Mass booklets distributed each Sunday by ushers like myself. The DVD issue, I am convinced, was not created by either the Pastor or Lucinda. It was dropped on both of them from outside.
The suspended employee, Lucinda, established a website which gives people an opportunity to recycle the DVDs into a sculpture she plans to make. The collection of the DVDs began Sunday, October 2. Similar collections took place at other churches.
At this writing, the drama continues. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Lucinda; and for the Pastor as well. I know both people. She acted courageously on her convictions; the Pastor, whether he can admit it or not, was without doubt caught between “the proverbial rock and a hard place”. Basilica is not ‘his’ Church, after all: it is, like all Catholic Churches, real estate of the Archdiocese, and the Archbishop is the Pastor’s boss.
After depositing my DVD in the curbside box, I went inside for 9:30 Mass. More on that in a moment.
The next day, Monday, a very large photo, taken from the identical vantage point and essentially identical to mine, appeared on page A11 of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The headline said “Taking a Stand Against the Church“, and showed Lucinda Naylor waving on Twin Cities Marathon Runners as they passed by the Church. The accompanying text included the phrase: “A spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis called [her action] a publicity stunt.”
Sunday morning, inside Basilica, the Mass booklet said that the presider at all of the six weekend Masses would be Pastor John Bauer. This is highly unusual. Normally there are two or three presiders.
I am sure the vast majority of us in Basilica on Sunday were waiting to see what the Pastors Homily would be. There was little doubt about the topic; the only unknown was exactly what he’d say.
Basilica is a welcoming and diverse place, and Fr. Bauer made specific reference to the greeting at every Mass: “Whatever brings you here and wherever you are at on your faith journey, you are welcome here.” It is a theme that the Basilica lives. It fits my Parish.
The rest of his brief message spoke gently to the issue that had Lucinda out on the sidewalk: “Parishes are much like families“, he said, alluding again to something he’s said before: that in his own family, members tend to cancel each other out in Presidential elections. He pulled a quotation from, he recalled, James Joyce: “The word ‘Catholic’ means ‘here comes everybody’ “. And then he quoted from an e-mail someone had sent him during the tense few days preceding this Mass: “I stay [in the Church] because I want the Church to be the Church I want the Church to be.”
Finished, Fr. Bauer received warm applause (unusual in our setting, regardless of the preacher or message). I was among those who applauded.
But that applause doesn’t mean this issue is over; by no means.
As I was drove home I thought in particular about Fr. Bauer’s “family” analogy.
In this case, there is a huge difference: the Archbishop, with the help of what had to be a huge anonymous donation, sent out hundreds of thousands of these DVDs which spoke from Power to Peasant, as it were.
Lucinda is one of those Peasants; I another.
The Archbishop didn’t ask our opinion. He didn’t care. His wealthy financial benefactor hid in the shadows of anonymity. So be it.
For some reason I thought about action organizing in such a case of power versus powerless and I thought back to a favorite book from childhood, Gulliver’s Travels. Gulliver, as most will remember, traveled to a place called Lilliput, which was inhabited by ant-size humans who were no match in any way for the gigantic normal sized human, Gulliver.
At least, the Lilliputians were no match for him on his terms.
But one night Gulliver fell into a sound sleep, and the next day when he woke up, he was tied to the ground, and couldn’t move.
The Lilliputians had put Power in its place.
“Publicity stunt” indeed.
Go, Lilliput!
Postnote: a YouTube link from a friend, a Dad, whose son is Gay.
*The Archbishops DVD can also be found on YouTube.
Watch this space in coming days for a commentary on a Marriage in Quebec in 1730.

#252 – Dick Bernard: "Waiting for Superman"

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UPDATE: February 7, 2011: see end of this post.
Were it in my power, I’d require every American adult to spend the one hour 42 minutes needed to watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman“; then I’d assign them to a working group with ten of their peers of differing points of view, with the assignment to dialog at length about what they’ve just witnessed and then try to come to consensus on how to remedy the problem.
Such is not in my power, and in contemporary society people don’t much like to dialogue with people who might disagree with their view, so my idea is just a fantasy. But it would be nice….
My entire life has been in and around public education. I grew up in a family where both parents were public school teachers; I went to a great, tiny, teacher’s college; I taught junior high kids for nine years; I represented public school teachers in one of those “teacher’s unions” for 27 years; in retirement, I’m still engaged, with children and grandchildren still hanging around public education as employee or student. I know something about the topic.
Still, when I was waiting for show time at the Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis yesterday, I almost passed on going into the theatre, almost opting to sit on the bench outside and watch the world go by on Hennepin Avenue. It was a beautiful day, too nice to waste on a movie that I had heard emphasized bashing public schools and teachers unions. Life is too short.
I’m glad, though, that I went in.
There was much to learn beyond the reviews.
There was a surprisingly large crowd in the theater for the 1:30 showing of Waiting for Superman. This was not a film to allow distractions. We were a quiet and by all indications attentive bunch. When we filed out at the end of the showing, there seemed to be a pretty general reflective silence:
“What does this all mean, and what do we have to do?”
Yes, unions, including mine, were bashed, and I thought the movie overreached. But this film has villains in abundance, including our supposedly great society. What had me in tears for the last few minutes of the movie is what our society has created and nurtured particularly in the last forty years in this country, and then blamed on some ‘other’ (take your pick).
Go ahead, eliminate the teachers unions and take a shot at the “bad” teachers…but don’t think that will solve the problem. There’s a great plenty of other culprits, including some of those who seem to have been anointed as saviors in the film. Take a look, for instance, at the 100,000 or so local superintendents and school board members running America’s 14,000 or so school districts, and the abundant opportunities for dysfunction and malfunction. Or the politicians who play politics with the very large target that is presented by perhaps 45-50 million school age children and the people employed to work with these children in public schools. Or the citizens who pay zero attention to who they elect to make or implement local, state and national education policy (see end note four).
We’ve all created the disaster that made the film possible. We need to do a whole lot more than just talk about it, and find scapegoats.
But I’m not looking for miracles. Finding solutions takes work and compromise. Who wants to work…or compromise?
Please. Do. It’s our kids futures.
*
End note: I was curious about the title, “Waiting for Superman”. The answer comes at the end of the film. You need to see it for yourself.
End note two: I’d invite readers to visit the website of my friend, retired educator and writer Marion Brady, to see his ideas about solutions and reform of public education. Marion takes this issue seriously.
End note three: Here’s what I wrote about the topic of community and school four years ago. This writing is within a website I created eight years ago, specifically to convey ideas to public educators about better connecting with we folks “outside the walls” .
End note four: I live in a community which would be considered suburban and affluent. In the school board election one year ago, with four openings, the top vote getter among the ten competitors, was elected by 3% (1 of 33) eligible voters in the district. The total turnout was less than 10% of those eligible. Nine out of ten residents didn’t even care enough to vote. And our district has a large student population. It is a disgrace.
UPDATE February 7, 2011:
1984 Program ideas for “Ah, Those Marvelous Minnesota Public Schools”: 1984 Revisited001. This program was a cooperative venture involving private and public sectors which commenced with a kickoff event in August, 1984, featuring Astronaut and Willmar MN native Pinky Nelson as keynote speaker.
1984 Report of Mn Business Partnership “Educating Students for the 21st Century”: 1984001.
This report was issued as a criticism of Mn Public Schools and to my knowledge has never been assessed in terms of long term outcomes.
Personal Observations on Firing Bad Teachers, by Dick Bernard, blog post and Minneapolis Star Tribune column March, 2010: https://www.thoughtstowardsabetterworld.org/?m=20100318

#242 – Dick Bernard: A School for the Feeble-Minded

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When I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s, we would occasionally go to visit my Dad’s parents in Grafton ND.
While there, one of the certain trips was to the city park, Leistikow Park, on the bank of the Park River. It was an awesome place in the eyes of small town kids in the big city of Grafton (which probably was well on the short-side of 5,000 residents in those years).
Approaching the park we always passed what we knew as the State School for the Feeble Minded. There was one particularly large building that I remember, and on summer days the lawn was crowded with people we knew were very different from ourselves. Even in those years, when there was at least the beginnings of recognition of special needs, the perception was that these people were more-or-less warehoused, much as they would have been in an insane asylum. The financial resources and the political will were not yet there to help these persons who were very different from we supposedly normal folk.
We looked at those people behind the fence much like someone would look at animals in a zoo.

Undated photo of the main building at Grafton


By the 1950s enlightenment was beginning in states across the nation. Apparently, even though I remember the school only as the School for the Feeble Minded, its name had been changed even before I was born to the less descriptive “Grafton State School”.
By bits and pieces, everywhere, came new programs and attention and funding for “MAXIMIZING human potential for greater SELF-SUFFICIENCY*”
I’ve come to know about the importance and richness of the special needs community in the years since my youngest child was born Down Syndrome in November, 1975.
Heather is nearing 35 this year, and is a phenomenal human being.
This week I drew the pleasant duty of picking Heather up at her daytime work facility, Proact*, in Eagan MN. (It is Proact’s operating philosophy which I quote above.)
Off hours she lives in a pleasant suburban home with a couple of other special needs adults.
I’ve written before about her active engagement in after hours athletic activities most recently last month.
Last night, Heather watched the Vikings and the Saints at her sister’s home. She’s an avid sports fan.
It is easy to take for granted the safety-net we have constructed in this country for those less capable of competing on their own. It is easy to say they’re a waste of precious resources.
In a bygone day my Heather could have been one of those behind the walls of that School for the Feeble Minded. I sometimes wonder how it would have been had she been child, and I parent, 100 years ago. What forces would have worked on me, then.
Those were not the good old days.
And as for going back…when I picked up Heather yesterday, one of her workmates gave her a hug as she was leaving. Then this friend, named Mary, reached out her hand and said to me, “hi, I’m Mary”.
Can’t get any better than that.

Dick and Heather as photographed by the Smooch Project www.thesmoochproject.com

#199 – Dick Bernard: A New Cuyahoga Moment?

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Previous posts on this topic: here and here.
For years, when I’m “out and about” in our world I’ve made it a practice of picking up the local newspaper, however humble or exalted.
So, when we were about to leave Denver on June 6, I picked up the Sunday Denver Post, and when I wasn’t in the drivers seat, took time to read the news. Colorado and mountain west personalities and U.S. Energy Policy are very close kin, and the Post had two most interesting articles which can be accessed here and here and speak for themselves. Tidbit: The first words in the Post lead article say “[from] its creation in 1982, the Minerals Management Service…has been a conflicted agency.” In 1982, Department of Interior was headed by James Watt in the administration of Ronald Reagan, but it is impossible to find this most basic fact in either the articles or at the MMS website.
But as the deepwater catastrophe continues in the Gulf of Mexico, my memories go back to a memorable trip I took in early August of 1968.
I was a junior high school geography teacher back then, and the opportunity arose to get in my Volkswagen and take a solitary tour through parts of the northeast U.S. and southern Canada. I set a goal (which I met) of spending no more than $10 a day TOTAL for food and lodging, and off I went, with my starting and ending point of Columbus, Ohio. I wanted to see some of the geography about which I was teaching. I remember the trip vividly. Here is the thumbnail synopsis: (I was young, then, and I could accomplish a lot in what were some very long days of trying to see everything possible).
First night, Charleston W Va, including seeing a giant chemical plant on the Kanawha River
Second night, Fredericksburg VA on the Rappahannock, after seeing giant coal trains just into Virginia, driving by the military complex at Norfolk-Newport News; Colonial Williamsburg
Third night, some unremembered town in the exhausted Anthracite mining district of Pennsylvania, after driving through Washington DC, which was not recovered from the 1968 riots after MLK’s assassination; Gettysburg; a tour of the Hershey Chocolate Factory (we watched Hershey Kisses being made!)
Fourth night, Elmira NY, once a home of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Fifth night, some forgotten tiny town near Lake Ontario in northern NY after a day of mostly just driving, after a morning visit to Corning Glass Works in Corning NY. (My vivid memory here was checking in to the hotel, and asking for a room key, and getting a blank stare. They didn’t have keys…. This was just one of many examples of my high quality accomodations.)
Sixth night, Pembroke, on the Ottawa River in Ontario, seeing rural Ontario to and from, and log rafts on the Ottawa River.
Seventh and probably last night, Lockport NY, on the old Erie Canal, and not far from Niagara Falls.
The last day I drove along Lake Erie very early in the morning, and reached my destination of Oil Creek State Park near Titusville PA when no one was around. This was ground zero of American oil in 1859. Much to my surprise, a pump was running and a trickle of oil was coming out of a spigot. I rummaged in a garbage can and found an empty Iron City beer bottle, and filled it with Pennsylvania crude, turned on the screw cap and went on to see United States Steel in Pittsburgh before finishing the last leg to Columbus and home.
It was a warm day, and I forgot a basic physical fact: heated oil expands. I came back to my car and the oil had exploded the beer bottle, and I had a mess on the floor of my back seat. It was my first oil spill….
But that doesn’t explain the title of this post.
A year later, in Cleveland OH, the Cuyahoga River caught fire. In the same time frame, Lake Erie became almost a dead lake, and concern was raised about those wonderful phosphate rich detergents that not only were remarkable cleaners, but devastated the environment. We were killing ourselves. The American People Noticed.
In 1972 Congress passed the Clean Water Act.
It occurs to me that my little jaunt as a young geography teacher in 1968 was a look at the beginning of the end of the good old days of our business as usual U.S. industrial history. But changing habits is a terribly hard exercise.
Maybe the deepwater catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will be the U.S. “Cuyahoga moment” of 2010. We are the ones who can make it so.

#174 – Dick Bernard: Revisiting a column on a teacher's career

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UPDATE Sat. March 20, 2010: At the end of this post I mention a long-ago note from a student to my Dad. Yesterday afternoon I located him. He lives in Oregon, and has severe MS. He’s probably about 65 now. His sister, who lives in California and gave me his address, thinks he’ll really appreciate hearing from me. So it goes.
A week ago, March 11, 2010, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published my op ed on my Dad’s teaching career. The column finally resulted in at least 50 comments, 37 of which are on the Star Tribune website, the rest to me, personally. [content of the column is included at the end of this post.]

I wrote the column “from the heart”, as I admitted in a comment to a blog which picked up and published the op ed. I began to question myself: “did I overstate my case”. After all, Dad’s leaving all of those jobs was never dramatic. There was no Donald Trumps “you’re fired”; no being run out of town on a rail. The separation was quiet, the contract simply not renewed with no indication it was coming. There were no reasons, there didn’t have to be. As my youngest brother commented during the days following the column, Dad never bad-mouthed anyone. We just moved on.
Dad did leave behind a summary he wrote of each teaching experience he and Mom had together. I pulled it out of the file, and read it. He never said he was fired, in any instance.
But as I pieced together the reality of the 26 years when one or another of we kids was alive and living at home, he indeed was “fired” at least three times, and probably two or three others as well. The others they left under their own power. Often those voluntary quits from the next towns were because those positions were very inadequate, for sundry reasons.
I can say with a lot of confidence that poor performance, morals, ethics were never an issue. In point of fact, Dad was more likely to have gotten in trouble because his standards were higher than for some specific power actor(s) who controlled whether he stayed in or left the community. Properly disciplining the wrong kid was a job security issue for my Dad.
In his last assignment, when my youngest brother graduated from high school, the high school baseball team won the State High School Baseball Championship. The baseball coach became the new Superintendent, replacing Dad. That’s how it went.
A week after the op ed, I am very, very comfortable that I did not overstate the case.
The words I used in the op ed that I choose to highlight now are Public Servant, and Due Process. Public School employees were and in many ways are still considered to be like a Hired Man or Housekeeper; to keep some stability in the relationships, the due process rights enshrined in teacher contracts need to be kept in force.
My parents were great teachers, and they deserved better than they got.
As it goes in the profession of teaching, there were small victories on occasion.
In Dad’s files I came across a high school graduation announcement including a male students photo and name. The card was dated for a specific year, so I knew in what town they had been living. “These Keepsakes are presented with My Deepest Appreciation and Gratitude for the Educational Opportunities that you have given me” said the printed text, and below was a handwritten note to “Mr. Bernard, I would like to express to you my deepest appreciation for the help you have given me the past two years. I know we have had our disagreements, but I guess everyone has them. Anyway, I can see now that everything was for my own good. Thank you. Sincerely, _____”
I didn’t know the student or the surname, so I asked my siblings who had lived in this particular town, if they knew this boy. One wrote back, noting, to be polite, that the kid was not a prize.
I noted back that teachers tend to keep these kinds of notes – they’re validation for the impossible task they try to perform under sometimes very difficult circumstances.
That student from almost 50 years ago will get his announcement back, if I can locate him. I wonder how he turned out. Stay tuned.
*
Addenda: In the Star Tribune comments noted above, I filed three of my own. Here they are:
Here’s a comment I made to “the cuckingstool” blog: it sort of sums it up for me. In addition I am including two comments I posted on the STrib website on the issue.
To Cuckingstood: I didn’t realize I’d become famous (or infamous) when I submitted this op ed earlier this week. I was writing from the heart. I was primarily reacting to the Newsweek cover story on getting rid of “bad teachers”, in conjunction with an earlier, accidental, discovery in December ’09 that there was some kind of organized covert attempted assault on teacher seniority in Minneapolis. I had read an earlier opinion in the STrib in December, along the lines of and probably closely related to the Samuels column, but can’t honestly say I’ve read the most recent Samuels et al post in its entirety.
Again, I wasn’t responding to Samuels.
Last I looked, there are nearly 40 comments on my STrib op ed, two of the final ones written by me. I make a couple of recommendations there, particularly about the need for true dialogue on the issues (which will be extremely difficult due to the obvious and quite certainly orchestrated attack mode against basic teacher protections like seniority and due process, and the unions which work to protect their members.) Nonetheless, true DIALOGUE amongst the warring parties is needed.
I have absolutely no beef against innovations like Teach for America, but there has to be a process in place to not have it end-around (and destroy) the basic rights of those already in the system.
*
Personal additions by myself to the submissions at the Minneapolis Star Tribune
After a day on-line
I wrote the commentary and have read all of the over 30 comments thus far, plus a dozen more received at home from persons who knew my parents and/or myself. Both Dad and Mom were professionals in every sense of the word and had high expectations for their children and their students. They were pretty typical of teachers in those small towns then, and now. At times Dad’s high expectations collided with some lower individual or community expectation, Power intervened, and lesser standards prevailed and Dad was gone. I can give examples. Being teacher or chief administrator in even a small district had its risks. Unions enhance public education and quality of society generally, but they represent a threat to some for assorted reasons, none truly related to quality. Are unions perfect? Or all school employees? By no means. They are human, like every other profession or institution. But they very significantly help rather than hinder the progress of society. Dad and Mom are long gone, but by no means forgotten. It would be my hope that this column leads to some true community dialogue on the topic at issue. I’m glad I had an opportunity to represent teachers. I hope I contributed a little. I think I did. Dick Bernard Woodbury
*
Probably my final comment, at the Star Tribune website:
To: “Thanks for the article and comment, Dick” (and others as well)
At the end of my second comment (above, “After a day on-line”) I say I “hope that this column leads to some true community dialogue on the topic at issue.” This will be difficult, as “dialogue” does not presume a conclusion before or even following the conversation, but perhaps some understanding might flow from the conversation. Dialogue is not some comment like, “get rid of seniority”, or “fire bad teachers”. My understanding, after a lifetime (literally) in and around public education is that, for example, pay scales were unilateral creations of school boards to deal with a problem: they were initially attempts to differentiate and reward people in their employ who had more training and experience, probably more responsibilities, and thus of greater value to the system. Teacher Unions were late into the process of developing salary schedules. As one octogenarian friend wrote to me, yesterday, when he began teaching in southern Ohio, teachers were regularly let go because younger, less expensive teachers were available and saving money (not quality) entered in. I don’t think pay was a factor in my Dad’s case, at least during the years that he was called Superintendent, and I was alive. He and I talked often about his experiences. My plea is, to all parties, dialogue, to at least attempt to understand. For a moment, leave Power at the door (very, very hard to do, especially for those with the Power.) I appreciate the Star Tribune’s printing my column. Due to editorial limits on number of words, I could not write at as great a length as I would have liked. Dick Bernard, Woodbury MN
*
On dialogue, taken from a column I wrote on “Truth” December 25, 2008. accessible here.
I have long been taken with a quotation I saw in Joseph Jaworsky’s book, “Synchronicity, the Inner Path of Leadership” (1996). Preceding the chapter on “Dialogue: The Power of Collective Thinking”, Jaworsky included the following quote from David Bohms “On Dialogue”. It speaks to this business of talking with, rather than talking to or at others:
“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.”
*
Minneapolis Star Tribune March 11, 2011:
Dick Bernard: Don’t forget those good old days for educators
DICK BERNARD
It seems, from a flurry of commentaries and letters in recent months, that it is again open season on public school teachers, and particularly their unions.
The mantra is always the same: the union is protecting bad teachers and it’s against doing good things, like getting rid of supposedly lifetime no-cut contracts.
Hardly ever is there real evidence of these failings. To make the charge is sufficient evidence.
I plead guilty to having worked full time for 27 years as a teachers union representative (MEA/Education Minnesota). I am further guilty of having taught public school for nine years before that. Long retired, I now have seven grandkids in public schools and a daughter who’s a principal of a large middle school.
I guess I know a bit about the subject at hand.
There is another credential I possess as well. I grew up (born in 1940) in the good old days when teachers had virtually no rights. Both of my parents were career public school teachers from 1929 through 1971. (Mom stayed at home raising her preschool kids for 13 of those years.)
We lived in small towns in a neighboring state. During my growing-up years (I’m the eldest sibling), we moved to eight communities. In each, Dad was called superintendent, but actually was a teaching principal, the administrator who was accountable to the local school board. Later, younger siblings followed my parents to two more towns, until the youngest graduated from high school in 1966.
My parents were outstanding teachers and outstanding citizens of their communities. I know. One or the other was my teacher for my last five years of public school. All five of their kids achieved at least a bachelor’s degree and all have had long productive careers.
But we moved often, and very often that move was necessitated by Dad being fired, in one or another odd and sometimes innovative way.
These were the good old days of “at will” contracts. All it took was some disgruntled citizen who knew the right people to dispatch these outsiders at the annual contract renewal time. (In my files I have nearly every one of those single sheet “contracts” signed by my parents in their careers.)
Dad always took a philosophical view of the firings, but down deep, I think they hurt him deeply. Recently I came across an essay he wrote about the various ways he was fired during his long career. It was funny, in a very sad way.
Protections that are revolting to some — things like due process, seniority, continuing contract — came about because of abundant abuses in those good old days when the teacher was, literally, a “public servant.”
It’s much nicer to just label some generic teacher as “bad,” and then to blame the evil union for protecting his or her right to due process.
I’d suggest that those who wish to eliminate teacher rights and defang teacher unions had best be very careful lest they get what they pray for. They would not like the results.
Are there “bad teachers”? Of course. Just as there are bad parents, bad executives, bad politicians, bad journalists. We know them when we see them.
Or do we?
Those seeking to get rid of seniority and the like can find more constructive ways to help public education.
Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.
Dick Bernard, Woodbury, is a retired teacher and union representative.

#158 – Bob Barkley: "Useful to those in power…."

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I have been reading Howard Zinn’s A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. It is a collection of his essays on a variety of topics all of which portray the benefits of civil action to reign in the powerful.
About half way through there is an essay on Nationalism. In it I was struck by the term applied to certain factors that are “useful to those in power.” I had not thought of this label applied to many of the attributes the concern me but it is about as apt a description as I have heard for many of these negatives.
There is nationalism – the blind support for the fictitious boundaries that separate people only, for the most part, due to the pure chance of their birth. Nationalism is used to rally support for “your country” against any other country that does not agree with your leader’s espoused definition of what is best for your country. It is terribly useful to those in power in your country, and they almost always exploit it to their ends. Often those citizens who are not in agreement with their national leaders at a particular point in time are labeled as traitors to their nation.
There is religious fundamentalism – the extreme and historically and theologically unsupported allegiance to a literal interpretation of conveniently isolated and selected excerpts from the Bible or other holy document. Those in power in the US and in many Middle East countries almost always introduce or close their official statements with some utterance of loyalty to a popular divinity. It is exploited to the point that there is almost never a second thought given to it.
There is imperialism – the assumption that through whatever means your country has at its disposal, and for whatever purpose/need your leaders assume is justified, your nation can impose itself on others. By dramatizing that purpose/need, a nation’s leaders exploit popular zeal for imperialistic invasion and occupation of foreign lands. It is extremely useful to those in power to trumpet the threat of others to the selfish and often shortsighted wants of the people. Such behavior is specifically inconsistent with the teachings of all major religions yet this is conveniently ignored by those in power – EVEN many of those in power in these religions.
There is patriotism – the expectation for all those in a particular country to steadfastly display loyalty to one set of beliefs about how a country should behave as defined by that country’s leaders. Allegiance to those leaders themselves is misplaced for allegiance to what the country actually stands for or the principles upon which it was founded and established. Almost without exception national leaders define patriotism as loyalty to their particular beliefs and goals and anyone who does not espouse those particular beliefs and goals are branded as unpatriotic. In deed, we go on to celebrate events and people who have adhered to the popular beliefs and goals at a particular time in history even when history proves beyond doubt the inappropriateness of such adoration. Columbus Day comes to mind.
There is divine sanction – the almost incredible and inane conclusion that whatever evil or violence a nation imposes upon others is justified by some message from a divinity of some sort. While this grows out of the religious fundamentalism spoken to earlier, it is unfortunately and often unconsciously adhered to even by those that would not be considered religious. “In God We Trust” emblazoned on the coinage of the nation or on our license plates is an example of the aura of divine sanction that subtlety engulfs us all – often with not a second thought by many. We even have presidents who proudly proclaim that “God told me to do it,” or “I prayed about what to do” to explain away their actions that seem inappropriate to many of us.
There is the claim of moral purpose – the ultimate in an ends justify means mentality. And too often the moral purpose is, in fact, immoral and is little more than violent revenge and reactionary and driven by emotion rather than reason. At these times the hard work and competence demanded of nonviolence is rejected out of hand. And, throughout history, in the case of military super powers, the easiest alternative is military action justified by some strange morality.
There is the sense of moral superiority – the illusion that whatever is done is acceptable because of the erroneous assumption that ones own country is surely more moral than any of its competitors/enemies. This sense leads to the claim of moral purpose. Those in power almost never reveal any thought that their country could be wrong and is certainly as moral as it could possibly be – at least comparatively. And the people find it convenient to fall in step with such thinking, so leaders exploit it without exception.
To sum this up there is the over riding loss of any sense of proportion – the inability and/or unwillingness to apply reason and deep thought to the grand scale of what is happening around us. We have been wired to emotional and shallow reasoning. Psychologists have been pointing this out repeatedly. It is not new but it is fatal if not challenged. It is an outgrowth of a combination of stunted education and continual spin by the media and politicians. It is easier to follow than think, and leaders exploit this phenomenon endlessly.
All these characteristics are present in trump today. They serve our leaders well and we the people poorly. They must be raised to public consciousness and publicly challenged.
Bob Barkley, counselor in systemic education reform, author, and retired Executive Director of the Ohio Education Association. Worthington, Ohio.

#143 – Dick Bernard: YouTube, Elders and Youngers

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UPDATE January 7, 2010: Representative comments follow, plus a followup observation from the writer of the original post. (I have disabled comments due to an avalanche of ‘spam’. My e-mail address is on the “About” page.)
Yesterday afternoon an e-mail announced that I was on YouTube. Since I’ve not been on YouTube before (at least to my knowledge), I rushed to the link. Indeed I was there, the last minute and a half or so.
When I opened the movie, there had been no views at all, not surprising since only my friend, Lynn Elling, and I, had received the e-mail announcing it. Besides, when the young man, who was one of the founders of YouTube in 2005 (and a few years earlier a student at St. Paul MN Central HS), put up the first link of himself at the San Diego Zoo, I suppose he was the first and among the very few viewers of that famous YouTube video, too. ( I looked just now, and there have been five viewers of my ‘show’; I doubt my performance will go viral, like Minnesota Wedding, with over 37,000,000 views since last summer, but one takes what fame one can get!)
The three of us who speak on the Dec. 21 video were at a local school, rededicating it as a peace site. Lynn Elling who founded World Citizen has campaigned against the horrors of war since he witnessed the aftermath during three years as a Naval Officer in the Pacific in WWII. He’s a hero of mine. Martha Roberts is current President of World Citizen.
I wasn’t listed among the speakers, but was called on near the end, and expounded for a bit on a disconnect I was feeling in the class room of 15 year olds.
The feeling came when Mr. Elling talked about a workshop that changed his life in the late 1940s. Leader Maxwell Maltz (Psychocybernetics) convinced Lynn, then a floundering insurance salesman about to quit the trade, that if he could visualize any goal “in three dimensions, technicolor and stereophonic sound”, that goal could come to life – and it did for Lynn, who became very successful in his financial products business.
But as I was listening to Lynn, along with the 30 15 year olds, it occurred to me most of those kids had no idea what, at minimum, “technicolor” or “stereophonic sound” were; and were it not for rare movies like the current Avatar, “3 dimension” (called 3D, of course) would be equally foreign to them. So, when I was unexpectedly given an opportunity to speak, that disconnect is what I expounded about. (Most of that portion is edited out, but the reference to computers also applies.)
Lynn was in college when I was born; 40 when I graduated from college. To those 15 year olds, mostly born in perhaps 1994, I realized I was well beyond ancient as well.
Their view and their vocabulary and their skill-sets are entirely different than those of myself, or Lynn, or Martha. More so than any time in history, Elders and Youngers have relatively few life experiences or expertise in common. We live in different worlds.
It is obvious, but too seldom considered, that there exists a big generation gap between today’s Elders, who care a lot about the future for the Youngers, and the Youngers themselves.
I tried to point out to the kids I was talking to that we want to help them achieve their future, but in reality, their future is in their hands, not ours. I was speaking from the emotion of the moment, without holding back.
We have to learn how to better communicate between generations.
We’ve got a long ways to go.
Take a look at me in the movies. Enjoy the show. It’s less than 5 minutes in all, 1 1/2 minutes of me, so no time for popcorn.
(Truth be told, I looked again at the Minnesota Wedding. Now that’s interesting!)
Comment from Carol Ashley Jan. 4, 2010: You said “their future is in their hands, not ours.”
I have often heard this at graduations and it bugs me. We’ve created their future by our own actions and we still (or did before the corporate takeover) have a lot of effect on the world. I think it wouldn’t hurt if we took our cues from younger folk as we age.
If we tell young people only that the future is in their hands, do they believe it? I doubt it. Or at least not totally. They’ve not had much power up to that point. If we say it’s in their hands and we want to help them make the kind of world they want to have, then we not only let them know they have to create their future but indicate we will help. This, I would think, would be more apt to motivate them. It also focuses on a communal effort.
Better communication between young and old and in between certainly needs improvement. I so often see parents and other adults minimizing teen experience…first love, first breakup…all that stuff. If we took them seriously at all ages and really listened to them, I think they might listen to us, too. It’s easy to minimize the experiences of youth, but if we examined ourselves, we could see that those experiences are part of what makes us who we are. They are formative (to use a psychological term) and therefore very important. So I think we need to start by respectful listening. I think that applies to the split in our country, too. It’s not an easy task to listen to some one of a different political persuasion, especially if what we hear seems so untrue, but it is the first step.
This is all on the micro level. You, Dick, often have talked about those incremental steps. I’m sure those steps are important. It just doesn’t seem like they can work fast enough for the crises we see in the world today which is why I’m not very hopeful. Still, I think those steps are important wherever and whenever we have the opportunity or can make the opportunity.
Comment from Judy Berglund January 5, 2010: I took a few minutes to review the video, and I think you guys are on to something. I wish your remarks hadn’t been edited. You recognize something that few in our generation recognize: that we aren’t talking to our kids enough and we aren’t doing enough to understand how they communicate. Our kids are idealistic, and we can tap into that idealism through efforts such as your presentation. They feel powerless, and we can empower them through such presentations. Let’s do more to understand them and to help them understand us. Here’s to YouTube!!!
Comment from Lynn Elling (the other man in the video) to the person who made the video January 4, 2010: WOW!!!
Dick: It has been most interesting to review these and other comments, including the most recent one from a good friend who’s a retired teacher: “I was trying to guess their interest. Sometimes older people don’t connect with younger students so I was curious about the interest level.”
I was more “primed” for this than usual, since only a few weeks earlier I’d been to an excellent all day workshop entitled “Coming Forth as Elders: Heartening Community with the Vision of Elderhood“, facilitated by Kaia Svien and Eric Utne. Thirty or more of us had a day to sit with this topic, most of us in my age range – some a little older, most a little younger….
My audience on Dec. 22 was 10th graders. Their next stop after my little talk was lunch. I taught 8th and 9th graders for nine years, years ago so I know the species. A rock star would have his or her work cut out…! But I didn’t see anybody “cutting and running”…they were polite and well behaved. Perhaps I was sufficiently passionate so that they wondered, “where is HE coming from?” As Judy mentioned, I, too, wish that the rest of what was said was on the DVD (about 5 minutes in all, I’d guess.) But probably it is best as it is, the rest of the remarks left to each imagination (including my own).
The DVD has helped, already, to lead to conversation.
There is a communication gap between youngers and elders these days that is far greater than in the good old days, when the youngers worked the farm with their parents and were blessed (or stuck) with an environment where everybody lived life in common. With variations, other environments were similar.
Today there is a canyon between elders and youngers. Acknowledging it, and talking about it is the step to resolution. It will be slow and difficult, but it needs to happen.
Our generation has left a mess for the youngers; and while I didn’t feel at all empowered when I was 15 (in 1955); at the same time a future was being held for me when I matured. Today we are truly “spending our kids inheritance”, shamelessly. They don’t have the luxury I did.
In the e-mail exchange with the classroom teacher, I learned about an important event happening in San Jose in late March. The details are here. Check it out. Don’t be terribly surprised if you hear from me about the conference, if I can figure a way to attend…. (Find the upcoming events box and take a look, and let others know about this opportunity.)

#135 – Dick Bernard: Dad's Shoes

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Today is my Dad’s 102nd birthday (he passed away in 1997, not quite reaching 90.) He’s more on my mind than usual this year because, for the last several months, I’ve been trying to summarize 400 years of his French-Canadian ancestry in North America. I’m in the home stretch, now, thanks to many people. I’m calling the document “The First 300 Years”. It ends with Dad’s birth, December 22, 1907, in Grafton ND. It has been a fascinating, difficult, project. I’ll be glad when I can say I’ve finished it (probably in January.)

Josephine and Henry Bernard in 1908, with youngster Henry, and his sister Josie.

Josephine and Henry Bernard in 1908, with youngster Henry, and his sister Josie.


Dad was a tall man: he reached his adult height of 6’3″ about 8th grade – very unusual for those early days. His height gave him no particular advantage. He was a gangly kid, and he had big, flat feet – size 12 if I recall rightly. His nickname of “Boy” (when he was born the doctor said “it’s a boy”) stuck with him his entire life.
Dad’s big feet helped caused me a broken leg in 7th grade. He had a hand-me-down pair of racing skates – the ones with the very long blades – which were size 13. This particular day, at the schoolyard pond across the street from our house, I put on those huge skates, ended up on the end of “crack the whip” with a bunch of kids, fell, and broke my leg. It was my first experience with Dad’s shoes.
I got to thinking about Dad and his shoes a few days ago, when I took down his insulated walking boots from the shelf. I like to walk outdoors year around, and sometime back around Dad’s death, I “inherited” the walking shoes he used in the winter at Our Lady of the Snows, the place at which he lived his last ten years, in Belleville IL. I’m size 10 1/2, so his boots are a little large, but with heavier socks they fit just fine, and they’ll do me all winter. Unlike Dad, they haven’t “kicked the bucket” yet, and my guess is that they have more years left in them.
Here they are, a couple of days ago…
Bernard, Henry Shoes001
A few years ago, one Christmas, I gave each of my kids and the then-grandkids one pair each of my beat-up old shoes (I don’t easily throw stuff in the garbage!) I’m a couple of grandkids behind (this year they’ll get theirs – I’ve got two pair in mind!) The gift of the old shoes was, I admit, a bit on the odd side, but it was a gift.
On this day, Dad’s 102nd birthday, Dad’s Big Shoes come to mind. Whatever his good points, or deficiencies (like us all, he certainly wasn’t perfect), he cobbled me together, and then sent me on my merry way to practice, imperfectly, life.
I’d guess that every one of us, in one way or another, male or female, had similar Dad or Mom stories…about their Big Shoes and how they helped us grow to what we have become.
Doubtless my own kids have Dad stories about me.
I hope most of the stories are at least a tiny bit positive!
Happy Birthday, Dad, and Merry Christmas.

#134 – June Johnson: A 1940s Country School Christmas

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NOTE: Each year I’m drawn to this essay, written in December, 1985, for the teacher union newsletter on Minnesota’s Iron Range. June Johnson was then a teacher at Bigfork High School.
CHIPS FROM THE NORTHERN BRANCH by June Johnson
From somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I have plucked a Christmas memory which will be forever important to me.
Christmas on the North Dakota prairie was a time of anticipation and joy, a welcome respite from the hard times and unrelenting toil of everyday existence. Families were extremely impoverished and no “store-bought” gifts were imminent for most of the children who attended Souris #1. Excitement filled the air as mothers baked once-a-year “goodies” and sewed and baked and built gifts to be opened on Christmas morning.
The Christmas program at school was a yearly social event for the entire community No special lights or decorations were needed to enhance the appreciation of this day. The kids had planned, practiced and revised every noon hour for a month and were ready. A tree fashioned from prairie junipers decorated with strings of popcorn and thorn apples, and various homemade decorations was in place and a few small packages were already under it.
All year I had tried to get Frederic, a reticent second grader, to talk to me. An unusually polite youngster, he always had his work done but spoke to no one if it could be avoided. After the program was over, gifts were distributed and I was singularly impressed with the ingenuity displayed in the homemade gifts which were given to me. Coffee, hot cocoa and cookies were now being enjoyed by all. At this point, I felt a tug at my sleeve and found Frederic looking up at me. As I knelt down, he quickly placed a package in my hand. While he looked on, I opened it and found a sling shot and a bag of smooth stones. As I held out my arms, he hesitated only a moment before coming to me. Then he said, “I made it for you because I love you.”
In my cedar chest (which holds all my “treasures”), I have a box which holds a sling shot, a bag of stones, and the memory of a very special little boy.