#494 – Dick Bernard: On New Years Eve, A look back to 1960

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“What are you doing New Years…New Years Eve?”
For us, our six year old grandson will be an overnight guest tonight. That makes for a reasonably predictable “New Years Eve”.
As for the year just finishing, and the year ahead: 2011 depends on the interpreter; 2012 is as yet unknown. They’re all important, these New Years. Collectively we’ll be fashioning that six year olds future in the days and years ahead. We’re all he and all of his cohort, everywhere, have to depend on.
My favorite blogger, Alan, writing from LA, summarizes the year now ending in today’s Just Above Sunset posting.
His columns are long, but always a worthwhile read.
Earlier this week I took a stab at what’s ahead by reflecting on a college newspaper column I came across from November 3, 1960.
What I wrote follows: (if you’re one of those who wants to ‘cut to the chase’ read the bold-faced sections.)

Watching the Election Returns, November, 1960, in the "Rec Room" at Valley City ND State Teachers College. (from the 1961 Viking Annual)


“A TIME TO THINK”
I’m old enough to live in the fog of the “old days”.
But there are lessons…and teachers…from that past – people who are most often ‘anonymous’ or ‘unknown’. Here’s one such lesson, from someone called “Mac”.
Over 50 years ago – it was September 23, 1960 – a headline of the Viking News at Valley City State Teachers College (STC) proclaimed “Bernard Chosen as Viking News Editor”.
That fellow, Bernard, was me. Somebody concluded that I’d do okay at the job. Newspaper adviser Mary Hagen Canine kept copies of the fourteen issues published ‘on my watch’, and somehow the issues and the memories they record have managed to survive until the present day.
When that first issue published in late September, 1960, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy were vying for President of the U.S.

NY Gov. Nelson Rockefeller had whistle-stopped Valley City in June. He was a possible Republican candidate. I went down to the City Park to hear him speak.
In that first Viking News, I wrote an editorial, part of which referred to a column on the same page called “Meditations” by “Mac”. Mac, I said, was “Charles Licha [who] attended STC several years ago”. He had returned “for his last quarter before graduation. He is married and is the father of five children, and presently holds the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army.”

November 3, 1960, right before the election, “Mac” wrote a long column including a section, “A Time to Think”, directed to we students, many of us not yet 21 and thus ineligible to vote.
The column would fit today as well as it did then:
In part: “Walking down the hall the other day, I was suddenly struck by the thought that here at STC, a wonderful thing is taking place. I’m speaking specifically about two tables that are placed in close proximity to the rec room door. As closely as I can determine, one of these tables is strictly Democrat while the other is strictly Republican…What party are you for? Which man do you think is the Best Man? What are your reasons for your choices? Even if all of you are not of voting age, every one of you should have an answer to these questions and others questions equally as important.
He continued, “just remember that a portion of this country is yours, just as surely as though you held title or deed to it! For that reason the selection of the Chief Executive and lesser dignitaries charged with the affairs of the nation and the individual states should be of immediate concern to you. An attitude that smacks of “My one vote makes no difference, “I won’t vote because I don’t like either man,” or “I just don’t have the time” is not only anti-patriotic and stupid, it’s anti-you, and a direct denial of your responsibilities.”
Capt. Licha died in 1975 at only 48. By 1965 he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam (scroll down for photo). He had earlier served in WWII and Korea, and was career Army. Residual effects of Malaria contracted in WWII contributed to his death at a young age. The last few years of his career he taught ROTC at North Dakota State University in Fargo.
Compared with the rest of we collegians, he was a ‘senior citizen’ of 33 when he wrote his column.
He spoke much wisdom 51 years ago.
We his modern day contemporaries might well listen, reflect on his final piece of advice: to “vote intelligently and wisely” in 2012.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

#489 – Dick Bernard: A memory from a Christmas Past….

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A few days ago our towns police blotter reported that someone went into a back yard and cut down and stole a developing “Christmas tree”. It was a ‘bah humbug’ moment. How this will make for a Merry Christmas for the thief is beyond me, but, whatever….
It reminded me of my all-time favorite Christmas tree story, undated but circa 1940s, related by Bigfork MN high school teacher June Johnson in December, 1985. Here is her story, as it was originally printed in Top of the Range, the newsletter for public school teachers on Minnesota’s Mesabi and Vermillion Iron Range.
“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.”
I have never been able to type this piece without tears.
Back then, I asked June if she knew what happened to Frederic. My memory is that he became a career public official in North Dakota state government.
Best wishes for a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.
RELATED: My 2011 Christmas message, a reflection on “neighbor”, is here.

#474 – Dick Bernard: American Education Week

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This week is the annual observance of American Education Week (AEW), and today is Parents Day.
Lots of information about this week dedicated to the approximately one of six Americans who either attend or work in schools can be found here. Note links, including a history of the week, under American Education Week on the left hand side of the page.
Make no mistake: children are our future.
As I once heard Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith state so powerfully, young people in one or another way say “you can pay now, or you will pay later”. She was talking, then, about short-changing kids in a summer jobs program in a major midwest city – they said they couldn’t afford the program – and the major consequences for many kids with nothing to do, including the high costs of prison – the end of the road for those left without opportunity.

#472 – Dick Bernard: Penn State/Joe Paterno/Relationships between Vulnerable Children and Authority Figures

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There is no need to recite the volumes already, or to be, written about the story at Penn State. (I write, when they are on the field against Nebraska, at this moment, behind 10-0. Entering the game they were the 12th ranking football team in the nation, their opponent the 19th ranking team).
Of course, all that is totally irrelevant. As one commentator said a few minutes ago, it is as if the quarterback, Paterno, fumbled the ball on the goal line at the edge of the greatest victory in history….
I have another perspective that may add a bit to the necessary conversation.
Being human, with a fair amount of seniority amongst my cohorts in today’s population, I know a little bit about human nature.
Being Catholic, I know how stupidity plays out among power people who think that they can contain and control incidents of sexual abuse within the confines of their church authority (that began to unravel in the 1990s, a long time ago, and continues to this day.) It didn’t and doesn’t work. But some in authority still don’t quite get it.
But I have another insight, born of representing public school teachers in a teachers union from 1972-2000 and seeing the statutory transition from, initially, restrictions on corporal punishment (spanking), to mandatory reporting of even a suspicion of abuse of a child by an adult. The transition was complete long before my staff career ended. What astonishes me in the current situation is that this bunch at Penn State could have been so utterly clueless.
There have been, are, and will continue to be incidents of abuse in public education and elsewhere. We are humans, after all.
But in my particular venue, public education, the incidence was very, very tiny, but when uncovered very, very visible. (In the United States today there are perhaps nearly 50,000,000 children in schools; and perhaps 6,000,000 school employees including substitute teachers, aides, bus drivers, cooks, and on and on and on. With such an immense cohort, in school for an average of 171 days a year in Minnesota, there is no end of possibilities for problems, but amazingly few problems occur.)
In Minnesota, the relevant statute has existed since 1975, and can be viewed in its entirety here. It has been amended frequent times, and doubtless Penn State will cause it to be revisited once again.
I remember the general evolution of this law.
It began pretty simply, probably in 1975, essentially prohibiting spanking of, in anatomy terms, the gluteus maximus (to we lay people, the “rear end”). I don’t recall the genesis of the Law, but probably it was from some excess by someone, somewhere. It was a difficult adjustment for the enforcer in a school, often the shop teacher, more often the principal. The paddle had to go. To this day, there are some who advocate the paddle….
As years went on, the Law evolved.
I wish I could remember the year, but I think it was sometime in the 1980s, when the mandatory reporting provision was first enacted. This came to be called the ‘no touch’ rule in my public education jurisdiction.
The reaction was in the direction of zero tolerance of adult-child touch, in any of its manifestations.
I remember the most dramatic aberration (response): kindergarten teachers, virtually all female, became fearful of doing such innocuous things as helping a kid tie his or her shoelaces.
As time went on, the system and the individuals found more equilibrium, but the point remains, as it relates to Penn State, that the business of adult-vulnerable child relationships has been an active part of legal policy discussion since at least 1975 – 36 years.
There is an entire additional discussion, in this case, of the role of football as a symbol of power and authority in our society. Joe Paterno was an institution because he “brought home the bacon” for Penn State in prestige and money.
But, as I say, that is an entire other discussion.
UPDATES (Notice also comment included with this post):
Comment from Bonnie, Minneapolis: Well said, Dick. Hard to understand their cluelessness. Thanks for continuing your good work.
Comment from Bob, suburban St. Paul, Nov. 12:The only moral response by Penn State would have been to forfeit the remainder of their season to emphasize the significance of this horrendous criminal behavior. The students and fans who want to deify their coach and gloss over this criminality need a strong message from the university that this behavior is to be abhorred and treated as a criminal matter.
I believe mandatory reporting started in about 1970 in Minnesota for a host of professionals such as medical personnel, social workers, all mental health professionals, and education staff. Defining abuse to include corporal punishment by teachers must have come later or in 1975. Prior to the mandatory reporting law it was very hard for doctors and others to report abuse for fear of being sued by the parent for violating confidentiality. In 1969 or so I attended a conference at the U of Denver where a Dr Kemp had identified the “battered child syndrome”. I was with a contingent from Ramsey County including the local juvenile court judge, the head of psychiatry at the old St. Paul Ramsey, a county attorney, a police officer and others. When we came back we developed the Ramsey County Child Abuse Team to facilitate coordinated action by the various entities that intervene in abuse cases. Mandatory reporting has been on the books in Pennsylvania for many years. The Penn State staff had to know about their legal obligation to report. It is the same old story of those in power believing that their sacred institution (Church or Football Program) has priority over civil law.
My dates or years are a bit fuzzy but I believe roughly correct without doing in-depth research.
Note from Dick: whatever the actual dates, awareness about abuse, and the laws on reporting, have a very long history.
From Jeff, south suburbs, Nov. 13: The parties involved need to be punished severely… that means the offender
Sandusky, and if any coaches or university officials condoned or did not
report the crime then they also should be prosecuted if they broke the law
in PA.
Obviously Penn State will pay a very heavy price in lawsuits and settlements
in regard to this matter. These civil actions will help Penn State and
other institutions understand that protecting innocent children is paramount
and institutional protection of football or a university’s name is nothing
compared to this. Just think of how Penn State would have been held up as a
correct role model had they handled the situation the way it should have …
morally and legally.
As to the matter of football games. I personally differ on this. if the NCAA
or the State of PA wants to punish the football program at Penn State in the
future that is fine. The games that are set up are contracts that are
certainly not inviolate, and Penn State could forfeit them of course. I
think it would have been difficult last week. My feeling is however that
the players in the program today, and the students at the University today
should not be punished for things they had no involvement in. if the
program is punished in the future in some way , and both criminal and civil
sanctions and punishments are metered out as they are justly deserved I
think that is enough for now.
I do have sensitivity to the fact that sports or a sports program should not
supersede the criminality and heinous nature of the offenses ; but I also
think that punishing students and student athletes today for things that
happened 10 years ago and for which they had no control would be wrong in my
eyes.
Another followup comment from Bob in suburban St. Paul: Dick, I just attempted some research on the origins of our law in MN without much success. I did learn that in 1962 the medical profession began bringing the subject to our attention. In 1974 the federal government passed legislation providing funding to for state programs to address the issue. I do know we were in Denver in 1969 learning about how to develop a multi-disciplinary team at the local level. Just when MN outlawed child abuse remains question for me. Until states passed laws to make child abuse illegal it was dealt with under laws prohibiting cruelty to animals. What is stunning about the subject is the fact that it took us so long to define child abuse as criminal. Until then children were considered chattel. A doctor called me one time when I managed Child Welfare Intake for Ramsey County. He was trying to tell me through the use of obscure language that this young teen-age girl was a victim of incest. He could not be explicit or give me facts to go on because the law did not mandate reporting and he was going out on a limb legally. When I asked him for facts or how he knew these things, he said I just had to trust his medical acumen. It was obvious that this doctor was very nervous about telling me anything but wanted to tip us off. After the law was passed he was required to report and was protected legally. Thankfully we have advanced somewhat, but obviously not at Penn State. Bob
And yet another, from Bob, on Nov. 13: Dick, Try as I may the earliest mandetory reporting law I can find for Minnesota dates to 1974. This seems at odds with my memory of Judge Archie Gingold and others pushing for such a law as early as I969, and our child protection interventions prior to 1974. Perhaps we used other other child protection laws and the mandatory reporting law came along later in 1974, which also provided legal protection for the reporter and really changed everything. My memory is obviously flawed. Bob

#470 – Dick Bernard: Public Schools, and the kids in them, matter

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Sometimes seemingly random events have a real element of synchronicity to them: they seem to have no relationship, but in every meaningful way, they are directly related. I recently experienced two such synchronous events.
Wednesday, November 2, I was invited to a house party in south Minneapolis. The event was to recognize the first ten years in the history of a truly remarkable independent and non-partisan organization: Parents United for Public Schools (“PUPS”). The groups website (click here) says it all far better than I ever could.
I was invited to the gathering because in the first few months during which PUPS was evolving from idea into reality I participated in the early organizational meetings of the group. We were something of a ‘rag-tag’ bunch then – simply parents, grandparents and taxpayers who really cared about public schools. Back then, in 2002, there was no organization, no dues, no staff, and thus no guarantee of a future. After a few meetings, a bunch of us sat around in a circle at a library in the west suburbs and had our say. At my turn, I simply urged the group to stay in existence so that it would still exist at the beginning of a second year.
The organizers slogged on (such efforts are never easy), and here they are, still independent ten years later, a recognized and highly credible voice for Minnesota’s children.
At the gathering, Minnesota Education Commissioner Dr. Brenda Casselius stopped by to share a few words about her passion for kids and public education. (click on photo to enlarge it)

Craig Roen, PUPS Board President, and MN Department of Education Commissioner Dr. Brenda Casselius, Nov. 2, 2011


For those who lament that its impossible to change a resistant status quo, PUPS is an excellent validation of the timeless quotation of Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” No one in PUPS is under the illusion that they’ve ‘won’; but their winning is in their continuing to advocate for children and for public schools. They’re in this for the long haul. They won’t quit.
The following Wednesday, I was invited to speak to a group of senior citizens in the south suburbs of the Twin Cities. My topic was public education. This group, like myself, had long before seen their children leave K-12 public education. In not too many years, the over 65 cohort will equal the number of students in Minnesota public schools. I call people like us “outside the walls” of public education.
I took on the task of attempting to briefly capsulize 150 years of Minnesota Public Education, as well as the current ‘lay of the land’ in public education. It is up to the group of 15 folks to judge whether or not I succeeded, but as I was preparing what I was going to present I had in mind the meeting the previous week.
Succinctly, at issue in Minnesota Public Education are about 840,000 public school students (one of every six Minnesotans), using about $9,500,000,000, about one-fourth of the total state budget. This seems like an immense number (and it is) but as I pointed out to the group of senior citizens (all of whom know someone who is actually in public school), this amounts to about $66 per day per student – hardly a kings ransom.
But because the enterprise is so immense and complex and far-flung, and because the consumers, the kids, cannot vote and have little say, public education is a fertile field for near warfare between assorted factions who wish to control both inputs and outcomes. Dialogue and seeking consensus can be difficult.
At the end of my talk (which was “peppered” with lots of constructive dialogue) I identified two crucial areas for the future of Minnesota public education:
1) Minnesotans have to commit to work together to help solve the very real problems in what is called the ‘achievement gap’ in the core cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and elsewhere where poverty is a problem. There is no room for propaganda or punishment on this need. We must work together.
2) Schools have an absolutely critical need to engage with the huge percentage of us who are “outside the walls” of public education (over 60% of households have no one under age 18 living in them; 75-85% of today’s taxpayers have no children of their own in school). We cannot be left as outsiders.
Yesterday was, today is, and tomorrow is at stake.
Thanks PUPS, and to all who care, thanks as well.

#435 – Dick Bernard: But/And

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Directly related posts here; here; and here.
Tuesday night I was invited to a closing event of a well known program of Landmark Education, a world wide and well known personal improvement program.
I’m well acquainted with Landmark Education, having taken much of their curriculum 13 years ago. The event was an evening very well spent.
We were given a very simple exercise: to identify (my interpretation of the exercise) some decision making quandary of two options, separated by the word BUT.
A personal example of mine might be:
I’d like to lose a few pounds, BUT I like pie and ice cream (amongst a large array of such temptations)
There are endless variations on this quandary.
Then, the instructor asked us to replace the BUT with AND, so my statement would now become:
I’d like to lose a few pounds, AND I like pie and ice cream….
(I had my annual physical yesterday and the dreaded scale at the beginning of the process shows which of these has won. I wasn’t surprised.)
There followed an interesting discussion of the distinction (again, my interpretation) between these two statements.
When we use the BUT word in such matters, we are, in effect, making a decision: one option over the other. The word decision is in itself an interesting word. It shares a root with words like suicide, homicide, insecticide and on and on and on. When you decide something, you elect one fork in the road, and kill off the other.
Often a decision is made in anger, with frequent unpleasant results. Prisons are full of people who made decisions out of anger and killed somebody. (Whole societies can make decisions which ultimately cause their death, too. That includes our own American society, at this point in our history.)
The AND word connotes a right to choose, and in fact to change one’s mind. With choice, you’re not killing off other options.

Both BUT and AND have their merits and their problems; BUT, however, tends to be terminal. Deciding ones route tends to burn the bridge to the other route.
Before the exercise, the person who invited me and I were discussing some of the happenings in our respective lives. She happened to mention a meditation group that she had chosen to join, with some reservations, but had come to find very fulfilling for her.
In the course of the conversation, she mentioned a friend who had a weight problem, who was in the meditation group. In some manner, at some point, her friend chose to focus on a single meal each day, rather than look on the transformation as a 24 hour a day seven days a week task.
She took on her choice and over a period of time lost 35 pounds.
Apparently a very good choice.
I’m like everyone else, with plenty of BUTs impeding me in my life.
Time to replace a few of them, at least, with ANDs.
Maybe looking at that “pie and ice cream” as “sugar and fat” (which is what they are) will make a difference (I was going to say “can make a difference”, but that’s a cop out.)
As individuals, and as a society, we can make good choices or awful decisions.
We will choose what decision to make.

#386 – Dick Bernard: My 2:43 Speech*, and some thoughts on Climate Change

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* June 17, in this space, I related a dream about a 2:43 speech.
Here’s my version of that speech, considerably shorter than two minutes.
“Speak your truth to others, particularly those who may disagree with you. Listen. Learn. Participate. Keep open the possibility that there may be flaws in what you believe to be true. Listen outward, beyond your own preferred circle, at least as much as you listen inward to people who share your own beliefs. Imagine being in a circle. Usually, in our ever-more polarized society, we sit exclusively in circles, looking inward, with people who share our point of view. To do so is to deny the much greater world behind our backs, outside our circle: other circles with other legitimate points of view….”
What Professor Abraham’s talk on Climate Change on Thursday night did was to not only shake loose my dream; but cause me to articulate it publicly.
Dreams are private happenings. I haven’t studied dreams but at minimum they are our own brains speaking when the clutter of the conscious world has quieted.
In the context of Thursday, during the question time, I had written my question on a card for the Professor: “Was Al Gore correct in Inconvenient Truth?”
Doubtless, this is a common question to a Climate Scientist, and to my recollection, the Professor’s answer was brisk and with no hesitation: “Probably 90% accurate”, he said, relating a couple of areas where Mr. Gore’s analysis might have been a bit off target.
He suggested directly that the flap over Gore’s analysis was a good example of the clash between science and politics. Because Gore had been pigeon-holed as having a certain political point-of-view, his enemies had to dismiss his arguments, regardless of the truth they might contain. Enemies are, after all, never right.
Dr. Abraham didn’t mention the impact of belief, though he could have: often we say, “I don’t care what the facts are. This is what I believe.” It is an easy dodge of an unpleasant reality, but that doesn’t change the reality.
He went on to the next question, and I thought to myself in school boy terms: 90% would get a grade of A or A-.
A pretty good grade, I’d say. Not only that, but Mr. Gore brought the issue out of the shadows of public discussion.
Towards the talks conclusion, Prof. Abraham commented on the disagreement about the state of Mother Earth, and human impact on this condition called Climate Change. He proposed a manner of looking at this, using the analogy of a person knowing something was not right, and seeking a doctors opinion, and then a second opinion and third and so on. By the end, 100 opinions had been received, 97 of these agreeing on the diagnosis; with the remaining three equivocating about or denying the problem. Would the reasonable person go with the 97 concurring opinions, or with the three dissenting? It’s a choice after all.
The 3% dissenters have been remarkably successful in disputing Climate Change. All they need to do is to sow doubt, Dr. Abraham said. But as with the person who denies a medical condition until it is too late to do anything about it but die, so can humanity, particularly those of us in the so-called ‘developed world’, do ourselves in…in much shorter a time span than we might think.
I sat there thinking about other issues of the day, as peace and war, the economy, relations with others, etc., etc., etc. His talk had come in the midst of a particularly rich – and also absurd – political week in both my life and in the national conversation, so that ‘noise’ bounced around for me as well.
I close as I began: “Speak your truth to others, particularly those who may disagree with you. Listen. Learn. Participate. Keep open the possibility that there may be flaws in what you believe to be true. Listen outward, beyond your own preferred circle, at least as much as you listen inward to people who share your own beliefs. Imagine being in a circle. Usually, in our ever-more polarized society, we sit exclusively in circles, looking inward, with people who share our point of view. To do so is to deny the much greater world behind our backs, outside our circle: other circles with other legitimate points of view….”
Here’s to conversation – to dialogue. Here’s to action.

#378 – Dick Bernard: Words

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This morning a friend of mine came in to the coffee shop about the time I was leaving, sat down at the table next to me and opened to the Opinion Page of the Wall Street Journal for May 28-29 weekend edition. The banner headline was “Word of the Decade” ‘Unsustainable’ “ by Peggy Noonan. A featured photo was Rep. Paul Ryan.
Noonan is a well known writer, former member of the Ronald Reagan administration, and chief speechwriter for George H.W. Bush when he ran for President in 1988.
Earlier, before coming for coffee, I’d read a piece by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, in which certain public ‘facts’ from said Rep. Paul Ryan about medical costs were challenged. That article is here.
The previous Saturday, I heard former U.S. Representative Jim Oberstar, a veteran of 18 terms in the House of Representatives, talk with encyclopedic knowledge about things like Medicare and Social Security. Ryan and Oberstar could as well as have been on different planets.
Into this mess of interpretations of data comes the unsuspecting citizen, not knowing what to believe.
Peggy Noonan, on the conservative side, writes well – she was a Presidential speech writer after all. She knows how to lay out words.
Paul Ryan, another conservative, seems like a nice sincere intelligent young man. Certainly he wouldn’t lie, especially to his younger cohort.
Ezra Klein, a liberal, is a very young but recognized columnist for Washington D.C.’s main newspaper – he’s a young man who has access that the rest of us cannot imagine.
Jim Oberstar, another liberal, knows the real data probably better than any of the others from having lived within the institution that is the Congress for 46 years.
Each of these persons, and everyone else who uses words or images in print or in voice or visual media, seek to make a convincing case that their particular ‘spin’ will become policy.
Of course, policy can be tilted in a direction that will prove anyone’s point. If you wish to make something ‘unsustainable’ – to “starve the beast” as government was once described – you seek policies to make that result happen. You can’t starve someone, and make the victim stronger.
If you believe that certain government policies can be of value, and protected for the long term with relatively minor changes, you seek that result.
There is a war of words going on, and it is the task of the citizen, the voter, to attempt to discern somewhere the truth of the matter, and the protection of his or her best interest. But peoples eyes glaze over at words. “They’re all lying” is too common a mantra.
For the common person, which most of us are, discerning truth can be very difficult because Big Money controls in very substantial part the media of this country. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, is not the champion of the little guy or gal.
So, who’s truth is the truth? Noonan’s? The Wall Street Journal Editorial Pages? Paul Ryan’s? Ezra Klein’s? Jim Oberstar? And on and on and on and on.
Caveat Emptor.
UPDATE: I keep these columns brief on purpose – even the above 513 words (a regular newspaper column is about 600 words) is too long for many people to take time to read, much less to think about. Besides, I’m just an ordinary person: what do I know? (by implication, I know less than the four experts cited above). I beg to differ, but who cares….
But sometimes you need length. And just a few hours after I published the above came this much longer post by a Los Angeles blogger , on essentially the same topic of Words, in this case, focusing on the recent visit on the topic of Israel/Palestine. (I mention the words “Los Angeles” because this makes the blogger seem more important, coming from a bigger city than I. Of course, “Los Angeles” can be spun in different ways as well. Words….)
In this Twitter and Facebook Generation, sparcity of words is most essential.
But this will certainly kill us all, if we don’t begin to think things through.
Consider reading the longer post…and really consider the implications, to you, of official lying.

#368 – Dick Bernard: Reprising National Teacher Day Commentary May 3, 2011

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Between the May 3 post on National Teacher Day and May 7 came the latest issue of Newsweek which included a non-affirming message for wealthy folks seeking to impose change on public schools. Their experiment seems to have been less than a noble success, but don’t expect this to be widely reported.
I am one of the legion of lonely bloggers who toil in the vague shadows of major media. We tend to be belittled and dismissed. As the number on this post indicates, I am no longer an amateur; I just don’t have name recognition.
But when my post on Teacher Day went into circulation I got some most interesting responses, including one from Mary Ellen Weller in Madison WI which deserves its own space and attention on this blog. You can find it here. She seeks dialog, and I hope she receives some responses to her thoughtful writing.
My post got the usual array of responses, from “bravo” to (paraphrased) “the sooner unions disappear from the face of the earth, the better off we’ll be”. The kudos outnumbered the brickbats.
But there were three comments from separate individuals who had no idea of each others existence who more or less in the same language said the same thing, and that got me to thinking.
The three were all women, two from Minnesota, one from Oregon. The two Minnesotans were retired after long careers in education. The third did not relate her background.
Each of the three specifically commented on what their mothers, all three career teachers, had told them somewhere along the line of growing up.
The general thread was this (paraphrased): “it’s very hard work, don’t expect anything other than the satisfaction of doing good for your students”. One said she didn’t think her mother would favor unions, but she wasn’t sure how she’d respond were she around to see what was happening in Wisconsin at this time in history.
I’m Catholic and went my first six years to Catholic Schools, taught by Nuns, and frankly the comments reminded me of the Nuns extraordinarily difficult mission: to work very hard, with no rights, and many expectations. (I have good memories of my education, both in Catholic and Public School. The Catholic Church is not exactly overrun with Nuns these days…the remaining orders of Nuns know the value of their mission, be it colleges or hospitals or whatever. The individual Nuns retain the vows of poverty, etc., but many orders are not poor.)
Thinking about those three Moms: were they in today’s environment, would they not be inclined to protest. Would they accept their lot in life as a public servant? I don’t know.
My own teaching career began back in those good old days before teachers got rights and contracts and all the rest. It was indeed a powerless time.
For me the times changed in the late 1960s when teacher anger coalesced and boiled over and some degree of parity began to be demanded. This was a hugely troubling time for most lawmakers, school board members and school administrators who were accustomed to having their own way, and now had to, at minimum, be somewhat accountable for their own actions, and recognize something called teacher rights.
I began on union staff in March, 1972, which coincided, exactly, with the beginning of the bargaining of the first teacher contract under Minnesota’s Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA). Those were heady and difficult times when both sides made ample and sometimes serious mistakes as they learned new relationships and new roles.
It occurs to me that when that first contract was negotiated, only a tiny number of today’s teachers had even begun their teaching career, and large numbers who started their careers after 1972 have already retired.
Many, perhaps most, of today’s teachers don’t realize what those three female teachers endured in the days before rights.
I wonder how today’s teachers will respond to the current attacks.
It is a serious question.

#365 – Dick Bernard: A Troubling National Teacher Day, May 3, 2011

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Since May 3, 1985, National Teacher Day in the United States has been observed on the first Tuesday in May. About 1944 an Arkansas teacher first had the idea of a National Teacher Day, and in 1953 the first such day was observed.
May 3, 1985, I was Minnesota Education Association field staff (some would say “teacher union rep”, which I was), on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Home base was Hibbing; my area was from Ely to Deer River and beyond. I don’t recall the specifics of that Teacher Day, except that it was a time of pride to be a public school teacher. I would work for teachers for the next 14 National Teachers Days. They were always good days….
While international events may have scuttled my (and other) submissions on the value of teachers this date, here’s what I sent to the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Sunday:
“Today [May 3) is National Teacher Day in the United States; and this week is Teacher Appreciation Week.
Take the time today or this week to thank a teacher, or two, or more.
First on my own list are my parents who were public school teachers for a total of 71 years between 1929 and 1971. I was a student in their public school classrooms from 8th grade through high school graduation. Thank you, Mom and Dad.
But my parents were only two among many teachers, remembered and not, who made a huge difference in my life, in small and large ways over many years.
To college Prof. George Kennedy, who finally had it with me when I was being lazy and not doing my best in my college Geography major, thank you for getting angry at me. I remember….
To Mr. H, who was, yes, somewhat odd, but was always there and did his best with we “scholars” in high school: thank you. He taught me a great deal about accepting differences, just by being different, himself.
The list could go on and on.
These are harsh days for our teachers.
Today, more than ever, thank them.”
As noted above, this May 3 is not a very kind and gentle time for America’s teachers (which includes school administrators), and particularly for their and other public unions. One hardly needs a PhD to see the success of a campaign to demonize a great profession and the unions which represent public workers. The architects of the movement to enshrine as symbols of “teaching” the always-anonymous persons called “bad” or “ineffective”, and their unions, have been successful, probably beyond their wildest dreams. This campaign to denigrate began years ago.
There are big long term dangers to labeling groups based on actions of the few, but in the short term negative labeling does work….
The amateur “experts” are legion: from the guy I’d never seen before, who recently and loudly declared that teaching was too lowly an occupation to need a license (he noticed the headline of an editorial I was reading); to a freshman legislator wringing her hands in a public meeting about the problem of “bad” teachers – a topic about which she quite obviously knew nothing, beyond the script she was holding while reading.
Then there’s a good and respected friend who spends much of his time in the company of ‘movers and shakers’ of this major city and has apparently come to think, sincerely, that things like unions, seniority, salary schedules, contracts and due process protections are destroying good education by protecting “bad” teachers who should be replaced by fresh young faces unblemished by union things.
I’ve about heard it all.
(The amateur experts take their cue, of course, from the ‘movers and shakers’ who by and large control information. As stated so well by Connecticut Superintendent Gary Chesley in an Education Week commentary accessible below, there is “a national search for a scapegoat…teachers and the tenure laws present a fertile target for bombast and demagoguery.”)
There are, of course, big gaps in the information provided, like the specific names and circumstances of these supposedly “bad” and “ineffective” people who supposedly represent teaching. Revealing the names is apparently a risk (and responsibility) no one wishes to take. But that’s not relevant. If you can make an anonymous and supposedly defective teacher the symbol of an entire profession, why not? Indeed, creating a caricature – a cartoon – is even better than a fact.
There are other conjured issues: a friend who trusts me asked about teacher pensions, pretty obviously resenting the fact that teachers even receive pensions. Luckily I had an informed answer (which I don’t think he liked): Pensions Public001
But, this is National Teacher Day: If one can get past the negative, there is a huge amount of good out there, not hard to find. I saw it Thursday night at my Kindergarten granddaughters spring music concert for family and friends (click on photo to enlarge).

Kindergarten program at Lincoln Center elementary So. St. Paul MN April 28, 2011


I saw it Sunday morning at Church when a wonderful A Cappella high school choir (directed by a teacher) from a northern Minnesota city performed for us after services.
There was an excellent column in Sunday’s New York Times.
There is infinite room for true dialogue IF people are at all interested. There are ideas out there just begging for conversation. But dialogue and ideas require openness to other points of view; the possibility of other conclusions.
But the overall official mantra I feel this National Teacher Day 2011 is distinctly vicious and negative.
It’s time for teachers and administrators to buck up and go to work where they live, delivering an alternative (and more honest) message about teachers and teaching and public schools.

Mom, then Esther Busch and in first grade, front left, in 1915 at Henrietta School, rural Berlin ND. She and her sister Lucina, front row right, both became career public school teachers. Their teacher is Miss Gates.


Dad, Henry Bernard, with his first class at Allandale School near Grand Forks ND, 1929.


Teacher Mary Garvey with her 30 students in rural St. Paul MN ca 1939