Please see endnote as well.

Halloween eve it snowed overnight, the first of the season, certainly not the last.  Something we look forward to, and then wonder why….  Here’s the view from the garage at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

October 31, 2023

It brings to mind another Halloween: October 31, 1991.  I was in Hibbing at the time.  Halloween night – it was a Thursday – started benignly enough.  I recall a light freezing rain.  And then it started to snow, and snow, and snow…by the time it cleared I recall  nearly three feet of snow.  Paralysis.

Yesterdays did not match this, but whatever, winter has introduced itself once again.

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Three additional brief musings today:

Some weeks ago one of my daughters asked about a painting we have of the old farm house in ND.  This brought memories of a photo moment at that farm house in August, 1972, following the funeral of Grandma Rosa.

Busch farm August 1972 rural Berlin ND

Of course, I’d seen the photo before.  Possibly I’m the one who took it that day.  This time I decided to identify everyone I could in the photo: parents, aunts & uncles, siblings, cousins, inlays, kids, nephews and nieces – three generations, at the funeral of the last of the previous generation, born 1884.  Eight of the “kids” who grew up in that house were there….  It was not an unusual scrum of large families back in the day.

The names aren’t relevant here.  There were 28 in all in the picture; 20 more who were not, some there but AWOL at the time of the photo.  One cousin not yet born.  The person who asked about the painting, is front and center in the photo, walking towards the group, then nearing three years old, now 51 years older.  There have been lots of changes over the years – that is how moments go in all of our lives.

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Monday night, Molly sent her fall poems, “With the leaves turning and falling here in MN, and the first accumulation of snow predicted for tonight (an inch or so, melting soon), it seems like there’s still time for a bit of autumn poetry.” Poetry 2023 Fall.

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October 23, Kathy sent a musing about a ‘road race’ in her town, involving herself and four little kids:

October 24, 2023

PRENOTE:  Some comments have been added at the very end of the Oct 8 post about Gaza.  Here.  I expect to do a followup post on this topic on Nov.. 4.  Your contribution is solicited.

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In a couple of months I’ll mark 24 years retired after a 36 year career in public education.  Nonetheless, yesterday, as has been fairly common for me in my retired years, I went to the morning sessions of the “2023 MEA conference”  (at River Centre in St. Paul).  (Here’s the Minneapolis Star tribune article: MEA Conf Star Trib Oct 20 2023).

“MEA”  is such a tradition in Minnesota that the third Thursday in October is always the start of “MEA weekend”, a no-school event for kids, as hard to dislodge as Thanksgiving and other similar holidays.

“MEA” for the past 25 years has been a program of Education Minnesota, the merged organization (1998) which previously had been two competing teacher unions, MEA and MFT.  The name “MEA weekend” survived – more so public tradition than anything else.  I noticed that officially, in the program, that”MEA” means  “Minnesota Educator Academy”  – (called “MEA Conference”. on the cover of the union’s Minnesota Educator Oct – Nov issue).  Words…Acronyms….

For much of my career and 100 years before the annual gathering was called the “teachers convention”.   In more recent years, including in my career, it has become recognized there are many teachers in schools, which include folks like cooks, custodians, secretaries etc.  “School” is all of the children and adults assembled – a place for kids to become adults, with abundant adult role models.

There was a large menu of choices yesterday.

I can only speak about the five persons I heard.  There were many choices.  It was an excellent day.  Click on the names for more about each of those I heard.

Monica Byron, vice-president of Ed MN welcomed us.   She acknowledged this was the first such speech she’d given to such a group.   Personally I thought this comment added a great deal to otherwise very well prepared remarks.  I would bet all of us in the hall could remember our own first, among many firsts in our own lives!

Monica introduced Michael Houston, MEA’s 59th Teacher of the Year, who gave an inspiring talk.

Keynoter was Brittany Wagner, one of the main stars of the Netflix series “Last Chance U”.  She was an outstanding  motivational speaker.

After her speech I caught Brittany and Michael (both at right).  Both spring from very ordinary roots, like we do:

Brittany Wagner and Michael Houston. St. Paul Oct 20, 2023

I had two other learning experiences Thursday.

I sat in on the session led by Evan Rosenthal: “Exploring Gender: Helping Cisgender Teachers Support Transgender Students and Staff.”  The link below Evan’s name is a YouTube video he presented to a group of Dentists.  It is definitely the same Evan I saw on Thursday, and the content is similar.  I specifically chose this particular workshop, and the interactions with the group in the audience were very meaningful.

Finally, As I entered the exhibit area Thursday morning, a table attracted my interest.  A teacher, Blair Clinton was selling his book “Memoirs of a Mediocre Teacher“.  I bought the book, and I think I’m going to find it worthwhile.  Blair has been teaching for over 20 years, and he’s a reading interventionist in a twin cities metropolitan school district.  Like very teacher, he has his own personal story, and my guess is that most of us who have ever taught have had lots of experience of feeling mediocre!  Things in school don’t always go perfectly!

A final thought: Most of the presenters yesterday noted the influence of at least one teacher in their career trajectory. It occurred to me yesterday, and has occurred to me often over the years, that every teacher (regardless of title: parent, co-workers, etc.) inevitably and often without knowing it has a particularly memorable impact on someone in his or her orbit.  I’ve thought often of these teachers in my own life.  Even a negative experience with a teacher can ultimately have a positive outcome in the long run.

Give it some thought.

Thanks, Education Minnesota.

POSTNOTE Oct 22:  I noted with interest a column by retired Community College history teacher Chuck Chalberg in today’s Minneapolis StarTribune opinion section.  Chalberg apparently retired about 2010, and is about my age, and has written frequently from his point of view.  He would have been a long-time member of MEA/Education Minnesota, but he is apparently no fan of public education and teachers unions.  I found a most interesting commentary about him on-line, which includes within a link to a talk he gave in South Dakota some years ago.  You can read it here.

I have a very different point of view: public school reflects all the imperfections of society in general, and is therefore a crucial platform for young people of all abilities and disabilities to prepare for adulthood.

My parents were career public school teachers, both beginning with country schools about 1929.  Several aunts and uncles were career teachers.  My parents entire career was in a state where teachers had no rights, and their salaries and working conditions reflected that, and my siblings and I saw the downside of that arrangement.  My parents certainly had contracts, a key provision that their contracts were annual, renewed at the discretion of the local school board.

Personally, six of my school years were in Catholic elementary school; I taught junior high school for 9 years, 8 in Minnesota, then represented public school teachers for 27 years, all in Minnesota.  Nine grandkids have spent all or much of their school years in public schools.  One daughter is a middle school principal in a large suburban middle school; another is full-time long term substitute in another middle school.

Is public education perfect?  Absolutely not.  Is there a better alternative?  I think not.  In the end, all of us citizens are in the same kettle.  Perhaps you can delay your childs exposure to the real world, but that is always temporary.  We swim or sink together.

As to politics, the teachers union is not in thrall to any political party; its interest, however, is in good public policy for public education, generally.

Chalberg’s commentary can be read here: Chalberg Star Trib Oct 22 23.  Here’s something he wrote in 2010, at about the end of his career as a teacher.  Here are some comments shared between friends James Klein and Dick Bernard on the topic of public education and unions:Jim Klein on public education and unions October 24, 2023   (The beginning of this link is Jim’s comment in the on-line comments section below.  The link includes more comments from Jim and myself.)

ADDENDA: Brief Essay on School and Community, by Dick Bernard, 2006: Community by Dick Bernard 2006.  Positive qualities of educators identified by teachers at a workshop in the late 1990s: Qualities of Educators.

COMMENTS (more at end of post): 

from Fred: Sounds as if you had a fine time at MEA. The Diary of a Mediocre Teacher sounds interesting.

from Norm:  Thanks for your analysis of what school is actually like.  That is, not every student is well behaved and follows the rules.  Not every student is there to learn although many are.  Not every parent is supportive of what the school is doing with their child, nor does every parent even care what is happening with their child when he/she is in school. or (fill-in-the-blanks).

POSTNOTE 6 FEBRUARY 6, 2024: Followup posts: Nov 4, Nov 8, Nov 18, Dec 10, Dec 25,  2023, Feb 5 2024

POSTNOTE 5 October 24, 2023: I continue to seek some kind of reasonably reliable information about what, exactly, Gaza is.  Here’s something from NBC News which seems reasonably reliable and helpful.

POSTNOTE 4 October 13, 2023:  Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune headlines “Gaza evacuation ordered”.  The subhead says “Israeli military tells 1.1 million Palestinians to move south within 24 hours”.   Gaza’s size is equivalent to a square 12 miles on a side, including over 2 million people.  It is, literally, a prison.  Gazan’s cannot move in or out as Ukrainians still can.  Try to imagine….

There are many points of view.  Today, Joyce passed along a very meaning filled post from Rabbi Daniya Ruttenberg.  You can read it here.  

October 10, a years long friend on one side of the issue sent a copy of his letter which asked a former U.S. president for “courage” to take a stand.  (I have friends on both ‘sides’ – I will not identify the ‘side’ of this friend, here).  My personal stand: I empathize with the vast majority on both ‘sides’ who have no interest in anything but peace, and no interest whatsoever in what amounts to a religious war.  I don’t accept violence as a solution from either perpetrator or in retribution.  But I am not naive about human history.  Zealots who achieve power, regardless of means, or ‘brand’, are a huge problem, and have always been.   This includes supposed religious leaders.  I speak as someone who considers himself ‘religious’, and things like the Inquisition, and the Crusades and Slavery itself were important and reprehensible components within my own religious tradition in the not too distant past.

There is and has always been and will always be evil, and it resides among us, and it will never be eradicated.  It manifest in many ways.   It needs fuel to grow, and that is where we, in a democratic society, come in, for good or ill.  We can choose our fate by how we vote.

Going forward: Saturday is one week since the current crisis, which is compared with 9-11-01, began.  I will next post on this issue at this space on the one month anniversary of October 7, about Nov. 4.  This is about the time lapse between 9-11-01 and the bombing of Afghanistan in October, 2001….  I’m watching, and I’ll continue to watch, not only the actions, but the conversations about this terrible crisis.

POSTNOTE 3 Oct. 11, 2023 Minneapolis Star Tribune commentary by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer: Nelson-Pallmeyer Oct 10 23 STrib.  Disclosure: I have known and respected Jack and his work for many years.  Sue commented: “Thank you, Dick, for referring us to the Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer piece – very solid. Based on what used to be called “critical thinking,” which has gone out of style in this era.”

Also relevant, my good friend, of Syrian ancestry, commented on this link I’d asked him to comment on, about the Balfour Declaration, which he feels is the root of the problem.  Here was his comment on the link:  “It is relatively accurate, but the most important thing written is the statement that I extracted and pasted below.  The protection of the Palestinian Arabs’ political rights has been completely ignored, as well as the rights of the Jordanians and parts of Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt.  The British are and have been very evil people.  They are the people that we fought our Revolutionary War against.

“The British government acknowledged in 1939 that the local population’s views should have been taken into account, and recognized in 2017 that the declaration should have called for the protection of the Palestinian Arabs’ political rights.”

A 2014 release from Pax Christi was forwarded by one of you, and seems worthy of attention at this time.

POSTNOTE 2:  As noted yesterday, the internet is awash with disinformation about circumstances surrounding this tragic situation.  It is difficult to separate truth from fiction….  As noted at this space yesterday: “In the near future I want to take a stab at communication insecurity in this age of AI, etc.  Skepticism about anything visual or verbal is warranted, especially if you don’t know well, the exact source.  More later.”

POSTNOTE Oct. 9, 2023: I have a lot to say, but my opinions are like any other opinions from anyone, whether expert or not.  At the end of this post, I share my limited direct experience with the country and the people of Israel, and that’s about all.

Here is a little geographic perspective: I am always interested in geographic context.  Gaza is almost exactly the same size as Ramsey County (St. Paul and environs), with four times as many people in its bounds.  Ramsey is one of Minnesota’s smallest counties.  Israel is about a tenth the size of Minnesota, about the same size as New Jersey.   It has about twice the population of Minnesota; about the same population as New Jersey.  More or less three-quarters of Israels population is Jewish.

Gaza is about 141 sq. miles; Ramsey Co, 152 sq. miles; populations about 2, 250,000; Ramsey Co 550,000.  Israel 8,550 sq miles, 9 million people; Minnesota 87,000 sq miles, about 5.7 million people.

It is less than 50 miles from Gaza to either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

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Originating post: The news is that yesterday in Israel was its 9-11-01.  The attack began about 6:30 a.m. local time in Israel.   That was 2:30 local time here in Minnesota; 24 hours ago as I write.

I am not numb to this carnage; neither, unfortunately, is this unusual in our world.  Nonetheless, the narrative for what is, now, is being set by every picture, every interview, everywhere.  This will be a test for discernment of ‘information’, much of which will likely be disinformation.

Back in the awful days after 9-11-01 I pleaded for some perspective in the U.S. response to the heinous actions of 19 people who killed themselves so that many more would die..  The tone of our country rapidly became retribution.

Quite often I’ve used a short article from early October, 2001, which deserves rereading.   Simply substitute Israel for the U.S.; Hamas for the 19 who flew the planes into the Twin Towers.  Here’s pdf of the below photo: Afghanistan Bombing Oct 10 2001

The long war predicted in the above article came through: Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Afghanistan again…20 years, four presidents.

Still, the tendency is revenge against a word which most of us know little about: Hamas.  Everything else regardless of expertise of the narrator is sheer opinion.

War (retribution) always seems like the first option; it is also the worst option, in my opinion.  But if only one side. is for peace, a negotiation is fruitless.

Take some time to learn more than the headlines or early visuals.

If you wish: three articles about Gaza; Hamas; Hezbollah.  I hesitate to define exactly how Gaza fits into Israel, politically.  The State Department article linked above might help a little.  Gaza isn’t an independent country.

Personal Experience:

COMMENTS:

from Carol: extract from Tom Friedman, NYTimes, Oct 7 2023:  “Hamas was conducting what appeared to be practice maneuvers for just this kind of attack all along the Gaza border — right before the eyes of the Israeli military.

from Fred: Thanks for the “comparative geography” lesson! I’ve read several histories regarding Israel’s wars and studied the maps, as always. The map scale of the area never really sunk in. This will help me remember.

It was wise to include a 9-11 newspaper clipping, especially one with a poll of Americans. As you indicate, the “thing” about wars is no one can ever be certain exactly how they will play out.

from Harry: a commentary from a group called “Friends of Sabeel”

Heather Cox Richardson “Letters from an American” October 9, 2023.  (Here is the October 7 post to which Dr. Richardson refers.)

from Dick: Some snippets of history:

from New York Times Digest, aboard a cruise ship in the Baltic June 7, 2003.  Note right hand column: New York Times Digest Jun 7 2003

 

From National Geographic “Lands of the Bible Today”, December, 1967

In December, 2003, and again in March, 2006, I had two opportunities to visit wonderful ordinary people in the country of Haiti.

In 2008, four disastrous tropical storms hit Haiti in August and September.  Two years later, Haiti advocates grieved together as Haiti suffered through the unimaginable. tragedy of the earthquake of January, 2010; thence the cholera epidemic later the same year.

Today the news from/about Haiti is not good.  Visual and written messages mitigate against travel there (below photo).  One wonders what is ahead for these long suffering and wonderful people.

Nothing ever is simple as it seems, including such as the above photo.

In 2003 and 2006 I had an opportunity to learn more about Haiti’s history, and Haitians generally, on the ground, in Haiti itself, from Port-au-Prince into the interior of the country.

Succinctly, I appreciated the Haiti contacts.   But with friends like our own U.S. policy, Haitians don’t need enemies.

Haiti became an independent and free state in 1804, the culmination of a revolt of slaves against France.  Haiti was then France’s richest colony, so the loss was severe.

But victories have consequences.  In my understanding, one of the early resolutions of the U.S. government was to not recognize Haiti as a country.  We were a slave owning country, and the idea of freed slaves was not attractive.  We did not recognize the country as a country until 1862.  It was years before Fredrick Douglass was called into action to represent the U.S. in Haiti.  For reasons outlined in the linked article, Mr. Douglass’s time was not productive, for reasons not at all because of Douglass..

From 1915-34. the U.S. occupied and controlled Haiti, essentially as a colony.  In 1957, the to-be dictator Francois Duvalier ascended to power and curried favor with the U.S. as an anti-communist, later followed by his son, “Papa Doc”.  The U.S. was never far in the background.

In 1990 came the first democratic election, in which Jean-Bertrand Aristide won election.  A coup threw him out of office, and he was restored in 1994; finally to be deposed for good at the end of February, 2004, two months after my first visit to Haiti.

Essentially, it seems that Haiti became something of a ward of the United Nations, with the approval of the United States.  In the final coup of 2004, the U.S., France and Canada were key actors.

Of course, there is irresolvable arguments about who was responsible for what.  The ultimate results are what we see today – a country in chaos.

I write now because last evening we had the opportunity to meet with a few Haiti advocates in Minnesota.  It was a very good meeting.   Anyone interested in participating, please let me know and I’ll pass word along to the organizers.

As for myself, in the wake of my time of activism on Haiti I wrote some reflections about the country and the people as I saw it.  You can explore the link here.

NOTE, the blog mentioned at the beginning of the referenced page, OutsideTheWalls, has been replaced by this page, ThoughtsTowardsABetterWorld.  Enter the search word “Haiti” and you’ll find reference to 118 posts which at minimum mention the word “Haiti”.  While I am no longer engaged actively in Haiti activities, I am still in solidarity with the fine people living there.