An Appealing Vision Of Adult Life

According to Madeline Levine, "authoritative parents" make the rules and provide a safe environment in which children can make their own mistakes, learn, and achieve -- making sure they do their math homework, for instance, instead of doing it for them. We also teach by the way we live:

Parents also have to be clear about their own values. Children watch us closely. If you want your children to be able to stand up for their values, you have to do the same. If you believe that a summer spent reading, taking creek walks and playing is better than a specialized camp, then stick to your guns. Parents also have to make sure their own lives are fulfilling. There is no parent more vulnerable to the excesses of overparenting than an unhappy parent. One of the most important things we do for our children is to present them with a version of adult life that is appealing and worth striving for.

Photo: St. John's Church youth group members at their mid-summer dinner

Detachment In Detention

In a Brooklyn high school, meditation as an alternative to traditional discipline.

How To Save America

Teachers as at-will employees -- no contracts, no tenure. Because the principal fired most of his administrators to afford his reforms, the teachers run the school. Here's the catch: He pays them $125,000 a year. Look at the kids' faces and tell me it's a bad idea.

A Parent Teacher Association

Some outstanding southern California public school teachers I know are enduring the annual ritual of getting undeserved termination letters, the consequence of our state's budget crisis. They usually get their jobs back in a few months, though sometimes not.

Those who were watching the ABC evening news last night got the additional shock of ex-Nixon aide Diane Sawyer leading with Bill Gates' criticism of public schools giving automatic raises to teachers who have seniority and advanced degrees. Teachers already feel they're being scapegoated in the battles between states and public employee unions. They can't be pleased that the Lord High Nerd of the Universe has appeared to lend some momentum to Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker's bid to take away teachers' rights to non-salary collective bargaining.

For decades, conservatives such as Walker have been zeroing in on our allegedly poor teachers and their pernicious unions. Is it just because they think educators are a bunch of liberals? If so, that's often what you get when you under-compensate the highly educated. If you want to bring up the money teacher unions give to politicians, I'll bring up Citizens United, and we'll call that one a draw.

But teachers have those fat contracts we've been hearing about, you say. Turns out the union bosses have only won them $40,000-$44,000 a year (the national averages for elementary and high school teachers). While Gates has a point about giving them (or anyone) automatic raises, revoking most of their bargaining rights, as Walker proposes, is overkill. Instead, our elected representatives might consider getting a clue and negotiating with all their employees during revenue peaks on the assumption that recessions are right around the corner. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey argued as much this week. (I'd pay public school teachers $80,000-$100,000 and base all tenure and raises on merit. Lucky for taxpayers, nobody cares what I think.)

Conservatives are also suspicious of public education's doctrines of secularism and multiculturalism. Today's war against teacher unions appears to be a continuation by other means of the battles over prayer in schools and creationism vs. evolution. It's in this area where some conservatives betray a latent statist mindset. Many of them apparently think public school teachers are supposed to do parents' jobs as well as their own.

I've been teaching religion at a private school for five years. While I lack the gifts, experience, and endurance of colleagues who teach all day long, I've learned a thing or two about the opportunities and limitations of being a classroom teacher. Great ones can make a big difference in students' lives. But great parents make all the difference. If a student comes to school with good manners and work habits, she'll take value home whether I'm having a good day or not. Without those qualities, there's not too much the most inspired teacher can to do to compensate. When students bring along religious faith, a grounding in evolutionary biology, or any other homespun perspective, the teacher won't be able to change their minds even if he wants to. Just try telling a child that mom or dad is wrong.

Though we talk about faith in a broad and inclusive way, St. John's is a Christian school. The children come to chapel every day, and to reclaim their attention during New Testament class, I sometimes belt out the Gloria in excelsis. Are the parents of our Jewish and Muslim students afraid we're trying to convert them? Of course not. Parents who pay attention to their children's social, ethical, and academic formation help prepare them to maintain their individuality and thrive in any setting. They won't be a tabula rasa for the NEA, the Episcopal Church, or anyone else. In the end, what worries me even more than some conservative parents' distrust of teachers is their apparent lack of faith in themselves.

Define Diphthong And Linguals? Doh!

What 8th graders knew in 1895.

A Call To Dissrespect Christians

Atheists such as Richard Dawkins are renowned for debating straw-man Christians who believe in a 6,000-year-old earth where Adam and Eve once roamed Eden with pet brontosauruses named Bert and Ernie. A whole bunch of us Christians actually got over that in the 18th and 19th centuries and are able to reconcile science and reason with our belief in the God who made, sustains, and redeems us.

In comparison to the doltish fundamentalists who plague them so relentlessly, atheists such as Landon Ross brag about their own brain pans:

[A]llow me to make some blunt observations that might not be politically correct, but are nevertheless obvious:

-Non-believers tend to be well-educated, scientifically minded, and smarter than average: 93% of the National Academy of Sciences do not believe in a personal God, yet roughly 80-90% of the general public do.

-In countries where there is a high standard of living and education...roughly 80% of the population are non-believers (Sweden, Norway, Denmark etc.).

Ross thinks zealots are responsible for the decline in the study of math and science in the U.S. and wants to hire teams of lobbyists to get religion out of policy and politics. He also evidently wants to confront your local youth group:

It has become trendy to be completely irrational, and 'cool' for teens to be "down with Jesus;" therefore, secularists should do everything in our power to make it un-cool. We must get past this ill-advised notion that we should "respect" other peoples beliefs.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/landon-ross/the-god-crisis_b_316606.html

Odd that a smart guy like Ross overlooks a whole category of well-educated, progressive, politically influential Christians who would probably agree with 99% of his scientific perspective (except the part that insists that the whole mighty engine of all that is creative and magnificent and beautiful started up all by itself one fine day -- and also that human beings are doing a fine job as peaceful, loving stewards of creation all by themselves).

If atheists are concerned about achieving policy outcomes in education and scientific research, they might consider making common cause with mainline Protestants and even U.S. Roman Catholics. But if it's all about affirming and validating that their own theological faith in faithlessness, they should continue as as they are. Either way, God delights in them.

Not For Teacher

How did we get to a place where the President can't talk to schoolchildren without provoking a national crisis? In the days leading up to his speech yesterday, I saw a well-dressed suburban mother weeping at the prospect for the TV cameras. Pundits accused him of distracting principals and district officials from their solemn duties on the first day of school. Talk show hosts mined the speech for ideological meta messages and counted the number of times he referred to himself.

It seems axiomatic that certain privileges come with being President. Riding on Air Force One. Throwing out the first pitch. Getting to say things like this to children:

[A]t the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, the best schools in the world -- and none of it will make a difference, none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities, unless you show up to those schools, unless you pay attention to those teachers, unless you listen to your parents and grandparents and other adults and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. That's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education.

How secretly socialist of him. Yes, I know the initial study materials distributed by the White House asked kids to think about what they could do to "help the President" -- which actually doesn't bug me that much, either. I know Congress dogged George H. W. Bush about the cost of his own speech to kids -- which was nothing next to the right's latest Obamaspasm.

What was up? Everyone else has opinion, so here's mine. There were these factors at play:

1) Anxious people. A still-struggling economy, a depressed job market, and parents in an H1N1 A-1 back-to-school tizzy. Congratulations -- we are the richest and most obsessively worried country in human history.

2) Unfamiliar leader. To those who didn't ride the Obama wave, he still may seem aloof and a bit fey. Though I don't always agree with him, I like and admire Obama. But every once in a while, when I see his name or image, I have to pinch myself, only because I didn't know he existed five years ago, he doesn't seem especially familiar yet, but there he is, astride the globe. Over on the fringes with the racists and birthers (and no, I don't equate them), there's a sharp edge that totally creeps me out. Watch this revolting Alan Keyes video and see what I mean about the hard malice of Obama's sternest political foes. Maybe wack job leftists were as scary in the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush eras, but I didn't feel as accountable for them as I do some of those who, more often than not, may actually vote as I do.

3) Overreaching administration: Obama can't do much about 1) and 2). But it was his call to go for ontological change in health care. Perhaps he decided that he shouldn't have to trim his sails because of the errors of his predecessors. Perhaps he felt he had a massive mandate. I never did. Perhaps he felt he could sneak his bold reforms through in the generalized enthusiasm about his election and the seemingly undifferentiated consensus that a new approach to national government was needed. But once mass economic panic faded, and with trillions in new spending and future deficits already out the door, the health care effort was bound to get caught in legislative molasses as senators and representatives started hearing from home. We're still a centrist country, as Bill Clinton learned in the 1994 midterms.

If Obama hadn't done 3), would 1) and 2) still have generated the embarrassing spectacle of a popularly elected and well-meaning President having to defend his decision to tell his nation's children to do their homework? When I discussed this with colleagues over breakfast yesterday, a discerning Obama supporter said he suspected the answer was yes. I agree. Obama may end up wishing he hadn't spent so much capital on health care. But the rest of the American people are responsible for managing their corrosive and somewhat narcissistic anxiety. A little British stiff upper lip (if even they still do that) wouldn't be the end of the world. And conservatives? They had better get the lunatic fringe into line, or moderates may decide to go for a long walk.

Sept. 12 note: A reader points out that the creepy Keyes video -- in which the former Presidential candidate called Obama a radical communist and then looked at the camera and said he must be "stopped" -- has been de-YouTubed. Probably best.

They're So Mad, They Want To Eat Paste

Outraged by President Obama's plan to talk to schoolchildren, leading conservatives impersonate them.

No School, No Hope

Want to know one of the worst problems in the world? Think about this fact, from the international aid organization PLAN (the former Foster Parents Plan):

UNICEF found that 101 million children of primary school age were not in school in 2007 — of these, 58 million were girls.

Ron Howard And I, Molding Young Minds

Occasionally I get questions about President Nixon from middle- and high-school students. In the interests of transparency, and so people don't think we're too cravenly exploiting such access to impressionable young minds, here's the latest exchange:

How did the complications after the burglary affect Nixon's presidency? Please Explain.

The Watergate burglary on June 17, 1972, was solved pretty quickly. The burglars were arrested and put on trial. The problem for President Nixon was the appearance that he had participated in a cover-up of the degree to which people working at his re-election committee and in the White House itself were involved in the burglary by knowing about it in advance and even planning it. There is no evidence that President Nixon knew about the burglary ahead of time. Until his death in 1994, he never really understood why it had even taken place. But he did acknowledge after his resignation in 1974 that he had not worked hard enough to get to the bottom of it. On the White House tapes in June 1972 and again in March 1973, he is heard seeming to agree to a cover-up. I don't believe that he had criminal intent. But many people believe he did.

If the Watergate never happened, how do you think history would have judged Nixon's presidency?

Without Watergate, Richard Nixon's Presidency would be remembered as a great success because of his opening to China, improved relations with the Soviet Union, nuclear arms limitations, ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam and return of our prisoners of war, and course-changing policies in the Middle East, plus his progressive domestic policies including the war on cancer, establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, and peaceful desegregation of public schools in the deep south.

How badly did Nixon damage the country? How long did the country take to heal?

The United States suffered because of President Nixon's actions during Watergate as well as the severe cultural, social, and political strains placed on it during the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially our argument with ourselves about the Vietnam war, which he inherited from the Johnson and Kennedy administrations. In a way, the argument over Vietnam continues, as you perhaps have seen in the debate over the Iraq war.

What problems occurred in the economy after the burglary? How did they resolve the problem?

While Watergate had no direct economic consequences, the deteriorating economy in 1973-74, especially rising gasoline prices and a recession, made President Nixon more unpopular than he would have been if Watergate had unfolded in good economic times.

Back To School With Nixon

Matt Miller in the New York Times on a Nixon policy blueprint that may have found its time.