It has been over two months since I last changed my radio blog. I’ve upgraded to version 2.0 (or is it 2.1 — who cares?). This “edition” is an homage to the voices of men. I usually post links to Amazon so you can purchase the CD’s if you like. I am too tired to do that right now. If you want to find out more about the songs, it shouldn’t be too hard. I can help you if you get really stuck. I point out that Jeff Buckley was so good I put him on there twice. Ray LaMontagne is, I think, new on the scene. He’s kind of Otis Redding, kind of Mick Hucknall. If you question Billy Joel’s presence, I can only say he sang every part of the harmony on this recording, which I think is pretty impressive. Plus the kids at school sang it the other day with two of the Judaics teachers, and it was just so much fun.
More Proof that English Teachers Are Nuts
This time, it’s a female middle school Language Arts teacher (that middle schoolese for English) who *ahem* wed a former female student in a pagan ceremony. Okay.
Links:
The Washington Times story
WOOD -TV, Grand Rapids, MI.
The Detroit Free Press story
And like I said, teaching grammar makes you go insane.
The Poisonwood Bible
Steve said the other day that I am voracious reader. That is both true and not true. I think I do read every day, but it takes me a very long time to read. He explained that he meant I always have a book going; I may not read two or three books at once, as he does, but I’m always reading something. If that is voracious, then I agree. However, if a voracious reader greedily devours books, then I can’t agree. I savor them. I like to roll their words around on my tongue and taste them.
I have just finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I cannot tell you how long I’ve been reading it. It seems like months. But this is not a book that you can read casually. You need to devote what time you have to it. Finally, you need to devote time you don’t have to it. I asked Steve if he could remember reading a book and thinking it was destined to be a Classic. By that, I mean we will be studying it in schools. It will survive the ages as an important work of literature. It will be To Kill a Mockingbird, Moby-Dick, or, perhaps most appropriately, Heart of Darkness, for it is to that last which it owes the most. I must admit that I don’t often reach the conclusion while I’m reading a contemporary novel that it will reach the status of the great novels of the past and become a part of the fabric of our culture. I know this novel will. It is deep and rich. It is complex. I think every American should read it. Since it was published in 1998, it may take some time before the educational establishment recognizes this book for what it is, but mark my words: this book will be required reading for your children, if it isn’t for you.
The back-of-the-book jacket blurb is not such a bad place to start:
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find out that all of it — from garden seeds to Scripture — is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Taking its place alongside the classic words of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.
Kingsolver has posted an excerpt on her website. It will give you a flavor for the rich poetry of her prose. So many sentences in this book I read several times in order to truly taste them, let them roll over my tongue. The descriptions are lavish: I had no trouble picturing the settings, from the village of Kilanga, to Kinshasa; from the Equatorial Hotel in the French Congo to Sanderling Island, Georgia.
Nathan leads his family from Bethlehem, Georgia (which I had NO trouble picturing since I used to live maybe five miles from Bethlehem in Winder) to the Belgian Congo, which became Zaire from 1971-1997. If I had one problem with the book, it was the simple reference to Bethlehem High School. It bothered me for a time until I realized why Kingsolver invented the school. As far as I know, such a school never existed. I student-taught at the only high school in Barrow County at the time, Winder-Barrow High School, in 1996-1997. Since that time, another high school has been built. I did some research, and I cannot determine if there was a Bethlehem High School in the late 1950s. There doesn’t seem to be any information to indicate that there was. However, I understand why Kingsolver invented one. Not to invent Bethlehem High School would have distracted her readers unfamiliar with Barrow County, Georgia. I am sure it isn’t that she didn’t do her research — that she plainly does. I think she is judicious about which details are important, and explaining that the girls went to Winder-Barrow High School and why instead of a fictional Bethlehem High School would have taken up space on a trifle.
Of the novel, Kingsolver said:
England has a strong tradition of postcolonial literature but here in the U.S., we can hardly even say the word “postcolonial.” We like to think we’re the good guys. So we persist in our denial, and live with a legacy of exploitation and racial arrogance that continues to tear people apart, in a million large and small ways.
This story, Kingsolver maintains, is an allegory. I need to file that away for the next time my students ask me if writers mean to use symbolism or we’re just inventing stuff the writer didn’t intend. Nathan Price and his daughters each represent different responses to America’s role in raping the Congo. Kingsolver says that Nathan represents the “historical attitude”:
The Prices carry into Africa a whole collection of beliefs about religion, technology, health, politics, and agriculture, just as industrialized nations have often carried these beliefs into the developing world in an extremely arrogant way, very certain of being right (even to the point of destroying local ideas, religion and leadership), even when it turns out-as it does in this novel-that those attitudes are useless, offensive or inapplicable. I knew most of my readers would feel unsympathetic to that arrogance. We didn’t make the awful decisions our government imposed on Africa. We didn’t call for the assassination of Lumumba; we hardly even knew about it. We just inherited these decisions, and now have to reconcile them with our sense of who we are. We’re the captive witnesses, just like the wife and daughters of Nathan Price. Male or female, we are not like him. That is what I wanted to write about. We got pulled into this mess but we don’t identify with that arrogant voice. It’s not his story. It’s ours.
Each of the female characters that tell the story represent different reactions or responses to America’s involvement in the Congo’s struggles for independence:
The four sisters and Orleanna represent five separate philosophical positions, not just in their family but also in my political examination of the world. This novel is asking, basically, “What did we do to Africa, and how do we feel about it?” It’s a huge question. I’d be insulting my readers to offer only one answer. There are a hundred different answers along a continuum, with absolute paralyzing guilt on the one end and “What, me worry? I didn’t do it!” on the other end. Orleanna is the paralyzed one here, and Rachel is “What, me worry?” Leah, Adah, and Ruth May take other positions in between, having to do with social activism, empirical analysis, and spirituality, respectively.
It is in the climactic moment when Price blood is shed that each character takes her role. Rachel is maddening in her refusal to be changed by all that she has seen, but she still has some keen insights to offer. Her name means “ewe,” and like so many of the sheep in America, she denies we are complicit in any wrongdoing. Leah is outraged upon awakening to the injustices of the world and wants to change them. Adah is the scientist, examining the evidence with an empirical eye, if not an entirely cold eye. Orleanna begs forgiveness — before she was paralyzed to stop — to question Nathan or simply to leave him, ensuring her children’s safety. She is unable to act until it is “too late.” Ruth May is unwavering in her faith in her father and his religion: “Whither thou goest, I will go” — just like the biblical Ruth for which she is named.
Just like Orleanna, I dreaded the climactic death that would set the Prices’ feet in motion upon their particular paths. It was as inevitable as the political events it paralleled. Now, like Orleanna, I find myself wanting forgiveness.
The Bean Trees, the last book by Kingsolver which I read and reviewed, was also political. Kingsolver wants us to think and challenge ourselves and our government.
This story came from passion, culpability, anger and a long-term fascination with Africa, and my belief that what happened to the Congo is one of the most important political parables of our century. I’ve been thinking about this story for as long as I’ve had eyes and a heart. I live in a countery [sic] that has done awful things, all over the world, in my name. You can’t miss that. I didn’t make those decisions, but I have benefited from them materially. I live in a society that grew prosperous from exploiting others.
Kingsolver said she hoped the book would make her readers laugh a little at times, cry at others. I did this and more. It really made me think. This novel is so dense I cannot possibly compress it for you. You just need to read it.
Note: Kingsolver quotes were all taken from her website.
Beth Stroud
Methodist jury convicts lesbian minister of violating church law (free registration required).
Her name is Beth Stroud. I think you should read her Coming Out Sermon. Before I read that, I said to myself, well, what did she expect? Methodists aren’t Southern Baptists, but they’re not liberal, either. In the South, there is not much difference between Baptists and Methodists. It would seem one major difference is that women can be ordained ministers. I don’t know her congregation, but it surprised me that they were supportive. In the face of so much homophobia, especially in — and it pains me to say this — our churches, I was surprised to find that they backed her after she came out and wanted her to continue in her duties. Down here, she would be lucky not to be run out of town on a rail.
I have read the Bible on homosexuality, and I must admit, I find it ambiguous. I am not going to stand on my soapbox and declare that homosexuality is wrong or that it is a choice. Frankly, I don’t think it is either one, but the truth is, I don’t know. What I do know is that homosexuals are people who deserve the same rights as heterosexuals. They are not disgusting or depraved any more than anyone is. In short, if homosexuality is wrong, then it is one of many “wrongs” committed by men. It always disturbed me that someone close to me — a person in my life who is the most vehemently outspoken and prejudiced against homosexuals — is the very person who has committed adultery more than once.
Jesus said something about those without sin casting the first stone… There was also something about worrying so much about the speck in another’s eye and not seeing the plank in your own…
We are studying Transcendentalism in school. When I was in college, my English 101 professor and I struck up a friendship of sorts. I was interested in a fellow English major, and sometimes I would sit outside in the hallway of the English department, waiting for him to get out of class so we could walk, talk, go on adventures. One day, Dr. Sell crouched down to my level, teetering on her heels. She cocked her head and asked me what I was doing. I told her. That was how we connected. I started visiting her office. She had a ceramic sign in her office that said “Shalom!” I never knew if she was actually Jewish or not. She shared her office with another professor whose name escapes me. We had chats about life and literature. Sometimes love. When it became clear that my crush wasn’t panning out, Dr. Sell tried to set me up with her son, an agriculture major. She didn’t understand him. Why on earth, she wondered, would he want to be a farmer? He scored a 4 on the Regent’s Exam, for crying out loud! Out of respect for her, I decided to humor her. I wrote him a letter of introduction. He came down to visit, but I don’t remember whether it was specifically to meet me or not. We had no connection at all, though we sat in Dr. Sell’s office in awkward quiet, smiled weakly, and tried not to check our watches. Later, when Dr. Sell and I discussed the failed love connection, she confided that he felt I was a bit too much like her. I told I thought it was telling him I was a Transcendentalist that scared him off. She laughed and agreed.
Well, maybe I am a Transcendentalist. At least a bit. I am not sure that we are all connected by some cosmic Over-Soul, but I don’t discount the possibility. However, I do believe God is manifest in Nature, and it is in Nature that I feel His presence. Not in church. The one time I felt most connected to God was on a hike, by myself, in the Colorado Rockies. To me, He is there, in His creation. And, I suppose, if I am to believe that, I should believe He is inside of us, too. We are His creation as well. Is an Over-Soul, then, so far out of the realm of possibility? And if that is so, how do we explain the evil that men do to each other? Is God present inside an evil man? Is he absent in a man who is basically a good, decent person, but happens to be homosexual?
These are questions you have to answer for yourselves, I guess. I don’t have any answers today. The only conclusions I have drawn are that Beth Stroud has very strong faith and experienced a calling to the minstry. On the other hand, her church disagrees with allowing “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” in the clergy.
I’m not Atticus Finch, but where this issue is concerned, I feel like we all need to “walk around in someone else’s skin.” Or maybe we could just stand on the Radley porch, like Scout. Maybe just standing on the porch would be enough.
Shalom, Beth.
Go Demons!
My alma mater, Warner Robins High School, defeated Statesboro to win the state AAAA football championship. Last time they did that, it was in 1988, a few months before I started going to school there.
Read the AJC article (free registration required).
Is it only me, or is it kind of funny that the Demons stomped the Blue Devils in the Bible Belt’s most popular pastime besides church (and possibly mud-bogging and cow-tipping).
Why English Teachers Die Young
Probably the most hilarious forwarded e-mail I’ve ever received, sent to me by a parent of one of my students:
Why English teachers die young: Actual Analogies and Metaphors in High School Essays
- Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides, you know like gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
- His thoughts tumbled around in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free softener.
- He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at solar eclipses without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
- She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
- She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
- Her vocabulary was as bad as — like — whatever.
- He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
- The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock — like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
- The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball would not.
- McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
- From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
- Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
- The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
- Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
- They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
- John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
- He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
- Even in his last years, my Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long that it had rusted shut.
- Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
- The plan was simple, just like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just actually might work.
- The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
- He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
- The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, just like a dog at a fire hydrant.
- It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing their kids around waving power tools at them.
- He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
- Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
- She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
- It really hurt! like the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
The only thing that makes me doubt these are real is that some of them are really good!
Now I Sit Me Down in School
I don’t ever write here anymore! I am not one for posting “well, nothing happened today, but I’m going to waste your time with my boring life anyway” entries. However, lately it seems to be my mission in life to defend the separation of church and state in our public schools. That may or may not make any sense to you, considering I teach at a private Jewish high school.
The principal of Cedar Shoals High School in Athens, home of UGA, where I graduated from college, has apologized for reading a poem entitled “The New School Prayer” over the intercom. He claims he read the poem in order to “provoke thought and discussion among students.”
The AJC article (free registration required) about the incident posted a link to the poem in question. I decided to reprint it instead of sending you chasing links or registering at websites. Set aside its questionable literary merit for a moment and think about the message only:
Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.
If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.
Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the state.
We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the “unwed daddy,” our Senior King.
It’s “inappropriate” to teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such “judgments” do not belong.
We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It’s scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school’s a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot, my soul please take!
Oh. No. He. Didn’t.
Shall we dissect the argument?
- Praying is not against any rule or law in any school. It is institutional prayer, led by, say, a teacher, or by a group of students who pressure other students to participate that is a violation of the separation of church and state.
- I discussed Scripture with regards to biblical allusion on many occasions, and I was never pushed out of public school bearing a cross on my back.
- What on earth does hair color have to do with religion? Yet another fallacy — in order to be “good Christians,” folks have to dress conservatively, vote Republican, and get all jumped up over the “secular humanism” pervading our schools.
- I’ve never worked at a school where students were permitted to “cuss.” Did they do it anyway? Of course! This poem, however, makes it sound like the student who mentions God will be drummed out of town, whereas we put up with cursing.
- Piercings, like hair color, have exactly what correlation to a person’s religious faith?
- We’re not supposed to teach right and wrong? Good. One less thing. I’m glad to know that whole “Character Education” requirement put on teachers several years ago because parents can’t teach their children how to be moral human beings is no longer the responsibility of over-burdened, underpaid teachers in public schools.
- I suppose it would be better to pretend kids don’t have sex, like they used to do in the good old days, when pregnant girls were sent away or had to get married as teens. Oh, wait. That never happened, because kids having sex is a new thing. It happened in the last 50 years or so since school prayer was “outlawed.”
- Violence in school isn’t new either. School shootings are new to the white, middle-class suburbs. Urban schools have been dealing with problems like this for decades and no one cared.
I never thought I would make it my mission in this blog to be the champion of separation of church and state, but lately, so many of my fellow Georgia educators seem to be missing the mark. Then they take up the cross (a Medieval euphemism for going on a Christian crusade) and claim they aren’t allowed to exercise their religious beliefs. No one is stopping anyone from going to church or synagogue or even sacred oak grove in this country. No one. What we believe, and have believed for the over 200 years since the Bill of Rights was ratified, is that government and religion are two distinct entities. It bothers me that people feel that in order to practice their religion, they must push it on everyone else. It angers me when those people are educators. Educators have a great deal of influence, both positive and negative, in the lives of the children they teach.
There’s going to be a lot of discussion of this matter on conservative radio shows. Rush Limbaugh has already addressed it. He’s right about one thing. We are at a crisis in public education. The schools are unruly. The students aren’t learning. Is reciting pithy little poems bemoaning the lack of prayer and blaming the problems on the absence of religion going to fix this crisis? I really don’t think so. But I really don’t think violating our Consititution is the answer to the problem.
The principal apologized. Personally, I think he exercised poor judgment in reading the poem. I wonder what his colleagues (several of whom I know) thought when they heard it. My college professor, Sally, taught there for a year on a job exchange with another teacher (who taught Sally’s college classes — she has a doctorate). I picture her in a classroom, listening, mouth agape — absolutely stunned. I am fortunate in that I currently work with a great principal who has her pulse on education today. For most of my career, this hasn’t been the case. I realize there are real frustrations for a public high school principal. I understand this poem must, in some way, address some of his frustrations, or he probably wouldn’t have read it. He apologized for it, but he was probably told to do so. Do I think he needs to lose his job? No. I do think that would be an overreaction. Times are tough, and even tougher for a teacher who has been denied a contract and needs to find work somewhere else. I don’t think one mistake (at least a mistake like this) must lead ultimately to the man’s dismissal. However, I do hope that if he takes anything away from this, that it is simply not right in our pluralistic society to push your religious beliefs on someone else. I do hope he won’t make this a Crusade and insist he’s being persecuted.
Now I sit me down in school;
I (silently) pray we’ll practice the Golden Rule,
That we’ll treat others as we’d like to be treated.
This doesn’t mean religion’s defeated.
I have the right, when I’m at school,
Not to feel like I am a fool.
Just because I believe differently from others,
It doesn’t mean we can’t all be brothers.
Let me practice (or not) religion in my own way,
Let my parents teach me how to pray.
I believe in the Constitution;
For over 200 years, a firm institution.
Let me learn wisdom from books and teachers
I’m not here to listen to your “preachers”
I’m here to be well-rounded and prepare for college,
To fill my head with all kinds of knowledge.
For every purpose under heaven there is a time,
As I’ve endeavored to explain in this poorly-written rhyme.
I don’t know that on religion you and I agree;
I think the best way to address it is to let it be.
I’m a spiritual person in my own way,
But group prayers in school I won’t say.
I want to feel like I am free
To worship or pray as it suits me.
(/bad poetry)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I have written a new Pensieve article — a review of the extra features on the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD.
One of you who bought the DVD besides me: did you have to turn the volume up very high in order to hear the dialogue? I know that British people talk more quietly than Americans, but I hadn’t noticed this problem with the movies before. Is it my copy? Or is the sound quality not too good? On the other hand, it sounded fine through the headphones on the computer. If it is my TV or DVD player, then I must say this is the only movie I’ve noticed having a problem, aside from the Twin Peaks pilot, which is noted for sound issues in general.
Happy Thanksgiving
Like most of my American friends, I will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with my family.
But I would be remiss if I didn’t celebrate the fact that one of my students recited Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech from Romeo and Juliet today. It was wonderful, and I cried. That is a real accomplishment.
I also enjoyed discussing the philosophies of Ralph Waldo Emerson with my students. I am continually reminded just how transcendental Disney’s The Lion King is.
Why Are They Always English Teachers?
I want to know why it always seems to be the English teachers who turn out to be nuts.
Elizabeth McDonald killed her mother with a hammer.
Mary Kay LeTourneau is possibly the most famous freaky English teacher.
Dylena Pierce was arrested for making bomb threats.
Lots of male English teachers have been arrested for molestation or child pr0n. A quick Google search could give you a shock.
Then there is the infamous Pam Smart, a Media Specialist, which is, most of the time, an English teacher who works in the Media Center.
What is it about teaching grammar, composition, and literature that makes one snap? When you think back to your school days, was it the English teacher around whom there was always the breath of scandal? I can say it was in my case. I hope I can successfully navigate the treacherous waters of teaching English and disembark at the end of a long, satisfying, successful career… and not be psycho in the end. I think it will be okay as long as I stay put, for too many episodes like this one could be dangerous for my future mental health.