20181220.0430

On 16 December 2018, Christopher Brown's "Make Kindergarten More Engaging Again" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. In the piece, Brown, an early childhood education professor at the University of Texas, glosses a typical Texas kindergarten experience before putting across the thesis that the typical pattern is not a good one. He then explicates why matters are as they are and why they are problems for students and teachers now and in times to come. Ideas for how to correct the matter are noted, centering on a reconsideration of what parents and teachers want kindergarten to be, before the article concludes on a reminder that the goal of teaching as a profession is to help people become lifelong learners.
I have several reasons to react to the article. I am an educator, certified to teach high school English in addition to my credentials and experience teaching college-level coursework. I am myself the product of a particular kind of schooling that may not have regimented kindergarten but started such things soon enough. And I am a parent of a child who will be heading to kindergarten perhaps sooner than it is comfortable to recognize. So, while I might find myself vexed somewhat by the relative lack of detail in the article, I recognize 1) that the context of presentation is not one that admits of the level of detail I would like to see (a newspaper cannot address academic issues in ways academics do by its nature; it is not addressing an academic primary audience), and 2) Brown is right. If the way kindergarten is taught is as he depicts it, it is not what I want for my daughter, not what hardly any of us ought to want for hardly any of our children. (I know some need more structure than others. And that's fine; give it them. But only them.)
I know why such things will have grown up. The testing culture that pervades K-12 education and infiltrates colleges and universities is to blame, and, as I and many, many others have argued and raged even unto apoplexy about, it is not the teachers who have chosen it. It is not even necessarily administrators, though they now cleave to it as if their own. No, it is an outgrowth of legislators at various levels, many of whom I am certain have received contributions of one kind or another from the companies that develop tests (and I know they pay well; I've done such work before), so that they have had reason to set up compulsory markets that oblige the purchase of those tests--and, once they're bought, they have to be used and passed, because we can't have our children being failures, after all. And that means teachers have to teach to the test, beginning as early as can be done--which is as early as the students are in the classroom.
My dear Ms. 8 will be entering into such an environment soon enough, I know. The school where she is likely to go is the best available to us here, and "best" inevitably means "in terms of test scores," so I know she will soon face the dreadful grind of drill-and-kill exercises familiar to me from having done it before NCLB was a thing. (Indeed, I am convinced I was part of the test run for the test culture.) What my wife and I will do to keep alive her love of learning--which now burns brightly and consumes all with which it comes into contact--is not clear to me. Mine was not ground out of me, though I (even I) have had problems, so I know there is hope even in the absence of Brown's recommendations. But I think she would have a better chance of things were they heeded.

20181219.0430

On 14 December 2018, Alia Malik's "More San Antonio ISD Grads Getting to Elite Colleges — But That’s the Easy Part" was updated in the online version of the San Antonio Express-News. The article offers brief profiles of four students from SAISD who took advantage of the district's efforts to place more students in Tier 1 universities, using their stories to highlight the successes and deficiencies of those efforts. Issue that emerge repeatedly include cultural mismatch between the SAISD students and the elite socioeconomic realities of those who "normally" go to such schools as Columbia and Brown--or even UT and Texas A&M--where the assumption is that students can afford all that is required by class and expected for "normal" socialization outside the classroom. SAISD is continuing to improve its efforts to place students and support them adequately, but the students themselves continue to struggle to adjust to the expectations of high-level university life from the often less-than-hoped preparation offered by the inner-city schools they attended.
My reaction to the piece proceeds from two parts of my own life: my own status as what might be called a Gen 1.5 college students and my work as a college educator. From the first, being a son of two people who attended but did not complete college (until recently; my mother at long last earned her baccalaureate, but it was a long time coming), neither of whom went on to graduate study, I had some adjustments to make when I went off to college each time. As an undergraduate, I did not involve myself in extracurricular activities nearly as much as, in retrospect, I ought to have done, believing that working hard on my academic coursework would be enough to see me through. In the end, it did; I could have had a job (with SAISD, interestingly) as soon as I graduated, and I did have a graduate assistantship. But I also did not make nearly the kinds of connections with others that I ought to have done and which would have allowed me to have an easier time of things afterwards. And I made much the same mistake in graduate school--hence my current life as an academic expatriate. So I am sympathetic to the students who go off to school and find themselves substantially shocked by the cultures they find there; I started out closer to them than the students profiled, and I had the trouble I did, so I cannot help but think they're facing much stiffer odds.
As an educator, as well, I have sympathy for them--though I would note that the phenomenon is far from restricted to top-tier schools. I've not done much if any teaching at such places; it is possible that the Big 12 school where I taught qualifies, but I'm not at all certain about that. The students I taught at the public and non-profit schools where I've worked have seemed in many cases to be out of their depth, partly because their prior schooling did not equip them for what they faced with me (while at the same time convincing entirely too many of them that it did), and partly because their backgrounds were not such that they had the cultural grounding that I, passing along standards les critically than I ought to have done, expected them to have. I hope I did and have done better at the for-profit schools where I have worked and still work; I have at least known that the students I've taught at them have not come from the kinds of backgrounds more traditional students have, and I've tried to adjust for that. I'm not sure I've always been successful, though, and I imagine that my counterparts at higher-prestige institutions have had similar difficulties--or more because many of them come from farther away than such students' circumstances than I do.
Knowing such things, extrapolating from them as best I can, I find myself hoping that better structures are put into place to support such students. There are a great many great minds among those who are, through no fault of their own, in poverty and far away from the ivory palaces that typically boast the tall towers of lore and legend, and they can benefit from time among those towers no less than those who enter into them more easily. But it is not only the students who must adapt or who should.

20181218.0430

On 15 December 2018, Sig Christenson's "Seventy Miles of Razor Wire Later, Some GI’s Pulling back from Border" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports on the current state of the troops deployed to the southern border of the United States to assist in deterring migration into the country, as well as the work done by those troops during their deployment to the Mexican borders of Texas, California, and Arizona. (The lack of troops on the New Mexico border is noted.) Political concerns surrounding the deployment also receive attention. Drawdown of troops has begun, although some troops are expected to remain on site until 31 January 2019, depending on conditions along the border.
The article reads as a quiet condemnation of the troops' deployment; I get the sense as I read that Christenson views the deployment as a waste of time and resources, though that might be my own opinion influencing my reading. (I do view it as a waste and a political stunt meant to distract from other problems by causing problems for men and women who are not in a position to respond, as well as their families.) But reinforcing seventy miles of a much longer border does seem a small effort, in all; I know those in uniform are capable of doing much more than that. And the comments Christenson reports and makes seem to indicate a similar awareness, as well, perhaps, as a rebuke to others who might for some reason--likely not a good one--favor more intensive measures.
Again, I find myself of the opinion that the response to migration coming towards the United States is an overwrought theatrical response to an issue that is, in part, the creation of the United States. And I think that there is a certain amount of anxiety among the mainstream population of the United States about immigration, generally. (I cannot take credit for the idea, though I do not recall anymore where I came across it, for which I apologize. I am happy to cite the source if it is presented to me.) It has been remarked repeatedly and abundantly that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and I have heard no few people comment again and again that "if they'd just come over legally and learn our language" and on and on and on. But I note that the "our" being referred to did not do so. The "our" that emerges from a putative "us" that is almost always meant by such phrasing is a group of colonizers who did not assimilate to local customs and ways of life--and, yes, I am the descendant of such people, benefiting even now from atrocities committed upon those who were here by others who came from far away and refused to adapt themselves to the ways of life already in place. So there is likely somewhere some kind of anxiety that what the mainstream population of the United States collectively did and benefits from will be enacted upon it, in turn.
Given what has been done, and over how long, that it should be feared is not a surprise. And it may perhaps be justice for it to happen again, though the scale and scope of it exceeds me. But it might also be justice for the United States to work to correct the errors it has made, though it does not seem apt to do so anytime soon.

20181217.0430

On 14 December 2018, an updated version of Scott Huddleston's "Buried Mission Wall in San Antonio Exposed at Job Site" appeared in the online version of the San Antonio Express-News. In it, Huddleston reports on the construction of apartments near historic mission sites owned by the Archdiocese of San Antonio and the construction project's recent uncovering of buried mission-wall footings. Conflicting commentary about the extent of damage, as well as opposition to the work and background on it are offered. Also noted is the specter of unearthing human remains during the excavation needed for the construction. The article ends with a reported warning not to let the same thing happen to the other San Antonio missions that happened with the Alamo, the area around which the city is trying to clear in favor of preservation and appropriate veneration.
It is interesting to think on the idea of buried walls in San Antonio. I know the city is 300 years old--the tricentennial attracted no small amount of attention--but it is not a thing that usually occurs to me. Nor yet does the association of centuries-long history, that some of it is simply underfoot, the world of now resting upon it, a boat buoyed up by the sea of old. I am far more used to thinking about such things as they apply to other places than the Alamo City, some of which I have visited and into the depths of which I have at least partly seen. I am far more used to thinking about such things in the contexts of cities with millennial histories, cities far removed from where I now am rather than an hour down the road.
But as I think on it, it makes sense that there would be such things in San Antonio; the city has a rich history, having done much in three centuries. People have lived and died, families have risen and fallen, the shape of the city has shifted as it has grown and grown and grown, and, like all else, it rests upon what has been, emerging from it and being supported by it, borrowing strength from it whether it knows it is or does not. It is the kind of thing that I've argued about in other contexts, and there is little if any reason it should not be true for the Alamo City as for any of the grander, older cities commonly associated with the trope, or with the legended ones whose origins are obscured by both the passage of time and the workings of artists' mouths and pens and minds upon them.
And I wonder, too, what will be built upon the ruins we leave behind. Such texts as this one are ephemeral in the short term, but all are ephemera if enough time is permitted. The same is true of stone edifices, whether they are razed to make way for the newer that is not necessarily better or they are allowed to crumble against the slow and certain forces that the universe brings to bear through time. But while such things endure, they may allow for other things to follow, and, seeing what I and my contemporaries follow, I am not sure I can see what will follow us. I can hope it will be better as I understand better to be, but I also know that what is understood to be better will, itself, differ from what now is--and things will move that way. Still, it is a thing worth thinking about...

20181216.0430

On 11 December 2018, Richard A. Marini's "Missing Ring from American WWII POW in Germany to Be Returned to Kerrville, Texas, Man" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article offers information on Wayne Gotke, the son of a World War II POW imprisoned in Germany; he is a collector of World War II POW memorabilia, and his father's lost wedding ring was found during excavation efforts by a museum that specializes in such sites. How the ring was found is detailed, and the ring itself is described. The prison in question, Stalag Luft III, is also described, as are escape attempts made from it--including that featured in The Great Escape. Gotke's own father made several such, which Marini reports Gotke describing, along with his father's circumstances of capture. The likely progress of the ring and the circumstances of the Gotke family receive depiction, as well, calling attention to the ongoing efforts to claim and maintain still-recent history.
It is not entirely a surprise that such a story would be told, or that it would be told about a person in Kerrville, Texas; in addition to being noted for such figures as Johnny Manziel, Robert Earl Keen, and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz (who graduated from school in the town, as is too little remarked), and for the Kerrville Folk Festival, my hometown is widely regarded as a desirable retirement destination. Throughout my life here, I've known and known about a great many veterans of the Second World War, and their children, the Baby Boomers, are reaching or into retirement age at this point. (I've also met a few Great War veterans who are now gone, as well as Holocaust survivors. I didn't appreciate either as much as I ought to have, and time has dulled even my memory.) There has been and remains a fascination with the most massive conflict of the twentieth century in Kerrville, so if there would be a place that would host a ceremony for a man to regain his divorced, late father's wedding ring, it would be the town where I live and have lived.
That it is not surprising, though, does not mean it is unwelcome. I'm lucky enough to have a pretty good relationship with my father, for which I am grateful, but I know that not everybody is thus fortunate. But even with that close connection, when the day comes that he is gone, I know that I will look for things to help me keep the memory of that connection alive. It is a thing of which I can readily conceive. What the article describes, though, reads to me as a man trying to create a connection with his late father when there was little enough of one in life, trying to fill a hole of which he is surely aware in the time he has left to him--and that is not something I can easily understand, having not faced such a challenge. It reminds me of how fortunate I am to have the connections I do with those I do, and it reminds me that I probably ought to be doing more to nurture them along.

20181215.0430

On 12 December 2018, Gilbert Garcia's "City Council Tries to Make Sense of the Decade of Downtown" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. In the article, Garcia reports on recent San Antonio City Council efforts to amend former mayor Julián Castro's plan to revitalize downtown San Antonio. Of note is that the plan succeeded at its stated goals, but it has done so at the seemingly unforeseen cost of gentrification and over-increase of housing costs. In the amended form, the plan for downtown will work to address issues of housing segregation by restricting the area covered by the plan and differentiating its intended impacts by the areas addressed thereby. While there is not unanimity on the council regarding the emendations, they do look to be moving ahead, however uncertain the results may be.
The initial idea of the plan, as reported, seems a common-sense thing--with the caveat that common sense is a misnomer because of the first word. Businesses will come in where people are, so making an area vital should focus initially on bringing people in; the rest will follow, as seems obvious when pointed out and as appears to be the case. But setting up a situation that brings people in necessarily creates more demand for what is an ultimately limited quantity, so prices rise, and those who had been already present find their presence less tenable. Such gentrification tends to promote a homogenization of local cultures, which is a particular problem for a place like San Antonio that has a historically thriving culture of its own, albeit one that is not necessarily associated with the kind of material wealth that gentrification obliges.
For a revitalization, then, gentrification is a matter of concern. Bringing something back cannot happen if those who had it are not included in the return, after all, and bringing in those from elsewhere to do the work of vitalization leads to an unfortunate change to what was, either because it is undone entirely or because the version of what was that emerges is not one that has continuance with what was, but is instead only a shallow, superficial version of what was. Areas that were vital and have become less so run the risk of becoming but pallid imitations of themselves, veneers of easily exploitable difference laid thinly over structures of similarity that pander to a bloc of people who would rather not be challenged or shown what is not familiar, but who will consider themselves enlightened and aware because they, too, have seen the carefully curated versions of things others--and still not those others who would know--have decided to show them.
That such things are to be avoided should be clear. That the council appears to be taking steps to avoid them--at least, if I have read things aright--is a good thing, then. That does not mean there are not more steps to take, of course; things being right is a goal that ever recedes, however rapidly or diligently approached. But that does not mean progress towards it is not to be desired.

20181214.0430

On 10 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News placed "Handling of Serious Allegations at UTSA Laudable" in the online version of the paper. The piece commends the University of Texas at San Antonio and its current president, Taylor Eighmy, for how recent allegations of student sexual assault have been handled: quickly, thoroughly, and transparently. While the editors report understanding the desire to keep problems quiet, they also note that such quieting inevitably works ill. They further remark that similar handling of similar events at other schools would likely have resulted in better outcomes for all involved.
As a graduate of UTSA, albeit one who graduated more years ago than it's entirely comfortable to admit (BA, English, 2005), I'm glad to see praise heaped upon the institution. There've been enough black eyes for the school in the past years, some quite bad bruises for it, and while I am not immune to selfish concerns (bad press for my undergrad makes my undergrad look less good, and that negatively impact possible perceptions of me), I am more concerned that the many good people who have been at the school and still are at the school will be harmed. Conversely, having public praise for the institution come out helps the school's perception, which helps those who are and have been associated with it. So that much is to the good.
Another flip-side--because things can rotate along more than one axis, as long ago amazed me--is that UTSA is handling things well now serves as a sign that there have been too many such things, that the school and others have had too much practice with addressing such issues. The occurrence of such events is sufficiently prevalent that schools are beginning to learn from their own and others' mistakes--something that generally takes a damned lot of teaching to make happen. (Isn't it part of the reason history is taught and studied?) That there is some progress on investigating them does not mean things are going the way they ought to; at best, it suggests a beginning of a turn away from what ought not to be, along at least one axis.
However assiduously enforced the proscription against such things may be, they will not deter as much as needs to be deterred--just as laws against murder do not stop killing, laws against theft do not stop burglary, and repeated injunctions against stupidity have not stopped...much. And some might argue that that makes the attempt to enforce folly; indeed, such is a major underpinning of efforts against gun control legislation. It is true that punishment for perpetrators and a hoped-for restoration for victims are not as good as never having been violated, but it has to be better that perpetrators be punished than that they are not. UTSA's would then seem to be a step in the right direction along a path it were better never to have to walk--yet one that has many, many feet upon it.

20181213.0430

On 8 December 2018, Maria Anglin's "Baby, It's #MeToo Outside" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports the origins and arrival at prominence of the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" prior to noting the current cultural disapproval surrounding the piece--manifesting in the song being pulled from a number of radio stations, including local channels. The lack of context for the song is cited as a reason it rings badly in contemporary ears, and remarks about comparative obscenity and lewdness are made. So is the note that context and subtext affect text before the piece closes seemingly unsatisfyingly.
I write "unsatisfyingly" because the concluding comment, "You know what else brings change? Those buttons on the car radio," seems overly flip and at odds with the sound points in the preceding few paragraphs. For instance, Anglin is correct to note that censorship is problematic at best. She is also correct to note that more people are more likely to be held to account for their words and the resultant actions. For radio stations--private enterprises in the main--to decide that they will not play songs they find problematic seems to be an acceptance of the accountability and responsibility Anglin notes--and then decries in the "You don't like it? Change the channel" comment with which she ends her piece. Why it is a problem for people and the corporations we are told count as being people to watch their mouths and mind their language--things we teach our children to do as a matter of course--eludes me; why speakers should not adjust their messages based upon the needs and desires of their audiences is unclear. Yet it seems to be--at the same time that people lament both "overly sensitive" people and a decline in civility.
The issue comes up entirely too often for my taste. I've written on it before, so I'll not rehash my comments; I do not think I need to do so. But I will tweak the comments to suit the current situation, to wit: a radio station deciding it is not in its best interests to play a particular song because it recognizes that song does not sit well with its listeners is prudence, not censorship. It is not being forced to pull the song; it is choosing to do so, and if it is choosing to do so because it recognizes that its listeners will not approve, so that its customers--advertisers--will not want to do business with it, then that's fine. Motive matters to some extent, as the whole argument about the song itself remarks, but it matters less than effect, as we see every time someone is slain accidentally. Whether the death is intended or not, the person is dead; while a lack of intent may make it not murder, as such, the person is still dead. And the same is true with words that, in themselves, do little harm but in the context that has become conduce to more than can be accounted--and more than merits something so blithe as "change the channel if you don't like it."

20181212.0430

On 9 December 2018, Glenda Wolin's "More Thoughts on that 'Simple' Hug" appeared in the online version of the San Antonio Express-News. The piece is a response to another bit of commentary that had been contributed to the newspaper, and it lays out some of the fraught context in which women in the US have experienced hugging, context that underlies some of the reactions to being hugged even by those who mean to express honest affection. She notes the repeated incidence of assault on women and girls, even and especially by persons whom they should instead have been able to trust; the tragedies of familial abuse and Larry Nasser's perfidy are discussed, as are the purportedly natural inclinations of pubescent boys to fondle those towards whom they find themselves attracted. The lack of ready instruction against such tendencies is also discussed before the piece closes on a note that some women have, indeed, experienced hugs as preludes to horror--and that even those who have not have to think about it.
The piece reads as a gentle explanation of something that should not be so but, being, and being all too obviously so, should damned well not be something that should be attacked. And in central Texas, steeped as it is in the mythos of the Old West, it should not be a difficult concept that touching someone who doesn't want to be touched is a bad idea. Time was, it was a good way to end up dead; today, in purportedly too-sensitive times, it merely earns rebuke, while no few of those who offer that rebuke fail to do so at their own demonstrable and perhaps endured peril. I admit that I've not read the piece to which Wolin responds, and perhaps I should, but I hear as I read Wolin the resigned tone of a woman who is explaining to yet another man that, no, women have reason to feel as they do. And I know that there will be some who will decry such things as feeling and therefore inferior, who will make claims about logic and the notion that past performance is no guarantee of present action--but I somehow doubt that those same people would put their hands into Fenrir's mouth after Tyr did so or their heads into the lion's mouth after it had eaten the faces of the five who went before.
Reading the article, I am once again in mind of ways I know that I have offended and the likelihood if not certainty that I have offended in ways of which I am not aware. I was raised as I was raised, and such concerns were not necessarily noted in great detail as I was brought up. And I have done things that I knew even as I did them were other than they ought to have been. As I have learned more, I have been better about my actions, but I know that I have erred--and if I have, it is likely if not certain that others have erred similarly. I and others like me have made such explanations necessary--not because we have made others stupid, but because we were stupid, as well as evil in the banal way that works some of the longest ruin in the world because it persists for so long without attracting attention to itself. As such, I and others like me should be ashamed of ourselves--as should they who, at this point, can only be ignorant of matters by choice and who would place their own desire to express affection over others' deserving to feel safe.

20181211.0430

On 7 December 2018, the editors of the San Antonio Express-News presented "Senate Should Pass First Step Act" in the online version of the newspaper. The editorial makes the case promised in the title, asserting that the Senate should take action on the legislation described--a long-overdue piece of criminal justice reform. The editors note the bipartisan backing of the bill and the stated willingness of some Congressional leaders and the current administration to see it become law; they also note the reticence of Senate leadership to move on the bill at the moment and the likely undercutting of the bill in the upcoming legislative session if not passed in the current. Incoming Representatives are likely to push for a bigger bill--which the editors note would, in itself, be good, though the current political climate makes passage of such an expanded bill unlikely. They argue, in effect, that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, that those looking for reform of the current criminal justice system should take such victories as they can get when they are available--and keep fighting for more later.
As seems to be the case with reasonable frequency, the editors are not wrong. It is likely that the incoming Representatives, given their stated goals and the understandable frustrations of the voters who swept them into office, will seek for more reform than is currently on offer, and it is the case that more reform is needed than is currently on offer. Too, it is likely that the incoming Senators, responding to similar forces, will entrench their resistance to purportedly progressive pieces of legislation all the more deeply, making such a compromise as is represented by the First Step Act less likely to be extended to include more sweeping reform. The current offer feels like a rare chance to get something started--and, once a thing is started, it's easier to keep going. The body politic experiences inertia no less than more physical, tangible bodies.
That the editors seem to have the right idea does not mean that those who are in a position to act have the right idea, however. Instead, and as is unfortunately common, the opposite seems to be the case. A legislative leader that has demonstrated pride in holding up the duties of that legislative chamber, who has visibly ignored calls for procedural correctness, who has set aside decency and consideration in the public eye time and again, is hardly the sort to do something that might, for once, be useful and good. Such a person cannot be trusted and should not be trusted, and there is a certain naïveté in thinking that such a person would act in the way a good and honorable person would--or even someone ostensibly devoted to representing the will of the people, as an elected legislator ought to be.
It says something, and not something good, that such a person as is in leadership now is and is not likely to leave, willingly or no, any time soon. I am not sure I have the words to appropriately articulate what it says. I am less sure that they would be words others would do well to read, just as I am even less sure that something that seems like an obvious good idea will actually get put into practice, despite the recognition by many that it is something that ought to be done, both in itself and as an aptly-named first step towards more and better to come.