Month / November 2021

by nflanagan

That Old Time Religion Saves the World

Probably the best, most challenging, book I read in 2021 is The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s not great literature, but it’s an integrated compendium of thinking on how we could save the planet—ecologically, politically, and economically. If that sounds, well, deep—it is. But it’s still fiction and therefore both story and speculation.

Early in the book, Mary, who is chair of The Ministry for the Future (a kind of ongoing fictional offshoot of the actual Paris Accord and COP26) and her most trusted lieutenant are discussing this question:

What would it take to get the entire planet to commit to necessary sacrifices that could, once and for all, turn climate change and civilization around, practices that would save us all? Mutual assured survival, even mutual thriving?

A new religion, her aide says. A newly conceived religion, based on environmental equity, justice and peace, adopted globally.

Mary (and, I am assuming, Robinson’s readership) snorts. A religion. Yeah. Right.

But. What other organized, cross-national movement would support the changes and sacrifice necessary to hold down global temperatures, keep the coastlines from flooding and wildfires from blazing? What kind of collective might be dedicated to the equity and safety of all cultures?

We don’t want to accomplish a sustainable planet by means of war. Or experience horrific loss of life due to unchecked disease or heat, because we cannot agree on how to consume less. We don’t want change to be spurred by questionable but charismatic leaders, or by rigid legal control over human rights, or by terrorism.

We want people to see the need, and make changes voluntarily, to understand the rising tide lifting all boats as metaphor, not terrifying reality.

Maybe this can’t be accomplished without a touch of the supernatural. Or at least the communal.

I know lots of intelligent folks who have decided that religion is unnecessary and too often, corrupt. Not to mention unscientific, and populated by people like Jerry Falwell, Jr. or (God help us) Michael Flynn. When it comes to a higher power, they are either skeptics or content to let the mystery be.

And of course, religions have not traditionally done a such a great job of positive social organization, to say the least. Lofty religious doctrine seldom matches its practical human outcomes. Especially the dominant American religion, in all its multiple flavors.

Religion and its varying doctrinal rules and customs have historically been the cause of, not a balm for, conflict. Kind of makes you wonder why parents aren’t mobbing school board meetings demanding that we excise the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition from the study of world history, because they might make Catholic kids feel bad.

This argument, however—we need a new religion to generate commitment to developing environmentally critical beliefs—can’t be easily dismissed by a joke. I am tempted to suggest that the answer lies in education, the systemic study of belief systems and their commonalities—and agreeing that there are some immutable truths and public goods: Justice. Equity. Respect for all life.

History tells us that the most successful societies match their customs and beliefs to the environment surrounding them. Why can’t the worlds’ teachers, our scholarly trust, unite to point out that the clock is ticking, and our behaviors now will determine the future of our descendants?

For a time, I was a Unitarian Universalist, because they seemed to be focused on valuing nature and human accomplishment, on doing good, promoting peace and staying open to new ideas. It was a heady experience at first—a church that welcomed everyone, focused on intellectual questions, encouraged its members to craft their own faith. Plus hymns and a coffee hour with vegan treats. What’s not to like?

What I discovered is that problems with churches, from the fundamentalist to the loosey-goosey, were centered on the human beings who attended or led those churches. Religious denominations and holy texts are ignored in the face of the power struggles that happen in all organizations. Education is not immune—even the best-resourced schools, on tree-lined neighborhood streets and replete with the newest curricula, are subject to ‘concerned moms’ and their anti-science, anti-literature campaigns.

The question remains: If we want to sustain life, across the globe, we must work together. How can we do this? If we don’t trust our churches and we don’t trust our public schools, and believe our government is on the wrong track, who will lead us toward a vision of sustainable life on the planet we share?

Beats me. Which is why I keep thinking about a new kind of religion. One without a clearly defined God figure, but anchored by a belief in the power of community and good will.

Churches are closing all over the nation, and have been, for decades. I have been a church musician for most of my life, and worked for churches where people were loving and non-judgmental, as well as deeply conflicted congregations. I have also seen, over and over again, people turn to a church when their lives are falling apart, and find comfort.

Maybe what we need is Kurt Vonnegut’s Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. Its two precepts: Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God. If God is not going to help us clean up this beautiful world, maybe we’d better get on it.

by nflanagan

How World War II Shaped My Dad

My father has been gone from this world for more than forty years. And as adult children are wont to say—there are so many things I should have asked my dad, things I’ll never know.

What’s even more maddening is that much of what I ‘know’ about my dad is likely to be somewhat inaccurate, dependent on faulty memory and well-worn family stories. Still—I am certain that World War II was the experience that made him a man, and left him with some lifelong wounds.

My dad enlisted early in 1942. He was 20 years old, a high school dropout (another long story) who lived at home, contributing to the family income, knocking around his hometown. He was tested and put in what he described as a ‘special group’—men that would be part of the Army’s young Air Corps. Did he want to be part of a new air force, to fly? You betcha.

He was sent to Chicago to train, staying at the Palmer House Hotel. From the time I was a child, I knew that the Palmer House was the most beautiful hotel in the world, because my dad swore it was true. When I first visited the Palmer House, as an adult, I imagined my dad, a first-generation American, walking into the impressively ornate lobby, big-eyed but trying to be cool, like all the other 20-somethings going off to war, still safe but up for adventure.

He trained as a radio gunner, and became part of a combat team that stayed together through most of the war. Well into the 1970s, my mother exchanged Christmas cards with the other members of his flight crew, an annual reaching out to acknowledge their once-intense wartime bond. He was our pilot, a smart guy, my dad would say—and Dick lives in Indianapolis now, what a good guy he was, and this guy, he was a radio gunner, like me.

The crew was assigned to the Pacific theatre, and flew numerous missions in a big, ungainly aircraft where my father was seated in an exposed bubble on the side of the plane. In one intense air battle, their plane was shot down.

All of the crew bailed and survived, floating in rafts, until they were picked up by a submarine. Until the sub surfaced, they couldn’t identify its origin: enemy or ally? It turned out to be an Australian submarine, not the symbolic Japanese rising sun they feared it would be.

There are so many things I don’t know: when this happened and precisely where, for example—or how long they floated on open water before they were rescued, although I know that night fell, at least once. Did they go up again, in the same kind of plane? How many missions did they fly after being shot down? And how do you go up again, after that?

Most of what I know came from things my mother told us, often as an excuse for why my father was so touchy. My dad had a cardboard box of war memorabilia that we weren’t allowed to open—it was taped shut—and he kept his feelings taped shut, too. Most of the time.

When my brother was in high school, he interviewed our father about his wartime experiences for a school assignment. My mother took notes and typed up the paper. (As an older sister, my first response to learning this was: I hope she got a good grade.) When my brother mentioned this, some 35 years later, I was shocked. Dad talked to you about the war?

It turned out that what my brother wanted to know was details about the plane (he knew the exact model and could show me the pictures online), the gun, the radio system, the parachute and rescue gear. The war tools. He said my dad remembered lots of concrete details. My brother didn’t remember what happened to his paper. And now, my brother is gone, too.

On February 28, 1945, my dad’s own beloved younger brother, Don, a Marine, was killed on Iwo Jima. At that point, Dad had been in the military for three years. He had seen, done and lost so many things—and now, he’d lost the most precious thing ever. He went AWOL, to try—my mother said—to locate Don’s grave, so he could confirm what he didn’t yet believe, that his brother was dead.

He had risen to the rank of Staff Sergeant. When he returned to his unit, he was busted down to Private, and was honorably discharged, several months later, at the end of the war. My mother told me he had been diagnosed, if that’s the word, with battle fatigue.

Shell shock, PTSD, battle fatigue. What war does to men.

A post-war job where he would be autonomous and not cooped up in an office was recommended by the US Army, upon discharge. His high school girlfriend had graduated and gone on to university, in Kalamazoo. She was sure he could get a GED and enroll at WMU—there would be federal money. But he declined both her and the suggestion, taking a job delivering bread that he kept for the rest of his life.

Shortly after returning home, he met my mother. He was 25 and she was 19. She says he was handsome and seemed like a man of the world. He liked to dance. He taught her to smoke and drink. Within a year, they were married.

But my father, tight-lipped as he was, never completely left the war behind. It was, I believe, both the best and worst period of his life.

He said he’d seen all he wanted to see of the world, when I went backpacking in Europe—that he wouldn’t leave this country for the rest of his life. When I bought my first car—a Toyota Corolla—he wouldn’t let me park it in his driveway, muttering about ‘the Japs.’

In many ways, he was forever stuck in the thinking and prejudices of 1942. But he always loved to fly, that moment of liftoff, wheels up, grinning. When I think of my dad now, I picture him in the wild blue yonder. It’s where he’d want to be.

Thanks for doing your duty, Jay. Another story from the greatest generation.

by nflanagan

‘Self-Care’ vs. Sustainable Leadership

I once was on a panel at a Governors Summit on Education in Michigan. The topic was ‘teacher leadership.’ It was the usual format—each panelist gets a pre-determined number of minutes to pontificate (which they invariably overrun)—and then (theoretically) there is open discussion among the panelists, and questions from the audience. The line-up was: A state legislator, a representative from one of Michigan’s two teacher unions, and me.

I was the first speaker and started with the premise—copped from Roland Barth—that if all students can learn, then all teachers can lead. I fleshed that idea out, a bit—that practicing teachers need a voice at the policy-making table, that teachers’ control over their own professional work would enhance their practice and enthusiasm for teaching, as well as their efficacy. And so on.

Legislator was the second speaker and he strongly disagreed. He asserted that his role, over so-called teacher leadership, was oversight. Teachers are public employees who need to be kept on a tight rein; their work rigorously evaluated. If they want to lead, they can lead their second-graders out to the playground for recess (audience laughs). He and his colleagues were the rule-makers and goal setters, not teachers.

Then the union guy spoke. And he, too, felt that ‘all teachers can lead’ was a falsehood. Teachers had no business sticking their nose into policy. That was the union’s job. And it was an administrators’ job to lead a district or building—and suffer the consequences of failure. He knew plenty of teachers who were excellent classroom practitioners but didn’t have the skills, desire or moxie to lead. If they wanted to lead, they should run for a position in their union, or get administrative certification. Applause.

Because the Summit was on a weekday, the hundreds of people sitting in the ballroom were mostly legislators or their staffers, heavily from the Governor’s party, plus university and Department of Ed folks, and reporters. Not teachers.

Although I enjoyed a delicious, expensive banquet lunch afterward, I met nobody whose thinking was aligned with mine, re: organic teacher leadership.

Not a great experience. But telling.

Now, many years later, I still believe that experienced teachers want to lead, and are well-positioned to inform the conversation around education policy.

In fact, I think a lot of what happened to Democrats in Virginia—in a race they should have won handily—had to do with suppressing the threat of genuine teacher voices around what gets taught in real classrooms, maybe taking down public education in the process. Plus the utter disruption of a pandemic–and racism, of course.

Teachers are under siege. It’s not surprising that free-floating angst, generated by a highly disruptive pandemic, has been aimed at public schools. It happens cyclically—everything from rising pregnancy rates to chronic illiteracy in poverty-ridden neighborhoods is blamed on educators.

Because–you know what’s coming–everyone went to school and thinks they understand schooling. A pandemic that shuts the entire system down, however, is exponentially catastrophic, impacting everyone. Anger at public schools, even for made-up reasons, is inevitable. It’s the nearest target.

For the last century or so, teachers have been an increasingly female workforce, seriously underpaid and subject to increasingly rigid control from government and on-site leadership. Pretty much the model my co-panelists understood and defended: Some of us make the decisions, others do the work. And hey—enjoy your summers!

But it’s a relatively young and inexperienced teacher workforce now, and the frightening stories about teachers leaving, in droves, with nobody to replace them, ought to force the education community to ask themselves: What would keep the EXPERIENCED TEACHERS WE ALREADY HAVE (sorry) in the classroom for a couple more years, until we rebuild a leaky pipeline?

Well, it isn’t the ‘Wellbeing’ worksheet (see photo, below), which feels like one of those make-work reproducible masters teachers used to pull out on a sub day. Self-care dittos.

Here—fill this out. Feel better! Clearly, whoever designed this worksheet does not understand the relationship between drinking more water and the one three-minute window per day when peeing is possible.

Look, I understand that there’s no easy remedy for the conditions teachers are working under: Angry parents. Lies about the curriculum. Anti-vaxxer moms and virus daredevils. What could a school leader who really wanted to support her staff do?

Grow a backbone. Support public education. Here’s a list of 14 viable suggestions for doing that.

Hiring the best possible people, paying them fairly, giving them time to work collaboratively, honoring their expertise, and releasing their creativity? How does that sound as a recipe for school-based self-care?

What do teachers want? What all professionals want: Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose.

by nflanagan

A Halloween Story

I took this Halloween photo on our deck, around 6:15 p.m. For about 10 minutes, there were these shocking pink clouds, and then–in less than minute–they were gone.

I am always introspective on Halloween. Since we moved here, we haven’t had trick-or-treaters (might have something to do with the 750-ft uphill driveway and not being able to see the house from the road). But the night is always filled with a kind of sorrow for me; I resonate more with All Souls/All Saints–the thin time of year–than costumes and candy.

In 1972, 49 years ago today, I was living in Mio, Michigan. I was newly married (may he RIP), and had a job at the drugstore in town. I worked with a teenaged boy, Jerry, who came in after school to sweep and clean up before we closed at 5:00 p.m. It was a boring job, but I liked Jerry, who was learning to play saxophone in Mio’s new band program.

I heard, from neighbors and teachers in town, that Mio kids went on a rampage every Halloween. The owner of the drugstore boarded up his windows, as did many other businesses. I was a little skeptical of the stories I heard, which seemed to be many levels above soaping windows and rotten egg-tossing. More like smashing windows and spray-painting buildings and slashing tires.

I made myself some coffee (a new pleasure for me) and waited with candy but nobody came. I could hear kids screaming in the streets. And then, around 9:00, sirens.

We didn’t hear the story until the next morning. A group of kids (five or six of them) stole a car. None of them had a drivers license. A 15-yr old boy drove the car a few miles out of town and hit a tree, while going at a ridiculous speed. All but one of his passengers (a younger sister) were killed in the crash.

I have looked for the story since, in newspaper archives, but could never find it, to clarify my old memory. I believe four kids (the oldest 15) were killed and the youngest girl survived.

One of the kids who was killed was Jerry.

I have had many happy, joyous Halloweens since 1972, especially when my children were young and we lived in a family-friendly neighborhood.

Tonight, seeing the beautiful sky, I was reminded that if Jerry were still alive, he’d be old enough to retire.

Stay safe out there, everyone. It’s a beautiful world. Stick around as long as you can.