Gaming the system

In which we see that it's what --
and who -- we don't see that matters

The Felix Chronicles, #32

Rick is writing his final Civil War research paper on an Xbox game, which he has hooked up to the classroom Smart Board and is playing in front of his classmates. Not exactly an orthodox topic for an academic essay, but I see a real workshop opportunity here, both in terms of engaging him in something he's passionate about, and in raising intellectual issues in places and in ways they might not otherwise get raised.

But we're not off to a promising start.

"Those graphics suck," Eddie points out as Rick puts a sniper in his sights and fires away.

"And the lack of interactivity is really lame," Aaron adds. "What happens if you go off into the woods there?"

"You can't," Rick says. "It doesn't let you."

"That is lame," Darius notes. "You gotta wonder about the developers here. Did they pour all the resources into marketing? I could have probably done this on my two year old MacBook Pro!"

Hmmm.Darius has said virtually nothing all semester. Here he sounds like a management consultant critiquing an entire product line. But this isn't quite what I had in mind -- and while the class as a whole is engaged at the moment, I suspect we're going to start losing altitude soon.

"So how would you compare this game with comparable games out there are the market, Rick?" I ask.

Somewhat surprisingly, it's Darius who answers for him. "There's no comparable Civil War product," he says, "except for Blue/Gray Field Command. In that game you're a four-star general trying to supervise overall strategy."

"Well that's interesting," I reply. "Here you're an individual soldier performing a localized mission."

"That's right," Rick says. "You sometimes complete the mission only to be informed that your side has actually lost the battle."

"That in itself says a lot," I note. "This game is more like The Red Badge of Courage, Henry Fleming lost at Chancellorsville, while the game Darius is talking about is more like The Killer Angels, Lee and Longstreet debating whether to engage at Gettysburg. Am I right Caroline and Zack?"

Caroline, who's working on Red Badge, and Zack, who's doing Killer Angels (actually the lousy film version, called Gettysburg) nod. But that's all they do. I'm disappointed. I thought this would open things up a bit.

Aaron still has his eyes on the screen, tracking Rick's movements. "I see your job is now to clear that barn over to the left. So you can get a change in mission halfway through?"

"Yeah. This happens a lot when you play 'Easy.' In 'Medium' and 'Hard' you'll typically take longer or get killed before you execute the original orders."

"Don't tell me you actually get yourself killed in this game," Darius says.

"Of course he does," Aaron says. "I swear to God it took three weeks for Rick to steal his first car on Grand Theft Auto at my place after I first got it.

I see Chantel roll her eyes. I decide to seize on this.

"Oh," I say with mock solemnity, "So you're also appalled at Rick's ineptitude at Grand Theft Auto? Well tell me, Chantel, how long did it take you to steal your first car when you played it on your Xbox?"

Chantel smiles wryly, recognizing that I'm not serious. "Actually, I don't have an Xbox."

"Don't have an Xbox? Wow. Why, that means you can't play this game or Grand Theft Auto!" Laughter.

I shift my gaze sharply. "Caroline: How 'bout you? How long did it take -- "

"I don't have an Xbox, either."

"And you, Tanya?"

She shakes her head, smiling. "Nope."

I sound desperate: "Christina?"

"I don't have one either," she says. "I steal my little brother's to play Space Invaders."

A roar of laughter.

"Well thank God for that. For a minute there I was beginning to worry we were going to have a problem with gender bias there. But I guess you've saved us from that, huh, Christina?"

"I guess so," she says, smiling.

"You get my point, though," I say to the class as a whole, as a few kids nod. "One way of being to figure out what's going on with a document -- or, in this case, a game -- is to ask who it's likely to appeal to. And who it isn't. In this case, it appears the game in question has a strong appeal to boys, though our statistical sample is admittedly small."

"Actually, I'd say the appeal here is mostly young boys," Rick says. "The level of play is fairly simple compared with some others I've played."

"Yeah. And also it's less violent. I'm afraid of Grand Theft Auto 4," Christina says. "My mother won't allow my brother to get it."

"And this one is endorsed by the History Channel," Rick notes.

"Okay," I say. "I think we're beginning to get somewhere. One way Rick will be able to develop his argument in his essay will be to focus on this question of audience. But we can ask a similar question about content -- we can ask what's not there."

I pause for dramatic effect.

"I guess it's time for me to share a little secret with you, gang. You see, I've decided to quit my day job and become a video game designer myself. I've come up with something I think you'll find interesting. It's called Contraband." I adopt the voice of a movie preview announcer:

You are an officer on the Underground Railroad. In your hands is the awesome responsibility of saving human lives and striking a blow for liberty. Your mission: to blaze a path for a group of escaped slaves as they make their way from an Tennessee plantation across the Ohio River to a secret station outside Cincinnati. One wrong move and they're back in bondage -- and you're back in jail for violating the Fugitive Slave Act. Will you take the challenge?

"Whaddya think? How long you think it will take to ship a million units?" Lots of smiles. Darius is shaking his head, as if I'm an incorrigible child.

"Why not, Darius? Isn't this a good idea?"

"Sorry, Mr. Cullen. I think you should stick with your day job."

"But why?"

"Because nothing really happens."

"What do you mean nothing really happens? You have to think hard! You have to evade capture! You have to endure racial insults!"

Hearty laughter at that. (Maybe a little too hearty?)

"All right, Darius, I'll keep my day job. But I hope, Rick, and the rest of the class get my point here. Which is that sometimes figuring out what you don't have means figuring out what you don't have. It's often what isn't talked about that can be as revealing as what is."

I look up at the clock. "One thing we don't have, today at least, is more time. Caroline: You're on tomorrow, yes?"

"Yup. I'm showing a clip from Glory."

"Excellent. See you all then. Oh -- and one other thing."

A few faces look up expectantly from closing books and backpacks.

"Anybody know where Kermit was today? Field trip? Sudden illness?"

Nodding heads. "Uh -- I think he may be sick," Darius says.

Kermit missed class yesterday, too, and missed the exam we had last week. This morning I saw him playing frisbee on the lower field with his buddies. I make the appropriate notation on my attendance sheet. This isn't going to be pleasant -- tedium, for me, aggravation for Kermit, and, in all likelihood, anger for his parents, who will be getting an e-mail from me later today. In high school, at least, gaming the system tends to catch up with you.

Young dissonance

in which we see a civil war in popular music -- and a (largely) civil discussion in the classroom

The Felix Chronicles, #31

It's the end of the semester in my Civil War course. We've looked at sectional conflict, the course of the war, and Reconstruction. Now we're in what I consider the seminar stretch, where I'm asking students to choose pop culture versions or renditions of the Civil War and to write research essays analyzing their explicit as well as implicit arguments.While they get up to speed with their projects -- which they will soon discuss as works-in-progress -- I'm devoting class time to modeling the kind of work I want them to do. To that end, we've watched excerpts from Birth of a Nation and, in an experiment, Gone with the Wind in its entirety (to my surprise, I have two African American students who express enthusiasm for the movie, though a third is writing his essay on the film's racism).That's taken up a lot of time. So now I need some quick hits -- literally -- to keep things moving.

Southern man, better keep your head
Don't forget what your good book said
Southern change gonna come at last
Now your crosses are burning fast . . .

Here we go:

"So, folks, what would the Neil Young who released this song in 1971 have us believe about the Civil War -- given, I'll add, that those two words don't appear in the song?"

"Well, it's pretty clear that he considers the South responsible for what happened," Aaron says.

"Why do you think so?"

"Why do I think so?" Aaron is confused by the simple-mindedness of the question.

"Yes. What evidence do you have that he wants us to hold the South responsible?"

Aaron gestures toward the Smart Board and reads the lyrics: "I saw cotton/And I saw black/Big white mansions/ and little shacks/Southern man, when will you pay them back?"

"You forgot the screaming and bull whips cracking," Zack notes. "A subtle point, I know."

"All right then," I say, sidestepping the humor. "We know what he's saying and how he's trying to make the point -- with words, at any rate. Cotton, mansions, bull whips: these are all images we associate with the antebellum South, even if they persisted long after the war. But the meaning of a song is never simply a matter of lyrics." I play another snippet: "How long how long?" Young intones. I shut it off abruptly. The point is to try to take the song apart, to be attentive to how it's put together.

"What are you hearing here?"

Silence. They need a prompt. "Are these sweet dulcet tones? Should Beyonce be envious?"

"He's mad," Chantel says.

"Yeah," her buddy Tanya pipes in." And the music. It's like, what's the word . . .It's like all bunched up, tangled."

"Gnarled?" I offer.

"Yeah. It's really gnarly. All those guitars."

"I hear pure rage," Rick says. "Young is furious."

"Or, at any rate, this character he's created is."

"Sounds like Young to me," Rick continues. Though this is questionable textual criticism, I'm not inclined to argue the point.

"All right then. We agree on what Young is saying, and see see that he uses a number of strategies to get his point across, not the least of which is the highly dissonant sounds he produces with his voice and the instruments. My next question is: Do you agree with him? Is he persuasive?"

"I think so," says Aaron, returning to the fray.

"Why?"

"Well, I mean, he's got a point, doesn't he? I mean the South was at fault for having slavery and fighting to keep it.."

"Is this something Young persuades you to believe?"

"Well he makes a damn good case."

"Does he, though? Is this a fair portrayal of the South?"

"I don't see why not."

"Here's one reason: Southerners weren't the only ones who owned slaves or used whips in American history," I say. "Here's another: He's painting with a pretty broad brush here. Southern man seems to be all Southern men. Southern white men, anyway. Plantation owner, small farmer, college student, whatever."

"I agree," Caroline says. "It's a little over the top."

"I think you're reading a little too much into this," Aaron says. "It's a song. It's not like he's writing an essay for a history class where he has to take in every point of view."

"Can you take in every point of view when you write an essay for your history class?" I ask.

"You know what I mean," Aaron answers, smiling but annoyed. "He's telling a story. He has a point of view. He's not writing an academic book." There's a whiff of contempt in "academic book."

"Well, sure," I reply. "He has a point of view. And so do I. And my point of view is that he's trying to bring you around to his point of view through a series of choices he makes, some of them likely to be unconscious, in writing the song. And one of the things I'm trying to do is to develop your powers of judgment."

I look up to the class as a whole. "You all know this song, right?" They nod. "How many of you have this song on your iPods?" About a third of the hands in the room go up.

"Can't say I've ever given it all that much attention," Asa, one of those who raised his hand, says. "I see what you're saying. But I still like it."

"No law against that, Asa. I just want you to understand that not everyone likes it as much as you do, and may have real reasons not to." He nods.

"What I want to do now," I say, is play another song, one that I think all of you know, and one whose history some of you may know. It's by a group that does not agree with Neil Young, and says so." I begin to play Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." There's smiling, nodding, and even a little foot-tapping as I play the song:

Well I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow

Once again, I stop the song abruptly. "OK. So how would you characterize this as a response?"

"It isn't much of one," says Caroline. "More like a non-response."

"Does the band make any effort to engage Young's song? To refute his reasoning? To offer an alternative take on the South?"

"Well I don't know about reasoning," Chantel says with some amusement. "But they they definitely have a different point of view!"

"You're right. In fact, let's hear a little more":

In Birmingham they love the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth

"This song came out in 1974," I explain. "I believe everyone in this elective has taken "U.S. Since 1945 previously, yes?" Nods of affirmation. "So tell me: What was Watergate?"

"That was the Nixon thing," Tanya says.

"Yes. What Nixon thing? Which Nixon thing?"

"There was a thing about a hotel," Zack remembers. "What was the name of it?"

"The Watergate hotel." ("Someone says "duh." Some chuckles at this.)

"Right," Zack continues. "The Watergate hotel. A bunch of guys broke in looking for dirt on what's his name . . . McGovern. They got caught. Nixon said he had nothing to do with it. But there were tapes. They showed he did. He was forced out.""

"Admirably succinct, Zack. Nineteen seventy four, when this song was a top ten hit, was the year that Nixon resigned. But why is Lyrnyrd Skynryd bringing this up? What does Watergate have to do with anything?"

"I have no idea," he replies.

"I think maybe he's saying that he's got nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to apologize for," Aaron says.

"Yeah. And that people who point fingers should shut the hell up," Asa says.

"Right," I note. "Nixon won 49 states in 1972, all but Massachusetts. The whole country elected him. Not just Southerners. And Southerners are not the only ones who have done things in American history that require apologizing. Hear that, Neil Young? You'd never know from hearing 'Southern Man' that every single one of the original thirteen colonies had slavery. We did what we could to fix our mistakes. Have you looked at yours?"

"Did Lynyrd Skynryd actually say that?" Tanya asks.

"No, not in so many words. But that's one way to read what they're saying," I reply. "It's sort of like that argument we discussed a couple months back, when Southerners responded to Northern critics of slavery by saying Northerners have their own white slaves in factories. But let me ask you something else: Who was the governor of Alabama in 1974?"

Silence. Then, Caroline: "George Wallace?"

"Right. And what was the slogan associated with George Wallace?"

More silence. "Wait," Hakim says. "Something about yesterday, today and tomorrow?"

"Segregation," Aaron says.

"Right: 'Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.'"

"Wow," Rick says. "I had no idea."

"Me either," says Caroline.

"Now that you do, how does this context affect your perception of the song?"

"I'm really not sure." Caroline sounds genuinely confused. You don't often hear a student express honest uncertainty in a classroom. Good for you, Caroline.

"Again," Aaron says, "I think you're reading too much into this, too. It's a song about pride. These people are talking about a place they love. Nobody really gives a damn about George Wallace or Watergate. That's the point."

"They say they love George Wallace!" Jenny interjects, irritated by Aaron's irritation.

"They say it more like: You hate George Wallace? Well, we love George Wallace. But Wallace isn't the point. What do you hear when you listen to this song? Sweet Home Alabama. Sky so blue. Comin' home to you."

I'm hearing echoes of Aaron's father here, chief of surgery at a large New York hospital. Mom, a truly lovely woman, runs a landscaping business and is a fixture of cafeteria bake sales. I hope the struggle for his soul isn't over. But for now, I'll take his side in this debate. "It's an expression of regional pride," I say. "Like Frank Sinatra singing 'New York, New York."

"Exactly." Aaron leans back, smiles, and nods. He's pleased that I get it.

"I should point out that Wallace later recanted his racial views views, and was re-elected with substantial black support. But at this point, the moment Lynyrd Skynyrd immortalized him, Wallace was an avowed opponent of black equality."

"Where does the name Lynyrd Skynyrd come from?" Chantel asks in a voice of idle curiosity.

"After their high school gym teacher, Leonard Skinner. Lynyrd Skynyrd was their mocking name for him."

"That's great," Zack says, beaming with amusement.

"Be that as it may, Zack, let me ask you a question: Do you think this song is racist?"

He winces. "I dunno. I mean, I guess so."

"Of course it's racist," Jenny says. "These people are saying they love a guy who considers black people inferior!"

"Well, they don't say that," I point out. "But they do say others do."

"No," she corrects me. "They say 'the governor's true.'"

I squint at the Smart Board. "You're right, Jenny." Her prompt leads me to see something else: "And note that last line: 'Montgomery's got the answer.' Montgomery is the capital of Alabama. It was also, you may remember, the first capital of the Confederacy before it moved to Richmond. But maybe I'm reading too much into it, right Aaron?"

"Right." He's trying to stiffen my resolve.

I pause. "Zack: You have this song on your iPod?"

"Yes I do."

"Knowing what you know now, should you have this song on your iPod?"

"Well, sure," he says after a pause. "I mean, I understand some people might be offended. But Aaron is basically right. It's just a song. Every song is probably offensive to somebody."

"Half the music on my iPod" is offensive," Hakim notes. "I've got Fifty Cent, Cam' Ron, stuff like that."

"What about you, Caroline?"

"Well, I don't have the song on my iPod. But I hear it all the time at parties or on the radio."

"If you did have the song on your iPod, do you think you would remove it?"

"That's a tough one." I wait for her to say one way or the other. When it's clear she isn't going to, I shift my gaze. "Zack, let me come back to you."

"Gee, thanks, Mr. Cullen."

"You said you will keep this song on your iPod, which of course is your right. And you point out that people have different tastes. Can I infer from what you've said that you would not choose to play this song at, say, a University of Alabama football game because it might give offense to some people?"

"Well, no," he says. "I mean there might be some people that get offended. But I don't think most would. He shoots a glance at Chantel. "But I mean, if we reached a point when a lot of people were offended, then I guess yeah, I would."

"You could also argue that a decision to stop playing 'Sweet Home Alabama' at an Alabama football game would also be offensive to some people," Aaron notes."I just don't think a song, whatever its message, has that much impact. I mean, I've got "Suck it or Not" on my iPod, just like Hakim. Does that mean I hate women? I don't think Jenny's going to turn into a racist because she hears 'Sweet Home Alabama' while watching the Crimson Tide."

"Like I ever would," she replies.

"You go to your brother's games," Zack notes. Jenny's brother is the quarterback on the school team, which has gone undefeated the last two years running.

"Well, yeah, for home games," she concedes. "But that's different. I never really know what's going on anyway."

"But this does bring up an interesting point," I say. "Can you imagine yourself 150 years ago, leaving your home in New York to go visit family or friends in Mississippi? You'd see slavery all around, but would you say anything about it? Would you think you should say anything about it? I mean, who would you be to pass judgment on something like that? What would you know?"

"That's scary to think about," Caroline says. "I'd like to think I'd speak out, but I'm not sure I would." No one follows up on that. We're about out of time -- and energy.

"Well, that's my attempt to get us back to the Civil War, from which we've drifted," I say, signalling an attempt to wrap this all up as class ends. "I'll end today by disagreeing with Aaron. I think he really does have a point: it is possible to read too much into a song," I say, looking at him and nodding before I shift my gaze up and scan the room as a whole. "But that's not the premise of this assignment, this class, or my career, and since you are at least for the moment stuck with me, I'm asking you to play along with me here. And that means taking seriously the notion that any song, any movie, any advertisement or whatever is making any number of assertions. Your job here is to figure out what one of those assertions is, explain why you think that particular assertion is being made, and then to evaluate the legitimacy of that assertion. Starting next week, I'm hoping you'll start presenting what you're working on." I think I've connected: they seem to be looking at me fairly intentently. "OK. See you tomorrow. We're going to have a discussion of what you're working on -- and I"ll be looking for volunteers to show a clip or play a song so we can have a discussion of the kind we did here today.

As they shuffle out, Hakim asks me, "Did you have these records when you were growing up, Mr. Cullen?"

"Indeed I did, Hakim."

"Did you know what they were really about?"

"Not right away. But eventually, yes."

"And you kept them?"

"Well I could say it was strictly for professional reasons."

"Ah," he says. "I guess it's legit, then. See you next tomorrow, Mr. Cullen."

"Take care, Hakim." He let me off the hook too easily, I think. These kids may think I raise these questions actually knowing how I'd answer them. But one of the great guilty pleasures of teaching is to push people to answer questions you don't know how you'd answer yourself.

Positive Steps

In which we see that school spirit can be dangerous to your dignity

The Felix Chronicles, # 30

They catch me as I walk by the reception room after getting my mail, my colleagues – previous victims looking for company – shouting for me as loudly as the members of the pep rally organizing committee. I had hoped to escape this meeting, but I’ve been caught. I won’t be the last. I see our Principal, Mary, is here as well. I remember she performed at last year’s pep rally, and swore never to again. Now she’s complaining and being teased like the rest of us as we await our orders from an impressively lively but focused senior who informs us that we’re to be the finale of this year’s rally and that she’s going to teach us a very simple dance. Yeah, right.

Twenty minutes and multiple playbacks of Rihanna's "Disturbia" later, I’m thinking this won’t be so hard, when she says, “OK, now we’re ready for the next part.” Al, the Senior Dean, seeing and sharing our collective alarm, kindly informs her that this as far as we’re going to go. Some protests from the girls, but quick agreement that we can simply repeat the routine we’ve been taught and that should be fine. After that, everyone is to improvise. There’s lots of joking as we leave the room with instructions to assemble two days later for the big event at the gym.

I am not looking forward to this. And yet I seem to find myself practicing my shovel step in front of the mirror after I put on my tie with school colors on the big day, and experiment with hand gestures later alone in the men’s room. At lunch I ask an older colleague, an alum of the school, if there were pep rallies back in the early seventies when she graduated. “Naaah,” she says. “We were way too cool for that, protesting the war and school policies.” I remark that teenagers somehow seemed older back then, and she demurs with the understated certainty of someone who knew that world too well to be impressed by it. She asks me if there were pep rallies in early eighties, when she correctly estimates I was in high school. It was a transitional time, I say. That kind of stuff was coming back, the reinvented nostalgia of the Reagan era.

By the time the school day is over, I’ve reached a state of positive dread. I wander over, late, to the old gym, which by this point is packed – not with only students, but administrators, staff, and parents. Great. The noise of the percussion ensemble – a string of snare drums pounding in unison – is deafening. I can feel my metabolism rising as I take a stand near my dancing partners, joking in each other’s ears like infantry waiting out the artillery barrage before the offensive assault. But I can’t help but be distracted by the festive air of the event. A towering arch of balloons has been set up at one end of the room, with a series of student emcees at the other. Each team is summoned to walk through the arch to the cheers of the gathering, and the players are ready for their moment. The field hockey team is dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and pause at center court to wield their sticks like swords. The volleyball players are dressed as boxers, and stage brief matches. Boys Cross Country are all dressed like Eminem in Eight Mile, their captain – a tentative student of mine – rapping with verve as he calls out the members of the football team. When it’s their turn, the star quarterback executes his play involving the much beloved cafeteria lady, she catching his nerf-football pass at mid-court to the wild approval of the crowd. My son, donning his jersey and looking surprisingly buff, walks through the arch with two teammates, their deliberate pace reminding me of Johnny Cash. Oh boy, am I going to embarrass him.

We dancers get our cue. I turn my head and see Mary walking in the other direction – I can’t believe she’s ditched us! I’m tempted to call her out, but there’s no time. A few minutes earlier, I was helping my colleagues remember the routine, but once the music starts, I find myself hopelessly out of step. The sudden appearance of the school mascot beside me isn’t helping any, nor is the flash of a camera in my face. Before I know it, the routine is over and I’m thinking about making a beeline for the exit. But then I think: The hell with it. I’ve gone this far and I might as well enjoy it. I start dancing in the now-dated way I did when party music meant Kool and the Gang and Whitney Houston. By now whole clumps of people – the pep rally organizers, field hockey players, the emcee – have joined in the fun, and I find myself struck at just how good a dancer my contemporary Phil, a gray-haired math teacher, is. On my way out the door, I hear kind but insincere compliments on my performance.

Back at the administration building I run into Mary, and tell her that I’m deeply disappointed by her failed leadership. “I suddenly had to go to the bathroom,” she says, not even having the decency to suppress a smile. “I almost didn’t make it.” She pauses, finally rendering a mischievous grin. “But you, I see, were feeling pretty good, bustin’ a move out there. Who would have figured?”

“What the hell,” I reply, heading out the door for home. “You’re only middle-aged once.”

Walt Walks

WW, May 31, 1819

Look: There’s Walt Whitman.

It’s very late – no, make that very early – and he’s walking down Broadway, right near St. Paul’s Church. It’s now spring, and while the day was unmistakably warm, there’s a wintry chill in the air tonight. Walt doesn’t mind. He’s wearing wool pants, a cotton shirt, a wool jacket and a hat (“a plain, neat fashionable one from Banta’s, 130 Chatham Street, which we got gratis, on the strength of giving him this puff,” he writes in a recent piece in the Aurora, a newspaper he’s editing these days). His boots and cane – a little silly for a hale man in his early twenties to be using one, but then Walt is a bit of a fop – resound on the paving stones, as do the sounds of horses’ hooves up ahead, where a carriage crosses his path. Broadway is unusually quiet tonight and the gas lamps only barely cut the darkness. He sees two candles in a nearby window on the corner of Fulton Street.

He’s been to a play. Good company, good seats, good – not great – show. He’s a little tired now as he heads back to his boardinghouse, but happy. He thinks of a woman he saw on his way to dinner. He remembers, and puts aside, a disagreeable task. He hears those boots as they hit the paving stones. He’d like a pair of new ones.

After some false starts and missteps, he’s finally beginning to make progress in his chosen vocation. He’s got big plans – an idea for a novel he wants to start soon – and inchoate dreams of fame and fortune. “Strangely enough, nobody stared at us with admiration,” he thinks, with that plural pronoun he likes to use in his pieces. “Nobody said ‘there goes Whitman, of Aurora! – nobody ran after us to take a better, and better look – no ladies turned their beautiful necks and smiled at us – no apple women became pale with awe – no news boys stopped and trembled, and took off their hats.’” Walt smiles, self-mockingly. But he knows we’re watching him. He is enjoying this.

Mercantile Exchange

In which we sell the value of an education

The Felix Chronicles, # 29
(Photo by Nina Freedman)

Open School Night: The longest day of the year. We have a full day of classes, then a break, then a dinner given to us by the school, then a couple hours of ten-minute classes for the parents. By the time we get home, it will be about 10 p.m. That’s not so bad, except that it takes a while to decompress before you can get to bed, and the next thing you know you’re back at school. It always feels like you’ve never left. That’s why I think of this as one of the most grueling weeks of the academic calendar, rivaled only by the cresting frenzy in the final weeks of the school year.

I love it.

Open School Night is the one evening of the year in which I can imagine what it feels like to be famous. Everyone seems to know who you are, which is fun, though I’m always mentally scrambling to place faces and recover names. But there’s an enormous sense of good will and people are usually willing to help you out. (“Hi, I’m Mindy's mom.”) Some of my colleagues complain about overbearing parents, and advise new faculty to run out the clock in their mini-classes so as to forestall windbag disquisitions or impertinent questions. Those risks are real enough, and I do encounter such situations occasionally. But they’re the exception, not the rule.

Open School night is the last Thursday in September, and by now, I’ve developed a series of routines around it. I live close enough to school to return home after classes, and use the late afternoon interlude to catch up on housework like laundry and a late-season lawn-mowing. I change into clean clothes with a necktie with some kind of history motif, and head back to school to savor the annual dinner, which allows me more time to chat with colleagues than I typically get at lunch. After that I head back to my office, actively avoiding the parents who have begun to congregate in hallways and on the Quad, as I haven’t yet psyched myself into performance mode. I spend a few minutes with the family directory to brush up on names I’ve forgotten or want to know, and then head to my classroom, which by this point is full of parents, with more to come as they grope their way with the help of student volunteers decked out in special T-shirts indicating their role as helpers.

I have a standard pitch, which involves identifying myself and saying how pleased I am to be working with their children. I survey the shape of the class – the various units, the major assignments, how the course fits into the larger curriculum, and so on. I ask if they have any questions, and when there’s a moment of silence that follows, I scold the parents for their lack of class participation and say that their children put them to shame. If, after the requisite chuckles, they’re still reticent, I ask how what I’m telling them comports with their own experience of history. In the back-and-forth that always begins sooner or later, I tell them that they are all a real presence in my classes, that these kids invoke them all the time. I think they’re pleased to hear that. And, in general, I think they’re pleased with my work. To a great degree that’s because they want to be pleased with my work. Literally and figuratively, they’ve made a big investment in this place, and I want to help them feel good about it.

On this night, as it happens, I have a class with two financier fathers, in a week in which there’s been tremendous volatility in the stock market. One I know from various committees and encounters at the school, and he greets me heartily. The other, who I only know by reputation, is more self-contained. After I finish my schtick this latter father asks me if I include current events in my classroom. The answer is yes – I’m typically asked, and explain that I refer to the presidential race – but this time, I steer my answer by going in a different direction. Just today, I tell them, we were discussing British imperial trade policy, the Navigation Acts, and the concept we’ve come to know as mercantilism. Mercantilism is a relatively abstruse concept, and I often find in my teaching that the best way to explain what something is involves telling them what it isn’t. In this case, I say, I run the my story forward and say that in the otherwise inconsequential year of 1776, Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations, in which he argued that the best way for Britain to advance her interests economically was not to manage them from London, but rather to let participants in the market proceed as they see fit. The invisible hand, and all that stuff I know you all understand.

But, I continue, what I also told your kids today is that we’re now living in an time of neo-mercantilism. That in an age of Aramco in Saudi Arabia and sovereign wealth funds in China and Indonesia, traditional corporations like ExxonMobil and Lehman Brothers (which has just gone belly-up) are becoming quaint relics. More and more, the wealth of nations is just that – trade as a form of national aggrandizement.

“How much time do you spend on this?” this father asks. I can’t quite tell whether he’s testing to see if there’s any substance behind this little piece of curriculum, or he's implying that I should stick to my day job and leave the finance business to others.

"Not a lot," I answer. "Because as much as I want kids to understand that the past has real relevance and continuity in the present, I also want to convey its strangeness, the way people in other times are truly different in their assumption and beliefs." Here I make a little digression into my discussion of tolerance, and how a concept we tend to regard as a shared value was looked upon with disdain and even abhorrence when it came to Catholicism in seventeenth century England, for example. That tolerance is just another way of saying that you don't give a damn.

Our time is up, and people shuffle out, some pausing with warm thanks and hellos. The other banker is beaming like a proud parent. “I endowed this guy,” he seems to be saying. There’s a good deal of truth to that, of course. Every once in a while, I feel like a celebrity around here. And every once in a while, I feel like the hired help. Probably good to feel both. Occasionally.

Better

In which we see two assemblies -- and some solitary reflection on a meeting between a senator and a teacher

The Felix Chronicles, #28

An almost eerie silence prevails in the hallway outside Room 211. Though it’s late morning on a school day in January, no one is here; the only sign that anyone is at school at all is the row of untended backpacks are lined up outside lockers. I begin to walk down the hallways to the auditorium, my pace quickening so that I may join my colleagues and students for the history in the making.

I don’t want to miss out this time. On Election Night, I was distracted by a fever that would soon become a cold. I was, moreover, worried about my daughter, who would be having substantial dental work done the next day (which proved to be less fearsome than I expected). I heard the victory speech in a haze, half asleep, but uneasily so, in my bed. So it is that the private and personal trumps the public and collective. All the more reason to savor this day.

But as I pass junior dean’s office and the empty student commons, I remember another day. This was a warm June evening in 2006. I had been in Washington for a meeting, and was waiting in the terminal at Reagan National for the US Air shuttle to take me back to New York. We were delayed because of lighting, and so it was at one point that I looked up to see my U.S. Senator, Chuck Schumer, chatting beside freshman Senator Barack Obama. I overheard talk about a fundraiser in Manhattan. Something about Scarlett Johanssen. I heard someone fret that if we didn’t board soon, there would be no point. Senator Obama mentioned a horrific flight one of his colleagues had made recently.

A few minutes later, I saw Obama standing alone, and pushed aside my reserve and got out of my seat. I walked up to him. “Senator,” I said, “I want to be able to tell my children that I shook your hand,” extending to reach the one he instinctively extended. “I’ve been following you back since the primary,” I said, referring to his unlikely capture, in a crowded field, of the 2004 Democratic nomination for the Illinois Senate seat he went on to win, a triumph that made national headlines even before his celebrated speech at the Democratic National Convention that summer.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was at a doing some consulting work at the Smithsonian,” I explained. "National Museum of American History."

“Good, good. And what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a high school history teacher.”

“Even better!” I knew he had used similar, even identical words many times with constituents and starry-eyed strangers like myself. But I appreciated the essential decency of honoring ordinary work, and his ability to convey a sense of warmth.

“Well, anyway, I’ll be cheering for you.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

He left shortly after that, leaving me with a cherished memory, one that fueled a trip to Pennsylvania two years later, where I campaigned on his behalf with a group of faculty and students. The highlight of the trip occurred on a quiet street in black suburb on the border of Philadelphia, when a pair of my seniors separately knocked on the door of a house where a bachlorette party was taking place, and where they were plausibly mistaken for the afternoon's entertainment. (No one was thinking about the content of their character that day.) I smile at the memory now as I ascend the steps to the auditorium. As I do, I hear a brass band. And when I push open the doors, I hear the roar of the school, augmenting that of the crowd at the Mall visible on the gigantic screen in the front of the room, which cuts to the president-elect arriving at the podium. Private wish has become public will. Yes we could; yes we did.

Cheer

In which we anticipate a winter wonderland

The Felix Chronicles, # 27

The phone is ringing when I arrive in my office at 8:17 a.m. on the Thursday morning before the winter break. I pick it up while simultaneously trying to slip out of my coat.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Cullen?"

"Speaking."

"I'm so glad we've reached you. This is Ruth, Jason's mom? We met on Open School Night."

"Yes of course. How are you?" In my mind I see nothing, no name, no face. But Jason will be enough to work with. I drape my coat over my desk chair, pull my laptop out of my briefcase, and power it up.

"Well, I've been better, especially in this market. I'm calling about the History Day project. As you know, Jason's working with Tom."

"Yes.” I sort of do know that. It's on a master list somewhere in my inbox. I begin to rustle through it.

"A thoroughly depressing subject, if you ask me." Now I do remember: They're doing the decision to drop the atomic bomb. Originally, they wanted to do World War II. I told them the subject was too broad. They've narrowed it down to the bomb, and are working on a website. The first draft I saw was not too promising. Big slabs of text, relatively weak in conceptual organization. Technical glitches. Normally, one or both of them will be working with Joey. But Joey has grand plans for a tabletop reenactment of Pickett's Charge that he says he's been working on since July with Roy. Ominously, I’ve seen nothing new on Jason and Tom's project since they handed in the the first draft earlier this month, only a string of e-mails asking questions that could be answered if they studied the original assignment.

Then I realize that I've not been paying close attention to Ruth, who has been explaining the series of obstacles Jason and Tom have encountered. "It doesn't help matters any that Tom is out there somewhere in Elmsford, or maybe it's Valhalla. He never wants to come down the city, and I can't just drop everything to get Jason out there for one of their marathon sessions. Did you know that they spent all night working on this Saturday?" There's more than a hint of accusation in her query.

I'm tempted to ask how I would know that, but bite my tongue. I also imagine an empty pizza box, a Madden NFL game on a laptop, and Ludacris blaring from the port of an iPod. Still, I feel a twinge of unease. Truth is, the History Day Project has long been a sore point among some administrators and colleagues, who think it asks too much of the kids at a difficult time of year. We have revisited the subject from time to time as a department, and concluded that the pluses outweigh the minuses. For grading purposes we like to have a grade-wide substantial assessment at the end of the semester, and see bona fide value in a group undertaking in which students get to choose their topic and work on it in a planned sequence of stages. And some of the final results are truly extraordinary. Alas, that's not going to be the case here.

"I'm sorry hear that,” I say soothingly about the all-nighter. “I know that this is a difficult undertaking. That's why I always emphasize at the start of the project that students need to think carefully about with whom they're going to work and to emphasize that the quality of their collaboration is an important dimension of what this is all about. I also emphasize that they stand or fall together, and that if one kid coasts and another kid does all the work, that itself can be a valuable lesson."

"Well, I'm not sure I agree with you about that,” she says. “Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that Jason has handled this perfectly. He can be lazy. But I knew as soon as I heard that he was can be working with Tom were going to be problems here. Tom is a nice kid, but I don’t think he’s capable of pulling his weight, intellectually or otherwise.”

Not a kind assessment, but not an inaccurate one. I look at my computer screen. A small red box is flashing at the bottom right-hand side. It's the weather widget. That thing is always flashing red or yellow. More about drawing your eye to advertising than providing useful information. I click on it just the same.

"What I don't understand," she continues, "is the timing of this project. Why does it have to be just before the holiday break? We're leaving for St. Bart's on Friday morning. We’ve planned this trip for months, I'm pulling the kids out of school to take it.”

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY, says the web page I’m now reading. Snow begins in the morning; six to ten inches by tomorrow night. Will she get out in time?

"Well,” I respond, “this is something we periodically have discussed going back many years. We've learned from experience that it makes more sense to have the project due before the break so that really we clear the decks for kids to have a real vacation. Nobody likes to have a big project hanging over their heads during the holidays." Actually, I have traditionally had this assignment due a week before the break, but watching my own son scramble to do his project (a documentary about strategic bombing -- the boys always seem to go for war) has led me to conclude that more time really does make a difference. He’s largely keeping me out the loop on this one, I’m happy to say. His partner’s dad is a documentary filmmaker, so that's where they're getting most of their help.

"Well I've got to tell you, an assignment like this really wreaks havoc on family life."

"Again, I'm sorry to hear that. Is there something you'd like me to do? Would you like to talk with the boys?”

“That would be good," she says. "But what would really help is giving them more time. I don't think these two really understood what they’ve gotten themselves into, and the geographic factor has really proven to be a major complication, especially because Tom has basketball practice during the week and coming up with good times to collaborate has been a major, major problem."

I can't resist a smile. Normally, I'd be in a position I really hate: having to say no. To accede to this request would not only precipitate an avalanche of similar ones -- the word would be on the street almost immediately -- but get me into trouble with my colleagues, as we've all sworn a blood oath to hold the line in the face of these pressures. I realize I'm taking a chance here, but if my bluff gets called, I can say I was certain, however mistakenly, that there was going to be a snow day.

"Well, I don't like to do this, but understand extenuating factors in this particular situation. So I'll allow Jason and Tom a little more time to finish this up. As long as I have it we get back from break, there should be no harm done."

"I really appreciate that. I want you to know that Jason loves your class.”

"Thank you. I enjoy working with him."

"The best part of this," she tells me, adopting a confiding, even conspiratorial, tone, "is that Jason will be spending the second week of the break with his father. For once in his life, the man will actually have to pay attention to his son's needs. Can't wait to see that."

"Glad to be of service," I say with a chuckle. And though I don't know why, I mean it. Though she's given me little reason to think so, I suspect her grievance with her ex, whoever he is, may well be legitimate. "Happy holidays, Ruth."

"Happy holidays to you," she replies. Pause. "Merry Christmas, Mr. Cullen.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I appreciate that. And please call me Jim.” But she’s already hung up.

Turned out to be more like a foot (and they got out in time). Thank God.

Pretzel Logic

In which we see the typical chaos of a"normal" morning

The Felix Chronicles, # 26

6:00 a.m. Monday morning. Cellphone alarm goes off. I have the presence of mind not to press snooze. I hear the front door slam as my wife takes the dogs for a walk. My son Ryland is with her. I realize that allotting one day for the Jefferson administration on Friday is not going to be enough time. Maybe I can move faster through the Washington administration and make it through the XYZ Affair today. No meetings this afternoon.

6:02. I open my eyes. We’re on the other side of daylight savings time, so it’s not dark anymore when I get out of bed. Outside the window, sunshine and a swatch of red in the trees. Foliage still going strong. Isn’t it a little late? Somehow I remember barer trees at this point in November when I was in high school. I see frost on the ground as I head to the bathroom.

6:07. When I come out, I turn on the TV. The hosts of Morning Joe are talking about the election. Funny: this is the climax, and months ago I daydreamed about the excitement of Election Day. Now that it’s almost here, I’m anxious for it to be over. Discussion of the polls. Joe Scarborough can be very irritating. All these faux populists.

6:14. Too much time picking a tie. I go with Little green Democratic donkeys Republican elephants in a navy background. White oxford shirt. Navy khakis. My uniform. The Morning Joe stock analyst in London is talking about another update day in Europe. Dow Futures are up. I switch to CNN as I make the bed. Grab socks and underwear as I head to the bathroom again for a shower. I’m actually running a little head of schedule.

6:32. Cell rings as I thread my brown leather belt through the khakis. “Hi,” I say, knowing it’s my wife. “We forgot that Grayson has a field trip today,” she tells me. “He needs a bag lunch. Could you get it started?” Damn. “OK,” I say.

6:33. I head to my daughter’s bedroom. “NANceee. NANceee. It’s time to start your day,” I say my incantatory sing-song voice. No movement. “C’mon little girl. Time to get up.”

“One more minute?”

“No. I need you to get going. Can I count on you to pick your own clothes?”

Groggy: “OK.”

6:42. I can’t linger, and head downstairs to make that lunch. I assemble a turkey sandwich, some pretzels, and a bag of grapes. Don’t know about a drink. Nancy comes downstairs wearing hot pink shorts, and a sleeveless shirt over a T-Shirt. “No no no!” I say. “You can’t wear that! It’s November, not July. Now go upstairs and put on long pants!”

“I don’t want to wear long pants.”

“Nancy! Now!” I head to the top of the staircase and shout downstairs. “Grayson! Are you up?”

“Yeah. But I can’t find my glasses!”

“Did you look by the TV?”

“Yeah. I can’t find them.”

Dammit. I haven’t resolved the lunch situation, need to keep an eye on Nancy, and breakfast isn’t underway. I head downstairs to look for the glasses.

My wife returns. Dogs bound up the stairs. Mud prints on hard wood. “Grayson can’t find his glasses,” I tell her. She says nothing, disappears around a corner into the bathroom, and returns with them in her hand. “You were saying?”

She tells me to wake up Jay and she’ll start breakfast and Ryland’s lunch (he takes one everyday). Jays says he’s awake. Always does, never is. I see a bowl of melted ice cream on a bedside table, two unmade beds, and a sweater on the floor. Meanwhile, Grayson is playing a computer game with Ryland. Grayson is barefoot, and Ryland has somehow shed his sneakers. “C’mon boys! Let’s get going! Get your shoes on and get upstairs!”

6:51. I come back upstairs to find Nancy in a party dress. “No no no no no no no!”

“Why can’t she wear that?”

“Because it’s a dress that has to be dry cleaned. She’ll get mustard or blue paint on it in like one nanosecond. She should only wear that one for special occasions.” My wife shrugs. “She’ll have outgrown it by spring,” she says to me. Then she turns to our daughter. “Nancy, go change your dress.”

“But Mom!”

“Go!” She does. The kids always take her more seriously than me.

While the eggs cook, I get out cups, plates, forks, milk, juice water. Ritalin and Omega 3 for Ryland. Glucosamine for my aching joints. I head outside for the newspaper.

7:02 “Mom!” It’s Grayson “I can’t find my sneakers!”

My wife looks at me. “You know he doesn’t like pretzels. Will you go look for them?”

“I don’t know where they are! And since when doesn’t he like pretzels?”

She ignores the pretzel question. “They’re over by the back door. I can’t do that and make breakfast and Ryland’s lunch!”

Grumbling about a lack of time to read the paper, I head down to get the sneakers, which are right where she says they are. Grayson and Ryland are glued to the computer again. Jay is still in bed. “Jay!”

“All right already!” he barks. All right already?

7:06. At last. Scrambled eggs on sourdough bread with cranberry juice. A copy of the Times. Nancy finally wearing jeans and a pink cotton sweater, eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. Small stain already on that sweater. My wife is making herself toast. No sign of the boys. Will I go get them, she asks? I sigh. She shoots me with an annoyed expression.

“Look,” she says, packing two waterbottles into each boy’s lunch and putting the lunches into backpacks. “I made breakfast and Ryland’s lunch. I always make Ryland’s lunch. I know you want to read your paper, but I haven’t even taken a shower yet.– ”

“OK OK OK OK.” I get up and walk toward the stairs. “BOYS!”

Nothing. "You can’t just shout at them," she tells me.

“BOYS!”

“I’m not hungry!” Ryland bellows back.

“I don’t care! Get up here anyway!”

“No!”

“If you don’t come up here now, I’m going to go down there and pull you up by the hair!” Fantasies of authoritarianism. I imagine my students Beth and Joey witnessing this scene. Beth would be horrified. Joey would be amused. I don't care.

Ryland appears at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m not hungry,” he says, ascending. We walk over to the table, whereupon I hand him his meds. For once, he takes them without further comment. I return to my cooling eggs.

7:29. I look up from the Arts & Leisure section. Oh shit. Ryland’s bus will be here in five minutes. He has long since disappeared downstairs. “Ryland! Time to go!” I begin gathering up dishes. Lyde, returning from a shower and fresh clothes, picks up a few herself. “I have to run,” she says. “Promised a student I would meet her at eight.” She pecks me on the cheek. “Chinese tonight, right?” Right.

She pauses by the door. “Did you RSVP for that birthday party you were supposed to yesterday?”

"Did I RSVP?

Yes. You. Remember? We agreed I would take Nancy to the party after coaching the soccer game next Saturday. You said you would make the call. You said it was the least you could do."

"Right. I did." She walks back over to me, pecks me on the cheek. A stroke on my face means no hard feelings. I hear the lumbering engine of the bus through the open door. “Ryland!”

7:44. I still haven’t recovered my breath after sprinting after the bus, backpack in hand. But he made it. Dishes packed in the dishwasher, Nancy’s teeth brushed. Doors locked. Grayson has actually managed to put on a jacket without prompting and has headed to the car, Nintendo in hand. I help Nancy into a pullover. No sign of Jay. “We’ll be waiting in the car,” I shout down to him. A moment later he emerges. I can see through the driveway he’s left the lights on his room. Not worth wrangling over.

7:51. The local NPR affiliate is going through its running feature of what’s in the morning papers. Parkway gridlock. I have a green light but can’t get on. I fume. Jay shouts to Grayson and Nancy to put their seat belts on.

8: 11. Drop-off point for the kids. “Have a good day with your friends!” I say merrily. That’s when Grayson points out that he doesn’t have his backpack, and thus not his lunch. Arrgh! I call my wife. She says she’ll bring it by later that morning. I head up to the staff parking lot.

8:16. I get out of the car about ten minutes later than I’d like to be. That’s all right; I photocopied the handouts for this afternoon already, and am showing a DVD first thing. I can start it, set up my laptop, and get a cup of coffee.

“Morning, Mr. Cullen.”

“Good morning, Mark.”

“Hey, Jim.”

“Morning, Andy.”

I can feel myself stabilizing as I walk down the hall to my classroom. Here I’m regarded as a civilized human being, not a raging lunatic who fulminates about ketchup on dresses that require dry-cleaning. I enter my classroom and start writing notes on the blackboard (the rumored Smartboard hasn’t surfaced yet. Just as well – one more gadget to master). I try to picture Alexander Hamilton rushing to get out of his country house up in Harlem the morning. Difficult, but not impossible. Easier to imagine him arguing with his wife, particularly because he was unfaithful to her. Some flying ceramics, maybe. A slammed door or two. Rudeness to a servant and some rough handling of horses. I can’t see Jefferson rushing or shouting, though I can conjure angry silences between him and Sally Hemings at Monticello. Even as a slave, she surely had a few emotional tools at her disposal.

Where would we be without public personae? Right now, at least, paid employment seems so much easier than the alternatives. To be sure it has its frustrations. But teaching a class seems a whole lot easier to manage than getting four kids out the door – or, for that matter, getting them in the door and sorting through all their stuff at the end of the day, which is what I do on Mondays. When I unpack Grayson’s backpack at 6:27 that evening after turning on the TV to find out what’s happened in the presidential race so far today, I find a lunch untouched, except for an empty bag of pretzels. I guess that makes me a genius. Can’t wait to brag to my wife.

Until I learn that he gave them to a classmate.