Some 40 of you responded to the rant about my high school. One
respondent called me a racist; two or three were critical. All the rest
were supportive.

The hostile response was elicited by my use of the word “savages” to
describe high school freshmen. I was referring to freshmen in general –
not the particular freshman class that gave me grief — and I was
paraphrasing someone else. But the word choice was mine and it was a
careless one. I apologize to anyone who was offended.

I mentioned that some African-American kids at my high school had called
me racist because of my use of the phrase “white flight” to describe
what my family had been part of when I was 14 years old. One [white
male] respondent said he could understand this reaction since the phrase
sounds inflammatory. Interesting. “White flight” is, to my knowledge, a
derisive term coined by blacks to describe white behavior. Still, my
respondent may be right. There’s no reason to think the (black) kids who
took offense knew the derivation of the phrase.

Many thoughtful responses came from people who are or have been
teachers. I’d like to quote some of these in this posting. Next time
I’ll quote from the rest of you. First, a [white female] high school
teacher in northern Indiana:

“As someone who has taught for 15 years in what amounts to the suburban
inner city, I can tell you I relate, relate, relate. … I have had
plenty of eye rolls myself about comments (facts) I have made about
black history or interpretations of black literature and, when I have
confronted those students about their skepticism, they only become
reticent when they can’t relate even the most common information about
their own heritage in this country. Don’t feel too bad. I completely
believe these students were not only not listening to you, their parents
have no idea about the history of blacks in this country either, or if
they do, they certainly have not imparted it to their children. It’s sad
but true.”

From a [black female] retired businesswoman who now substitute-teaches
in Texas: “Everything that teacher [Kara Bickhem, an African-American
teacher at my old high school] said about African-American freshmen is
true. Most of the parents do not care. I have a degree in elementary
school education and have worked as a volunteer-mentor even when I was
in business, and now as a substitute. I am dismayed at what is happening
to our Black youth. And is it our (the Black race) fault, I weepingly
admit. I came up in the 60’s and I know how hard we fought to get some
rights. These kids are throwing them all away. Not all. I work almost
exclusively in a talented and gifted elementary school and high school
and I see Black geniuses to-be. But they are so few compared. …”

Race isn’t the issue, says a [white female] teacher of college freshmen:
“My students are predominantly white and their behavior is like this
each and every day. Last week, one of them asked me why we had to read
this stuff. ‘This stuff’ being two short stories: one by Flannery
O’Connor and the other by Joyce Carol Oates. He said, ‘When in my life
am I ever going to need to know this. How is this going to help me?’ He
then went on to rant about the entire education system and how he didn’t
see the point of it.

“Frankly, I don’t see the point in him being in my class either. … My
larger point is, why is this person in college if not for an education?
Admission standards in most higher learning institutions across the
nation have steadily declined in the past 20 years. At [my university],
they are practically nonexistent. If you have the money, come on in. In
the past, elitism at the college level referred to an economic barrier
that prohibited highly intelligent people from poor backgrounds [from
getting] a degree. Financial aid, grants, and scholarships have taken
care of this matter. What is at play now is that ‘everyone should get a
degree.’ If you don’t have the academic skills, you shouldn’t be
rewarded with the final prize. Most of students cannot read beyond an
8th grade level. And, around 85% of them aren’t interested in learning
at all. Around 60% admit they don’t even care if they get a degree.
They’re there simply because that is what people do.

“The point is that somewhere along the way young people have lost their
love of books and forgotten the excitement of learning something new.”

A [white male] university administrator and professor observed of rude
high school behavior that “they do grow up,” but points out that the
kids he teaches behave better because they WANT to be in class. He
teaches both in the classroom and on line. “[Most students in my
program] are African-American. Some of the younger ones struggle, but I
have a class of 7 adults (5 African-Americans and 2 Muslims). They want
to learn and achieve. Online there is no difference between students
from different cultures/races. The main differential is age and life
experience; get out of their way if they are in the military. I have
women who have worked their way off of welfare and are near completing
their degree.”

A [white female] teacher of high school French said: “I spent 12 years
teaching in eastern Montgomery County (MD), and I saw too much of what
you described. There was almost a deliberate ignorance among too many of
the kids. I was called racist because I had a tee shirt with the names
of all the countries in the world where French is the major language.
One of them was spelled, ‘Niger.’ You can imagine how the kids read that
particular one. This readiness to read insult in the most benign things
actually kept these kids from learning properly; they were too keyed
into detecting the slightest sign of (perceived by them) disrespect.
What a shame that the noble Civil Rights Movement has disintegrated into
this!”

And finally, from a woman I’ve never met in person — I know her via the
First-Novel.com listserv. Her response will have to speak for itself:

“Recently …, the idea that freshmen are not yet ready for high school
has prompted another change in the system in many places, including the
school system where I was teaching for 5 years. It’s called 9th Grade
Academy or Freshman Academy. It’s an attempt to keep the freshmen
isolated from the rest of the students in the high school. 9th graders
are either in completely different halls or completely different
buildings and only mingle with higher grades in some elective courses
like Choir or Drama.

“I have had similar experiences as a drama teacher, performing in front
of various grades. Freshmen are always the worst. But honestly, the
overall ability of today’s students to sit a listen to lectures or
watch performances is horrid, if my students are any sort of example. I
had to spend the first couple of years teaching the student body AND
their parents how to be an audience. They had no idea about how to watch
a play with talking, either to each other or to the actors on stage.
Movies have spoiled theater in many ways. …

“As for the race problem, I taught in rural Georgia. Race is still a
huge issue there, but not in the same way. I, too, find the students
unaware of the struggles of the past, engaging easily in talk of ‘black
things and ‘white things’. I very rarely, if ever, referred to people
in terms of skin color, but here, where the ratio of white, black and
Hispanic was about 40-50-10, it was all about skin. It was disturbing
to me at first. Okay, it’s still disturbing, but I had to accept it to
some extent, because that was how it was. I hated my son hearing it and
was glad when talk of ‘I can’t dance, I’m white’ was deemed unacceptable
in our karate classes.

“Mind if I share an alternate theory on your ‘kids in the back’ who
called you racist? I’m sure they heard the “white flight” part, not
knowing what that was, an[d] automatically assumed it was a racist
remark, not because they weren’t paying attention, but because they were
more aware. Having been in the ‘doper and burnout’ crowd, I know that
many of those kids have a wider knowledge of the world’s issues, if not
a complete understanding. They may have been erroneously offended by the
words because they didn’t have the background to understand the white
flight (that’s that bad communication between parent and child and bad
education), but they knew enough to have an emotional response. I may
not be explaining this well, but at that age, [kids having] strong
feelings about something, even if wrong, is better than no feelings at
all. …

“Any[way], don’t give up on the kids. If anything, MORE authors,
performers and lecturers should go to schools. Teach the students HOW
to be audiences, HOW to be critical thinkers, creative thinkers. THAT’S
what’s wrong with education today. We don’t teach the basics well and
we don’t teach them how to be critical and creative. We teach them to
be selfish, that everyone is special and deserves what they WANT. Oh, I
could go on. I’m an involved parent and former teacher, so I can talk.”

Thanks to all of for this heartfelt outpouring. Next time, the response
of the non-teachers.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I’m wiped out. I visited bookstores in Morgantown WV, Monroeville
(Pittsburgh area) PA, Columbus OH, Dayton OH and Springdale (Cincinnati
area) OH. I put 1,239 miles on the car (and my ass) in five days. But I
had a great time with family members Jud and Jim Judkis, reconnected
with high school classmate Charlie Albright and met his delightful wife
Terrie, and finally met listserv pen-pal Skye Blaine in person, with her
sister Margaret. And I met wonderful people in the Borders and B&Ns
along the way.

P.P.S. You can hear me in the Washington-Baltimore area next Sunday afternoon
on WMET 1160 AM World Radio. I’m being interviewed at 3 o’clock on Kwame
Alexander’s arts-and-culture show “Word of Mouth.”