Students’ Use of Mobile Devices for Learning

Mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, smartwatches) might not have been around when you grew up, but they are going to be on the educational scene from now until… forever. And on balance, this is going to be a good thing.

I say that even though I’m quite cautious and skeptical about the digital world children enter into nowadays. I am dismayed when I see a five-year-old plunked down with an iPad, playing games for hours on end. As far as I’m concerned, that kid’s mind is far better served by being engaged in the world around him/herself, especially plain old leaves, dirt, sticks, grass. If that’s not available, a book to look at, an art project, building blocks. I don’t believe parents genuinely hand their kids these electronic devices to make them smarter – what they’re doing is buying some time off from minding the kid. And that’s totally understandable and okay! 

Yet… I’ve come to think that a period of ‘mindlessly’ watching TV – my own parents’ answer to the kid time-drain – is in some ways better than a tablet, especially when good videos are selected by the parents. Sure, kids’ TV is passive, and often not very enlightening. But my concern with tablets and the like is that these devices are so immersive that they are certainly shaping the brain of their young users, in ways we don’t even understand. Later on, we’ll see that the time they spend checked out of the real world and into the virtual shaped their character – in ways we don’t yet know. It’s an experiment. Young minds are malleable, and there are many ways our modern world drives a kind of distance between us as we grow up that would be alien to earlier generations. 

Okay, that’s my skepticism, and it is mostly concerned with the exposure of the youngest ages, say up until 8. But let’s consider the world of the 7th grade teacher. Pretty certain, every kid in his/her class will have put in substantial time on an interactive device – a game console, a computer, a phone, a tablet. They’re natives. It’s no good denying it; now the question becomes, how do we channel the time they’re going to spend online anyway into activities that are most beneficial, most educational for them? There are a couple of tricky parts to this: How to slip that objective in there without making it boring and easily rejected in favor of a favorite game? And how to know that the activity is beneficial? 

For the teacher, these are such crucial questions, because as soon as the kids are out of the classroom, these digital diversions immediately become their go-to activities. What we want is market share in their head space (permit me some jargon; it’s actually serious, because that’s what all the advertisers in the world are grappling for, 24/7). Building some of this digital/mobile activity into homework and classroom activity is the way to take some of that territory.

Conversely, because of their already-blossoming “addiction” to these devices, allowing the students to engage in absorbing problem-solving and learning activities on them is a surefire way to increase the students' interest in and commitment to the business the class is conducting. Don’t you suppose they’d rather work on that iPad assignment than the one that requires them to crack open a book or put pen to paper?

We should also bear in mind that the fields of authentically researched and validated project-based learning and educational gaming are coming into full renaissance now. Increasingly, researchers and developers are producing online activities that are substantially outperforming traditional means for teaching certain subjects, as measured by resulting test scores. For learning certain things, the digital game medium is just better than a great teacher in the same room. 

And there’s efficiency: as a teacher trainee, I’ve been assigned a lot of online reading, videos, and such. When I’m commuting or standing in a line, I can just pull out my phone, access my next reading assignment, and get right to it. That convenience makes me want to do it right now, because I know I’ll have to take care of it at some point, and right here and now I have some time to burn. Later, it’ll surely get in the way of whatever else I’d rather be doing. 

So, teacher, how best to seize this opportunity?

•  Only do what is reasonably accessible to all your students. The activity must reduce the “digital divide” (by which less privileged kids get less access), not increase it. If it fails this test, don’t do it.
• Make it project-based. Learning through projects that require problem-solving sticks far better than rote learning, and digital media can excel at this.
• Make it game-based. A good game requires experimentation, and delivers stages of advancement and reward that propel the learner forward.
• Test it out. You need to avoid technical hindrances that could derail an otherwise great project.
• Go with what’s proven, and with what works for you. Rely on what’s been tried and well-reviewed; and if you have a different reaction, move on to something else.
• Make the kids figure it out. They are your best resource for finding ways to keep the project moving forward – they are natives, after all; they enjoy the challenge; and they learn from it.
• Go with easy. If something isn’t working, reach for the alternative. Better yet, rely on your kids to do that.
• Make the kids help each other. Collaboration should be built into the assignment. And more advanced students should get credit for helping others who need guidance.
• Make it measurable. There should be good ways to assess what’s been learned.

So, what’s a good mobile-based activity? Likely it will be exploratory and collaborative, and engage students’ problem-solving skills.

I recently led students in a “functional geography” activity, in which they used tablets to capture photos and audio narrations to describe particular locations and the purposes for which they’re used. Then they sent this field material in, and edited it together in a voicethread. This was a project that involved creativity, collaboration, and quite a lot of problem-solving as they worked out how to get the material onto one device, then send it to another. They learned to act fast, to find work-arounds when they hit a roadblock, to perform, and to use their devices in productive ways they’ve never encountered before.

A friend of mine has his students create a podcast about some aspect of their family history. While much of the editing might happen on a laptop, the capturing of this material is most easily done with any mobile digital device that can capture sound and send it elsewhere. And when the student needs to transcribe the interview, s/he can easily do it at home using this device, not having to wait for one of the two computers in the classroom to become available. The efficiencies these devices enable make the project more practical to achieve in a reasonable amount of time, without getting tangled up in technicalities. 

This stuff isn’t the future; it’s the present. And with a bit of inventiveness, combined with a thoughtful consideration of educational objectives, it’s going to make for better schooling.

Special Education Referrals in a Westchester School District

I spoke with the lead special education administrator of a school district in Westchester County, New York, Kristie. It was the first week of school and she was pressed for time, so one of the strong impressions the conversation left me with, in addition to her obvious professionalism, was how much specialized jargon was flowing off her tongue. Since it’s all new to me, I was scrambling to keep up as she gave me a quick introduction into how special education is a highly regulated, highly organized system with crucial accountabilities.

A student may be identified for special education referral either by the parents or by school staff, and these two paths each have their own requirements. In either case, the staff takes an individualized approach to determine what sort of supports they can build appropriate for the student.

Much of what happens in the referral process is mandated by state and federal law. For example, the Response to Interventions (RTI) spells out a clear process to follow, beginning with collecting data that would demonstrate initial eligibility. The RTI process will move the student into one of three tiers. But Kristie made clear to me that the state does not dictate how they intervene, such as what courses they provide. For example, the district has a special resource room for intake called Bridges, which is not based on any legal requirement, but is modelled on their own choices of best practices.

And this goes some way to explaining the school administration's directive for special education. The administrators make it their business to continually analyze their continuum of services, from the least restrictive, most inclusive ways available to other approaches as needed. This is a well-resourced district with the capacity to keep an eye open for innovations they can add, in a field that seems to be in a state of ongoing development, with a steady stream of new research, assistive technologies, and piloting methodologies.

If the student is “classified” as a result of the referral, s/he is then under the responsibility of the Committee on Special Education (CSE) and is given case manager. The whole process of evaluations and committee reviews ensues. If not, their case is sent back to what they call the “building level,” meaning the team of educators in the student’s school building, who manage this student along with all the others, though one presumes with a closer, more specialized level of attention.
Students identified for special education are provided with a continuum of services at the elementary and secondary levels, ranging from teacher-direct interventions to out-of-district placement if necessary. The CSE team determines what’s appropriate in each case, including social-emotional developmental needs, and develops a plan to suit.

Parents are deeply involved. If the referral is initiated from within the school, parents are informed early and kept aware throughout the process. Either way, once a student is classified, consultations with parents are a constant feature, with weekly conversations at a minimum between a learning specialist or psychologist and the parent, and a robust online portal providing the parent with extensive access including real-time tools.

I was curious about the social-emotional component of a special education student’s predicament, whatever their particular needs may be. The philosophy overall is to take a student-centered approach, in which students take responsibility for their own learning and development to the maximum extent. They seek to enable student activity that is less directed by the teacher, more self-directed.

I then spoke to two veteran high school teachers from the same district. When I asked Dean and Renee how they identify a student for special education, it became apparent that that rarely happens at the high school level – almost always, the referral will already have been made in earlier grades. So students tend to come under their supervision already under the management of the CSE. The teachers then tend to jump into an RTI process that is already well defined.

As they get more involved in the case, they observe actively, and when they notice things, they bring their findings to the team meetings to talk about it as a group. They then try approaches in the classroom that they have reason to expect to be of value. They then collect data and go through several cycles of reporting and adjusting. When something isn’t working, this triggers them to try a different level of intervention, and this escalation may continue as long as necessary.

The teachers know a student is struggling when they see poor reading comprehension; a student who is grades below age in reading & writing; and obvious problems with math comprehension. They most often attribute these observed qualities to slow mental processing and weak memory. They recognize that there are many causes of these conditions – neurological, hearing impairment, learning difficulties, and often physical causes.

On the subject of emotional handicaps, I thought both teachers initially indicated that they tend to stay away from handling that. When I sought a further explanation, they clarified that it’s not that such cases go untouched, but rather that emotionally fragile kids are handled more as the special province of psychological staff, such as clinicians who conduct psychological testing and work directly on conditions like anxiety. They also noted that in their experiences, the attempt is made to address such conditions earlier, in middle school.

I asked whether referrals ever seem to come as a surprise to the parents. Again, this is not a process these teachers handle much, but they think it rarely comes as much of a surprise to parents of student at the high school level.

When I asked whether alternate methods of instruction are tried before referring the student for special education, the answer I got, which really referred to the RTI, indicated to me that at the age they’re teaching, students are pretty clearly segregated already in the minds of the teachers into those who have been classified in special education and those not. They did describe how highly individualized the RTI approach is for each student. It might involve calling the parent once a week, making a homework schedule, giving the kid more attention if s/he’s having hard time reading. Their perspectives seemed to be very much formed by the RTI process, with its weekly committee meetings examining different cases; a large reference list of different interventions depending on the student; and an iterative process of the committee recommending an intervention, the teacher and student trying it, and reporting back.

What I have reported here may not be news to the reader, but for me, as I have not been involved in any of this before, it was quite an education into both the formal process and the perspectives and approaches of teaching and administrative staff concerning special education. Attending to special needs has to be a significant chunk of a teacher’s time, and the collaborative accountability is quite intensive. I think that a teacher has to adopt a really positive attitude about his/her contribution to the student’s growth to incorporate this special attention seamlessly into his/her complete range of responsibilities. 

Beacon City School District Demographic and Achievement Performance

Here's a little look at how Beacon's young students stat up:

What is "Innovative Teaching and Learning"?

"Innovative Teaching and Learning" is a buzzword set of practices in education these days, backed by Microsoft research and advocacy. Here's an infographic giving a brief overview of what it's about:

One important finding backing up this approach is that the quality of an educator’s assignment strongly predicts the quality of the work that a student does in response. Greater than 90% of variation in student work scores was accounted for by differences across assignments, not by differences across students for the same assignment.

Brief History of US Education Law Pertaining to Student Testing

How have federal education laws acted to move us to today’s testing/assessment regime?

Here I look at four laws:

• Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 1965 (ESEA)
• Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 1994
• The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB)
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)

... and you'll see how since the 1980s, the direction towards more testing with the purpose of enhancing school accountability has been continuous throughout different presidential administrations.

Why are the Common Core Standards So Closely Linked with High-Stakes Testing that Many Parents Find Onerous and Odious?

It seems to me that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are tightly fused in the public’s mind with increased and more stringent standardized testing, and that this close association with testing has created a lot of resistance to Common Core. Here in New York that's certainly the case, with this year (2014-15, the first year common-core-oriented tests have been introduced) 20% of students/parents opting out of the testing.
 
I've been holding a minimally informed view that the standards are a reasonably good idea undermined in the public perception by being saddled with contentious assessments that may be serving other purposes entirely. I wanted to take a closer look. How real is that linkage between CCSS and onerous assessment? What caused that perception to arise? And how are the major educational organizations responding to it? I looked at the websites of some of the major US educational organizations to find out. 

I began with the Common Core State Standards Initiative, because it gives the appearance of being the central online advocacy force on behalf Common Core. So I was surprised to find it did not have a lot to say about the assessment side of the coin. They emphasize that data collection is not required, but up to each state individually. Perhaps they are reluctant to wade into the controversy, but if so, my casual observation of P.R. strategy tells me they’re dropping the ball, because the perception “out there” is so strong that Common Core is all about the testing and “teaching to the test.” And that’s ironic because, by the definition of Common Core’s learning objectives, one would expect the methods for assessing achievement to be quite different from and more meaningful than the customary, rote-questions, fill-in-the-bubble methods. They need to address the controversy if they want to make a stronger case for CCSS and help get it through this difficult roll-out.

Before going any further, it’s worth quoting this concise statement by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) as to what Common Core is basically about:

The Common Core State Standards have the potential to transform teaching and learning and provide all children with the problem-solving, critical-thinking and teamwork skills they need to compete in today’s changing world. This approach to learning moves away from rote memorization and endless test-taking and toward deeper learning.

The AFT is very supportive of Common Core. But they strongly assert that there is a need to extensively field-test the assessments before rolling them out. They make the comparison with how businesses methodically field- and market-test their products before introducing them, to prevent commercial failures. The implication is, why would education administrators handle such a large and important “product roll-out” any differently, and risk blowing the necessary positive impression and goodwill? They suggest a moratorium on the testing, asserting that it is too rushed, and they also argue against jumping into using test result to determine such things as student advancement or penalties or rewards for school performance.

I’m sure I’m not the first one to make this comparison, but this “botched roll-out” thing reminds me of the drastic effect the failed opening days of the Obamacare online exchanges had. It just gives the whole project a bad image, painting program elements that are totally unrelated to the testing problem and otherwise potentially easily accepted with the same discolored broad brush.  

The National Education Association (NEA) stakes out a position close to identical to the AFT’s. They are very opposed to high-stakes testing, and one gets the sense they are representing a group of teachers who are weary not only of having to teach with these test in mind but also of being associated by default with standardized testing, as if it was somehow their idea. They propose delaying any testing until the teaching side is rolled out smoothly. Indeed, they published an article back in 2012 expressing concern that when the tests arrived, they could undermine the effort to establish Common Core.

All these organizations point supportively to the “next generation of assessments” being produced by Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) for some states and the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) for others. I did not find either the SBAC or PARCC website particularly informative on the subject of the timing of initial testing and what effect is was having on public support for the Common Core, but at least PARCC was direct and explicit in stating that their assessment project is all about supporting implementation of Common Core. 

So at least they are not abashed about it, and I get the sense that they are earnest, research-based, and creative about getting the assessments right. But they do not seem to address the issue of timing or argue that allowing more time to pass would be a good thing. I imagine that, like the Obamacare administrators, they have been under tremendous pressure to get it done and out yesterday, to (theoretically) lend credibility to the whole project and generate an evidence base. But that pressure is probably also coming from political interests wanting to use results to “incentivize” schools and teachers, long before the linkage between test results and appropriate consequences can be demonstrated.

PARCC has an interesting description of how the two major evidence-based principles on which the standards are based are focus and coherence. It is not my topic here and I don’t have time to discuss it, but they do a careful and effective job of explaining how this is a rational and testable basis to do assessment better than it has been done in the past.  It lends confidence about the project in the long term, but will they get there before the political winds change, weighed down with negative impressions?

I presume PARCC and SBAC are predominantly researchers into effective educational methods and assessment design, rather than interest groups pushing for testing in the ways it is sometimes used to reward and punish schools and teachers. It’s not clear whether or not they are supportive of the immediate requirement of using the tests in the initial implementation of Common Core standards.

So who is? I’m guessing it’s political leaders more than anyone else, but to finish my roundup, I took a look at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). A section of their website titled “Standards, Assessment & Accountability” ties these subjects more closely together than any other source I examined. By “Accountability,” they mean consequences for professional educators and institutions for their results. So I’m guessing they have a strong interest in seeing to it that these three aspects are very tightly knitted together. They do come across as a group of technocratic believers, particularly in their statement about accountability, which seems to be their culminating, unifying concern – and which likely plays best with the political class. No mention of a testing moratorium there.

Citations:

Tim Walker. (October 16, 2013). 10 Things You Should Know About the Common Core. Retrieved from
http://neatoday.org/2013/10/16/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-common-core/

Tim Walker. (December 11, 2012). Beyond the Bubble: Schools Get Ready for Common Core Assessments. Retrieved from
http://neatoday.org/2012/12/11/beyond-the-bubble-schools-get-ready-for-common-core-assessments-2/

Common Core State Standards Tools & Resources. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.smarterbalanced.org/k-12-education/common-core-state-standards-tools-resources/

FAQs about the Common Core State Standards. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/education/common-core/frequently-asked-questions

Glossary of Terms. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.parcconline.org/resources/parent-resources/glossary-of-terms

Myths vs. Facts. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts/

Principles Regarding the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. (2105). Retrieved from http://www.parcconline.org/resources/educator-resources/model-content-frameworks/mathematics-model-content-framework/principles-regarding-the-common-core-state-standards-for-mathematics

Standards, Assessment & Accountability. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.ccsso.org/What_We_Do/Standards_Assessment_and_Accountability.html

Testing. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/home/59488.htm

Recently overheard at the annual softball game, United States Embassy, Beijing, China

“Xi Jinping replaced Hu Jintao as head of the Chinese Communist Party...” - Bloomberg News, Nov 15, 2012

Recently overheard at the annual softball game, United States Embassy, Beijing, China:

“Hu is on first.”
“Who?”
“Hu.”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“I’ve just told you.”
“Who?”
“Right, Hu is on first.”
“That’s what I’m asking you!”
“Oh, forget about it. Xi is on third.”
“That’s a guy on third.”
“Right, Xi is on third.”
“No, he is on third.”
“Right, he is. Xi.”
“Who’s she?”
“Xi, the new president.”
“The new president’s a she?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Then who’s on third?”
“No, Xi is!”
“What are you talking about? He is on third.”
“That’s right.”
“Then why did you say she is?”
“Look, you’re making me crazy. The old president’s on first, the new president’s on third.”
“Who’s the old president on first?”
“Yeah, Hu.”
“That’s what I’ve been asking you!”
“Hu is, you dunce. Xi is the new president, on third.”
“You mean he is.”
“Yeah. <cough, cough> Here, gimme your inhaler.”
“Okay, just don’t put your lips on it. So who is the new president?”
“No, Xi is!”
“Who?”
“Not Hu, Xi!”
“Who is she?!”
“What are you talking about?! Hu is Hu!”
“Who is she?”
“Look, get it through your head. Xi is the new president.”
“Who is she?”
“What have you been smoking? ‘Hu is Xi.’ That makes no sense!”
“You keep talking about her. I don’t know who she is.”
“Wow, whatever you’ve got, I want some of it. Xi is a guy.”
“They do that here? In the party leadership?”
“Do what?”
“A she who’s a he?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know’s on second.”
“At least we’ve got that straight.”

The stars grind slow

The stars grind slow.

Father. Daughter.

Father, the mountain laurel blooms

call me, home.

Daughter, walking, the sippy cup

is yours now.

The year past, annus mirabilis

for me. Father, you died

at ninety-two. In twenty-eleven

a quick spell brought you down

too soon, but I, at forty-two

arrived. The photograph, you

holding my six-month baby girl

by the shed, morning glories,

your sweater under her hand.

Firstborn, you smiled through it all

pierced my spine with sunshine,

everything for me a flower opening

and old certainties diminished

for good. And this arrival

co-created by you both, and me, and

a pleroma unknown. At loss,

sadness, tempered by a calming

of unsettled spirits. Completion

is a new view to the horizon

and valleys shadowed deep between

folded so immersive as to contain us

in our descent for years,

decades.

In this season of 9/11 remembrance

In this season of 9/11 remembrance

In this season of 9/11 remembrance, I’ve been reluctant to get into it, because I’ve always felt the national response was somewhat off. Out of respect – who wants to hear that? – I thought I’d steer clear. But this morning I was able to feel for myself that the emotions that conflagration provoked and continues to evoke are an epic force not to be lightly passed by.

I’ve skipped the media coverage, only because my standard for worthwhile news is that I ought to learn something I didn’t already know, and I have high confidence I’d learn nothing new from all this. But I happened to begin the day with Weekend Edition on the radio, and they began by playing ten-year-old street-level audio of the impact and horrified witness reaction as the second tower was hit. I quickly changed the station, not wanting to immerse my 15-month old daughter in that soundscape. We arrived at WFUV, a New York music station that spent the morning playing music about or evocative of 9/11. Here, from a bastion of generally folkie/leftie vibes, I heard a lot of good music that New Yorkers wanted to hear, generally holding to the themes of strange loss, heroism, a need for shared experience, often connecting to the day in a subtle way very personal to the songwriters. Nothing bombastic, nor political or critical. I felt the shared emotion and the need for individuals to mark their immersion in the events of that day.

So who am I to step on that? I would not wish to. But in just as personal a vein, I could tell you about a different response, my own, which is marked by distance. Physically, I was living in California on 9/11, and I was woken that morning by a call from my mother in Connecticut to tell me what was going on, around the time the second tower fell. I had no TV; I spent the whole day at home, listening to the radio. Oddly, I wasn’t around TVs at all during that time. For many months afterward, I never once saw a video clip of the planes crashing or the buildings falling. I remember the first time I did, in a bar perhaps six months later. Before that, I had only seen still photos. This exclusion was more by happenstance than intention, though I believe I felt happier going without.

It was obvious from the first that this was a national trauma of the order of the Kennedy assassination. It’s not that I didn’t want to participate in all of that, and of course I did take part – we all did. But I also felt that the hundredsfold repetition of the traumatic videos was a kind of strange baptism in terror, an immersion in fear, even if largely unintentionally so on the parts of both broadcasters and viewers, that would forever color the character of Americans, and would help to change our destiny. That is the power of the moving images. When I did first watch a plane ram into a tower, that night in a bar so much later, I too was very powerfully and immediately shaken by what I was seeing. This is the power of media – to take and own your mindspace. I felt better off with some distance.

I guess that gap put me in mind to go my own way. From the early hours, it was obvious to me that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al – already figures of great suspicion in my eyes – would take license to undertake what would in short order become the genuine replacement for the Cold War, a new organizing force for another couple generations of military procurement, war powers, and patriotic citizen-control. I locked into that vision of the consequences at the outset and have never doubted it since. On September 12, 2001, I wrote:

Discussing security strategy, tactics and response misses the main point that yesterday showed: ultimately, there is no way of keeping an event such as this from happening except by making the people of the world love us more. I know it sounds absurd. But in the end, there is no other prevention…. We are unable to understand the deeper motivations of the perpetrators… What comes foremost to my mind is that we need to be sweet and highly generous – to a fault. Not to these perpetrators, obviously, but generally to the world at large…. Prior to this event, I've joked that if you take a poverty-wracked enemy of the United States like, say North Korea or Cuba (now add Afghanistan), we'd be better off strategically and financially if we paid every citizen there a personal check for $5,000 from the US taxpayers, rather than spending our money on the perpetual war machine. We'd save so much effort, stress and cash if we just bought the friendship of the populace! Obviously, I was being facetious. But ask yourself – what did we spend yesterday? What will it cost us to remain so long aloof and oblivious to the wretched of the world outside? Trillions?

At the time I wrote that, I consciously chose “trillions” to illustrate the unimaginable scale of what I was anticipating. It was then an exceedingly outrageous number to put forward. Remember, a year later Bush’s team was telling America that the Iraq War would cost just a few tens of billions. But I thought right away, what did the Cold War cost us? Bush is going to take us there. Today we can see I was right: by Joseph Steiglitz’s estimation, the war in Iraq (unjustified, unnecessary, unhelpful) has cost us $4.4 trillion. And look at us now, credit downgraded. Unbelievable decade, huh?

As I write, with my turn to these matters of consequence, I hear my own voice growing cynical, dark, basically unpleasant to hear – and that’s without trying on any conspiracy theories! I have always kept up with the left-wing critique, another news junkie seeking endless confirmation of what I already believe, and in retrospect I guess just a quarter-dose of it would have done me more good. Of course I would tune out any rah-rah patriotic 9/11 music, but I heard in today’s songs on the airwaves of New York, from some of my kind of people, a reaching for solace and shared experience. The people who were there that day want to share their sympathy and affirm our togetherness, and maybe also a little bit to display their scars. Where I tend to go artlessly in my thoughts and writings, the songwriters, audience and deejays, they’re not going there. I’ve tended to turn to the political story and the story of our national interest. I don’t have much personal connection to the day –I know somebody who lost a spouse in it, I took a look at Ground Zero that December, a friend tells the story of walking back to Brooklyn on foot… but these are things that came to me much later. I have not ever had much desire to hear the personal stories as reported in the media. The local heroism, the firefighters, the rescue and cleanup workers, the stories of loss, as true as they all are, and as deserving of memorialization, they also – and even to say this is to play a role some may find either uncaring or unpatriotic – when played through a media filter, work to reinforce the patriotic narrative that keeps us distanced and baffled from the world outside, and actually unable to come to grips with it. Just to fight and hold ourselves apart. How can I shut up when I believe that we are, in so doing, only repeating our mistakes? That it keeps us pouring out our national treasure into war debt, fruitlessly?

I remember the night the Iraq War was set to start. Bush would unleash the bombs within hours. My brother and I looked out over the San Francisco Bay as the gloaming set in, and I had a feeling of immense impending loss – a sickness for the country I so deeply love. [When I speak about Iraq in this essay and elsewhere, it is always as an accordion that opens up into so much more. The Iraq War is something akin to what the partition of Berlin and the Korean War were to the Cold War – a concrete fact on the ground that made a generations-long conflict emerge as something real. The Iraq War is different because it was unjustifiable and built on lies, and it ushered in, more than 9/11 and the subsequent Afghanistan intervention did (assuming that Afghanistan could have gone better if not for Iraq), a Cold War equivalent that really did not have to be what it is, and which, unlike the Cold War, is tangibly wrecking American power.]

How much these ten years of stories have changed us Americans, ever reinforcing the Great Conflation, that those who criticize our warlike ways do not support our troops and are deficient in their love of our country. In my hometown paper this week, a writer tells our wayward mayor, “Our military fights for that blanket of security that you have the right to enjoy and that allows you to go out and protest against them. I prefer you to just thank them for what rights and freedoms you have.” Can those who hold this view ever understand how a person like me can cherish the military service of my father and other forebears, can love the Iraq War veteran, can love our country so deeply, and at the same time believe our sacrifice in Iraq, and our entire War on Terror construction, has mostly served to hurt us in ways immeasurable? Ten years into the 9/11 era, the answer seems to be: as little as ever.

Memorial Day, 2011

Memorial Day, twenty-eleven

the army airman, fighter pilot

and later race-car driver,

later still creator of the Fitch sports car,

to this day owner of the single prototype

curve-graced Italian open two-seater,

arrived at the parade

to pick up his compatriot,

fifteenth air force b-seventeen

bomber pilot out of Foggia

who until last year had always insisted on walking,

only to learn

from the man’s wife he had died

six months before.

The airman hadn’t known – he’d been away.

He grew quiet,

stared off into space.

He didn’t drive the car,

the widow and bomber’s daughter-in-law

told their son

over breakfast some days later.

She told me about it a couple days ago,

she said. Probably didn’t want

you guys weighed down by it.

Unusual to miss the parade,

but they’d been in Toronto…

Niagara in fact, that day, swept up

as one should be

by the great, life-giving waters.

Eulogy for my father, Bill Binzen, delivered in November, 2010:

Yesterday around Dad’s grave I heard many wonderful stories from my cousins of Dad’s indelibly unique way of connecting with them. And you’ll hear many such stories today, I’m sure. I think everyone will remember Dad for that twinkle in his eye, his sense of fun, his love of family and his genuine warmth.

I shared all those sorts of experiences, of course. But somehow it’s hard for me to talk about them right now in the same way. So I’d just like to say a few things about the trajectory of his life.

Dad was a person who remembered when the blacksmith shop was a going concern. How could he have imagined ending his days with a certain adeptness at Photoshop and email?

He saw Babe Ruth hit a home run, and attended the celebrated Joe Louis-Max Schmelling fight. (Well, so did my uncle Peter, who’s here today.) And he also watched a NASCAR race from pit row just two years ago.

He took in the performances of Benny Goodman and Glen Miller. But he also attended a Guns ‘n Roses /Metallica double bill. I was there with him. He was 4 times the age of the rest of the audience, and we did depart while Axl Rose was still singing, which I somewhat regret, but that was around one in the morning.

He flew 26 missions in a flying fortress over Europe, heading right into the floating box of flack in the target zone. He repeatedly witnessed planes just off his nose falling from the sky. And, he also stood many times in the anti-nuke, anti-war vigil just down the street from here.

Dad spent time with Cartier-Bresson, knew Diane Arbus before her photography career had even begun, and worked closely with David Ogilvy in the formative years of Madison Avenue. A part of him embraced these big-time, expansive experiences. But he didn’t dwell on them.

There were things that mattered far more to him. Family and friendships mattered more. His own creative motivation mattered more. I’d say it was beauty that mattered more to him – beauty in landscapes, in relationships, in images and compositions, and in the details of daily life.

Long summer afternoons by the lake on Mount Riga; trips up the Housatonic by motorboat; dinners around a big table with extended family; the hand-drawn letters and cards; his joy at being surrounded by his granddaughters; and the many, many phone calls just to talk about what happened today; these are the moments I’ll remember.

We’ll also remember his unceasing creative drive. He always had a project going. How many stacks of pictures I flipped through with him, learning his vision of composition and juxtoposition and focal interest. He never stopped striving or learning. At about 89 he took up the art of African drumming. What can you say? It’s not a sound I ever expected to hear in church in Salisbury, but he was right there in the vanguard.

Finally, though Dad was quite reticent about inner thoughts and such, and not given to advising, when the chips were down, he was brilliant at seeing what really mattered to me, and responding to it with the right words. Helping me along in life. One of the readings today is from Shakespeare, and it contains the words which I always felt he treated as his golden rule: “To thine own self be true.” Halleluiah to that, Dad. You lived it, and I’m working on doing the same.

To close, I think the use Dad made of his memory of his war experience grew more vivid in his later years. It certainly wasn’t about war as something glorious; more about the intensity of concentration and purpose that a mission demanded. If you ask my mother, you can learn how his re-envisioning piloting missions carried him through his recent suffering with great courage. “The wild blue yonder” really was a touchstone for him.

But when you think of him in the wild blue yonder, know that the memory of flying that he held most dear was the training hours he logged over Texas and Florida in his Stearman biplane, heading up into the crisp banks of sunlit clouds, free of the bonds of this earth. He carried that airy lightness with him always. On his last day with his eyes open to the world, he gazed a long time faraway into those clouds and that light. He seemed very assured; and this was very reassuring.

Face: Book: Yell

About 1998-2000, I webbed pages with Myself.
They float out there still. Dormant.
Thickly crusted. Embarrassing only insofar as:
Who the hell cares? And: I’ve moved on.
But… I let them persist.

In plain language, my job: manage communications.
Encompass web. Once, one could proceed in anonymous glory.
Now? Add social media. Next: engage. As yourself.
Am so doing. Might start to convince
my Friends and associates they made the wrong choice.
Hold on tight.

Permit that I propel ponderous musings
on the significance of the medium.
Does anyone keep journals any more?
Write longhand? You there – got any attention span left?
Is it pompous I should persist in this way?
I shan’t apologize.
The actual is in the playground, on recess.

Reluctant, but now pliant
for my station – profession-alley – so demands:
that I turn my Face to the Book.
One cannot do one’s job without it.
Yet I have spent enough day in my Face,
would rather turn my Profile to Home,
soft sofas, familiars,
distant sound of water pouring over rocks.

And who has much to say?
Oh, my Friends. Our sharings, our likes are a bit mundane.
Piqued by snark and spunk.
Carried by the frisson of memes.
Not bad… not Michelangelo either.
Why should I worry? It’s just…
Once, the days peeled away without threatening to persist.

My parents’ generation had no need for this Book.
Nor did they have to Face it.
But transplant them to another era, they would be different people.
Which would have more merit or valor?
The times now tell us the Book is essential.
Yes,
if we consent to be all Face.

To say I’m ambivalent here.
I’m like the Grand Canyon.
I don’t want to be here at all.
I only want to be here if I succeed extravagantly.
I don’t want to just be myself.
I don’t exactly want to disappear.
I want to annoy you so much you come to need it.
I don’t want to change, not on these terms.
I want to change you.

Everybody is so absorbed.
I’m completely uninterested.
Not in you.
Just in you here, in the Book.
I’m not striking a pose.
It’s totally visceral.
This isn’t where I want to be.
Just call me: just call me.

What are the values that matter?

What are the values that matter these days, that you can stake your politics on? Any answer quickly runs up against the terrible slipperiness of our favorite big-idea words – freedom, peace, truth and the like. Everybody defines them as they like. The question is, which bundle of definitions is claiming the most adherents? So as I offer my list, I too am working to claim these grand-narrative terms:

Freedom: democratic values and open possibilities

Peace: nonaggression despite risks

Compassion: active care for those less well-off than you

Innovation and tradition: the evolution of new things, married to the continuing influence of collected wisdom

Common truth: current science, and collected peaceful wisdom, combined as the best guide to reality as we know it

Equality: our rights equal, and our different stations in life earned by merit

Renewability: earth’s dynamic and living systems allowed to sustain us without their permanent degradation

Justice: applying collected wisdom compassionately to guide matters responsibly

If we want to end by dipping our toe in the waters that, all things considered, I see as in the realm of spiritual belief, we could sum it up with:

Love: care for all.

Relative to the Arab freedom movement of 2012 – the Arab 1776:

I’m not sure what the current thinking is in Tel Aviv and Washington, but it occurs to me that if Israel’s foreign policy senses the strangely emerging freedom of Arab peoples primarily as a threat, it’s time for Israel to get a new foreign policy. If Washington is inclined to share that view when thinking on Israel’s behalf, it’s time for Washington to get a new foreign policy. After all, nothing matters more than democratic values. Right?