The Fire Rages On

In the ramp up to this weekend’s anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, two issues preoccupied the country. One was the desire of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to build a mosque two blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. The second was a Gainesville, Florida pastor, Terry Jones, who threatened to have his congregation of approximately fifty members burn the Koran as his commemoration of the attacks.

My question has always been, should anything be built at ground zero except a monument to those who died there? Of the 2752 people who died at the World Trade Center site, only about 1600 were positively identified, leaving “10,000 bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of dead,” according to CBS News. This means that the remains of the victims cannot be separated from the site. They are now part of the soil, concrete, dust, and physical material present at the location, meaning the only appropriate building that should be allowed there is a monument. No mosques, churches, temples, or shrines, no new trade center buildings, no commercial real estate period. Of course, this is unacceptable to the capitalists who say lower Manhattan real estate is simply too valuable to devote to a reflective park or monument. But to build anything other than a monument is sacrilege, and erecting new buildings on the site and throwing in a few trees and footprint-sized reflective pools in an attempt to satisfy the victims’ families is unacceptable.

Having said that, should the Imam be allowed to build his mosque?

This was not an attack by Muslims on the American way of life. Muslims died there, too, and in a recent story in The New York Times, it is clear a Muslim prayer room existed in the Trade Center buildings before they were destroyed. The room was located on the 17th floor of the south tower. The article goes on to state that “About three dozen Muslim staff members of Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the north tower, used a stairwell between the 106th and 107th floors for their daily prayers.” The hijackers were extremists who perverted some aspects of Islam to service their own hatred for America. America includes Muslims, and these men killed members of their own religion in the attacks.

The World Trade Center site should avoid all religious affiliations and remain a sacred secular monument. All of the victims, whatever their nationalities, home cultures, religious beliefs, and lifestyles, were Americans. Those hijackers did attack the American way of life, and they targeted Americans, therefore, the site is in the same category as other monuments to events of American history, like Civil War battlefields and Pearl Harbor. Would we consider building large commercial high-rise buildings or Buddhist temples at Manassas, Virginia where the Battle of Bull Run took place? Those structures would be out of place there as they are also out of place at ground zero.

As for Mr. Jones and his gun-toting pathetic congregation, why are we giving this guy any publicity? Have we not learned that people like him crave attention?

Burning books proves nothing. How many people went out and bought the Koran this week because of the attention generated by Jones?

And unlike the reverend, I have actually read the book. It is a compilation of beautifully written, poetic literature. Yes, it is a sacred text, like the Bible and the Talmud, but it is also literature. Since the invention of the printing press and the rise of technology, burning books means nothing. We can make more. The Koran is published in multiple editions for study, worship, recreational reading, et cetera. Terry Jones simply promoted the Koran onto the bestseller list, I am sure.

But what I find disgusting is that he showed the world the worst of America, the red-necked, white trash ignorance that has so infected this country in its brief history. Yes, we elected the first black man as president, but the stain of racism, bigotry, and ignorance on the fabric of America remains.

We must stop falling into the trap of diversion—Muslims at ground zero are not a threat to national security, burning books is stupid, and President Obama might be a secret advocate of Islam, but who cares? What is he doing to get us out of this economic mess? What can we do to improve our schools, besides spending nearly 600 million dollars to build one school while firing thousands of teachers and cutting programs?

We have more important things to worry about right now, and an ignoramus like Terry Jones, when ignored, will slither back into the hole he crawled out of once CNN turns off the lights and camera and goes home.

Following Chuang Tzu With Thomas Merton

The Way of Chuang Tzu
By Thomas Merton
New Directions, $11.95 paper
ISBN: 978-0-8112-1851-1

What does it mean to listen? His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, writes in a tribute to Thomas Merton, well known Trappist monk, Catholic philosopher and author of The Way of Chuang Tzu, that the qualities of hearing included study, contemplation, thinking about the teachings, and meditation. Thomas Merton did all of these things.

Merton is best known for his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. He was a prolific writer, composing more than seventy books on philosophy, social justice, war and peace, and the spiritual life.

Born in 1915 in France to a Quaker mother and an artist father, Merton lost his mother early on from cancer. His father moved in and out of young Thomas’ life, leaving him in the custody of family members and boarding schools. He learned quite early on to fend for himself.

Merton was an inconsistently religious person in his early life. At one point, he even professed to be an agnostic. Throughout his quest to find the true way, one constant was his burning desire to learn. He attended many different schools in his formative years, and had many experiences with a number of religious and spiritual groups, but nothing seemed to stick. Losing his mother made him paranoid about his father’s health, and his worst fears were realized at the age of sixteen when his father died of a brain tumor. The next year, Thomas himself nearly died from blood poisoning.

The transformative moment for Merton occurred on a trip to Rome in 1933. He found himself drawn to churches, cathedrals, and basilicas, and had several mystical experiences while traveling. He decided to become a Trappist monk of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. His dedication was short-lived. He left the order to continue his restless search for answers.

While attending Columbia University, Merton had an epiphany that reignited his interest in Catholicism. After much thought and deliberation, he rejoined the Trappists and adopted the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky as his home base

Merton’s interest in philosophy extended beyond western and Catholic ideals. He was deeply interested in Eastern thought, and studied Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions and schools of philosophy extensively during his lifetime.

This slim volume contains Merton’s translation of the fourth century Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu. Merton explains in his introduction that the work is “the result of five years of reading, study, annotation, and meditation.” He goes on to make clear that his work is not a literal translation, but “free, interpretive readings” of this most spiritual of Chinese philosophers.

Chuang Tzu is part of the classical period of Chinese philosophy taking place between 550-250 B.C. Merton tells us that his life can be “verified,” unlike that of Lao Tzu, a more famous philosopher and contemporary of Chuang Tzu. The values outlined in the text demonstrate a witty and moral writer. Chuang Tzu is concerned about love for others and the plight of his fellow humans. He writes about justice, responsibility, and obligation to others. Merton explains that “The mark of the ‘Noble Minded Man’ is that he does not do things simply because they are pleasing or profitable to himself, but because they flow from an unconditional moral imperative.” Embodied in the teachings of Chuang Tzu are the vows taken by those in Catholic religious orders. “The life of riches, ambition, pleasure,” Merton writes, “is in reality an intolerable servitude in which one ‘lives for what is always out of reach,’ thirsting ‘for survival in the future,’ and ‘incapable of living in the present.’” It is clear that Merton finds common ground with this ancient writer.

Merton takes great pains to validate his reading, which according to pre-Vatican II theology, would be considered pagan literature by the Catholic Church. “If St. Augustine could read Plotinus,” he writes, “if St. Thomas could read Aristotle and Averroes…I think I may be pardoned for consorting with a Chinese recluse…” It is clear that Thomas Merton had a sense of humor and a clear vision of the overlapping morals, values, and theology between Buddhism and Catholicism.

In his other work and writing, Merton can often be a difficult writer, forcing the reader to parse apart the twisting philosophical strands in his thinking. That is not the case in this book. He captures the clarity and simplicity of Chuang Tzu’s voice, and the message rings through loud and clear:

“Pleasure and rage
Sadness and joy
Hopes and regrets
Change and stability
Weakness and decision
Impatience and sloth
All are sounds from the same flute…”

Duality and contradiction inhabit all philosophies and world religions. Merton revels in them here. These dualities, the holding of two divergent ideas, this is what many of us struggle with each day. We seek clarity of mind through absolutes and concrete answers, yet impermanence is the only certainty. There are no absolutes in life, and often truth is illusive. Merton plays with this paradox: “The possible becomes impossible; the impossible become possible…the flow of life alters circumstances and thus things themselves are altered in their turn.”

Merton includes an excellent essay at the start of the book that delves into the nuances and history of Chuang Tzu’s life and work. He places the philosopher in the pantheon of Chinese thinkers, and fills in the philosophical lineage of the work. When appropriate, he connects Chuang Tzu’s ideas to Western thinking and allows readers to make connections between Judeo-Christian ideals and Eastern philosophy. He closes the book with a glossary of terms, a bibliography, and notes offering additional reading and study.

Thomas Merton does an excellent job of translating and explaining Chuang Tzu’s work. The book serves as a good sampler of the philosophy, and therefore the volume will serve to introduce the West to the great writer’s thinking. The book is by no means a full study. Rather, it is a doorway connecting two rich worlds, two vibrant cultures, exposing the shared mystery of human existence.

Labor Day, 2010

I have taught Marge Piercy’s poem for many years to my ninth grade students. I think it speaks to the sentiments of this end-of-summer, American holiday. I hope in the months ahead, many unemployed Americans find “work that is real.”

The photograph above of American journalist H. L. Mencken at his writing desk is taken from a Wall Street Journal article on a new collection of his essays and criticism. The copyright belongs to Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.

To be of use
By Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

“To be of use” by Marge Piercy © 1973, 1982.
From Circles on the Water © 1982 Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and Middlemarsh, Inc.
First published in Lunch magazine. Used by permission of Wallace Literary Agency

These Days*

So it begins, another school year, and for the first time in more than two decades, I’m not there.

In June, I was quite startled to discover my job being advertised on a teacher employment website. Fifteen years at the school, and the administration did not have the decency to tell me face to face that I would not be asked back. No reason was given when I confronted the powers that be, because as the vice principal told me, “It’s a one year contract and we do not have to give a reason for non-renewal.”

Okay.

My suspicion is that after fifteen years, the financially-troubled school wanted to divest itself of my salary. A clearly clueless vice principal and school board were icing on the cake. It was time for a change.

I have been steadily employed since freshman year of high school. I paid my own tuition for my Catholic secondary education and my university degree. For my high school, I picked up trash around campus in the morning before school, shelved books in the library, and taught the drummers in the marching band how to play a double-stroke roll on a snare drum. I also put in time stuffing envelopes at a travel agency during the summers.

In college, I filled parts requests for an aerospace firm until the shop closed. My girlfriend put up with the manure smell of my clothing when I worked at Target’s lawn and garden department. That job ended when I got pneumonia selling Christmas trees in the parking lot. Next, I worked security for a department store. Luckily, I landed in my teaching job before I got myself killed by a miscreant on a mission.

I have done my time.

But in this economy, jobs are hard to find, so I am not surprised to discover it is September, and I am pursuing freelance writing projects and contemplating a return to a graduate program or MFA.

Not being employed has its drawbacks. Two areas most acutely affected are my self-esteem and lifestyle. It is hard for me not to take unemployment as a personal affront. Books and articles I read tell me losing my job is not personal. It is just a fact of life in a recession. And now, when a potential employer gets hundreds of resumes for a single position, there is no rhyme or reason to the rejection. As William Saroyan wrote in The Human Comedy, “…every man in the world is better than someone else. And not as good as someone else.” I am often left scratching my head as to which I am in this crazy job market.

As for lifestyle, I have been hearing Henry David Thoreau in my head for quite some time now: “Simplify, simplify.” I have more books than I can read in my lifetime. I have a wife who loves me. What else do I need? Cut down, cut back, live simply, simply live.

We hurtle through life at such a breakneck pace that it is a blessing to be forced into taking some time to reflect. Teaching is a giving profession. You are there for others to help them reach their goals, maximize their potential, become better writers, realize their dreams. Teachers often have to put off their own questions and quests to give full attention to their students. You just push on, planning lessons, grading papers, counseling, consoling, encouraging.

I am finding a lot of solace in reconnecting with my deeper soul, reading philosophy, and considering where I want to go next. There is so much depth and texture to life when we look for it and allow ourselves time to sink into living fully each day. Will I go back to teaching? Sister Doris, my mentor, used to tell me that real teachers always find their way back.

For now, I’m writing, studying, reading, continuing to learn. I rise in the morning to the wind chimes on my neighbor’s porch. I feel the seasons changing, and at night, I hear the final baseball games of a dying summer played out at the park up the street. My days and nights have a rhythm of their own.

Sometimes, darkness overwhelms me, and I worry about the future. What secrets does it hold, what challenges, what successes, disappointments, tragedies? Where am I going?

Life is the journey, say the authors I read. We do not know what will come next, but it will come.

I am consoled by Galileo staring up at the vastness of the universe, wondering what it would be like to journey among the stars. Or Magellan, gazing across the wine-dark sea, dreaming of possible riches in a brave, new world. This is a time for considering the possibilities. It is not the end, but the beginning. We do not know what lies ahead on the journey, but we will find our way.


*Update: Check out William Michaelian's piece connected to my post on his excellent blog, Recently Banned Literature. His main site containing an archive of his writing is also a literary feast.

Gazing Into The Mirror

This has been a summer for taking stock, for deep reflection about the direction of my life and what I hope to accomplish while living it. Change is the only constant in this universe. Everything must change or die.

I mistakenly thought that one reaches a certain age and the self is clearly defined, a finished product. Not true. The day we stop growing is the day we die. I realized that I needed to make some changes, that the dissatisfaction and restlessness I have been feeling were the result of my desire to move forward, to discover, to learn more. I needed new challenges.

I became a teacher because I love to learn, and I want to give back to others what my teachers so graciously gave me. It is a most important vocation, one I feel blessed to have been given more than two decades ago.

This summer has been about reaffirming what I am looking for in my work. I need creative challenges and the chance to discover something more about this life. I want to continue to work with students who see the world in a unique way, and who have big dreams. I have always been lucky in that regard: the students I have worked with in my teaching life have been the best part of the job.

Change: it keeps us on our toes, helps us to stay focused and invigorated, and makes us grow and further define who we are. Human beings are always becoming. We are never finished, and we must never rest on our accomplishments. It is a good thing to stand and look into the mirror, even if the image is blurred and not fully articulated.

There are always fresh horizons and new worlds to explore. It is okay to feel a little apprehensive, a bit discombobulated, for that is when we summon the courage to step off the cliff, ever closer to our destiny, and never more fully alive.

Tigers Above, Tigers Below

Comfortable With Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion
By Pema Chodron
Shambhala, $12.95 paper
ISBN: 978-1-59030-078-7

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
By Pema Chodron
Shambhala Classics, $12.95 cloth
ISBN: 978-1-57062-344-8

There is a story Pema Chodron cites in the middle of her book, Comfortable With Uncertainty, that sums up perfectly the notion that we should live in the moment. “A woman is running from tigers,” she writes. There is no escape but to go over a cliff via a hanging vine. The woman swings out over empty space, free from the pursuing tigers now above her, only to see another group below her, seemingly waiting for her to fall. She sees a small mouse begin to gnaw at the vine, and in the moment, realizes that her life is in grave danger. Her attention is distracted by a cluster of wild strawberries growing on the cliff face next to her. “She looks up, she looks down, and she looks at the mouse,” Chodron writes. “Then she picks a strawberry, pops it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly.” Even in the midst of danger, of extreme emotional distress, we must live in the moment. We must forget the tigers waiting to devour us and focus on the sweet beauty of what we have right now.

The story is part of her 56th meditation, “Experience Your Life.” Her book contains 108 in total, many of which are drawn from her previous writings and teachings.

Chodron was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduated and became an elementary school teacher. Marriage and family took up her time and focus, until a chance encounter in her mid-30s changed her life, and she became a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the “Vidyadhara” and preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism in the west. Through her study with him, Chodron became a specialist in Mahayana lojong teachings, or mind training.

She went on to become a fully ordained nun, a rare honor for a westerner, and was appointed director of Gampo Abbey at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. She continues to teach at the abbey and offers workshops around the country for dedicated followers and lay people in various aspects of Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. She has also written many books on her teachings from which Uncomfortable With Uncertainty draws its 108 meditations.

The book is a good beginner’s course in Pema Chodron’s work. Each of the 108 chapters offers a single focus for meditation and reflection. The topics include the study of Bodhichitta, a Sanskrit word meaning “the awakened heart of loving-kindness and compassion,” how to approach meditation, work with selected Buddhist “slogans,” and reverse Samsara, another Sanskrit word meaning “journeying,” or “the vicious cycle of suffering that results from the mistaken belief in the solidity and permanence of self and other.”

The secret to this philosophy is deceptively simply. Impermanence is the only certainty in life. Any attempt to hang on to something is doomed to failure, because everything changes. We are all in a state of transfiguration, even to the smallest atomic particle. Trying to hang on to something and make it permanent can only lead to suffering. Until we free ourselves from such clinging, we are destined to be in pain.

Chodron’s advice is often spot-on for our difficult times, A second book addresses the arduous and challenging moments we are all facing today. When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times was compiled from various teachings Chodron gave from 1987 to 1994. Her editor, Emily Hilburn Sell, suggested she work through her notes and lecture tapes and see if there was another book in them. Together, they rewrote, edited, and completed the book.

She begins with the idea that “fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” We are drawn to challenging circumstances without knowing if we can face them. This leads to a reluctance to live our lives, a fear of being present in every moment. She recommends immersion in the emotions we experience—fear, jealousy, hatred—and to withhold judgment. Above all, we should allow ourselves to study the feeling of fear, to live in it and appreciate what it makes us do. Only then can we modify our behavior to live fully in the moment. This theme recurs throughout the book.

What we come to discover is that our ultimate fear is the fear of death. How do we live in a world where we are destined to die? The answer, of course, is to live. This is not easy, as Chodron takes great pains to teach us, but “it takes death for there to be birth,” she writes, and there is no greater challenge than for us to accept our lives as they are and simply live.

Chodron goes on to address themes of loneliness, isolation, peace, and non-aggression. She discusses how hope should be abolished. Many Christian and Catholic faiths teach that giving up hope—despair—is a sin against God. But Chodron means something different and refreshing. Life contains both the good and the bad. To say that I have hope that tomorrow will be a good day, is a ridiculous wish. There will be good days and bad days. If we are mired in a terrible moment in our lives, we can rest assured that a good moment is on the way, and of course, the reverse can be true as well. To hope for only the best is not to live in reality.

The final chapter in the book lands on a common theme in several cultures. Chodron believes “the path is the goal.” Our wisdom comes from living the journey. “The source of wisdom is whatever is going to happen to us today,” she writes. “The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant.”

Chodron is a proponent of starting right where we are. There is never a more perfect moment to begin to live then right now. Many people might wonder if these books are appropriate for people who have strong religious beliefs in other faiths, Christian, Catholic, Muslim, and Jew. One does not need to be a Buddhist to appreciate Chodron’s themes and ideas, nor is she proselytizing for her faith. Eastern philosophy has much to offer the west, as we have discovered over the years. It is not about becoming a Buddhist; the philosophical elements of the east have traveled well through the west in the writing of Emerson, Thoreau, Kerouac, Ginsberg and a host of others.

In the end, one reads Pema Chodron because she offers good advice and a way to live in these perilous times. Through her teachings, we can deepen the spiritual experience of daily life and come to appreciate our journey, knowing that now is all we have and all that we are given.

Wake The Sleeping Bear

Don’t look now, but the Los Angeles Times may have found its way back to relevance.

This past weekend, writers Jason Felch, Jason Song, and Doug Smith woke the sleeping bear by going after teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In an article entitled, “Who’s Teaching L.A.’s Kids?” the reporters “obtained seven years of math and English test scores” from the district and using a system called “value-added analysis,” compiled a startling picture of who is effective in the classroom and who falls miserably short.

A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the local teachers’ union, was quick to condemn the article and ask his members to boycott the paper. (I don’t think this should worry the management at the paper; most subscribers have already left.)

First, let’s talk about the article and the information contained therein. Value-added analysis “rates teachers based on their students’ progress on standardized tests from year to year,” according to the writers. “The method has been increasingly embraced by education leaders and policymakers across the country, including the Obama administration.” Obama has supported and renewed many of the failed policies of the Bush administration, even when the architects of “No Child Left Behind” called it a mistake last year. Obama swept into office promising change, but in education, he has been a weak imitation of a failed predecessor.

The Times writers did come up with some interesting discoveries. Many LAUSD students find themselves with the same failing teachers year after year. And “although teachers are paid more for experience, education and training,” they write, “none of this had much bearing on whether they improved their students’ performance.” No matter how many degrees or credentials a teacher has, certificates and diplomas do not make teachers. Teaching is an art and craft, and if a candidate has no affinity for it, the students will suffer. Many people have credentials and degrees, but few can do the job because it is a calling, a vocation. Do a Google search of how many online degree programs there are for teaching credentials and masters-in-education programs. If you have the money, you can get a teaching degree very quickly in cyber-class. But unless you have talent and passion for the art, you will fail in the practice.

When the standardized test scores are used this way, it is amazing how quickly teachers and union leaders put them down as “flawed,” saying they “do not capture the more intangible benefits of good instruction.” When test scores earn them raises, salary points, and tenure, they shout hosannas in a come-to-Jesus fervor. As the article states, test scores are only one measure of an effective classroom, and by no means should they be used as the only measure.

So how do we rate teacher effectiveness? Our intrepid reporters at the Times observed that the best teachers “shared a tendency to be strict, maintain high standards and encouraged critical thinking.” They also engaged students, often in Socratic dialogue of question and answer. If some of this seems familiar, you must have gone to Catholic school.

Four of the teachers profiled in the article demonstrated the reporters’ observations. One, John Smith, struggles to control a class and is flippant with his students. He sent three to the principal’s office as unteachable. The second, Miguel Aguilar, is “soft-spoken and often stern,” giving praise only occasionally, which, according to the writers, makes his students try harder. He runs a tight ship with high expectations. Is it any wonder his students do better?

A third teacher, Karen Caruso, appears on the surface to be a model teacher. She was “first in the district to be certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In her spare time, she attends professional development workshops and teaches future teachers at UCLA.”

She ranks “among the bottom 10% of elementary school teachers in boosting students’ test scores.” Yes, the bottom.

According to the article, “Caruso set clear expectations for her students but seemed reluctant to challenge them…She dismissed the weekly vocabulary quizzes that other teachers give as ‘old school.’”

Nancy Polacheck, a veteran teacher of 38 years, takes a more traditional approach without the “old school” prejudices. In the top five percent, “her teaching style is a rat-a-tat-tat of questions, the most common of which is ‘why?’” She does not spend a lot of time socializing in the faculty room, eating her lunch alone in her classroom. Her colleagues “think her expectations are too high.”

What is the conclusion here, the logical through-line? Miguel Aguilar is a younger teacher, only 33 years old. John Smith is 63 and started teaching in 1996. Karen Caruso has been in a classroom since 1984, and obviously, Nancy Polacheck is an old hand at wrangling students. Young, old, veteran, newcomer, highly trained, naturally gifted?

Here is the plan. Cut the bureaucracy at the top. Why are we not laying off administrators and the dead weight at the top of most school districts? Why are we not dumping ineffective principals and administrators at the school who know little or nothing about the classroom? Many were failed teachers; that is why they went into administration. We need to stop cutting veteran teachers because we do not want to pay their salaries. Younger, lower paid teachers fresh out of education school may fit the fiscal model, but they lack experience. There is no way to cut the budget to success. Education costs, but it is central to the future of a first world nation.

But here is the most important thing. Promote teachers, real teachers, into administrative positions, and allow them the time to be in the classroom with their colleagues observing them teaching. Stand in a classroom for five minutes, or longer, as the Times reporters did, and the effectiveness of the teaching will be clear. You will not need to rely solely on standardized tests, a task force, or anything else. Veteran teachers who have a talent and passion for the craft, dropping in unannounced every day to watch fellow teachers working. Everything will be crystal clear. Those who can’t teach are out. Those who can, keep the job and are paid their worth in a culture that puts the education of children as its highest priority.

If we are to regain our footing as a world leader, it will take more than pretty commercials about the need for better math and science instruction. We need solid gold teaching in all subjects from professionals with the gift to teach. We are becoming a stupid country led by stupid people. And that is a far greater threat than any act of terrorism.