All posts by stuervay

LEADERSHIP: A MULTIDIMINSIONAL KIND OF SERVICE

leadership, Service, , ,

As an elementary school student, I was fascinated with the subject of leadership. Like many boys, I read books about heroic leaders in history. Became absorbed by the feats of fictitious leaders in stories and movies. All courageous men putting themselves in harm’s way to save the helpless and weak. Invariably coming out on top and riding off victoriously into the sunset. With their enemies properly captured, incarcerated, or dead.

What were their motives? Not money, increased respect, or higher placement on the social scale. Famous military leaders were typically depicted as selfless heroes more interested in accomplishing their patriotic duty than moving up in rank or attaining a lofty status.

Selfless leaders like those depicted were invariably problem solvers. Wily strategists more than good at the fast draw, quick with their fists, or skilled at the use of war machines. Airplane pilots revered because of their maneuvering ability. But in the context of being better than the opposing pilots. And leading their units in successfully accomplishing a larger mission.

The logical transference of my interest was involvement in sports. But I was a skinny kid with bad eyes, compounded by visual depth perception issues. I was pretty good at track and field, and some boyhood diversions like marbles or mumblety-peg,  pocketknives flipped toward the ground and sticking upright. Circles drawn in Arizona’s caliche-caked earth and divided by a single line into two parts. The objective: slice your opponent’s “territory” into increasingly smaller units, until what was left was smaller than a shoe.

But even something as innocuous as playtime competitive diversions, reinforced by books and movies about heroes, taught me that “smart” almost always trumps “tough.” Effective leadership is almost always based on the quality of insight into human nature and the challenges encountered.

My reading of history in the areas of military, exploratory, or political achievements taught me that victory is usually achieved by creative thinking and action. Doing something the opponent does not expect and could not counter.

Leadership also included a willingness to take reasoned risks. Acknowledging the chance of making a mistake. But believing in oneself. Accepting the adage “failure is not an option” as more probable than just possible.

Non-Competitive Leadership

A myth places boys as gravitating toward a competitive life. Woven into our male DNA, just as females are “supposed to” be inclined toward cooperative behaviors. Stereotypical conclusions may work in movies and literary works of fiction. But they are much too simplistic and ineffective in real life.

Over the years I discovered real leadership is much different than management or administration. Nor is it based on bravado and a macho superiority.

Leadership is a powerful mix:

  • intelligence
  • willingness to learn
  • openness to the opinions of subordinates or colleagues
  • creative ingenuity
  • flexibility
  • the determination to find and use solutions to problems.

Real leadership is most closely related to the same qualities our best teachers possess. Like Jesus, they urge their followers to think deeply. Inspire them to find talents they did not know they had. Such leaders compliment with a demonstration of confidence. Not by artificial forms of positive reinforcement such as continuously saying “Good job!”

Demonstrating confidence takes respect and perceptiveness. Treating the subordinate or student in ways that acknowledge their existing and evident strengths as a starting point.

Check out these examples:

I’ve been impressed by your ability to work effectively with computers and other technical devices. You intuitively solve problems in a step-by-step way, as our best American leaders did when facing serious dilemmas. Lincoln used the kind of skill you have with tech in isolating problems. And working with others in finding and refining solutions. Step by step, little by little. What are the differences between solving technical problems and working with human beings with different opinions? How could you prove to a future employer you can do more than interact with a computer and technological challenges, by being part of a problem-solving team?

In this company all employees are asked to think as creatively as possible. Creativity in an organization is not like composing music or painting a beautiful picture. It starts with hypothesis development, the ability to make good educational guesses as to what a researcher will later find out. Not test-tube research, but the kind of quest that results in possible answers based on what we read, hear, or intuitively know. You do that well with sensitivity to what is happening around you. Like writing a one sentence “cause and effect” hypothesis. Something like “Worker efficiency, productivity, and creativity will measurably improve if they meet in person one hour each day to discuss specific ways communication can be improved without the use of technical interfaces.” 

Leadership as in the examples is not indoctrination, browbeating, intimidating challenges, or a demonstration of how someone with a superior intellect or organizational rank forces compliance via specific assessment strategies.

Jesus never acted that way. Rather, he used metaphorical analogies (parables) to make his followers think in concrete terms. Stories that touched on the ability of his disciples and others to see logic in God’s will— how He wanted human beings to relate to each other. And to Him.

©2023 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

A MAVERICK’S KIND OF SERVICE

Principles, , ,

The word “maverick” comes from the American West, referring to escaped cattle being branded. Today the word has a larger meaning as a descriptor of independent thinkers. People who remain part of the herd but are not swayed by popular opinion. Alternate points-of-view about beliefs and the organization’s mission. 

While mavericks do not avoid joining groups, they make it clear that mindless allegiance or compliance is not part of their persona. A maverick is rarely someone who rejects an organization’s purposes. Instead, s/he sees a different path with thought-provoking reasons  expressed articulately.

Mavericks can be annoying and sometimes disruptive. Their kind of life requires thick skins. They are regularly criticized for not going along with the group’s plans or decisions. But they believe in themselves and their message, often a powerful service to humankind.

Writer Ayn Rand (a Russian/American born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum in 1905) was a prototype maverick. She moved to the United States in 1926 and became a prolific writer of plays, novels, philosophical essays, and other pieces. She created and produced her own periodicals. Probably best known as the author of The Fountainhead, which was later made into a moving picture, Rand also wrote the famous novel Atlas Shrugged. 

Rand wrote books, essays, plays, and other publications from strong biases about human behavior, governmental philosophy, and religion. Her philosophical system, Objectivism, promoted reason as the basis for knowledge, what she called rational and ethical egoism. Laissez-faire capitalism, including individual and private property rights. She rejected altruism, collectivism, statism, anarchism, and religion.

As a maverick widely admired by many Americans, the admiration of Rand continues today among some politicians and other societal leaders. Those especially proud of America’s successes in meeting its Manifest Destiny through intrepid explorers, entrepreneurs, and enlightened risk takers.

Ayn Rand created and advocated such a radical philosophy. For twelve years, she lived in Russia’s oppressive society dominated completely by the Czar and Orthodox Russian Church. In 1917, the Communist Revolution overthrew both suffocating systems and replaced them with its own. For nine years, Rand and her family lived under the rule of Vladimir Lenin and cohorts like Joseph Stalin.

In 1926 post World War I brought to the United States an era of astonishing technical, industrial, and economic accomplishments. Quality of life advanced by materialism. The quest for greater riches and comfortable lifestyles. For over a decade Americans were inundated with images of wealth and the good life, much of it based on borrowed money or risky investments. A time of great literary contributions, some of which warned that the concentration on acquiring wealth could result in a social and personal disaster. That happened in 1929, but not for Ayn Rand.

Rand advocated unrestrained capitalism as a way to achieve happiness and success. She succeeded in maintaining that idea during the prosperous 1950s.

The maverick and her followers provided a service. They made people think and often act in ways that improved the quality of American life, albeit with serious and sometimes devastating bumps in the road. Rand’s influence continues in American politics and economic thinking today.

My favorite maverick was Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. During his life he was considered a dangerous maverick by the Romans and Jewish cultures that collaborated for their own benefit. Like Rand, Jesus rejected control of people by a political or religiously affiliated authority. Like Rand, Jesus valued each individual and the power of reason. 

Jesus was an advocate of individual accomplishment, but not in the material sense. He believed in taking the initiative. Finding creative ways to improve the quality of human life. Not through nurturing greed and competitive skills, but through building up others through unconditional love.

Jesus asked people to seek a more satisfying life. Not by acquiring more money, power and status. Instead, to fulfill God’s will by spreading his good news about the real purpose of earthly life. To love one another and demonstrate that love through teaching and service.

Many present-day Christians disdain the maverick as being detrimental to faithful allegiance to Biblical teachings and admonitions. Only people who obey God’s word and follow the tenets of the faith are genuine believers, therefore qualified to be part of his kingdom.

Mavericks need not apply. They are not acceptable.

But Christianity has long valued mavericks and benefited from their alternate points of view. The Apostle Thomas, Saul of Tarsus (St. Paul), C. S. Lewis, and hundreds of others. All mavericks with truly moral motives who became powerful advocates for God’s will. Through incisive discernment. Logic and reason.  Some, like Saint Thomas Aquinas, reshaped and upgraded the church.

Mavericks like Rand leave life unconvinced and unrepentant. But they nevertheless make us think and therefore become stronger within our Christian faith and convictions.

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

ADVOCACY AS A FORM OF SERVICE

Principles, , , ,

How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future, is a new book by Maria Ressa. She is a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize because of her contributions as a journalist and change agent. Most of her book addresses dictatorial regimes in the Philippines and other countries in that region of the world. But events in those places are replicated everywhere.

The book confirms the adage that if you are not frightened by what is going on, you are not paying attention. That we all SHOULD pay attention and find ways to deal with the problem.

Ressa’s message: Democracy is fragile and modern forms of communication make it even more so.

How do human societies breed those who wish to dominate others? And, more importantly, allow them to gain power in the first place.

As an armchair student of history, I have observed how some people become dictatorial. But I do not know why. Even more mysterious is how those people can convince others to follow them even into oblivion. Or accept outrageous beliefs toward bizarre or dangerous behaviors.

How does one become an Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, or even a religious cult leader like Jim Jones? Crazed individuals, with amazingly creative minds, convince themselves their warped perceptions of reality are correct. That they have the answers necessary to overcome what they perceive as a society threatened by evil outsiders or mysterious forces permeating the universe.

Lunacy, or a warped view of the world, can be mixed with mannerisms and oratorical or writing skills that somehow make followers listen and believe. Usually, the root of the scenario is fear, allowing the potential dictator or bombastic bully the opportunity to convince others of an enemy outside their doors. That they will be consumed by that alien force if they do not believe the warnings. And they must support the self-proclaimed leader in a campaign to defeat the evil at their doorstep.

That scenario is replayed over and over. Adolph Hitler is probably the prime archetype of that image.

Hitler wrote a book, Mien Kompf, which was influential among certain followers. But his real friend was the medium of radio. Even movies of that era. Broadcasting to people convinced they were victims of a world that made them military losers in World War I. That their economy was crashing because of an economic depression. Made worse by reparation payments to war victors. An imagined Jewish conspiracy that created an economic system in which Jews prospered and everyone else was deprived.

Hitler succeeded in taking Germany to the heights of nationalistic chauvinism — word now more commonly used to describe the attitudes of some men toward women. “Feelings of superiority,” which occurs in both social and political realms. It is difficult to think of a woman dictator, although some queens were known to be ambitious and vicious. 

But the penchant for dominating others through use of skullduggery or excessive assertiveness is fundamentally a male trait. An overwhelming need to dominate in order to feel respected and worthy.   

Advocacy of Democratic Discourse and Resultant Actions Must Be Vigorous and Ongoing

We have all met someone who, in a smaller universe than a nation, strives to dominate through conniving and self-serving machinations. As in a company office, military unit, or an institution such as a school or church. People who gain an advantage through superficial charm, deferential performances, or talking the right kind of talk. Making assertions that make them appear more astute than they really are. Offering solutions to problems that seem clear and straightforward. Even if they are not.

They weave their way through a bureaucracy or chain of command using a combination of crafty observations and witticisms. Building alliances as they go. Making sure the most important alliances are with those in positions to help them later as they seek more responsibility and authority.  

Typically, control is important. More to dominate than to serve. More to dictate than to collaborate.

When such individuals achieve their coveted position in an organization, their kind of control can be exercised. Through intimidation, manipulation, even ruthlessness. Only measured or refined enough to ensure the good opinions of those superior in rank or position. 

Some organizations are tolerant of that behavior. Some encourage it. Some even maintain a culture that ensures its continuance.

For-profit companies and governmental organizations can either encourage it or maintain a culture that supports it.

Early in my various work experiences I decided to avoid being a victim of those who arbitrarily dictated and controlled subordinates. Even as a church member I thought for myself. Disputed those who had a stricter interpretation of what it is to be a Christian. Or a member of a particular denomination. They could think of me as they wished, which was not always kind. But they respected me for having a well thought out and scripturally valid perspective.

I could advocate a different perspective and why it was important to me AND the organization to which I belonged. Whining or complaining was never part of my strategy.

As an army officer I appreciated superior officers who explained the logic of a decision. And I questioned those who did not. Those I commanded were always consulted as to their opinions. Obviously, once a decision was made in either case, it was followed.

It is likely that approach would not have worked as a member of the Mafia. Mob bosses make offers that cannot be refused. Some politicians do the same once they acquire power and privilege. Unfortunately, the same is true in some organizations. Even those associated with religions.

Advocacy against tyranny must be based on something more than a call for freedom. Freedom itself is based on disciplined behavior. Not driven by those who attempt to impose their will on us. But fashioned in the belief that all human beings deserve dignity and the right to pursue happiness.

The pursuit of happiness is only possible when unconditional love prevails, founded on a full understanding of other cultures and beliefs. And advocating the creation and sustaining of all systems that strive to make love happen. 

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

SERVICE OVERCOMES THE CONFINING OF CREATIVE THOUGHT

Service, , , ,

Scholarship is not an enterprise limited to just one dimension. Or one discipline. That is why education has incorporated multiple fields of study for centuries. Included in the curriculum as distinct fields, overlapping only when one function is required as a tool to make other domains work. Such as the use of mathematics in the application of science and technology. Or the use of language in the study of history. Or the pairing of music and graphic arts. 

Who is to say that one subject is most important, or that a certain academic discipline is more indicative of human intelligence than any other? In like fashion, who is to say that creative thinking and acting are sparked by curiosity only within a specific intellectual pursuit?

Academic or intellectual snobbishness distorts creative thinking. It confines the human brain within categories or regions that exclude various possibilities, especially those that benefit from multivariate perspectives.

Possibly the most egregious example of that way of thinking was Nineteenth Century medicine, a field powerfully dominated by science and statistical analysis. It retarded the quality of human life for decades. Data and conclusions drawn by those declared to be especially sophisticated and learned superseded the “what if” of intellectual meandering to the point of peril.

Many horrible diseases and epidemics were not overcome until some courageous practitioner risked his or her professional career to try something previously unheard of. Something the sophisticates believed to be voodoo science or religious hocus pocus.   

Hypotheses are starting points for further research but were for years reduced to activities considered measurable in ways discernable only in concrete data. Which makes sense to those who believe in safeguards and the protection of professional credibility. And makes sense to me up to a point, the overdependence on statistical analysis.

Reasoned creativity is an important aspect of human life. The kind of creativity rooted in qualitative thinking and acting. The “what if” factor rooted in logic surrounded by mysteries as big and omnipresent as the universe in which earth is only a small and insignificant part.

Reasoned creativity is also relational. Our ideas and “what ifs” are never confined to one person’s brain or life experiences. Existence on this planet involves thousands of interdependent functions. Without them, the world would be devoid of anything more than rock.

My ideas are never born in one cell of my brain, or even thousands of cells. My ideas come from interactions with other human beings. A wide variety of experiences that become a conglomeration of viewpoints and perspectives.

Technical Creativity is Not Enough

In recent decades we have been asked to believe that creative thinking is most essential in the technical fields, through a plethora of amazing machines and other devices. Devices that entertain us, support the vehicles that move us from place to place, or make our homes safer and more convenient.

Our schools and universities are refashioning their academic programs to upgrade and expand majors in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). No criticism there. Simply a commentary on what we value most in our society. Teachers and professors in the liberal and fine arts are either replaced or allowed to retire without filling the position with someone else.

Why do these trends matter? Because the language of creative thought is being constricted. Diminished to the point of excluding matters associated with ways of being and living. The kind of cognitive and emotional expansiveness influenced by great literature and spiritual influencers.

Pushed aside are Greek literature and philosophy, ancient poems like Beowulf, and other forms of literature from various cultures. All of them once an essential part of anyone’s education.

Language is now technically descriptive more than thought-provoking. Constructed in ways people who have nothing more than a fourth-grade education can understand it.

Much of today’s religious writing, with some remarkable exceptions, tends toward maxims based on right and wrong thinking and acting. Absolute and eternal-sounding directives. Technically reasonable in the sense of practical applications to everyday life.

Secular admonitions that correspond to absolutism overlap such theological approaches to learning. Allowing people to seek control of our lives. To use sound bites and words with alarming overtones to convince us their solutions to problems or controversial circumstances are immutable. 

Jesus Christ: Creative Thinker and Advocate

Jesus, Son of God, and the heavenly representative of God’s will for us, came among us to explain that our existence is dependent on more than following patriarchal rules of behavior and worship.

Jesus was God’s service to humanity.

His message from his father and our God turned civilization upside down. Making an abstract condition called love more important than any other driving force in our lives.

While sounding innocuous to modern people, Jesus’ message from God our creator to the residents of Judea and their earthbound rulers was threatening. Even dangerous. Unconditional love as the basis for all relationships violated good political and military order. Tested belief systems of those who appointed themselves representatives of faith in the Almighty. It broke down established hierarchies by creating an aura of acceptance. A bitter pill for those with money, property, and power.

Not much has changed in today’s world. Rejecting that creative message Jesus brought from God continues to present an extremely detrimental impact on human life. For those of us who believe that unconditional love, as the root of Christian faith, must ourselves find creative ways to reinstate or reinvigorate Christ’s major principle. For ourselves. For each other.

Not through technical tinkering but through finding and using better ways to communicate with those we care for now. For those we want to care for in the larger scope of things. Through our actions and our words. Through enlarging the idea and practice of love, as Jesus taught us to do.

To define “church” as both a place to worship and a repository of meaningful exploration. As both a place to reinforce our faith and a source of ideas that stimulate people in our larger community toward a clearer understanding of how unconditional love makes a difference. In ourselves as human beings. In our institutions such as schools and businesses. In our neighborhoods, both proximate and beyond.

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP AND SERVICE

Service, ,

The word “fellowship” is a broadening of the word “relationship.” One that symbolizes purpose based on convictions and intentions supported by determination. Such as a determination to serve others in a positive way, a way that changes things for the better.

A relationship can be any kind of undefined connection between one or more people or activities. It can be familial or intensely personal. Or merely a friendly connection. It can run the gamut from acquaintanceship to romantic intensity.

Even matching a task with a tool is relational, as is linking a job with a person.

The way “relationship” is used in a sentence is important. “They have a relationship” can mean one thing. “They are in a relationship” means something entirely different.

I like to use  “relationship” as a way of thinking and behaving, associated with philosophical and emotional depth. More like “fellowship.”

The word “fellowship” has social overtones. But it also incorporates something almost metaphysical. An intertwining of many kinds of somewhat more esoteric relationships. Ranging from incidental to scholastic, from introspection to spiritual awareness.

A relationship can be casual and temporary. A fellowship implies something more complex and permanent with an aura of purposefulness surrounding it. One that transcends a mere connection of human beings at a superficial social level.  

Teams are Fellowships with a Purpose

The word team is usually associated with sports or any activity with the goal of winning or succeeding in some competitive setting. In the military I was often asked to serve in a combat team, usually consisting of a combination of infantry and vehicles. Members of a team have specific assignments, as in sports when someone plays a “position.” The same is true in the military or even a business combination of some kind.

Teams are units designed to combine people for the purpose of accomplishing a mission, the goal only a group of people can achieve. Team members are trained to work together in the context of accomplishing the team’s intentions. Sometimes, especially in team sports, psychology is necessary to make the team cohere enough to meet the mission.

Because dysfunctional teams will certainly lose.

Teams are fellowships with outward facing goals. Serving their members only to the extent they fulfill their assigned roles. And win their games.

Cliques are Indulgent Fellowships

Other fellowships can be more like fraternities or sororities, designed as cliques. One is accepted while others are excluded. Acceptance and social interactions based on little more than appearances and demonstrations of behaviors that seem to fit in. Those organizations may construct purposeful functions over time, but the foundation of their existence is within a manufactured revelry and artificial sense of belonging.

Service is the Core of Meaningful Fellowship

Teams and cliques become fellowships when relationships are involved. They provide a service in terms of game winning or social inclusion. However, in the context of advancing the quality of human life, neither are especially meaningful.

Games create diversions. Social groups reinforce status or expand/extend acquaintances over time.

Many might disagree with those definitions, the meaning behind them, or the importance they do and should have in human lives. I understand that.

But for me a meaningful fellowship has a purpose that transcends the ordinary and possesses a level of importance much bigger than our individual lives. That uplifting purpose gives a significance that is inspiring and perhaps a piece of history. An influence on others after our lives end.

My varied experiences as a member of a fellowship includes a 14-day trip through the canyons of the Colorado River with boys about my age. A difficult yet life-affirming venture involving challenging tasks we met and circumstances we overcame together. 168 miles in a rugged wilderness and on a raging river, now mostly covered with Lake Powell.

A few years later the fellowship consisted of trainees in Army basic training, the rigors of ROTC camp, and advanced forms of military challenges. Then serving as a commissioned officer with men involved in the preparation for war, depending on them as much as they depended on me.

Later fellowships involved school faculties, graduate studies, and overcoming the rigors associated with meeting requirements for a doctorate. Then university program building.

My family and its associations became a fellowship with meaning, as did the creation of a service organization for public schools: https://cliweb.org/. People came together to achieve common goals. Worked hard to find solutions to significant problems, day after day.

Fellowship as Discipleship

The Disciples that traveled and worked with Jesus Christ became a fellowship. Christians serve in various ways through different kinds of organizations: communities, orders, denominations, missionary endeavors, and crusades. People who gave away their possessions like the Apostles. Sacrificed their human desires and natural impulses to focus their attention on serving their Lord and Master.

Such religious fellowships are found everywhere, in every corner of the earth, among any who share strong beliefs and convictions. Not necessarily limited to Christianity.

The dark side of fellowship becomes an evil force that parade as people of faith in their own brand of political or devotional dogma. It raised its ugly head throughout history, becoming strong enough during the 20th Century to kill millions. And it is all too alive and well today.

On balance, I believe human fellowship to be a good thing. With an enlightened kind of procedural discipline and deep thought thrown into the mix. With the control of unfettered mass media used to pander to those with questionable or even evil intentions.

No doubt development of radio in the early 20th Century contributed greatly to the expansion of Nazism, Fascism, and dictatorial forms of Communism. Just as it did for oddball belief systems and promotion of foolish medical cures in the United States. Today, social media opens the door to online fellowships that may destroy logical thinking and mental health.

Positive forms of fellowship, such as those created by Jesus in the formation of his Apostles, are disciplined but not controlling. Educational in the sense they promote deep thinking and the formation of creative beliefs and actions. It was no accident that Jesus taught through parables, not admonitions or declarations of unquestioned truisms.

Based on that model for fellowship, we become individually and collectively better through dialogue and stimulation of logical thought. Good fellowship is a means to become individually better, thereby able to contribute back to the larger group insights not previously considered.

Like God’s nature on earth, a kind of yin and yang for the survival of everything. Without bees, no flowers.

Which makes interconnectivity the basis of the universe and our lives within it. Which makes true and interconnected fellowship the foundation for meaning and purpose. For our lives in God’s world.

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

SERVILISM

Service, , ,

Servilism is service related to slavery.

It’s when persons providing service are required to comply or be subservient because of a designated station in life. As in a caste system or society in which certain types of human beings are treated as inferior.

Less intelligent or intuitive. Deficient in character or morals. Born for menial jobs that serve the needs and desires of their “betters.” Skin color, physical features or propensities, assumed inferior intelligence, cultural affiliations, stereotypical demeanors, and other characteristics considered abnormal. Creatures to be servile and meritorious only in the context of how well they give of their limited talents to those born more fortunate.

Even today, we human beings who consider ourselves a dominant tribe or culture attempt to eradicate or separate another one considered inferior or threatening. As seen in the Russian conflict with Ukraine. As in the unrelenting diminishment of Jewish people and others tied to historical or theological categories not aligned with mainstream thinking.

As belief in a supreme being grew prevalent throughout the centuries, biases toward those considered inferior were modified to fit religious concepts of right and wrong. Derived from the acceptance that human beings are more alike than different. That other races and cultures are not threats, but merely distinct from one another in superficial ways.

Religiously managed methods of exercising superiority have more to do with the responsibility of the dominant class of human to take care of the inferior classes. Or to improve them in ways more like the superior cultures behave, believe, or even appear.

To accept the responsibility Rudyard Kipling titled “the white man’s burden.” A mantra some even applied to the biological source of all humans. That women are to be cared for as procreators and nurturers of offspring, to serve their families and male rulers with deference as providers of their sustenance.

Many people accepted servitude as a natural state. The slavery culture that developed in the United Kingdom and United States eventually used the “white man’s burden” admonition, violated often by unscrupulous and immoral members of a commercial class. But even among venal overseers and masters, human beings classified as “property” needed to be cared for to maintain their value as workers or commodities in the marketplace.

Women, the biological source of all humanity, were excluded in the participatory and decision-making body of the times. They were restricted from working in so-called male occupations and leadership roles, including governments. Not because they were considered an inferior species, but because their God-given role was designed to concentrate on conceiving, delivering, and nurturing children. And maintaining the families in which they were raised. Which included service to the father of those children, configured any way the man considered appropriate.

Servilism is Alive and Well Today

This negative view of service still endures today—a form of societal servilism. A kind of service not entirely voluntary. Or voluntary only in a constricted sense.

The three main economic systems are capitalism, socialism, and communism. Capitalism and socialism are typically associated with representative government. Communism is linked to a more dictatorial form of decision-making.

All these societies incorporate some kind of class system in which a majority of citizens perform essential services in the marketplace, agencies, institutions, or organizations.

Compensation is always a condition associated with servilism. Even slaves, as property, had to be fed, housed, and medically cared for. Today, when classic slavery is deemed a criminal act like human trafficking, ordinary people are servilely compensated for services they provide through minimum forms of monetary compensation.

Monetary compensation varies depending on what society or the employer considers appropriate in terms of education, preparation, skills, and nature of the work involved. A major factor determines the extent to which the service of an employee or provider is considered valuable.

So, the value of a service is dictated by those who control the source of money: owners, managers, bureaucrats, boards, or other elected or appointed decision-makers. And those individuals and groups are greatly influenced by societal beliefs about value.

They are also influenced by the availability of resources to pay employees, and attitudes of society about the importance of the jobs being compensated. Capitalistic societies equate compensation with how critical the work is considered in terms of profits made by the commercial organization. In both capitalistic and socialistic societies, those employed by tax supported agencies or entities that fulfill a critical need are usually paid wages commensurate with their education and the extent to which candidates are available to fill those jobs.

The small percentage of those who have exceptional entertainment or athletic skills often attract large financial rewards during the time they are lauded and maintain the talent for which they are recognized.

Socialistic economies differ somewhat since their representative governments equalize wealth and subsistence levels through tax equalization and income distribution formulas. Designed to avert both extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

Capitalistic countries believe that such a balanced policy retards economic growth, since less money is available for research, investment, and incentives. They accept a huge disparity in quality of life, believing that people work best when they are inspired and capable of achieving economic goals that are enticements to ever greater accomplishment.

Capitalistic societies believe the general education and welfare of children, while important, are familial obligations. General investments in children (such as their schooling) should be limited to sustaining and continuously invigorating the economy. The economy first. Everyone’s fulfilled life —a distant second.

Voluntary Service of the Kind Provided by Christ

Can we conclude that voluntary service is offered only when the contributor is otherwise able to live at the subsistence level or above?

Jesus Christ was not a slave. But he lived in a society considered subservient by its military and political masters—the Romans. And Jewish classes like the Pharisees who believed themselves superior to other Jewish sects. They created laws and rules of behavior that dominated their own race and culture, making them cohorts of the Roman occupiers.

By trade, Jesus was a craftsman, but left that trade to spread his ministry. Nothing biblical suggests financial support from his family. What does show up as support comes from friends and followers, usually in the form of housing and food. Specific people appear as capable of providing tangible as well as spiritual support, specifically men like Arimathea and Nicodemus. Possibly even Lazarus and his sister, Martha. Other women also supported Jesus, particularly Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna (see Luke 8).

Jesus, the Son of God, lived as a human being with the same creature and emotional needs we have. Unlike me and millions like me, he did not have a satisfactory retirement income. Nor did he have an organizational sponsor or a charitable system that donated much to his ministry. He went out alone and convinced other key individuals about who he was and the importance of his message from God.

Spreading the message was different in Jesus’ era. No TV, internet, postal service, radio, public address systems, or phone. Just a man who walked and interacted with others along the way. Done voluntarily because those with whom he interacted helped materially, emotionally, and spiritually.

That voluntary service worked for Jesus because communities were smaller and more interactive than most are today. People shopped outdoors in the markets or conducted their trades in the fields or open-air structures.

Jesus was able to influence others because his speech and demeanor were characteristic of a rabbi or knowledgeable teacher. In that era such a wise and learned person was recognized by reputation, instead of formal academic study and the certification necessary today.

The other reason Jesus was accepted as a volunteer rabbi is because people longed to hear the message he articulately preached. That love and mutual support were at the center of life’s purpose. Not an existence based on submissively serving dominate cultures such as the Romans and Philistines.

Servilism in the Twenty-first Century

Today’s society, especially in the United States, is greatly influenced by the philosophy of servilism. Instead of Roman or Philistine rulers dominating our lives, commercial and political influencers tell us our life’s purpose is to serve their material and emotional wants and needs. As well as their beliefs, convictions, and biases. As hourly employees and professional providers of medical care, educational growth, oversight of property, and protection from life’s hazards.

Monetary compensation for those services varies depending on how much workers are valued by those who control our financial universe. And how much human beings themselves are valued.

As in ancient times, those providing ruler-defined service today are asked to accept life’s meaning and purpose through assigned or available endeavors. Employment in jobs or other forms of legal activities must generate income. Entrepreneurial work in agriculture, manufacturing, or a commercial activity. Fulfillment of governmental responsibilities.

If such purposes are insufficiently satisfying in the minds of those serving, they are given diversions. The Romans excelled at providing exciting games and other forms of entertainment. Just as we do. Diversions with no lasting meaning. Just momentarily significant in the minds of recipients.

Jesus’ life as defined by God, his father, revolved around a single purpose. He found ways to provide service that meant something in a universal and eternal setting. Everlasting. Life enriching for everyone.

Conversely, a purposeful life in the Twenty-first Century is usually defined as something tangible. Relatable. Job descriptions or family responsibilities.  Scholarly pursuits. Hobbies and travel. Activities and involvements. Relationships and interests. Interactions with things, items produced, or nurtured. Constructing and caring for.

What is often missing is a sense of purpose, the kind Jesus held. One in which voluntary service to others absorbs the persona. Becoming not what we do but who we are. Reaching out in order to gather in. Allowing the spirit enveloping others to enlighten us, thereby gaining insights into what a God-directed service should be.

Servilism in the Twenty-first Century exists when we allow ourselves to crave material things and recognition for superficial achievements.

Jesus wanted none of that. He only asked that we love each other as he loves us. 

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON SERVICE

Service, , ,

My career as a resident educator included teaching in Texas, Arizona, and Kansas. For years my colleagues and I provided consultant services to school districts in the U.S. and Taiwan.

Most field services and my residential teaching jobs were in America. Which was culturally diverse, influenced in surprising ways: race, religion, attitudes toward learning, local diversions, language, population diversity, weather, the economy, and generational traditions. 

Much teaching and consultant work occurred when that kind of diversity prevailed. 

Before the 2001 imposition of the rigid No Child Left Behind. Before other federally initiated programs meant to micromanage schools. Before the pandemic and rise of today’s political rancor.

The educational era before 2001 featured exploration. Mixed with the joy of community idiosyncrasies. Wrapped in an American spirit that was both unifying and distinctively charming.

Service to educators in that era was relational, conversational, and mutually enlightening. Not procedural or mechanistic. Not advising clients of my nonprofit organization (cliweb.org) how to jump through bureaucratic hoops.

It was a learning experience for both clients and consultants. Interacting in ways that provided new insights and novel ways to solve perplexing problems. Learning new procedures and perspectives that could be useful somewhere else.

Exciting ideas and practices emerged from one cultural setting. Transferred somewhere else for the enrichment of student learning. Give and take. In the American spirit of academic adventure, directed at helping students achieve creatively. Helping them acquire a sense of purpose.

Misguided Definitions of Culture

NCLB was created out of concerns raised in the 1983 Nation at Risk Report. A document and political spark that contained both admonitions for greater academic exploration AND recommendations for controlling what was deemed reckless eclecticism in public school curricula. Both a philosophically expansive idea and a call for systematizing learning outcomes. 

Through the NCLB initiative, the philosophically expansive quest was buried under a rigid method for systematizing student learning outcomes to support uniform economic growth.

NCLB codified and indirectly mandated a growing focus on academic benchmarks and standardized testing. It promised federal funding that never materialized. Concurrently, the courts required equalized funding in each state that reduced the availability of discretionary funds for program improvement and faculty training at the local level.

Until those efforts to nationalize school improvement started, I enjoyed the rich cultural traditions of rural districts in Nebraska. The supportive town meeting decision-making environment in Maine. The dynamic mix of opinions in Chicago. The quest for merging native belief systems into the Zuni, New Mexico curriculum. Figuring out ways to consolidate small school districts in North Dakota to give them better ways to serve students. Acknowledging the importance of family and community values by merging them with a Wyoming district’s curriculum.

The distinctiveness of each state and community within America felt right. Even with such cultural diversity, there was evidence of a national soul. A happy uniqueness existing inside an indulgent national family of eccentrics.

NCLB transported a micro culture invented in Texas to the national stage when George W. Bush was elected president. Bush was convinced his state’s school improvement model was effective. That it should be expanded to the national level. A bipartisan group in Congress agreed, thereby modifying the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) provisions.

The state’s model was given birth in the entire nation.

Interestingly, Ross Perot was the prime mover. An influential billionaire and political aspirant who had strong and controversial opinions about Texas education programs. Perot was appointed chair of the state’s new Select Committee on Public Education (SCOPE). Perot and the committee attacked what they considered big problems:

  • Poorly compensated teachers. (Perot liked longer days, smaller classes, and merit pay).
  • The dominance of sports programs like football over academic priorities.
  • The 180-day school year, shorter than all other nations.
  • An inadequately challenging academic curriculum, especially in the realms of basic literacy and math skills.
  • A need for achievement tests, especially for those students involved in sports programs.
  • The core value that teachers come from the “dumbest folks in college” and are incompetent.
  • More money spent for education produces no measurable effect on student learning.
  • Schools are bogged down in bureaucracy.
  • No national standards for student learning and no way to measure accountability.
  • Schools are not organized to meet society’s needs because learning is not a priority.
  • Parents do not have enough authority over what happens in schools.

Perot and his committee drew those conclusions from the perspective of the business community. I could agree with many of them. Yet strongly disagree with others.

Although Perot’s run for the presidency as an independent was strong but ultimately unsuccessful, Texas governor Bush did get to the White House. And accomplished at the national level what had become the aspirational culture of the Lone Star State.

That new national culture emerging out of Texas prevailed for many years, then began to morph into something different. But with similar features. Now, COVID-19 has and continues to modify the original plan even more.

Perot was in many ways an exceptional American entrepreneur and political mover. I admire his life’s accomplishments in shaking up a culture that badly needed it. And for creating a new way of thinking and believing.

Where Perot failed was in understanding the inextricable nature of human culture and the value of interacting viewpoints. That public schools and higher education are not meant to have a singular academic focus. Except in those categories of the curriculum that teach skills meant to support survival AND success in a complex society. Which are only tools for applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating.

Tools that Perot used in highly effective if controversial ways.

His kind of service is not my kind of service because we define the word and characteristics of “culture” differently. Perot defined it as a substructure of economic success. I define it as a means through which all its members can live with a sense of purpose and meaning derived from faith and strong belief systems.

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

A NECESSARY POST-PANDEMIC MINDSET FOR TEACHER PREPARATION AND STATUS

Service, , , , ,



A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NATURE OF SERVICE — GOOD AND BAD

Service is never one dimensional. It can be offered and delivered for different reasons, some of which are opposites based on practical, political, or religious convictions. Or what one considers correct or incorrect thinking. We serve what we believe at the moment. No matter where or how that belief originated.

My professional service as an educator is rooted in opening intellectual doors to promote critical and creative thinking, which are the foundation for richer and more productive lives. I do not believe in indoctrination. Especially the kind based on promoting skills or actions designed to fulfill intentions of leaders with questionable ambitions or nefarious goals. Or objectives that are either operationally neutral or just mechanistically useful.

Scientists who invented the atom bomb found the project to be an interesting challenge and service to their country. They only later thought about the social implications of their work.

Engineers who designed and built the RMS Titanic and other ships of its class accepted poorly thought-out principles and techniques. To achieve the look of British magnificence and performance. Accepting shortcuts necessary to impress and compete. Which resulted in an unmitigated disaster.

This article is about such ways of thinking and action in our schools for over two decades.

The impact of COVID-19 on schools seems multidimensional. Student enrollment is down. Learning quality has suffered. Teachers and principals are demoralized. Thousands of educators have left or plan to leave.

Multiple solutions are being considered: salary improvements, reductions in certification requirements, and upgrades in working conditions. All quick fixes to address big challenges.

But quick fixes are merely patch jobs. Repairs to keep the schools from sinking until more substantial improvements are made. If ever.

Lessons from the Titanic Disaster

We know the story about the RMS Titanic and its 1912 sinking after striking an iceberg. The iceberg collision revealed fundamental flaws in the ship’s construction and operation.

An iceberg in the ocean was like the COVID-19 pandemic. A phenomenon of nature that proved our human vulnerability and hubris.

For the Titanic it is was bad metallurgy. The use of rivets to assemble the hull’s plates. Poorly designed “waterproof” compartments. Excessive nighttime speed through a field of icebergs. Above all, the advertised claim the ship was unsinkable gave both passengers and the ship’s officers a sense of invulnerability and haughtiness.   

And they paid a horrible price. Similar to what is happening to American young people today.

The pandemic exposed existing issues begun 22 years ago with the creation of No Child Left Behind. NCLB’s inspiring name, just like Titanic, masked serious design flaws. Reducing teachers to the level of civil servants made to comply with bureaucratically created academic standards. Held accountable for student success on high stakes pencil and paper tests. Narrowing curriculum to basic skills, which had the effect of minimizing critical thinking and creative behaviors.

During the worst of the pandemic, teachers were forced to conduct virtual instruction from home. They did not have deep enough knowledge of curricular intentions or modified instructional techniques to maintain momentum. That was the beginning of student learning decline and intense teacher anxiety and depression.

There is no chance of preserving much of anything from the wreck of the Titanic, over two miles under the surface. Only a few artifacts have been lifted from the debris field. Scientists believe the entire ship will disappear by the middle part of the 21st Century.

Is that also the destiny of American education?

What Is Learned from Disasters

Since the loss of the Titanic, much has been learned about the building of large metal ships. And how to save passengers when they founder. Can the same be said for the era begun by NCLB?

Titanic foundered primarily because of inadequate rivets and metallurgical issues with its hull in extremely cold conditions. NCLB foundered because it discounted the value of creative and relational teaching/learning processes. It also placed far too much initial importance on basic skill development in reading and mathematics.

The Titanic’s engineers and builders knew about oceanic conditions and weather-related threats. But, like the inventers of NCLB, discounted the underlying importance of variables. Variables like unusually large icebergs with huge subsurface masses. Or human learning needs that are multitudinous and eclectic.

Titanic’s captain and crew understood the threat of icebergs. They accelerated anyway, because they were told their ship was unsinkable. NCLB theorists believed that high stakes tests designed to assess teacher accountability and promote a competitive spirit between and among schools would improve the quality of student learning.

Both assumptions have been proven wrong.

Titanic sideswiped an iceberg and sank. Schools lost whatever effectiveness they had when teachers were micromanaged. Reduced to the level of civil servants. Required to excessively narrow the curriculum. 

Before running into a pandemic.

Restructuring our schools based on what we have learned will take more time and effort than learning how to build better ships. Good ships need a better understanding of their component parts and how they are assembled. Plus crews that know how to effectively pilot them.

Schools need autonomously professional teachers well prepared in both curriculum and instructional design. Teachers given the authority to stimulate and regularly assess the quality of creative learning.

Preparing teachers in such a comprehensive manner and giving them a work environment that allows them to perform in ways that produce quality 21st Century citizens, is no small task.

Nor can it be based on old mindsets as to what teachers are and do.

The professional status of teachers must far exceed what it is now. Not simply in monetary compensation. But also in terms of how well they inspire students as purposeful future citizens who have the potential to live meaningful lives.

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

DEDICATION TO THE WORK OF THE NATIONAL TEACHERS HALL OF FAME

Uncategorized, , , , ,

Exceptional and Courageous Teachers Inspire and Lead

American schools are suffering. Reeling for many reasons: misguided governmental policies, a devastating pandemic, inadequate funding, mismanagement that allows organizational priorities to supersede academic excellence, and a misunderstanding of what quality learning is and why it is important to the health of our nation.

Most egregious is the diminishment of the teaching profession from a dynamic force for guiding students toward authentic and multifaceted achievement, to a group of civil servants expected to comply with expectations from special interest groups, lawmakers, and bureaucrats.

Ken Weaver, Executive Director
Carol Strickland
Immediate Past Executive Director

Many organizations recognize those problems and attempt to find ways to solve them. The most influential is the National Teachers Hall of Fame. The rationale behind that declaration is the fact that it attacks today’s issues not by starting with top-down structural reforms like better funding, higher salaries, more enlightened laws, and other kinds of administrative tinkering.

Those changes ARE necessary. But the essential kind of rethinking must focus on who teachers are and what they do. The Hall of Fame does that by recognizing and honoring exceptional career teachers, encouraging excellence in teaching, and preserving the rich heritage of the teaching profession in the United States.

The Hall of Fame also enhances the public’s awareness of the vital role of education in society by working collaboratively with national education organizations. Building linkages with other national teacher recognition programs. It recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of exceptional career teachers. Preserves their careers in museum and virtual formats Utilizes their skills and experiences to elevate teacher quality and student learning through integrated programming.

The book, The New Learning Infrastructure: Educators with the Courage to Reform Local Schools (scheduled for publication, Spring 2023), is an effort to examine schools from the inside out. Looking at school reform as a people endeavor, not just organizational restructuring. The book’s format is meant to convey that idea. The author gives the background of challenges schools are encountering. But uses key characters in a fictional story to show how their transformation is essential to upgrading educational effectiveness and quality.

While the story is fictional, the plot is based on over thirty years of working with real public schools and educators throughout the nation. All remarkable and inspiring people. Much like the teachers selected as members of the National Teachers Hall of Fame. The book is dedicated to those classroom-based leaders. To what they have done and continue to accomplish as models of active service to their profession and students.

To illustrate why the book is dedicated to the 150 members of The National Teachers Hall of Fame, check out these examples of what these extraordinary career teachers continue to do inside and outside the classroom:

Jennifer Williams (Class of 2016), a high school art teacher from Nampa, Idaho, created a classroom to inspire creative thinking, self-discipline, dignity in work, doing something well, and promoting curiosity and respect. She relates the knowledge to the lives of her students while planting seeds that giving back to society is important and art is the perfect way to do that. Her “Project Van Go” has taken art lessons to thousands of students in rural schools in Idaho for four decades. She allows students to be teachers of the day, using art to bridge age and ethnic barriers. Even after retirement, Williams and her former students, now art teachers themselves, continue to share the joy of art to a new generation.

Christopher Albrecht (Class of 2019), a fourth-grade teacher from Brockport, New York, infuses his classroom with core ideas: Creativity allows for the expansion of ideas, breaks the rules of conventional thought, and prepares students for complex problem-solving. Students must take productive risks as failure is an effective pathway to learning. Productive learners will come to have faith in themselves. Learning should build a student’s willingness to work hard. The focus of effective teaching is focusing on how students learn best rather than teaching the standards. Working together is a valuable way to learn.

Andrew Beiter (Class of 2020), a middle school social studies teacher from Springville, New York, and his students started the Springville Students for Human Rights in response to the genocide in Darfur. This group was the catalyst for the Summer Institute for Human Rights and Genocide Studies for Buffalo area high school students. The summer institute over the years has morphed into the Academy for Human Rights (http://www.academyforhumanrights.org/), which focuses on putting knowledge into action for students and educators in western New York. In addition, Beiter co-founded the Educators’ Institute for Human Rights (https://www.eihr.org/), devoted to supporting educators who rebuild communities around the world.

Dr. Melissa Collins (Class of 2020), a second-grade teacher from Memphis, Tennessee, and her students have educated the community through active engagement such as Carnival Physics. Participants, dressed as marchers of the Civil Rights era, learn about physics through carnival rides and a civil rights march from the Civil Rights Museum to the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated. Dr. Collins has collaborated with teachers around the nation and the world. She has brought the world into her classroom through Zoom sessions with teachers and student-to-student exchanges.

Donna Gradel (Class of 2020), a high school environmental science teacher from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and her students have been change agents in their school district and around the world. Based on student research, the board of education approved a district-wide energy policy and installed energy-efficient lighting and a new ventilation system. In Kenya, Donna and her students brought clean water and protein to orphans. They constructed an aquaponic system to raise tilapia for food. After learning the food for the fish was too expensive, they obtained a grant from MIT and invented low-cost sustainable fish food and the system to produce the ingredients. Subsequent classes have created affordable designs for chicken coops and cost-effective chicken food to provide protein at a school in Kenya that rescues victims of sexual abuse. Gradel and her students have traveled to Kenya to build the coops and the system for the food, extending the classroom across the globe.

Kareem Neal (Class of 2022), a high school special education teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, transforms his classroom into a strong community of learners. He builds on his student strengths and inspires them to give their full effort as they make progress toward the goals of the Individualized Education Program and learning employment skills. For fourteen years, Neal has also sponsored a student organization that aims to eliminate the biases/pre-judgments that prevent people from connecting with peers and fellow humans. His belief in his students gives them the skills and confidence to be employed and not have to be cared for by others. His goal is to make all his students feel welcome, wanted, and valuable.

Robert Fenster (Class of 2022), a high school history teacher from Hillsborough, New Jersey, creates “labs” in his classroom where students are given a set of learning goals and a variety of options about how to achieve them, including working individually and in groups. The option gives students choices about their learning. At one of his labs, Bob teaches mini lessons to help students struggling to grasp a subject. At another lab, students are creating podcasts about race in the US. One of Fenster’s collaborations has resulted in an exchange program with teachers in Sierra Leone to create global connections between students on topics around slavery.

Gary Koppelman (Class of 2014) taught fifth grade for forty-six years at Blissfield Community Schools in Blissfield, Michigan. His classroom, which he called the “World of Wonder,” featured challenging, creative activities connected to the BELL, a climatically controlled greenhouse at the cutting edge of life science investigation. He envisioned and raised the funds to create a hands-on, minds-on approach to learning, and he continues to oversee its care and growth, even after retiring. The BELL lab has challenged young minds to explore new worlds of plants, animals, and habitats, resulting in many scientists and science teachers added to our society. Koppelman received the 2013 National Science Teachers Association Shell Science Teaching Award. He continues to serve the 4-H community in Blissfield.

Dr. Rebecca Palacios (Class of 2014) taught for thirty-four years in early childhood, dual language education in Corpus Christi, Texas. She now serves as the Senior Curriculum Advisor for Age of Learning, Inc., the premier online learning tool for pre-school through high school students. She also mentors area teachers and is a co-founder and former Vice-Chair of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. She is a nationwide professional development presenter and has served on committees for the National Science Foundation, the Education Development Center in Boston, and Scholastic, Inc. Palaciosis a published author, with her latest book entitled Being Your Child’s Most Important Teacher: A Guide for Families with Young Children. She retired from teaching in 2010, but she has not retired from the education profession.

Linda Evanchyk (Class of 2010) taught English and Journalism for thirty-eight years at Choctawhatchee High School in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. After retiring in 2017, she decided to continue her dedication to the district that provided her own education as well as her teaching career. She ran for the Okaloosa County District School Board and was elected in 2018. Evanchyk was recently re-elected for another four-year term. She was one of the first Okaloosa County teachers to attain National Board Certification. She was designated as a Master Journalism Educator by the National Journalism Education Association, and she was named Florida’s Journalism Teacher of the Year in 1995 and 2009. She co-authored the book Those Who Teach Do More: Tributes to American Teachers. The community appreciates her passion for making the district everything it can be, as she attends school activities, supporting the students and staff. 

Dr. David Lazerson (Class of 2008), more affectionately known as “Dr. Laz” to his colleagues and students, is still in the classroom after forty-five years, as a Special Education teacher and music director at The Quest Center of the Broward County Public Schools in Florida. He is one of the founders of Project CURE the World, a racial harmony group that has become a force for positive change regarding racism and stereotypes. Dr. Laz and the group were selected as the recipient of the 2022 National Education Association’s Rosa Parks Memorial Award, awarded each year to an individual or organization who inspires others to champion the cause of human and civil rights. The Showtime original movie “Crown Heights” is based on Dr. Laz’s book Sharing Turf, which documented the New York race riots of 1981. How he helped to bring the people together with music. He continues to perform and use music to enrich the learning process for his students with autism and Down Syndrome. His latest project, the H.E.ARTS Project focuses on empowering individuals with special needs through the Expressive Arts. 

Norm Conard (Class of 2007) taught high school Social Studies for thirty-one years in the small town of Uniontown, Kansas. His hands-on, minds-on approach to learning history challenged his students to explore history through the eyes of unsung heroes. His students inspired him through their research to find little-known names that had changed the course of history. When a student found the name Irena Sendler in a footnote, she became interested in the woman who had saved Polish children during the Holocaust. Discovering the woman was still alive but living in poor conditions in Poland, the students and Norm worked to bring attention to what a heroine Sendler was. The Polish government took note and provided for her until her death in 2008. The story brought attention to the difference one person can make. That led to the creation of the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in the nearby city of Fort Scott, Kansas. Today, the Center trains teachers to help students explore all facets of history, features a museum and a new park. Under Conard’s direction, the Center has reached three million students in its fifteen years of operation through virtual and on-site presentations. Since retiring from teaching, Conard’s classroom has grown exponentially.

Dr. Francis Mustapha (Class of 1994) taught Biology and Life Science in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for twenty-seven years. He believes all students can learn and should be life-long learners. He confronted students who did not have confidence in themselves to succeed in science classes. He also helped to ignite the love of science in young women who felt it was only a man’s world. He mentored dozens of aspiring science teachers to pass along his love of the subject matter into good hands for the future. Born in a small village in West Africa where no one could read or write, Mustapha’s life changed when he was able to attend a new school that opened in a nearby village. His dream of providing a building for a new school in the village became a reality in 2013. He now serves as the Executive Director of Madina Village School in Sierra Leone. He and his wife Bobbie, now residents of Sierra Leone, are building a hospital in the village to further the idea that teachers can, indeed, change the world.

*******************

Recognizing selected teachers for their outstanding contributions to students and the profession is important. There will always be such teachers, and they deserve recognition. They are excellent models for what the practice of teaching should regularly be.

The education system must systematically close the gap between exceptionality and standard practice, making stories such as those above closer to the norm. To show how a new learning infrastructure can help make that happen by removing bureaucratic hobbles and limitations on teacher professionalism that are a disservice to our nation and its students.

©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved

With acknowledgment to the contributions of Dr. Ken Weaver and Carol Strickland.

A SENSE OF MEANING AND PURPOSE

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

AARP is a worthwhile organization founded on altruistic principles. To help retired educators and others survive and find meaning in their advanced years. I am pleased to be associated with its work at the state level. To provide service within categories in which I am qualified and interested.

My service preference in AARP has been and continues to be building bridges to the education world. Which was AARP’s birthplace through the efforts of Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, the first woman high school principal in California. Who founded the National Retired Teachers Association. Then AARP two years later.

AARP’s current CEO is Jo Ann Jenkins, who wrote the book, Disrupt Aging: A Bold New Path to Living Your Best Life at Every Age.  The organization now sponsors projects to advance the book’s principles, particularly in post-secondary education institutions.

Before the coronavirus pandemic I outlined a possible lifespan planning course for college students based on Jenkins’ book. I shared it with the Executive Committee of AARP Kansas.

Because of pandemic-induced turmoil, attempts to promote the course in Kansas’ higher education were curtailed. Campus decision-makers already had their hands full with day-to-day challenges.

A similar challenge remains today. The pandemic’s effect on university enrollment and program purposes is causing a retrenching and redirection of curricular content. Strategic planning in higher education might open the door to implementation of a lifespan planning course. But most efforts are to reformat curriculum to meet high demand careers. 

I continue to believe a lifespan planning course is a good idea. Both now and in the future. If four-year universities are not currently interested, implementation might first occur in community colleges and technical schools. They have a strong focus on the trades and development of applied skills. Those students also need to plan their lives around making good lifespan decisions.

 *******************

I am gratified to see that AARP is also concerned about what is happening in public schools. With special attention on the epidemic of student depression, anxiety, and suicides. No doubt Dr. Andrus would share that concern and support our responsibility, as elders, to do something about it.

In a Special Report appearing in the September, 2022 issue of the AARP Bulletin, Stephen Parrine and Jo Ann Jenkins explain the scope and seriousness of the problem: “Our Kids in Crisis.” Both the article and Jenkins’ commentary are incisive and dive deeply into the root causes of the despair experienced by so many of our nation’s youth. They make clear our responsibility as elders to find ways to help.

Parrine points to multiple reasons for the crisis, focusing primarily on the pervasiveness of social media and effects of pandemic-induced isolation. He also suggests that the prevalence of mass shootings in schools and intense political rancor in the nation are ongoing perpetrators of anxiety and concern about safety.

Both Parrine and Jenkins suggest ways to start mitigating the problem. Legislation to better control the variabilities of social media and its bad actors. More intense family intervention on the use of smart phones and other devices. Contacting and making use of community support services. Giving young people more attention and love. Improving the quantity and quality of mental health services in the schools and communities.

My proposal for a lifespan planning course at the post-secondary level does not specifically address the issues mentioned by Parrine and Jenkins. The crisis they discuss is most acute among those in middle and high school. However, since the course is based on Jenkins’ beliefs about disrupting aging, it does incorporate the importance of our developing a strong sense of purpose for our lives, undergirded by a powerful belief system.

Those aspects of disrupting aging are often soft-pedaled. They seem less important than financial and health preparations. Two elements both practical and clearly essential, often mentioned in the commercial and political world.

But they are, in the larger scope of things, just survival techniques. How to live longer, comfortably, and in good physical health.   

As an octogenarian, I think back on my early years. Acknowledge the extreme importance of having made decisions that included but transcended mere survival techniques: a dedication to a life of service and beliefs about who I am in the context of religious convictions.

One more point that must be accepted as important. And can be found in Jenkins’ book and the course on lifespan planning: the feeling of being part of something bigger than we are as individuals. It is hard to explain why that is so critical, but successful human societies in history have always included rites of passage. Culminating with a sense of belonging within the individual, being accepted as part of the family, community, or tribe as an essential contributor.

My hope is that Jenkins’ Disrupt Aging initiative results in a substantive national movement that does more than just play around the edges of the issues and recommendations for change. That it delves deeply into understanding who and what we are as we move through life. That it gives us a philosophical AND psychological roadmap for continuing growth and feelings of living a life well lived.

In the meantime, my upcoming book, The New Learning Infrastructure, examines deficiencies in our nation’s public schools. How they should and must be overcome. Suggestions in the book align with points made by Jenkins, but are also reflected in the work of the National Teachers Hall of Fame. Its inducted teachers are honored for their exceptional creativity, leadership, and methods for engaging students with imagination and a powerful sense of purpose. The teacher/members of the NTHF show what true education is, thereby building young people into a new kind of reality. A reality that underscores student inclusivity, purpose-filled dynamics, and a sense of accomplishment that goes far beyond the acquisition of a good grade point average.

All human beings need a strong sense of purpose and meaning in their lives. Restructuring our society and its education institutions is a way to acknowledge that truth. Then do something about it.

 ©2022 Stu Ervay – All Rights Reserved