Lesson Never Learned

Thomas Jefferson, for all his faults, was an advocate of education. He proposed a system of public schools in Virginia in the early 1800s that provided a basic primary education to all (at the time, "all" referred only to white males…so, not "all" in any sense of the word, today, but I digress). Students who excelled in primary school (and whose parents could afford to pay for further education (with a few exceptions)) could continue their education in the classic style (i.e., heavy on the Greek and Latin) at intermediate school. Finally, the crème de la crème were selected to attend university (UVA and, later, William and Mary).

In many respects, that scheme is no different than what we have today. Students matriculate their way through grammar school, secondary school, and post-secondary education. Many differences abound, however. Most obviously, public school is truly public, today, inasmuch as it is for all young people regardless of color, gender, economic status, etc. In addition, there is no funneling of students out of school at certain points due to their lack of suitability as students. Everyone gets an education, whether they are good at being a student or not. The mantra is that all students can succeed, even if there is no evidence of the truth of this statement. It is an eternally hopeful mind set, and worthy of a nation that believes in one’s ability to rescue themselves from dire straits through their own guile and hard work. “We can do it!” reads a poster in my classroom. Thomas Jefferson would find this statement absurd. But no matter.

Thomas Jefferson also said, as a friend of mine once screamed from a stage as she played Jefferson in a production of a Joe Brady original in some dilapidated church in Baltimore, “Wide-spread poverty and concentrated wealth can not long endure side by side in a democracy.” Looks like he was wrong about that, too. For how long has this state of inequality been endured? Jefferson spoke of it, portentously, in the nineteenth century. Franklin Roosevelt touched upon Jefferson’s words in a speech from 1936. Today, according to University of California at Santa Cruz professor G. William Domhoff, almost 90% of the wealth in this country is controlled by 20% of the people. In addition, people in the bottom 40% have a mean household net worth of -$10,600. That is not a typo. There is a minus sign before the dollar sign. The net worth for the top one-percent? Sixteen million. And guess what else? The disparity is growing. In 1983, just more than 81% of the wealth was controlled by 20% of the people.

Here in Nebraska, where the motto is “The Good Life,” unemployment is near a national low of 3.9%. Despite those rosy (and mostly steady through the worst of the last five years) numbers, it was reported today in the Lincoln Journal Star, that median household income in Lancaster County had dropped 10.2% since 2000. The state numbers were about half that, and nationally, only three states and the District of Columbia has shown an increase in real median household income. The Good Life? The Goodbye to my Buying Power Life, more like it.

You see, many people (including at least one of our esteemed Nebraska senators and one of our governors, I’m sure (I’m being coy about the governor--I know we only have the one, unfortunately.), will say that the reason that some have and some have not is because some will work harder than others. This is propaganda, of course. Nebraskans work. They work as hard or harder than anyone if you might indulge me and use the low unemployment numbers as evidence that Nebraskans are working. And what do they have to show for it? About 90 cents for every dollar they used to earn. (But make sure none of those subsidy-grubbing lazy bones get any food stamps or WIC coupons!)

What does all this have to do with education? (Boy, am I leaning hard on the questions, today.) Everything. I teach a lot of poor kids--kids that, in the original Jeffersonian model, would have been driving plows or shining someone else’s silver candlesticks by the age of nine. The current era won’t have that. Our drive is not to sort them out like some kind of Pachinko machine, dropping them into holes or slots as they move through school until they get to the place meant for them. Pre-determinism is an old Puritan idea. Now, we open doors and see who wants to step through, and, if a kid doesn’t want to step through, we try another door. (Of course, after a certain age, we have no choice—we open the door and push the young adult through to some other, more age-appropriate program, but, again, I digress.)

So, as a teacher, it is important for me to nurture all of my students in order to help them see the benefits of walking through some of those doors. I try to spark their interest. I try to build a connection with them. I try to teach them skills that they need, but, for some of them, it is far more important to show them that I value them and that I care about them. See, ol’ TJ would have us believe that school is a place where all you need to learn is your readin’, writin’ an’ ‘rithmetic, but he didn’t foresee what he forewarned. Reading, and writing and math and science are all important, but how do you teach a kid who has holes in his shoes? How do you teach a girl who hasn’t had breakfast? How do you teach students who spend all of their mental and emotional energy trying to figure out where they are going to sleep that night?

Granted, these are extreme examples. You might even think they are the minority, and you would be right by the slimmest of margins. Forty percent, according to Dr. Domhoff--forty percent of the population have a negative net worth and a household income that averages $17,000. That figure is one percent of the million plus income for the top one percent. How is that not disturbing (if you are not in the top one percent)? Still, all most of the other ninety-nine percent seem to want to do is point fingers.

Maybe I am whistling in the dark, here. As a matter of fact, I am almost sure I am. After all, when did Dickens write Hard Times?