Winter 2014

Winter 2014 Page 1

When Advent meets the academy

KIM REDIGAN

One of the principal truths of Christianity, a truth that goes almost unrecognized today, is that looking is what saves us. —Simone Weil, Waiting for God

“Be watchful! Be alert!” The words smack like a Zen stick as the stern command is issued to shake off the bittersweet beauty of autumn and awaken to the sober season of Advent.

Advent. The place on the liturgical calendar where I could most easily park my bones, the time of the church year when I feel most at home.

I once described myself as an Advent girl living in a Christmas world. What I meant to say, despite the glibness, was that I yearn for quiet, stillness, darkness in a world that is full of noise, lights, and garish distraction. That my soul hungers for a little more yin in a world skewed toward the yang. For simplicity and peace. For God. Temperamentally, I am more inclined toward the austere sacramentals of candles and psalter at midnight than carols and ribbons on a sunlit morn.

Like a well-crafted haiku, there is something stark and jarring about the demands of Advent. Something deep and piercing and clear that calls us back to the dark womb of God where we risk being born again and again and again.

Unlike Lent with its action plan of prayer, fasting, and alms giving, Advent requires a kind of letting go that precludes any pretense of spiritual accomplishment. An acquiescence to the discipline of active waiting, of clear-eyed attentiveness. A surrender to the terrible beauty of the unknown. An awful free fall into the wide arms of Love.

Yes, I am definitely designed for Advent. As an introvert, I can imagine nothing better than giving myself over to spiritual reading, a simple soup, and Celtic music on cold Advent nights. Of sinking into solitude . . . and staying there.

Like the disciples who are given a glimpse of mountaintop glory, I want to pitch my tent in the silence of Advent and remain there, but, like the disciples, I have been given marching orders to hike back down and get to work.

In my case, work is teaching and, while I love what I do, it is a soul-stretching proposition each Advent to leave the summit of solitude for an all-boys Catholic high school in Detroit where silence is hardly the order of the day.

It is one of the great mysteries of being human, this being called to work that is life giving and wonderful but so far from one’s nature. I have talked to scores of fellow teachers and activists who experience a similar tension between their contemplative instincts and their active and sometimes public ministries. I feel this tension most acutely during Advent when the academic calendar crashes into the liturgical calendar with all the subtlety of a shipwreck.

At the very time that Advent orders us to slow down, the school year pitches everyone – students and teachers alike – into ceaseless activity. Advent wreaths be damned – we

have entered the waning weeks of the long first semester, a brutal time marked by weariness and the crush of projects, papers, and exams. The frenetic weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break when exhaustion gives way to a manic edginess that militates against all things Advent.

And yet . . . in some inexplicable, blessed way, Advent can subvert the school year if we are able to muster the grace to look beneath the surface. If we can get beyond the noisy hallways and looming deadlines that hover above the building like a dreaded drone, we may find Advent waiting for us in unexpected ways.

While visions of the idealized Advent of my dreams - replete with late-night rosaries and scented candles - dances through my head, the Advent that is demands that I put down the beads and lace up my boots. It is the Advent discipline of waiting with dirty rather than folded hands. Of falling into the big arms of mystery in the midst of chaos and the quotidian tasks of the school day.

To paraphrase Dostoevsky, it is coming to see that Advent in reality is a “harsh and dreadful thing.” Not so much a retreat away from the mess as a diving more deeply into the thick of it where we find the One for whom our hearts have been waiting – often in strange and unexpected ways.

To put it simply, Advent meets us where we are. And where most of us are is far from the mountaintop. In my case, Advent climbs three long flights of stairs each day and grabs a seat in my classroom where I am asked to acknowledge her presence and submit to her discipline. Like the quiet kid in the back of the room, she waits for me to call on her. And when I do, her response is sharp and direct.

Advent slaps us upside the head and demands that we open our eyes and stare down reality. Like a bucket of ice water to the face, she jolts us out of our blindness and orders us to awaken and see. To be watchful

and alert for the coming of Love in our broken and beautiful lives and in the lives of those around us.

Be alert! Watch! Look! See!

These are the radical, soul-shaking, life-changing demands of Advent and the heart of real education. “Looking is what saves us.” It’s as simple and scary as that. Advent knows that once we really see, we cannot un-see. This results in what I call the unbearable burden of knowing, the kind of knowing that “ruins us for life,” as the Jesuits say.

If we are not looking deeply and inviting our students to join us, we have failed as teachers and have not yet met Advent. Students watch us closely and if we are sleepwalking, they will follow our example. A teacher who is not awake may produce students who excel academically, but such a teacher will never be able to help students make the journey from head to heart. For many students, this is a foreign and frightening trek, but if we are to become fully human it is a trip we must make.

Over the years, I have known students who have been academically brilliant but stunted in their ability to see with the eyes of the heart. These students worship at the cold altar of logic in a hermetically-sealed world that lacks poetry, passion, and pathos. Wrapping their arguments in language that is simultaneously rational and chilling, they intellectualize the use of nuclear weapons, the practice of torture, and the neglect of the poor with detached and undisturbed ease. Steeped in a world-weary, self-protective cynicism, they dare not look deeply and mock those who do.

These are the students that keep me up at night. The ones that drive me to beg for the grace it takes to look deeply enough to find the lost coin of compassion that I know is buried beneath their steely exteriors, a coin that is priceless and worth seeking. This is hardcore Advent work that necessitates seeing, waiting, surrendering. If we discount the possibility of these students seeing differently and write them off as hopeless, we have ourselves denied Advent’s possibilities.

While I struggle mightily for the grace to see the softness beneath the hardened soil of such hearts, defensive hearts that are perhaps the most wounded of all, I find it easy to see the suffering Christ in the students who are vulnerable, in the ones who limp through life’s hallways saddled by backpacks full of pain and despair that are too heavy to hide.

I have been a teacher for twenty years and have come to believe that while the particularities of suffering may vary from place to place, the experience of adolescent distress is universal. I have taught at a small, co-ed Catholic school in Southwest Detroit, a detention facility for young women, and an all-boys Jesuit school. I have assisted at a peace camp in Cite Soleil, Haiti and at summer camps in Detroit. In each of these places, the youth with whom I have worked have converted me, humbled me, helped me find the face of God.

Over the years of looking deeply at the young people sitting before me, I have seen so much. Joy and laughter and spontaneity and celebration, to be sure. But also a great deal of grief and, at times, unspeakable pain. Brokenness beyond belief. Beauty beyond measure. The unbearable burden of knowing.

The sophomore with the dark circles under mascaraed eyes who is raising her siblings while her mother works midnights, the junior who can’t come to class without sneaking a drink, the freshman whose home has no heat, the senior pressured to forsake his dreams to follow a path forged by a domineering father. The beloved student sent to prison for carjacking a women while in an alcoholic blackout.

The unbearable burden of knowing that tomorrow a student will eat alone in a hidden corner of the cafeteria while tonight a kid is slicing up his arm to convince himself he exists.

Behind the neat rows of desks and the alphabetized roster there are so many stories. Stories of paralyzing depression, of hard divorces, of drunken parents. Stories of suicide and sexual addiction and shame. Stories that are sacred. Stories that save.

And stories that speak of Advent, that most stern and loving of teachers.

Over the next few weeks, I will be praying for the grace to leave the mountaintop of my Advent dreams and enter my classroom

Why I teachJOEL BERGER

My primary motivation to start teaching involved a commitment to social justice. However, it’s difficult for me to explain why I started to teach, or why I still teach, without explaining my personal background. I spent a significant amount of my childhood growing up on the northeast side of Detroit. My mother was a longtime Detroit Public Schools teacher, active Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT)

union member, and she prioritized keeping my sisters and I civically and politically engaged from an early age. This has produced an emotional schema where teaching in Detroit, through good times and bad, feels like

the closest thing to “home” I’ve ever experienced.

When I went to college at U of M, I had some vague notion that I wanted to be involved in social justice work of some kind upon graduation. I was naïve, however, as to how our society’s current institutions and structures, including higher education, often replicate and perpetuate systemic inequalities, and devalue community at the expense of competition. I was looking for technocratic solutions to the issues – economic poverty, racism/white supremacy, injustice – that I witnessed growing up in Detroit. I wasn’t yet questioning how my own privileges and blind spots – as a white man of two college-educated parents – were affecting the work that I was doing. Thus in college, I was gearing myself up for a job in the “policy” sphere – because that seemed to be the accepted institutional route by which those interested in “politics” could affect change.

I did a summer internship doing policy research for a teachers’ union and when I came back in the fall, I applied for Teach For America, because it appealed to all of my left-brain thinking at the time. “Of course, I’ll teach for two years, and that will give me an understanding of educational issues that I can later work on as a policymaker.” Part of the reasoning was my fear of graduating with two liberal arts degrees and not being able to find a job in a very weak economy. I was facing mounds of student loan debt – both public and private loans, and I had an enormous amount of anxiety. I hope that you notice – and I’m ashamed to point this out – how when I started teaching, I was not thinking of “students” or “children,” or relationships for that matter, except in the abstract.

When I started teaching...

Continued on Page 6.

Advent meets us where we are. And where most of us are is far from the mountaintop.

Teaching in Detroit, through good times and bad, feels like the closest thing to “home” I’ve ever experienced.

each day as if it were a monastery, a sublime place governed by its own unique schedule of bells and prayer. A holy place governed by love, hospitality, and the discipline of looking deeply. Very deeply. A place where seeds are sown in a spirit of surrender that may or may not take hold. A place of waiting for something new to be born. A place of possibility. A place of holding all that is broken and beautiful with as much reverence as one holds the host.

Advent asks me to look so deeply at the ones before me that, on a good day, I may catch a glimpse of them shimmering like the sun – beautiful reflections of the One whose birth we await during this holy season.

This is not a bad place to pitch a tent.

Page 2 Winter 2014

IntroductionLYDIA WYLIE-KELLERMANN

Luke wandered in past the gate stepping onto farm land from which he had learned so much and spent much time feeding the goats and chickens. Th e gardens were overgrown reaching above his head, yet you could see the recent construction with a bathroom added to the barn the students built and a brand new sprinkler system installed. Later he learned, it was all to fulfi ll the grant requirements for the for-profi t charter that ran this school into the ground. He wandered over to fi nd the lawyer dressed in a business suit. He handed her the $15 and packed up the ten chickens into the cage. “Want anything else? Everything is for sale,” she said.

Catherine Ferguson Academy. When the Jeanie Wylie Community started fi ve years ago, we spent a lot of time learning and being inspired by the work happening there. For several years, we came in every Wednesday to talk to the students about racism, feminism, war, Detroit, etc. Paul Weertz opened his homeroom class to us and we built relationships with students, envisioning a more concrete relationship at the school as a house of hospitality.

CFA was a high school for pregnant teens and teen mothers with the schedules designed to accommodate their lives and child care for the children. Tucked in the back, Paul Weertz had imagined and created one of the largest urban farms in the city with goats, bees, chickens, bunnies, turkeys, and a horse! Students milked the goats for daily chores and learned about breast feeding, harvested honey and made cider for the farmers market learned about economics, and put their hands in the dirt and learned where their food came from and took it home to feed their children. Th ere was no other school like it in the country and it was growing international attention.

Like so many other schools in the city, it was added to the closure list again and again until a for-profi t charter bought it, fi red the teachers, closed the garden, and put in computers for the students to be taught by. Within two years, it was closed.

I feel such deep loss in that place: for Paul, for the earth, for the students, for all the teachers and the principal, and for all the Detroiters who stood outside with signs and in meetings, and watched another school choose profi t over children. It is a common story in the city.

Th is Advent issue tells some of those stories — of dismantlement and occupation and also of creative place-based alternatives. As Lucy and I envisioned the next issue, we looked around at the community that surrounds the Catholic Worker and we were amazed at how many folks are teachers. Teachers in Detroit know what is happening in the neighborhoods, what children are carrying, and have a role in the future of the children of Detroit. Teaching is hard work. I am not cut out for it. But it is so important. Th ank you. Th ank you for your patience, your listening, your creativity, your care, your late night planning, the daily grind, your commitment to the work of justice people to people.

Th is Advent season, you are our light! True justice warriors in the classroom with their hand on the heartbeat of the city and bogged down, crumbling system.

Th is Advent as we light the candles, mindful of the coming birth of a child in the midst of occupation, we hold children of Detroit in our prayer. We slow down long to pay attention and listen to the children in our lives. And we give thanks for all the teachers who have touched us in school or out and all those who are teaching today. Th ank you!

The children to whom the Kingdom

of God belongsTOM AIREY

Billy was living with his grandparents. He used to meet me in the weight room during lunch three days a week, channeling

his rage and hormonal passion onto dumbbells. It broke my heart when he opted to sign up for the Marines. Aida was quiet, had straight A’s, almost single-handedly raised her twin sisters (her mother was paralyzed), and she had a secret: she was und ocumented. Most mornings, Hawa strolled into my room with a sly smile, at least 15 minutes early for zero period Economics (the bell rang at 6:44 a.m.), proudly sporting her Kobe Bryant jersey every game day during the NBA playoff s.

Th e one thing I miss most about teaching high school is getting to soak in the rare air of energy and excitement, anxiety and awkwardness that we Westerners call “adolescence.” Th e names and faces of so many of these former students make up a human highlight reel spanning my 18 years of teaching at the high school I graduated from in Southern California.

No doubt about it, young people have some major issues. It would not be hyperbole to proclaim that there’s an epidemic of attention defi cit disorder, generalized anxiety, various addictions and, yes, apathy. Generally, they have terrible taste in movies and neurotically post to their social media sites embarrassing selfi es and the, oft en times, inarticulate stream-of-consciousness blend of humor and pain that overfl ow from their minds.

Adults have let them down: both personally and politically. Divorce, domestic abuse, and neglect are symptoms of what Dorothy Day called “a dirty, rotten system” where affl uence requires millions of unemployed and underpaid second-class citizens. All of this violence lands on the shoulders of our children, most of whom have nothing but a Smartphone for counsel and comfort.

For the last few years of my brief career, our staff focused on three simple concepts everyday in the classroom:

(1) casting vision by clearly communicating the objectives of the lesson to start each class period; (2) consistently assessing whether or not students were actually “getting it”; and (3) creatively leveraging relationships with students because, now more than ever, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Th ese focal points, in addition to the time and energy put into mastering the material, lesson planning, communicating with parents, colleagues and administrators and performing other “duties” like coaching, chaperoning dances, and advising clubs, can suck the life out of even the most extroverted of educators. Teachers desperately need support and resources to pursue these goals.

And this leads us back to Sister Dorothy. Th e educational system, whether in suburban California or inner-city Detroit, is unsustainable. Classroom sizes are bloated. Both teachers and students are graded on once-a-year-standardized-tests (not how eff ectively they scaff old lessons, leverage relationships, and accelerate student learning on a day-to-day basis). Th e push from the right continues to be towards privatization, colonizing education into a formula instead of cultivating it into an art, craft ed and honed. Meanwhile, too many of our teachers get burned out quickly as they attempt to beat the odds. And our students check their Twitter feed and Snapchat with their friends at the same time.

Our state and federal governments are investing in a diff erent kind of future. As Cornel West laments, “the invisible hand of the market goes hand-in-hand with the iron fi st of the penal state.” Our fear-based, market-driven empire mentality continues to support the status quo: increased funding for prisons and the military.

Th ese budgetary “choices” equate to a de facto racist American adolescent upbringing. Dr. Jim Perkinson of Ecumenical Th eological Seminary recently proclaimed at a panel on race at Hartford Memorial Baptist in mid-October, that young black and brown males, indeed, have immense value in a capitalist system: whether they go to prison where they are valued for their cheap labor or have nowhere else to go but the military where they are valued for their ability to kill scapegoated enemies.

Th is summer, Amna messaged me on Facebook to tell me the terribly sad news that Hawa had taken her life. I had no idea that she was battling depression all these years. Billy is still taking tours to fi ght wars in the Middle East, as are so many of the Latino males that have attended my classes over the years. Aida is almost done with her nursing degree, as she raises her twin sisters (now in high school), works full-time at an assisted living home and is still considered “illegal” by our federal government. Th ese are just a few of the precious, resilient thousands I’ve been blessed to know in and out of the classroom. Th ese are the children to whom the Kingdom of God belongs. Illegitimi non carborundum.

TeachingMICHAEL LAUCHLAN

Frantic, distracted, and they don’t

read nearly enough and never hear

anything, like they’re not really there,

but halfway off to college, hung up

on a grade or a girl--whether she might

really care or if she’s pregnant--

or thinking of their crazy parents

who are on their backs or else

completely gone; but then

there they really are, really there

like adults almost never are,

all of them at once taking a breath,

and you get to read them a poem

they’ve never heard before

and never will again without reliving this.

It’s like casting a fl y at dawn

on the Pere Marquette, right

where it spreads out a bit,

when it’s almost still except for the tick

of water against rocks against your legs

against tomorrow and even the birds shut up

for a moment and the breeze takes

fi ve while your fl y lands. Nah,

it’s really like nothing

in the world.Reprinted from San Pedro River Review.

Winter 2014 Page 3

Teaching DetroitAN INTERVIEW WITH TOM AND RACHEL FENTIN

Rachel Fentin (RF): third year, fourth grade teacher at University Prep Mark Murray

Tom Fentin (TF): twenty years in DPS at primarily Communication Media Arts HW teaching 9-12th grade social studies

Why did you each decide to teach?

TF: It goes back to the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR).  Near the end of my time there, I organized the Freedom Tour. I began to meet these incredibly unique high school students. I thought, “Wow, this would be kind of cool to work with students like this,” not knowing that not all students would want to go on a 10 or 15 day trip to the South to learn about civil rights. But that got me thinking at a time when I was trying to think of a career that might pay a little better than non profi t work.

RF: My interest in teaching defi nitely started as, “I want to do what my parents do when I grow up.” For some reason the physician assistant thing never stuck. We started playing teacher in the basement and that was really fun. I liked writing on chalkboards and putting stickers on papers — that’s all teaching is, right? Th en when I started looking for jobs in high school and college, the jobs that just sounded better were education related. I always knew that I wanted to do something social justice related. I wanted to do something that I could come home at the end of the day and feel like I did something good. I realized I wanted to go into teaching because at the end of each day you can point to the breakthroughs and fi nd that something moved forward in a really good and practical way.

Rachel, how has your dad’s teaching infl uenced you?

RF: I really realized and appreciated the years that my dad worked in Detroit during my fi rst year teaching. It feels very selfi sh. But that was the year that I was asking him, “What did you do?” And my fi rst year was his last year. So it was really interesting. I’m just trying to fi gure out how to stay afl oat and he’s been doing this for twenty years. I really think that I wouldn’t have gotten by if I hadn’t been able to go and ask him, “How do you handle a lot of administration stuff ?”

Tom, what is it like to watch Rachel teach?

TF: She is a natural. I know that it wasn’t easy at fi rst — and it’s still not easy — but it seems more natural than it was for me. I have been in her classroom a number of times. You know, I think she’s much more grounded in best practices than I was. And looking at you, Rachel, you seem much more like you were born to be a teacher. Connecting with kids… Not really raising your voice, very stern and professional…

Do you have a favorite teaching moment?

TF: A bunch of past students came to keep the school open. We were all standing around, about 25 of us. Th ey started talking about what they had learned. Th ey were saying, “You taught us about Frederick Douglas! You taught us about Sojourner

Truth! You taught us about Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X!” Th ey started listing all of these people… and I was like, “Oh my God! You remembered!” Th ey shared, “I got A’s at community college in history and I love it…” And sadly most teachers might not hear any of those things. But sometimes kids come back and tell you. So that was a favorite moment for me.

RF: Th e fi rst one I thought of was last year when my dad came to my class and did a magic show for the kids. I didn’t tell them exactly what was going to happen. I said, “We’re going to have a guest. Th ey’re going to do a show for us…” And they were totally blown away!

TF: Ya, one girl said, “If I go on Google and type in magic tricks, will I fi nd this..?”

RF: Th ey’re planning! And we had just fi nished our research learning project so she was like, “I’m going to research this! I’m going to bookmark a page… and read it! Maybe I’ll go to the library and check it out.” And I was like, “Ahhh... Right!” Whatever it is. Th at’s fi ne. Magic. You can research that.

What’s hardest about teaching?

TF: You have to think about each kid in the class as an individual. Pick four or fi ve each day and make a special eff ort to greet the student and ask them a probing question. But it’s really hard in a classroom of forty students to fi gure out how to stay connected and animated. If you’re animated the kids will say, “Wow! You must have really liked this subject today, Mr. Fentin!” Th ey can see that I’m moving around and have a lot of energy. So the biggest challenge is staying animated and also trying to understand that each kid probably had struggles that we don’t understand just to get to school.

RF: Th at’s the thing that hit me the most my fi rst year. Some kids walk in not ready to learn because they have all these other

issues they’re carrying every day. You get little peeks into their lives and you think, “Oh my gosh! I don’t know how to deal with that… And I can’t believe I’m asking you to do four-digit multiplication right now…” But there is just that idea that you’re open and growing those relationships that they need in order to take risks and feel safe. When students don’t think they can share or be heard, they can’t learn.

For me, however, the hardest part are those moments when you feel like you’ve failed a student. And I can think of one student in particular last year who started off the year

immediately struggling to be a part of the classroom. I can count on my fi ngers the number of positive interactions we were able to have. From the fi rst moment, he was throwing things, yelling, pushing people, and having a hard time. It ended up coming to the principal and he was expelled. Th at was a really hard moment because I’ll look back on it for the rest of my life and think of all the things I could’ve done… and all the things I shouldn’t have done… all the ways it could’ve been diff erent… all the ways his life could be ruined… you know? You kind of know that that just failed.

Can you speak to your experience in the current educational climate in Detroit? (Emergency Financial Management, the School Board in exile, implementation of the EAA)

RF: Th e complicated thing about making these radical changes in schools is inconsistency; the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) is letting their philosophies run ahead of their practical implications. How do you make a plan when every day you’re asked to do something diff erently? Kids are looking for a place where they can show up and feel safe and consistent. We both mentioned that our schools are sought aft er because people saw them as safe and clean. Clean is a word I use to describe my school as a selling point, which is so ridiculous to me. And what I mean when I say that is there are schools that aren’t clean and aren’t safe.

TF: Th is is a little bit of an issue with Teach for America. When you think about a high school that’s been around for a long time and you can go back and visit staff ten years later, you’re not going to fi nd that at an EAA school. You’ll fi nd that at DPS schools. It’ll happen less and less — salaries have dropped by ten thousand and benefi ts were dropped. I loved working with TFA teachers. Th ey’re really committed and sharp, but I don’t think they’ll be there long. Th e consistency that kids need isn’t going to be there.

Has the Detroit Peace Community played a role in your teaching style or formation?

RF: Defi nitely. I grew up in Detroit but I know I had a very magical, other-worldly experience. When I moved back, it was a transition to see Detroit as an adult. Th e opportunity I had growing up made me feel strongly; Detroit was a home to me. I bring that to my classroom because I want my kids to feel that way. I want them to feel that excitement and sense of fun and safety that I always felt living on Larkins as part of the Detroit Peace Community. And it’s so obvious that I don’t always mention it, but the question “What are you going to do to make a diff erence in Detroit?” was ingrained in us as part of this community.

TF: Making the decision to teach was infl uenced by the people that I knew in the community and admired. Th ey were continuing to make a contribution to Detroit. I never sought employment in the suburbs, although it might have helped me fi nancially. I knew Detroit was where I needed to be. I tried to do something every year that included activism with students. It’s funny, though, it was almost ten years before I taught the Freedom March. A., Because you almost never get to the 1960’s teaching U.S. history… But B., it was like being willing to share a part of

myself with them. And when I did that... it was a great moment.

What would you say to students in Detroit right now if you could speak to them all?

TF: Don’t be afraid to work hard. It will help you overcome a lot of the other issues that you might have. You might be a slow learner, you might be a poor test taker… but if you’re willing to work hard at it — it might be the extra year of remedial 100 classes in college — it’s going to be ok. You’re going to make it. I saw so many kids who were not naturally the best students who did the extra work and are now living a good life.

RF: You are your best advocate. With all the uncertainty, take charge of your learning. Wherever you end up, whether it’s a classroom with a fi rst year teacher, a TFA teacher, a veteran teacher… don’t let that be the be-all end-all. You still have a voice. You still have a say in what’s happening. You have the power to make choices in all settings to get what you need and get what’s best for you. It’s unfair that the impetus has to be on students in order to succeed; that students have to ask for, expect, and demand what they need. But that’s where we are in Detroit. I say this to my students and it’s hard for them to conceptualize. Th is is your education, you are going to get what you demand of it. you demand of it.

Page 4 Winter 2014

Fifty years later. In Detroit the end of Brown: separate and unequal

BILL WYLIE-KELLERMANN

Th e Detroit Public Schools (DPS) are being dismantled by design and eff ectively looted. Th ough Detroiters and the elected school board are consistently blamed for their demise, for twelve of the last fi ft een years DPS has been under state control.

Mother Helen Moore, an attorney who heads the Education Task Force, has become notorious for her fi ght on behalf of the schools, and tells the story over and over in community meetings. It’s well documented.

When the Detroit schools were fi rst taken over in 1999, enrollment was stable (at 200,000 students), test scores were middle range compared to state averages and rising, an “Afro-centric” curriculum developed by the district over a number of years was in use, there was a $93 million budget surplus, and $1.2 billion from a bond issue intended by residents for building improvements. It was the latter, not any fi nancial emergency, which drew the takeover. Th en Governor Engler was determined that those improvement dollars not go to local minority contractors, but to suburban and outstate builders. Follow the money.

When control was returned to the board seven years later, the fund defi cit was $200 million, enrollment had dropped to 118,000, the curriculum was gone, as was the bond money spent at shamefully infl ated prices. One hundred million simply disappeared without audit or indictment. Th is is the background of emergency management in Detroit.

Th e elected board was returned to power in early 2006 with the burden of a defi cit budget under which they labored for three years, including the 2008 economic collapse caused by the fi nancial industry. Th e fi rst Emergency Financial Manager, Robert Bob (not an educator but a developer famous for brokering deals, and supported by Eli Broad if you know what that means), was put in place on the premise of a $135 million budget defi cit. When he left the defi cit had ballooned to $327 million and test scores had plummeted to among the worst in the nation. He was paid an annual salary of half a million dollars. Get the drift ?

DISASTER CAPITALISM AND PUBLIC EDUCATIONWe are at a point in late capitalism where corporations are turning inward to devour other corporations (hostile takeovers), municipalities (as in the Detroit bankruptcy), and basic social institutions (like education — public education in particular).

Globally, the architects of structural adjustment (austerity budgets, deregulation, selling off public assets, and privatization) had discovered that natural disasters aff orded the best opportunities for quick takeover. With respect to education, the Katrina fl ooding is the example of opportunity provided - where New Orleans public education was eff ectively replaced by a profi table charter system. But they also discovered that disasters could be manufactured as well. We’ve

experienced this in Detroit both as a city and as a school system. Defund. Make it fail or appear so. Take it over.

THE OTHER EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT IN DETROITBecause of the bankruptcy recently completed, emergency management as a form of urban fascism is better known at the municipal level in Detroit. However, the Public Schools have been under emergency

management now for fi ve years. Th e destruction and dismantling of that system is what now bodes for the city as a whole.

Th ough Public Act 436, which allegedly authorizes emergency management, allows that elected bodies taken over and supplanted may vote aft er 18 months to put out an EM, the courts have ruled that this means the Governor simply has to install a new and diff erent EM. Emergency Management is a permanent feature of black cities in Michigan.

Th e elected and unpaid school board, though constantly tarred in the media with corruption or incompetence or simply ignored, has continued to function “in exile” as a body conscientiously accountable to parents, students, and citizens, consistently resisting takeover. (Would that our city council had an ounce of such vision or fi ber!) Believe it or not, the State Attorney General sued the district representatives on the board for being elected. Since they were duly seated and sworn in, the maneuver failed. Now a foundation-funded and nonprofi t-orchestrated campaign seeks to oust them altogether for a structure of “mayoral control.”

Emergency management has been the blunt instrument of privatization. More than half the schools in Detroit are charters. Th ough originally conceived as vehicles for creativity, charters have become a mainstay for union busting and privatization. In the industrial era schools prepared students for work in factory jobs, largely auto in Detroit. Now students are treated as state-funded commodities for extracting profi ts. Th e distinction between non-profi t and for-profi t charters is all but moot as even most of the former are managed by for-profi t c o n t r a c t o r s . Th ese schools compete with public schools, but have some choice in who they accept and who they don’t; and they are not held to the same standards of accountability as public schools for teacher certifi cation or even testing.

In Detroit, headlines recently lamented that DPS had missed the deadline for federal funding of Headstart programs in the public schools. “Bungling black incompetence” is how that was read again in the suburbs - a loss of $4 million. But it was, of course, the Governor’s EM who missed the deadline. And not by accident: low and behold federal

grants now fund Headstart as a privately contracted program in public school spaces.

Th ough parents were promised that more resources would be driven to the classroom, under Emergency Management administrative costs, actual and percentage wise, have nearly doubled: from $75 per pupil in 2008 to $143 per student today. Classroom size has taken a similar hit. Next year’s budget has proposed the target of 38 students per classroom be expanded to 43. With confl icts from such over-crowding, suspensions and expulsions go up; big contracts for restorative justice programs are justifi ed. When a school board member pointed out that there weren’t enough chairs in a classroom for that higher number, an administrator replied, “With the absenteeism rate that wouldn’t be a problem.”

Special schools, even fully funded ones, have simply closed: Oakman Orthopedic (a facility gorgeously built for disabled students – see Kate Levy’s fi lm, Because Th ey Could: the Fight for Oakman School ) and Th e Day School for the Deaf (similarly equipped) are gone. Such buildings are abandoned or turned over wholesale to profi teers. Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school for pregnant teens and young mothers which had an international reputation for integrated urban agriculture was handed over to a for- profi t charter which simply gutted the program. (For a nostalgic look at the school see the fi lm Grown in Detroit. It too will break your heart). Th e building is now home to a Headstart program run by the sprawling nonprofi t, Southwest Solutions.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the second EM, Roy Roberts (also not an educator, but a retired auto exec), said he was told when he came that his job was to “blow up the Detroit Public Schools and dismantle it.” So far so true.

RACIAL & SPATIAL RESTRUCTURINGDetroit is being downsized and restructured geographically, as well as fi nancially. Th e plug is being pulled on certain neighborhoods where poor black folks live. Predatory mortgages, now foreclosed, drive them out. Infrastructure is allowed to fail. Lights go out, fi re stations close, cops withdraw. Water is shut off pushing people out; and water bills are attached to tax indebtedness, forcing another round of foreclosures. And yes, schools close in neighborhoods slated to have no living future.

Resources, meanwhile, are going into other neighborhoods close to downtown, along the waterfront, or connected to the pending light rail. Th ere are neighborhoods where

young corporate-type white people are moving exuberantly in. It’s their generation’s turn! Th ese are people generally without children – who don’t yet care

about schools. Who, without even a second thought, do not care about black children. Th eir indiff erence rules the day and the space.

THE EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT (“APARTHEID”) AUTHORITY“Authorities” are another mechanism for eviscerating, circumventing, and privatizing government. We have many of these para-governmental authorities in the city: the Downtown Development Authority controls funding and land, the Lighting Authority replaces the Lighting Department, Th e Great Lakes Water Authority essentially

takes over the Detroit Water and Sewage Department and will likely hire Evolia, an international water corporation to manage things. For two years we have not had a Health Department, but instead an Institute for Population Health. In like manner the EAA is not even properly an authority, but an inter-local agreement between Eastern Michigan University (where the Governor appoints the university regents) and the Detroit Public Schools (where the Governor appoints the Emergency Manager). Th ink of it as an agreement between the Governor and the Governor. And call it an authority, a “principality” if you will.

Th e EAA is supposed to be a state-wide school district for failing schools, but all of the schools are in Detroit. Th e idea was to take those in the lowest performing bottom 5% and turn them around. Two interesting coincidences: 1) almost all the students in failing school district are black and 2) when it came time to transfer the schools from Detroit to the EAA, the criterion seemed to be more a matter of which buildings had been newly renovated. One of the high schools transferred, Mumford, had been virtually rebuilt for $50.5 million. Th e building went to the EAA, but the reconstruction debt stayed with the DPS and comes out of the per student cost. Can you see how for DPS, those per pupil debt service costs went from $212 in 2008 to $1109 per pupil today? Not having the debt service in the EAA means there is more money per pupil for the private contractors.

Forgive all the numbers, but just a few more. Th e Chancellor of the EAA makes $325,000 per year (actually her total package approaches nearly half a million). She is new. Th e previous Chancellor made the same amount, but he was forced to resign under a scandal of corruption, but with a big severance package.

CYBER CURRICULA In the era of the Gates Foundation and such, much of the sales and contractual profi ts to be made in education are technological: hard and soft . EAA students, almost entirely poor and black, have been test subjects for a new computer teaching program called Buzz. It came from Kansas City along with John Covington, fi rst Chancellor of the EAA. At a cost to the district of some $350,000, it is marketed as providing students with an individualized learning experience. (For this and what follows see Curt Gayette, “Th e EAA Exposed,” Detroit MetroTimes)

Textbooks left behind in the schools taken over by the EAA were simply thrown in the dumpster. Teachers in such EAA classroom are no longer teachers– they are facilitators only allowed to help students in using the program before them. One teacher, Brooke Harris at Mumford, was disciplined (she was eventually fi red) for attempting to bring books and textbook related materials into the classroom. “I was told that in the student-centered model, my role as teacher was primarily to supervise students to make sure they were using Buzz.”

Speaking out as an EAA teacher is courageous and costly. In the EAA, no union provides protection from retaliation. Th ey tend more oft en to speak circumspectly, as in these pages, or anonymously and off the record.

Individualized instruction can sound great, but exclusive use of the computer screen is an assault on community-based learning. No give and take in group discussion with a teacher.

The Detroit Public Schools are being dismantled by design and effectively looted.

Emergency management has been the blunt instrument of privatization.

Winter 2014 Page 5

On its website and in its ads, the EAA touts fantastic progress in bringing a greater percentage of students to profi ciency levels in reading and math. And Covington was regularly on the road speaking at conferences to promote and market “the product.”

Some of the evidence of shining performance was based on a test internally administered by the EAA. Teachers interviewed by the ACLU reported such pressure to produce positive test results that standard practice included allowing students to re-take the test if they didn’t do well the fi rst time. Moreover, on the premise of individualized instruction and not wanting to “teach to the test,” the EAA attempted to avoid its students even taking the state MEAP tests — even though it was

MEAP scores which were used to justify its creation. Teaching to the test is, of course, a bad idea, but you can’t have it both ways.

A close reading of MEAP test data released in February, however, shows that the majority of EAA students failed to demonstrate even marginal progress toward profi ciency. Consider: 78% of

students demonstrated no progress toward profi ciency or even actual declines in math. Th e same was true for 58% of students in reading. Students who entered the system profi cient had even grimmer results – the majority lost ground. (See Dr. Th omas Pedroni, Detroit News, April 21, 2014) Th is, even though EAA students are held for longer days and year round.

Data shows that the majority of EAA students failed to demonstrate marginal progress toward proficiency. There is hope in those who

hold the line and struggle on their behalf, in going on record with a history of resistance.

In a city where the young white savior narrative is already running strong, this is yet another version.

Th e Buzz program, to be sure, was still being built and improved while it was tested on Detroit students. On a stipend basis, additional curriculum content was added by a team of eight teachers. Half of them were recent college graduates who had not studied to become teachers, had no certifi cation or curriculum design experience, but had been given fi ve weeks of training in the summer b e f o r e coming to Detroit. Th ey were part of the Teach for America program.

TEACH FOR AMERICA When it opened for business, more than a quarter of the EAA’s faculty were Teach for America teachers/corps members. TFA is a controversial non-profi t designed to get new university graduates teaching in low-income urban and rural communities. Participants are encouraged in their college coursework to take education classes and pursue certifi cation, though that is not required and most have not. For those not certifi ed, there is the intensive fi ve weeks of training, plus structures of ongoing support, and simultaneous education courses. Military veterans are actively recruited. Participants make a two year commitment. Th ey come into to any given school or district at the entry base salary, but combined with the AmeriCorps program, they receive federal loan forgiveness and vouchers toward further education. If there is a union they are not forbidden to join.

What’s the problem? Th ere is a narrative in circulation that bad teachers protected by unions and tenure are the problem. Th ough originally intended to fi ll teacher shortages in urban areas, the TFA program actually functions to replace veteran teachers. All teachers in EAA schools were terminated and required to reapply for their positions. More than a quarter of those were fi lled by TFA instructors fresh out of school. Do the math. Th ere are no unions in EAA schools. Th e fact that studies are conducted comparing learning at the hands of veteran teachers vs. short-term recruits, suggests that replacement is part of the design. Th e for-profi t charters are also full of TFA instructors, as are the public schools. With more of all to come.

Th ough TFA can be a short cut into an ongoing teaching career, the 2 year commitment, especially for those seeking loan forgiveness, graduate school funds, and resume experience, means recruits are not committed to a city, a school, or even a teaching vocation. Th e resignation rate in EAA schools has been extraordinarily high. Add TFA and you have a faculty in perpetual turnover.

African Americans comprise 13% of the TFA workforce. If those numbers hold in Detroit, it means students in a city that

is 80% African American and in a failing school district which is virtually all black, are faced with teachers not from their culture, experience, or community. In a city where the young white

savior narrative is already running strong, this is yet another version.

LATE BREAKING: MAYORAL CONTROL & NEW ORLEANS COMPLETE?As this issue goes to press there are moves in the lame duck Republican legislature to abolish the elected school board and put the public schools under direct mayoral control. Th e current mayor lived his entire life in a northern suburb, literally the whitest city in America. He was “elected” in a corporately-funded write-in campaign, winning by a landslide. He was the treasurer of the EAA when an unaccounted “loan” of $12 million was given from DPS, but claims to be in the dark — to know nothing about it. A decade ago in a ballot measure, Detroiters refused to give up the elected board to mayoral control. And more recently the City Council refused to put it again on the ballot. But like Emergency Management, it may simply be imposed. Th e diff erence between such a regime and emergency management is not worth talking about — simply more of the same. It’s expected that this will pave the way for the entire system to be chartered and union representation ended altogether, bringing the New Orleans-style disaster to completion.

A DARK TIMETh ough many are celebrating the bankruptcy, its structural adjustment, the give-aways of land and buildings and assets, the development dollars fl owing, and the lucrative contracts to be had…this is a dark time for Detroit’s children, poor and black. Th ey are being pushed down, pushed out, and pipelined toward prison. Sometimes I near despair. Still. Th ere is hope in students who refuse to be so pushed and fi ght for their own education. Th ere is hope in

teachers who love Detroit’s young and give themselves for them. Th ere is hope in those who hold the line and struggle on their behalf, in going on record with a history of resistance. Th ere’s even hope in naming the

darkness…and trusting the universe to bend toward light.

Page 6 Winter 2014

Why I teach (Continued from Page 1)

JOEL BERGER

When I started teaching, I realized that being able to build deep human connections with my students was the most important part of being a teacher. Teach For America, in its actuarial way, calls this building “student investment.” Because I was seeing teaching in such a linear, conservative way, I remember being frustrated my first year that my four day “investment” lessons didn’t work and automatically gain total student “buy-in” to my class. It seems hilarious to me now that I was so startled by this, but that reflected in large part what I had been told about education, about “success.” It’s linear. Put in this input, and you will yield that output. That might work with products, but it certainly doesn’t work with human beings. In addition, I was coming in with the “banking model” mindset — that my students were vessels that needed to be filled with knowledge that only I could give them. Here I was — a white man with a number of privileges, including education and a comfortable wage — trying to impart my particular understanding of “knowledge” onto my students, who were black and coming from mostly working class and economically insecure households. I was somehow oblivious to the fact that my students had knowledge of their own to teach me — knowledge gleaned from their unique experiences and backgrounds — and that perhaps I should shut up for a second and learn a thing or two from them. I had no concept yet of education as a dialogic process, as one borne out of relationships.

Over time, I’ve realized how dehumanizing and corporate my mindset was when I first got into teaching, even as I was professing to be teaching for social justice. Sometimes it’s the things that you don’t realize that you don’t know that really do a number on you. My first couple years of teaching were a deeply humbling experience — one where I really had to start “coming to know” parts of myself and my understanding of the world that were misguided, or wrong, or repressed.

Only as I started unpacking all of my own internal “stuff” was I able to start putting a finger on all that really bothered me about Teach For America. I could say a lot, but my quick take: TFA’s obsession with “data points” reflects the fact that the organization has become a driver and “Trojan Horse” in the effort to privatize public education and implement neoliberal education reform policies. As a friend and mentor of mine put it, “I want to be about creating good human beings, not compliant ones.” TFA’s organizational structures, whether their leaders admit it or not, support the creation of human beings (and I speak of both corps members and

their students) compliant with society’s toxic fetishism of individualism, and compliant with the inherently destabilizing force of our capitalist global economy and its attendant ills, including white supremacy and other systems of oppression.

I’m in my fifth year of teaching now, and I’m still unpacking myself in the effort to be a better teacher, Detroit community member, and a better human being. The journey to know myself — my emotional scars and wounds, my emotional triggers, my internal biases and blindspots, my spiritual uncertainty and sometimes despair — has been essential to getting to truly know and walk with my students in their respective journeys. And I remain a work in progress!

One teacher’s experience SUSAN HORVAT

When I began college I was studying to be a physical therapist. Unfortunately, organic chemistry put an end to that very quickly. So I looked at classic choices my parents encouraged at the time: teacher or nurse. Knowing my low tolerance for various bodily fluids, I chose education (Did I not love reading?) and graduated with a double major in elementary education and education for the visually impaired. For most of my teaching career I taught kindergarten through second grade with a sprinkling of most every other level.

Teaching turned out to be an excellent choice for me. It fit both my personality and my gifts. In the primary classroom I could prepare a welcoming and engaging environment, pass on my love of books and of the natural world, be creative, perform in a variety of ways, and see a real difference happening in the children over the course of a year.

Of course, no choice is perfect. I soon realized that I found teaching reading incredibly boring and was frustrated by the organizing of the school day into blocks of time for each subject and each subject dictated by a text and workbook, even at the youngest levels. I disliked everyone doing the same thing at the same time. The question “What do I do next?” was constant as quicker

students completed activities. My ideal was no worksheets and busy, engaged children.

Fortunately, this was solved by a wonderful principal who introduced her staff to a system of learning called Workshop Way: a total approach to teaching that accepted each child exactly where they were and allowed them to move confidently at their own pace, It promoted a child’s independence as a learner. As the teacher, I set up an environment that promoted making choices and solving

problems, divergent thinking, exploration, freedom to move and freedom to make mistakes. In fact the children were encouraged to see mistakes as a natural part of

learning. To understand what you don’t know was important as knowing.

This way of teaching worked through all subject areas and created a classroom of thinking, curious, involved students who were (most of the time) respectful of each other’s learning pace. Children were always moving about and not trapped in a desk. Recess and art were integral and free play was a daily choice. Workbooks were non existent. Nature, in and out of the classroom was important. And importantly for me, there was no waiting for me to tell them what to do next. They KNEW.

I was fortunate to work in parochial schools with principals who allowed me this flexibility to be creative and incorporate the best of what I learned from several different programs like Math Their Way and Wright Reading materials and Workshop Way. Not having to lock into a preordained, system-wide curriculum allowed me to have a flexible, hands-on learning environment that was developmentally appropriate for my kids; an environment that allowed for taking risks and for developing habits of learning that was not dependent on checking off the “right” answer. It was an exciting time for me and I loved teaching that way.

I wish more teachers had the freedom I did. As I write this, I still get excited about teaching. Remembering makes me smile.

An energy, passion, and commitment

JEANIE O’CONNOR

Gardener In-home elder care-giver Adult church-based educator House organizing specialist Childcare worker Adjunct faculty at two institutions of higher education.

This is a list of all paying positions I have maintained on an ongoing but sporadic basis over the past three years — roughly in order of hourly compensation. The practice of financially compensating adjunct (part time) faculty in higher education below a living wage with no benefits is no secret to the news savvy public. Mind you, no benefits means absence of health care, retirement, unemployment benefits should our jobs go away, paid vacation, and compensation for further education in most cases. I call it the “Walmart Model” of education. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the percentage of full time tenured faculty dropped from 17% in 1975 to 7% in 2012 and the part time average rose from 24% to 42% in the same time period. That means our institutions of higher learning operated in 2012 with 5% full time tenured faculty and 45% part time faculty, and the trend likely

continues. (The balance is non-tenured faculty 15%, non-tenured track faculty 15%, and graduate assistants 20%.)

The classes I am honored to teach in religious studies departments obviously involve academic learning, but more important to me — and I think to fostering the growth of a thinking, just society — my students are taught to look beyond the surface of religious dogma, external practice, and

most importantly, m e d i a ’ s r e pr e s e nt a t i on s of these religious traditions. The students are challenged to step out of their comfort zones and ask questions of followers of different faith traditions. If I am fortunate enough to teach a total of five courses between the two schools for 10 of the 12 months of

the year, my take home pay is approximately $20,000. My companion adjunct faculty members and I are disappointed only in the pay; there is an energy, passion, and commitment among us that helps make the financial sacrifice less painful.

This is a call to attention and action. Wondering what can be done about just compensation? Bookmark the link to the American Federation of Teachers/Michigan website (aftmichigan.org). AFT Michigan helps organize unions, promotes legislative advocacy, keeps the public updated on state and national level political issues, and suggests specific actions to assist with just compensation and educational funding. As with most cyber-based resources you can also link to this organization through various forms of social media.

Compensation is not the only death knell to quality higher education. Debated affirmative action policies, unforgiveable high interest student debt, rising administrative salaries linked to the red tape necessary to process federal financial aid requests, and decreasing attention to humanities and arts education in exchange for production oriented career fields – all have the potential to monopolize the ability of colleges and universities to contribute to the development of responsible, collaborative citizenry.

Closing on a positive personal note, I have recently exchanged some of the above listed paying part time positions for “affordable” J housing at 2640 Trumbull Ave. The passing of the Affordable Care Act coupled with my long standing admiration of the Catholic Worker Movement enables me to continue to pursue my love of teaching and rest my financial anxieties as a resident member of the Day House community. If an interventionist God can make lemonade from lemons, I’m living proof! Deep bows to all of you who so generously support our mission.

A true storyJULIE BEUTEL

I work as a “teaching artist” in southwest Detroit getting the kids singing, moving, dancing, creating. I get to do fun, creative stuff and don’t have to worry about “No Child Left Behind” or MEAP scores.

Detroit Teacher’s Reflect...

I could prepare a welcoming and engaging environment, pass on my love of books and of the natural world, be creative, perform in a variety of ways, and see a real difference happening in the children.

My students are taught to look beyond the surface of religious dogma, external practice, and most importantly, media’s representations of these religious traditions.

Winter 2014 Page 7

Day House happenings

TOM LUMPKIN

Th e most signifi cant “happening” these past months has been the arrival of Jeanie Murphy-O’Conner and her dog Dorothy into our residential community. A long-time friend of the Catholic Worker, Jeanie has moved with Dorothy into the “attic suite.” While continuing to teach classes in the religions of the world at Henry Ford Community College and Madonna University, Jeanie has already given the house a noticeable appearance uplift . We welcome her energy and gift s!

We are beginning the season of Advent. Th e Advent message and life at the Catholic Worker seem to go hand-in-hand.

Advent calls us to patience. By patient endurance you will save your lives. It inserts us within a long view of history, extending our sight all the way forward to the End-Time, while simultaneously taking us all the way back to the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. It challenges the need to see immediate visible results from our work. Th is is a consoling word for us.

Some years ago the archdi ocese had a vocation recruiting campaign that had as its promotional phrase, “Th e work is hard, but the rewards are infi nite.” We jokingly announced a Catholic Worker recruiting program with this variation: “Th e work is hard, but the rewards are barely discernible.”

It can seem our eff orts eff ect little change in the individuals we work with or the consumer, war-driven culture we live in. Patience is a required virtue for life here.

And Advent calls us to watchfulness. Th e Promised One comes at a time you least expect. It suggests our ordinary everyday lives are far more extraordinary than what appears on the surface. It invites us to recognize the mystery of God-with-us in the seemingly ordinary, even (and especially) in the most needy and un-Godlike appearing among us. What a challenge! Yet this Gospel, advent word is at the very heart of the Catholic Worker practice. And experience has shown us that eff orts to live it out on a daily basis can actually fashion a joyful heart. Th e Advent word to Rejoice always (not just sometimes) is not as impossible as it may seem!

EventsADVENT VIGIL AGAINST DRONESFriday, December 12, 6–7 p.m.Battle Creek Air National Guard Base3367 W. Dickman Rd.

TAIZE SERVICESSunday evenings of Advent, 8 p.m.St. Peter’s Episcopal Church1950 Trumbull, Detroit, MI

Last year, I did a seven week session for a third grade class at Harms Elementary. Two weeks in, the teacher called to tell me one of the boys in the class had died. Jazeel came from an abusive family and the suspicion was that he’d either been murdered or had committed suicide. A third grade child.

I barely knew these kids yet. I had a vague idea which one had been Jazeel. I thought about how I’d do this. Could I come in and do my lesson and act as if nothing had happened? What would be the best thing I could do for these kids?

I went in ready to address it head on. We sat on the fl oor in a circle. I asked the class who could tell me what happened this week. One girl raised her hand and started saying “we read the rest of the Beverly Cleary book…”. I was startled to realize she expected me to keep being a “teacher,” to only focus on academics.

“What bad thing happened this week?” Another child said “Jazeel died”. And there was utter silence in the room. Th e children seemed to stop breathing.

I said “We’re going to think about Jazeel and say goodbye to him.” We turned off the lights and lit a candle. I took Jazeel’s name tag, held it up and said “Jazeel, we’ll never forget you. Th ank you for being our classmate and friend.” I put the name tag on the fl oor in front of the candle.

I lit a smudge stick explaining that it’s a native-American tradition for blessing a person and a place. So I smudged Jazeel’s name tag, myself, and the classroom. I smudged the teacher and each child. Some of them responded solemnly. Some coughed or squirmed.

Th en I pulled out my guitar and started singing “Like a ship in a harbor, like a mother and child, like a light in the darkness, I’ll hold you awhile. We’ll rock on the water. I’ll cradle you deep. And hold you while angels sing you to sleep.” Aft er the fi rst time, several of the children started crying. By the end everyone was crying.

Th en I pulled out my drum and sang “Deep down inside of me, I’ve got a fi re going on. Part of me wants to sing about the light. Part of me wants to cry cry cry.”

Some students were singing along. Some were sobbing. Some were holding each other.

I stood up at the chalkboard and asked them to tell me all the things they remembered

The ritual and the music allowed them to freely grieve.

about Jazeel. Th ey said things like “he was nice to me,” “he was a good draw-er,” “he was tough,” “he helped me once,” “he didn’t let anyone boss him,” etc.

I wrote down every single thing they said. Th en we sang each verse to the song

“Woke up this Morning”. (E.g: “I woke up this morning with my mind on how Jazeel was nice to me”; “I woke up this morning with my mind on how Jazeel didn’t let anyone boss him. Allelu, allelu, alleluia!”)

I passed my drum around and let them bang on it. We sang

“Th is Little Light of Mine” and any other song I could think of. During this whole time many children wailed and sobbed. Some held and comforted each other. A couple of them walked around passing out tissue to everyone.

One boy started punching desks and walls. Th e teacher took him out for a few minutes.

Word & World: Gratitude for an education and an

invitationLYDIA WYLIE-KELLERMANN

I learned far more about scripture and theology in one week of a Word and World school than I learned in my entire theology degree at Loyola. I fell in love with the scriptures which always intertwined with our own stories and the struggles for justice on the streets. It was an alternative education and I am so grateful. Word and World traveled around the country touching down in local history as they explored their streams of civil rights (Greensboro), base community and liberation theology (Tucson ),

Whatever she said to him seemed to help, because he came back in calm. He went and sat next to Jazeel’s best friend, Christian (who hadn’t stopped crying the whole time) and started comforting him.

Toward the end of the class we sent them out to drink water, turned the lights on, and tried to fi nd a way to help them gather themselves.

I hugged them each as they left .

Later the teacher told me that the previous day a couple psychologists had come to the class

to help the kids deal with (talk about) the tragedy, but were useless.

Somehow the ritual and the music allowed them to freely grieve in a way they hadn’t been able to. I feel blessed and lucky to have had that experience. To have had the opportunity to give those kids that gift . I believe it’s one of the best things I will have ever done.

anti-war movement (Philadelphia), feminist, womanist, lgbt theology (Rochester), and Labor (Tar Heel).

It has been a long time since we’ve done a full week long school with workshops, bible studies, local plenaries, music and poetry, body work, Sabbath, street resistance, and worship. But the time has come. It is clear that a stream is missing — one that lift s up the curves of the water calling out the history of environmental racism and degradation and uplift s the work of environmental justice and experiments in sustainable community. Perhaps even more exciting still is that we are embarking on new territory to engage in this conversation with folks coming from not only biblical traditions but also hip-hop and indigenous. It felt really clear that the location for this school be in Detroit with it at the heart of post-industrialism and fi lled with hope and creativity towards the future. I am so excited to have two of my greatest loves and teachers come together: Detroit and Word and World.

land & water school. July 15-19, 2015. detroit.

Listen to the waters. Honor the Soil. Learn her history. Build the Beloved Community.

Word & World is cooperating with grass roots activists, artists, and community builders to open a new space for movement engagement. While historically focused on bridging the gulf between seminary, sanctuary, and street, this initiative is now committed to collaboration beyond the domain of faith-based organizing. Here on equal footing, hip-hop visioning will meet Biblical inspiration, ancestral self-determination trade wisdom with anti-oppression spirituality, indigenous sovereignty make common cause with theological liberation. Work towards a shared future of social justice and ecological sustainability will actively embrace creative inspiration rooted in struggle to decolonize this land, our minds and cultures, and the traditions that move and defi ne us. www.wordandworld.org

Day House 2640 Trumbull Ave. Detroit, MI 48216

Chief Editor: Lydia Wylie-Kellermann Design Editor: Lucia Wylie-Kellermann Copy Editor: Rachel Fentin Cover art: Rise Again, Lucia Wylie-Kellermann

Day House A Catholic Worker Community 313-963-4539

“This Advent, as we light the candles in the dark and sing for Emmanuel, let’s be even more intentional than usual in clearing the commercial Christmas assault from our minds and hearts. Whatever God is calling us to has little to do with shopping and driving ourselves into a frenzy creating the “perfect” holiday. We need to honor the silence and the dark, to remember our stories, to teach the youth in our lives what we believe matters. We need to recall, to intuit, to dream the life we’re called to and then make a plan that allows us to strip down enough to have it. In the course of that, of course, we need to give thanks for all that we are and for those traveling in our circles and beyond.”

— Jeanie Wylie-Kellermann