Yesterday was Pi Day, which meant that there was much frivolity and feasting in the math rooms of schools. For one day, they set aside their theorems and formulae and variables and celebrated the annual occurrence of March 14th. I note with some dismay that this is a fairly recent thing. When I was a kid there was no celebration in math classes for any reason. 

Today, is a holiday for those of us who are more literary and less quantitative: the Ides of March. The Ides of March are the time when Julius Caesar was killed, made famous in Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar, when the soothsayer warns Caesar to, "Beware the Ides of March!" I still remember my 10th grade English teacher standing in front of the class in a creaky, spooky voice, wagging his finger and intoning that line. Today, at schools, our halls are dotted with 6th graders in Roman garb, celebrating this holiday at the behest of their history teacher--who is currently teaching them about Ancient Rome. 

So, why should anyone care about these two days beside a handful of math and history/English teachers, and their students who get a slice of pie or the chance to wear a toga for a few points of extra credit?

There is much that is wrong in our educational system and the larger culture, and many people have commented on these things. But one of the things that worries me is that we are reducing education to competency with some specific benchmarks. We are becoming increasingly specialized in discrete areas and fields. The idea of a rich, generalized, far-ranging education is almost as quaint and old-fashioned as a horse and buggy. Simply put, I think we know a lot more about much less than we used to. 

And that is a shame. 

Historically, an education did not merely suit one to get a job--it fitted one to live a better, richer, more interesting life. An educated person was someone who know about a lot of different things--both the value of Pi as well as what the Ides of March were and how they were important. 

I'll admit that I don't gain any tangible, concrete benefit from seeing kids in togas and knowing immediately, "Oh, that's right, it's the Ides of March today!" Unless you are a mathematician, the value of Pi probably isn't a big part of your life and there is no practical benefit to knowing why the math teacher brought slices of pie yesterday. 

But there is a wonderful feeling in knowing something and knowing you know it. There is a huge value--beyond measure, really--in having some fluency with the basics of different fields. Even if you don't use math every day in your job. Even if what Shakespeare wrote is irrelevant to what you do for a living. That use to be self-evident. 

To the extent that we don't know these things, I argue that we are a little poorer in our souls and minds, and that our lives are just a bit emptier. 

My grandfather did not go to college. I don't know that he even finished high school, I think he had an 8th grade education. He was a farm boy from Willard, UT who fought in WWII and then delivered Wonder Bread for the next 30 years. But he could recite the funeral oration from Julius Caesar. He could do math and appreciated different styles of music and  he read for fun. As I think of the books I saw in his armchair over the years, I realize that he read a wide ranging selection of books, from classics to popular fiction to detailed, complex doctrinal and historical works. He had the kind of broad, general knowledge that some call cultural literacy. He enjoyed these things in spite of  his lack of formal education. 

I think that is because he grew up in a time when the culture was different. When learning was valued, when it was self-evident that self-improvement meant learning and reading good and great thoughts. When the classics in all disciplines were taught--and when society expected children to learn what people in the past thought was important or meaningful.

The reasons we have strayed from that dynamic are many and complex. Changes in family structure, different ideological movements, changing requirements for the workforce and so on. Some are things that have just happened, some are things that are done to ourselves. Some are the consequence of important advances and changes, the results of genuine progress, while some are the side effect of larger social problems that have no simple solution.

But whatever the cause, my argument is that it will be a real loss if, in the next generation, only history and theatre majors know what the Ides of March are.  If only math majors celebrate Pi day, it's equally sad. Not the end of the world, perhaps, but it means that the culture is just a little more impoverished, a little more fragmented.

I'm happy to teach in a school that still provides a rigorous general education, but I fear that my school is in the minority. To be fair, we ask a great deal of schools these days and they are picking up the slack for more and more family and social problems. It is impossible to do all that we ask them to do and the fact that anything at all gets done is, quite frankly, a miracle. 

My plea is that we not take the richness of Western Civilization for granted. It is a rich, wonderful, and messy celebration of thousands of years, an amalgam of arts and letters, of numbers and sciences. I wish we'd all branch out a little and read or watch or listen to something different. That we do a math problem or read a play--whatever we don't normally do. That we celebrate Pi Day with food and fun and then reflect on the themes of destiny and choice, freedom and consequences, virtue and corruption, and  tyranny and liberty on the Ides of March. That we don't give in easily and surrender to the powerful cultural forces that would further decouple an education from it's traditional breadth and scope and turn it simply into a job training program. That we teach our children about the things we learned and not let everything disappear into the Cloud, to be accessed by a Google search for an occasional paper. 

If the next generation doesn't know stuff--whether or not it helps them on a test or in their job--then we lose our civilization. We lose our inheritance. We lose part of what makes life rich and interesting. And that would be literally throwing away our birthright for a bowl of porridge--and would be a tragedy of Shakespearean proportion. 

This is disgusting. It is reprehensible. I don't have the words to say what I feel about it. This has nothing to do with politics (incidentally, I made this point when right-wing people mocked young Chelsea Clinton, but there were no blogs back then). 

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post has ridiculed the way the Santorums dealt with the death of their still-born child. You can read about it here. Alan Colmes did the same thing, but was called out on it and apologized. Robinson needs to be called out on it as well--by every parent, by everyone who believes in simple decency. 

This revolts and infuriates me. Is nothing off-limits? Is nothing sacred or private anymore? A family mourning a lost child is one of the most intimate, private things I can think of and it is ghoulish and inhuman to discuss it, let alone criticize it. 

Do what you want with your own kids--don't have kids if you don't want them. Mourn them however  you want. On that note, disagree loudly and vigorously with any of Senator Santorum's policy views (I do with a number of them). 

But at what point do we say, "Too far! Stop. Our humanity and decency is far more important than political points!" I would suggest that this is a good point. Is everything to be fair game in politics? Spouses? Children? Dead children? Are there no boundaries? Is politics going to determine what we see is right and wrong. The reality is that many people will react to this story based on their political views. That is wrong. We should react as human beings. 

Dear heavens, what and who have we become? I'm normally pretty optimistic, but things like this make me think our culture has crossed a point of no return that makes all our other challenges seem trivial. 

Badly done, Mr. Robinson. Badly done. 

Not related to Christmas in any way, but I read and loved this quote from Peggy Noonan. I don't always agree with Ms. Noonan, but find her always worth reading. She writes with such grace and clarity, and has such an interesting point-of-view. At any rate, she concludes her column with this:

"We are at a point in our culture when we actually have to pull for grown-up movies, when we must try to encourage them and laud them when they come by. David Lean wouldn't be allowed to make movies today. John Ford would be forced to turn John Wayne into a 30-something failure-to-launch hipster whose big moment is missing the toilet in the vomit scene in Hangover Ten. Our movie culture has descended into immaturity, deep and inhuman violence, a pervasive and flattened sexuality. It is an embarrassment "In Iraq this year I asked and Iraqi military officer doing joint training at an American base what was the big thing he'd come to believe about Americans in the years they'd been there. He thought. "You are a better people than your movies say." He had judged us by our exports. He had seen the low slag heap of our culture and assumed it was a true expression of who we are." Link here. 

Well said. It seems to me that this is hard to argue with when you look at the lion's share of what is produced. It further seems that it's difficult to make a compelling argument that this is a good thing. One might say, "Well, I like it." But that doesn't mean it's good or right or desirable. The quote from the Iraqi officer is interesting to me. Noonan says he had assumed our movies accurately expressed who we are. How long can we produce and consume that kind of thing before it becomes who we are? 

I hate to interrupt the Christmas cheer, but there are two cases of absolute craziness run amok, mixed with lunacy, layered with insanity, shaken with just plain ridiculousness and it is the clear duty of normal people everywhere to take a minute, hear about these cases, shake your head in disgust, imagine your child in a similar situation, then yell, "STOP!!!!!!!"

In Boston, a first grader was being choked. He fought back and ended up punching his assailant in the groin. He--the one who was choked--is now being charged with sexual assault (read the article here. Note: I am going on the assumption that the story is accurate). If this charge holds, then when he turns 18, his name will be placed on the registry and for the rest of his life, he will be listed as a sex offender. Every time he applies for a job, an apartment--boom. There it is. He won't be able to attend his children's basketball games, concerts or parent teacher conferences. 

This, dear readers, is madness. It is madness. 

I don't advocate kicking anyone in the groin. But in self defense? That's a pretty common technique. It's also something that happens with amazing regularity any time boys tussle. So  now it's a sex offense? If this is upheld--if this boy becomes a sex offender for this, then the designation ceases to have any real meaning. 

Think of anytime you have ever had any kind of accidental or inadvertent contact with someone--you slipped and bumped into them, or something similar. My goodness, we could all be charged with this crime.

These administrators need to be called out on this. We have got to stand up and start making noise and letting people know that this is not the way a free, healthy society works. 

Another story: a 4th grader in North Carolina called his teacher, "cute." The principal suspended him for sexual harassment. The school district investigated and found that the principal was wrong. Correctly so, in my opinion. 

So he was fired. 44 years. Gone. Poof! Read the story here. Ok, he wasn't fired. He "resigned." But we know what that means. 

He was wrong--gravely, seriously, ridiculously wrong in my judgement. He should have been written up, warned, and told to apologize. 

But to be fired, just like that? I don't know--but I am going to guess, based on 25 years working schools, that the district had a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment. I'll bet you the principal has been to workshops over the years where he was told that it was his duty to report this and brook no excuses, but to be firm and so forth. I'll bet a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper on this one. 

We have a system that is lurching out of control. Common sense has vanished and we rely on policies and procedures--all of which are drawn up in order to provide maximum cover from lawsuits. We don't talk about right and wrong and moral and immoral (except as labels for political policies we don't like). Instead, we have rules and regulations, which can be useful tools but terrible masters. 

We have lost perspective, lost all sense of proportion. Little boys who fight should apologize, maybe be grounded, go to detention, stay after school. Not labelled as sex criminals--for the rest of their lives! 

Boys who have crushes on their teacher and call them cute should be taught about propriety, good manners, and time and place. But that's not sexual harassment. If it is, then the term means nothing. 

Principals who make miscalculations (acting out of deference to school policy and fears of lawsuits) should be reprimanded, corrected, and taught. Not fired. 

I'm not saying that the initial actions were right. Groin kicking is bad. Calling a teacher cute is not perhaps prudent or appropriate (although, after teaching in NYC, I've been called far worse. I've actually been called far worse more recently by parents). 

All of these stories have one thing in common: a small infraction that was dealt with in a grotesquely exaggerated, totally inappropriate way. We are using fire hoses to extinguish birthday candles. 

Dear Teenagers (Especially My Students and Former Students Who I Love Dearly But Everyone Else is Also Invited to Read):

Can we talk? Those of you who are or were my students, remember how during class you sometimes try to distract me from the task at hand by asking me questions that lead to me talking and giving you life lessons?  Here's a secret: I know what you are doing. You are not nearly as subtle as you think you are. But sometimes I go with it because I feel like it's worth it, or I can tell that you're tired and need a break. And also because I care about you and want you to learn things that will make you happy even if those things have nothing to do with quarter notes, head voices, or harmony.

Now I want to interrupt your time (summer) and give you a life lesson. I hope you will read this and think about it.

A few months ago I chaperoned a school dance. I do this twice a year and I did what I always did on these occasions: make fun of you. KIDDING!!!! I would never do that. Really what I did was stand there and feel bad for you. Then I talked with other teachers who also felt bad for you. One teacher, an experienced teacher who is one of the most loving, wise people/teachers I've ever known really felt bad for you and we talked about this at length. I've been thinking about it ever since. 

Here's why we feel bad for you. You have more freedom than any other generation of teenagers probably since the world began. You have more leisure time and more stuff to fill that time. There are fewer restrictions or taboos that society places on you. For the most part you live far more comfortably and far more freely than ever before.

And yet, your lives seem to be less rich. You know a lot more about boys or girls (whichever is your opposite) than we did at your age, but I don't think you enjoy those relationships as much as we did. This other teacher and I concluded that in almost every appreciable category, we had less of everything and enjoyed it much more. 

So, because I love you dearly--you have no idea how much I think and worry about you--I am going to give you some thoughts about dating, boys/girls, etc. I don't think you know these rules. From what I observe you don't have any idea. And it's not your fault. The culture isn't teaching you anything. These were things that we used to take for granted, things that helped us have fun and make good memories and form deep, satisfying relationships.

First of all: slow down. Way down. I see some of you who don't want to date yet but you go along because everyone else is doing it. Don't be afraid to opt out. I know things that are scary at your age. I see others who don't want to slow down but seriously need to. 

A few weeks ago I wrote a post lamenting the fact the in a sexually saturated culture, we've essentially put our kids in cars, taken away the guardrails and told them to drive as fast as they can. 

That post generated quite a bit of email from people, both in agreement and disagreement, and those emails have led me to a lot of further thought.

I found a very interesting article in the New York Times in which the author recounts being 14 and having her first chance for a sexual encounter. At the last minute, she decided she wasn't ready and and left. In her words:

"...I said no, sorry, I wasn’t ready after all. We broke up the next morning, and then got back together again days later, and then broke up a few more times. I eventually did go to third; yes, I did. I grew up; I got married; I had children; decades passed, and I lived through personal happiness and disappointment, and I barely thought about this little moment again until recently. What I had given myself, in saying no back then, was the luxury of time — time to figure out what I wanted, what felt best. No is like being in graduate school; you’re allowed to think for a while, and not be in the world." (Meg Wolitzer, emphasis added, entire article here).

This writer is not making a moral or religious case for teen abstinence/postponement. She makes what I think is a very rational case that people from different backgrounds can probably agree on. "What's the rush? Take some time. Wait a little. In retrospect, you won't regret waiting. You loose nothing by taking some time and maturing. On the other hand, if you rush it, you could lose a great deal and have some regrets." I think that is a very healthy message for kids--teens and adolescents to read. It doesn't have to be draconian or heavy-handed. Well said, Ms. Wolitzer. 

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking "Wow! Braden is such a great guy. He keeps giving us these amazing recommendations in order to make our Christmas brighter." Yes, you are right. That's because I care deeply about you, my blogging friends. 
(By the way, if my student who plays Glinda, the Good Witch is reading this, hello!)

My fourth gift to you is another movie recommendation. It is a delightfully unusual movie that defies easy categorization. In my mind, it's more of a movie that happens to take place at Christmas than it is a Christmas movie, but it is interesting and compelling. Cary Grant and Loretta Young and David Niven star in "The Bishop's Wife", available on Netflix here. Yes, this was the original on which they based the newer "The Preacher's Wife" (Why must they do that! One of my biggest pet peeves). The supporting cast is fantastic as well.

Here's a question to which no one has yet provided a satisfactory answer: why did my grandparents's generation get Cary Grant and we're stuck with Leonardo Di Caprio?  Seriously, that is so unfair and really points to our cultural poverty today. 


P.S. Please remember to vote for Debbie here!  This is the last week of voting.

I am convinced that our generation lives in a culturally deprived era and it makes me sad. American pop culture used to be a treasure trove of incredible riches. I'll not say more because I inevitably sound like a curmudgeonly crank when I go too far down this road.

Here at bradenbell.com, we are getting incredibly excited for the Christmas season because, to someone interested in the arts, Christmas offers a wealth of delights and joys. So, in our effort to fight cultural mediocrity and lameness, and, because it is the season of giving and sharing, we at bradenbell.com are going to be highlighting some of our favorite Christmas cultural treasures. Recommendations on books and movies and music that have become part of our traditions over the years. This is our gift to you.

First recommendation: get the old version of Miracle on 34th Street, the black and white one with Maureen O'Hara. The newer version is ok, but it's sort of a sanitized, fairly vanilla remake.  No, go to the original article. In my opinion, it has a lot more heart and it as an interesting look into a fascinating world that is long gone. It's available on Netflix here.

This is the perfect film for this part of the year because it opens with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, so it's the perfect transition piece between holidays.