I thought updating this post
might still make a bit of sense and interest teachers. At my old school we
organized a visit of veterans every year, starting in 2002. These visits
continue, sixteen years later, with almost two dozen men (we’re still having
trouble finding women) talking in small group sessions to hundreds of students
last May.
Originally, I described the visits
as a counterpoint to what I thought was a weird fetish for standardized tests.
A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE and a very fine math teacher, Steve Ball
(twice “Educator of the Year” at Loveland Middle School after the award was
instituted in 1990), is retiring soon. Last night a few of us got together to
talk about where U.S. education is headed.
Steve laughed and admitted he had “survivor’s guilt” about
getting out of the profession just in time.
No one at the table, including two other winners of “Educator of
the Year,” and none of the teachers I talk to these days, thinks education is
headed in the right direction.
It’s too bad many “experts” have convinced themselves and a lot
of obtuse politicians that standardized testing is going
to save us. And for anyone that believes this is the way to go in Ohio, I have
one word: mercantilism.
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| FOURTEEN VETERANS TALK TO OUR SCHOOL (OF ALL PEOPLE, ACE GILBERT IS MISSING IN THE PICTURE). IS THIS GOOD FOR STANDARDIZED TESTING? |
CAN YOU DEFINE MERCANTILISM? Probably not. But when the State of
Ohio put its bureaucrats to work a few years ago and came up with a list of
social studies standards, some knucklehead decided eighth graders needed to
know about this seventeenth century economic theory.
I doubt anyone has cared about mercantilism since the seventeenth
century. I don’t and I loved teaching.
Unfortunately, most teachers I know, and I speak only for the
good ones, believe the fetish for standardized testing is slowly killing what
is best in our schools. For me, the last few years I taught, “teaching to the
test” seemed almost unethical.
I found it sickening.
Here’s my favorite example. I served in the Marines from
1968-70, but sat at a desk in Camp Pendleton, California. So I don’t pretend to
be a hero. Still, I know something about learning in its truest forms and I
have a lot of connections with veterans. After the 9/11 attacks I started
bringing in combat veterans to talk to my classes. I reasoned that if we were
going to war, my students should know what war truly entailed.
The program grew each year, until in May 2008, I was able to
line up fourteen men, representing five different wars, and divide them up so
that our 700 students heard three different speakers or groups of speakers. Joe
Whitt was a Pearl Harbor survivor. Mark Adams dodged missiles in an F-16 over
Baghdad in 1991. Seth Judy was badly wounded in Iraq in 2003. That gives you
some idea of the quality of the visitors.
Now consider this a moment: nothing these
veterans would say about their experiences could possibly show up on a
standardized test.
Technically, the entire day was wasted.
Dave Fletcher, a friend of mine at Loveland Middle School,
continues the program today. Recently, I went out to speak to students myself,
along with a group of real heroes. That would include a gentleman who served in
bloody combat in Vietnam in 1969-70 (while I sat safely at my desk). Here’s a
capsule version of what Ace Gilbert said and if this isn’t learning in the most
important sense, I’ll eat the next standardized test I see and won’t ask for
ketchup.
ACE FREELY ADMITS, when he speaks to teens, that he has a hard
time dealing with some of what he saw decades ago. He’s not alone in that. In
2008 our program should have included fifteen speakers, but the morning of the
day presentations were scheduled a young Iraq veteran started having flashbacks
and his mother had to call and apologize and say her son wasn’t going to make
it. I begged her not to feel a need to explain and asked her to tell the young
man I appreciated his service. Three years before, I had an old marine who
fought at Iwo Jima come out to school. Marvin Burdine had been shot in the back
by a Japanese sniper and spent ten months in the hospital; but when he talked
to classes sixty years later he said he had nightmares for a month afterward.
So Ace isn’t alone—and he wants students to know there isn’t
much glory in combat. He tells them the Marine Corps trains you to take orders,
to kill, but you “never train for the fact that your best friend could die in
your arms.” On November 11, 1969, his unit launched an assault against dug-in
North Vietnamese troops holding a hill that the Marines wanted. Sometime during
the day, Bobby Hamel, his buddy, was wounded, and fell into a deep shell crater
in a position too exposed to reach.
That night, Ace finally helped carry Bobby back down the hill,
but it was clear the young marine might not make it. Ace told him to hang on,
that medevac helicopters were coming. His friend grimaced and said, “If you
really like me, get some help.” Around 6:30 a.m. on the next day the sound of
choppers gave them a few moments of hope. Bobby turned his head to see “and his
soul left his body.”
That’s how Ace tells the story and his teen audience is silent.
And now they know something about war and the sacrifices that
patriotism may require.
I’ve seen Ace talk to hundreds of students over the years and he
never loses an audience. Never. He’s funny at times, sad at times, even angry.
He uses a little strong wording; but when he’s done the kids can sense what it really
means to fight for your country. Ace talks about nights spent in the jungle,
posted for ambushes, senses so attuned to noise “you could hear a mosquito
fart.”
Naturally, 13- and 14-year-olds appreciate such lines.
Mr. Gilbert was a machine gunner. On his first nighttime ambush he
cut down nine enemy soldiers at close range with one burst of fire. So he knows
what it’s like to see men die and thinks about some of the enemy soldiers he
killed even today. He speaks of dead friends as “forever nineteen” in his mind
and you know talking about it isn’t easy. Again, teens relate. Ace has to be
prodded to admit he won two Purple Hearts. One came when he stepped on a land
mine. “It felt like I got kicked in the ass by a supersonic mule,” is how he
puts it. Again he has the rapt attention of students.
IT’S JUST TOO DAMN BAD he doesn’t talk about mercantilism.
In a world where Governor Kasich wants more testing in more subjects and
teachers’ pay based on test results, Ace is just moving his lips for no official,
educational reason.
He’s a fantastic speaker and makes students laugh and cry and
sometimes wince. He helps them understand what it means to be patriotic.
Unfortunately, you can’t put that on a standardized test.
If you’re a teacher who cares about real learning, like Mr. Ball
and Mr. Fletcher, and me, you think, “This is nuts.”
***
Dave Fletcher retired recently, himself, and
Greg Crosky, a young Loveland Middle School teacher, took over.
By now, Ace Gilbert—who never misses the day—has
visited my old school fifteen years in a row. Joe Whitt, the old Pearl Harbor
survivor came for a decade but has since passed away. Mark Adams, the F-16
pilot often shows up, misses now and then, and apologizes if he’s unable to come.
Younger veterans, who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, now take on the roles of
some of the older men. This year, Mr. Fletcher’s son finally finished his
college classes, having enrolled after he served in the U.S. Army, had a
schedule that worked, and joined the speakers. He served in Iraq. Three of my former
students, Chuck Garrett, Chris Tobias and Mark Jaquez, have all been good
enough to come out and speak with the kids. I asked Kelly, another former
student, several times if she’d like to come. She finally said she didn’t think
she’d ever be able to talk about what she had seen as an Army nurse during her
bloody tour in Iraq.
Chuck, Chris and Mark were all kids,
themselves, a decade or so ago, when they sat rapt listening to other veterans
of other wars speak.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, DROP ME AN EMAIL AND I CAN EXPLAIN HOW WE SET THIS UP. I THOUGHT IT WAS FAIRLY EASY TO WORK OUT A SCHEDULE, SO ALL OUR KIDS HEARD THREE SPEAKERS EVERY YEAR.
VILEJJV@YAHOO.COM
