Sandy's Book

Teaching Democracy as a Way of Life

As we grow older, things change, and not always for the better. I've noticed, for instance, that my memory for people's names is not what it used to be. And then there is a decline in energy. But I have also noticed, among many in my age cohort, an interesting phenomenon: with a decline in energy there can be an increase in quiet tenacity. We don't quit.

Which brings me to my wife, Lois, and her good friend and former boss, Sandy Dean. Last year they recreated their work relationship and used it to produce a book, entitled Beyond Civics: The Education Democracy Needs. 

One of my favorite historians is Yale professor Timothy Snyder, who likes to suggest that we think of democracy as a verb, rather than a noun. And that is the key to the argument in Beyond Civics. It's not enough produce children who know the capitals of every state. It's not enough to have them read the Bill of Rights, or lecture to them about the Ten Commandments. Children need to learn how to be good citizens. 

I wonder if Thomas Jefferson realized the amount of work that he was creating for common folk when he decided that all men are created equal and governments should derive their powers from the consent of the governed.

It was a lot easier in the days of kings, when there was a strong man who, at least theoretically, ran everything. All the citizen (or subject) needed to do was follow orders. And that's the way it still is in some modern countries.

Being a good citizen in a democracy is a lot of work. And to do it right you need to learn some skills that aren't in great demand in authoritarian societies. These happen to be the skills that were at the center of the program in the independent school that Sandy ran for nearly a quarter of a century: seeking facts, thinking logically, and listening carefully to different views. 

The kids learned by doing. My wife taught an elective called Let's Go Lobbying. Students selected topics they were interested in and researched them carefully, both by reading and by hearing from grownups who were involved in the issue. They then thought about what their ask should be, what their supporting arguments should be, and how to respond to criticisms of their proposal. Then they went to the offices of members of Congress, state legislators, and City Council members to make their ask. Their teachers stayed in the background; the children had the floor.

Most of the people the students met with were surprised that middle schoolers could be that well prepared and that articulate. Some were pleased. Others seemed to feel threatened, and a few were quite patronizing. The kids learned from them all. 

A normal civics class in the United States does not look like this.

The school applied this basic approach across the curriculum, from science class to art class.

Writing the book was not easy. I watched Sandy and Lois over the course of the last year, wrestling with a large amount of material, giving it form and concision, and finding new ideas about what they were doing decades ago, incorporating current research results and reaching out to experts.

It did require new thinking. Some existing conclusions did require modification. And so, as they worked, they themselves were changed by the process - the same process they taught at school: finding facts, thinking critically, and engaging with multiple perspectives.

One of the most important changes had to do with the topic of democracy. I don't think many people, in the 1980s, thought American democracy was in peril. We knew it had problems, but we didn't think it was going to die. 

Today, the situation is different. And for that reason, the way we teach our children about our democracy is critically important. Jefferson gave us a heavy burden when he rested government on our shoulders, and none of us can afford to be a summer soldier or a sunshine patriot.

As John Lewis put it in his final message to us: "Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself." 

Buying a new civics textbook won't do it. But reading this book can show you the way to redesign your classroom and your school so that everybody in the building enacts democracy, in small ways, every day.

(Beyond Civics is available on Amazon. To see the page, click here.)

See also Rebecca Rhynhart for Mayor.

The Beach Without People

Quiet Moments in Asbury Park

It used to be easy to go to Asbury Park and take pictures without people in them. Now it's getting to be a challenge. Not that I dislike having people around - quite the contrary. But I think, when other people are around, people tend to look at other people.

And maybe we can miss some things. Things that we tend not to notice, but which are actually a big part of what attracts us to this place. The sea, the sky, the boardwalk, they all provide the stage set for summer's permanent floating celebration of being alive. 

In the off season, you get to look at the stage set. Above you have the Casino, at the southern end of the boardwalk, embellished with some modern arrivals. There are the murals, and then the plantings. 

This kind of a backdrop doesn't just happen. People - people with lots of talent - think hard and work hard to produce a view like this. All I had to do was point and shoot.

And then there's Mother Nature - beautiful, nurturing, and never far from powerful violence. We build bulwarks to ward her off - in this case to protect Convention Hall, further north on the boardwalk. And we have some success. People used to talk about conquering Mother Nature, or taming her. I think, nowadays, we're a bit wiser, and perhaps slightly more humble. 

In addition to Mother Nature, Asbury Park is blessed with some remarkable works created by human hands. Convention Hall is one of them. I don't think the architects, Warren and Wetmore, had any idea in 1927 that their structure would be reflecting a rather adventurous mural painted on the Sunset Pavilion. But the building definitely created possibilities, and it welcomes new arrivals. 

Last year I ran a story about layers at the beachfront. There are a number of distinct zones in the design of the beachfront, each of which provides a different experience. But I left something out. The strip just inland from the boardwalk contains the pavilions, with their restaurants and shops, and also a water park and a miniature golf course - remnants of the city's once-bustling amusement industry. I forgot to mention the "wild" patches that have arrived in recent years.

When James Bradley bought his 500 acres in 1870 to found Asbury Park, he proceeded to clearcut the whole area, and he leveled the existing dunes. The current effort to bring back some dunes does increase our resilience in the face of inclement weather, and it also provides us with at least an idea of what was here before Bradley launched his improvement project. To be sure, we are looking at highly manicured gardens, but I think they are a valid nod to the past. And I love them.

The absence of visible people does not mean the absence of life. Here we have a seagull looking at a ship that undoubtedly contains humans. Humans we will never see. 

Here's a human you can see - just barely. Sitting on a bench. Can you tell me which bench?

To paraphrase an old baseball saying, some days you win, some days you lose, and some days it rains.

These days, when I go to the beach in the off season, I'm hardly ever the only person there. But still I think each of us usually has enough space to commune quietly with the sea, and the sky, and the sand. I think the fellow above, standing on the jetty, virtually surrounded by water, might well agree. But let's not ask him. Let's leave him alone.

See also Layers at the Beach Front.

Hector at Troy

War Is Not His Native Element

"The arts of peace are useless now. Troy will not be saved by the magnanimity and tender-heartedness of Priam nor by Paris' brilliance in the courts of love. If it is to survive it will do so because of the devotion, courage and incessant efforts of one man, Priam's son Hector. On him falls the whole burden of the war. He is a formidable warrior, formidable enough so that in Book 7 no Achaean volunteers to face him in single combat until they are tongue-lashed by Menelaus and then by Nestor. But war is not his native element. Unlike Achilles, he is clearly a man made for peace, for those relationships between man and man, and man and woman, which demand sympathy, persuasion, kindness and, where firmness is necessary, a firmness expressed in forms of law and resting on granted authority. He is a man who appears most himself in his relationships with others." 

- This is from Bernard Knox's introduction to Robert Fagles' translation of Homer's The Iliad (1990), p. 33. 

See also And So the Worm Turned, Little Karl, Wartime Presidents, What the Greeks Knew.