Harrisonburg, Virginia hosted its first beer festival last weekend, further evidence that what was once solely an agricultural town has transmogrified into a sprawling but increasingly urbane community. Additional signs of change: a wrecking ball was diligently, if not effectively, dismantling one of the remaining downtown grain elevators; a food co-op, with food from over 100 local vendors and farms, is scheduled to open in June; and what was once the temporary office of the 2008 Obama campaign is now a cat and dog adoption center. (Although the Obama campaign may have had a tough time of it in this traditionally conservative town, it was a shrewd piece of real estate for the adoption center, which is located across the street from the children's museum).
According to the local paper, some 3,000 people showed up at the beer festival. The local newspaper is known in shorthand as the DNR, however, and its fact-checking department seems to have gone the way of the morgue, so I’m more inclined to follow the count of a friend who actually attended the event and estimated that she helped serve beer to some 2,000 individuals. The real accounting error, however, falls to whomever ordered the toilets, which numbered a total of eight and left the first annual beer festival with a bit of a loaves and fishes situation. My friend, who is not short on charm, bribed her way to the bathroom by promising free pours of beer to those who let her cut in line.
I am a reluctant event-planner, and am entirely sympathetic to the harried mind of any creature who takes it upon themselves to plan anything beyond dinner. (The low point in my career was the moment at which, having organized a dinner without enough food, set up tables in a mosquito-and-mud drenched field, and driven a 15-passenger van into a lamppost--with my boss in the passenger’s seat--my boss and I found ourselves heaving sodden and seeping garbage bags into a dumpster six feet above our heads, which, despite my desire to forget the entire affair, seared the scent of half-consumed salsa and queso forever into my olfactory nerve.) The festival's toilet-to-drinker ratio, however, does seem to reflect a gross neglect of cause and effect.
On the same day as the beer festival, New York City’s local rag reported on the state of the internally displaced persons camps in Haiti. It is a loaves and fishes situation most awful, for reasons that are deep and longstanding, and have as much to do with why the camps exist in the first place with why they still exist over a year after the January 2010 earthquake. In other words, it has much to do with unfulfilled promises; in the aftermath of the earthquake, the international community passed Haiti a basket brimming with the promises of billions, but which have proven, thus far, to be illusive.
In situations such as the IDP camps, United Nation standards proscribe 1 toilet to every 20 individuals. In Haiti, nearly one third of the IDP camps do not have toilets. In those that do, each toilet is shared by an average of 273 individuals. Other practicalities—shelter, water, security—are equally abysmal.
One of the most astonishing things about the miracles of Jesus is their earthly sensibility: wine for a wedding, food for a hungry crowd, calm for a choppy sea—not to mention Martha’s concern that, as her brother Lazarus was four days buried, there would be a terrible stench if they opened his tomb. Being Easter Sunday in a tenaciously religious country, many of those living in the IDP camps would have managed, somehow, to attend services in their Sunday best. The acts of earthly practicality required to do so may not be miraculous, but they are certainly acts of faith.
4/28/2011
4/20/2011
at Liberty Hall
I’ve been half in the world of hunting parties and coming out balls, having just finished two of Nancy Mitford’s books about the foibles of the landed gentry, crushed as they were between the demands of inheritance laws, modernization, and what would soon transform “the war to end all wars” into a prelude to the second. (In other words, it was a world in which one could sell a diamond brooch and use the proceeds to install central heating in a modest Oxford home.)
Physically, however, I’ve been installed in air-conditioned conference rooms, imbibing PowerPoints and limp hotel sandwiches. This summer I’ll be working for Teach For America for the third year, helping to manage operations for its Houston institute, one of the nine locations throughout the country where corps members begin their training, which includes four weeks of teaching summer school. Institute is often described as an intensive experience—many corps members are fresh from college and new to the classroom. The Houston school system is facing budget cuts this year, and is considering shortening its summer school program, which means that our corps members will likely begin teaching three days after their arrival at institute. Setting up and running an institute, therefore, is an equally demanding and rapid endeavor, and requires thick-agendaed weekends in hotel ballrooms named after the stars in the Texan mythology—the Sam Houston, the San Antonio, and Liberty Hall.
In the sepia-ed world of Nancy Mitford, the moneyed classes would host charity balls and donate funds to various improvement societies. Things aren’t very different today, although the ballrooms are used for conference tables and the ladies get nametags instead of dance cards. Teach For America publishes a quarterly alumni magazine, and reports the marriages and births among its prodigious flock, and in that sense, it isn’t unlike the society pages of both past and present.
To be honest, though, the metaphor only lasts so long, for although Teach For America is known for its recruitment at elite universities, its corporate backers, and its appeal to those wanting to fortify their resumes in pursuit of white collar jobs, its structure is far more complex. The selection process assesses the quality of one’s leadership, rather than one’s alma mater, and a considerable portion of funding comes from federal dollars and regional donors. Perhaps a more interesting discussion revolves around the timbre and tone of Teach For America’s recently revised core values, which emphasize the necessity of “transformational change”—that is, “expanding education opportunity in ways that are life-changing for children and transforming for our country.” Integral to this are four other values: leadership, diversity, respect and humility, and team (a better term may have been "community," but that sounds too much another word that starts with a capital "C" and spells political disaster.)
Teach For America is promoting this revised vision both within and without the organization, particularly through the publication of a new book by Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp: A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All. A word cloud analysis of the text would feature the words transformational, leadership, and change in large, bold font. The ideas aren’t particularly new to anyone familiar with the organization, but the revived sense of urgency and clarity is palpable. Perhaps, on the eve of its twentieth birthday, Teach For America has simply bought a set of new clothes, but I don’t think the development is solely cosmetic—there is a steely edge to its voice.
And thus those of us at the institute-preparation conference found ourselves at dinner in the aforementioned Liberty Hall, listening as Teach For America’s Chief Knowledge Officer, Steven Farr, spoke over the sound of 200 dinner forks clinking against hotel china. Multiplying outward, we will be responsible for training over 5,000 corps members this summer. We placed our white linens on our laps, and listened to Farr detail the development of the organization’s teacher training and assessment methods. Teach For America uses what it calls the “teaching as leadership” model to select and develop its corps members. Essentially, it contends that good teachers do what good leaders do: set a vision, invest others, and persistently work toward results. This is a large leap from the early days of Teach For America, when many such as Farr, who taught in Roma, Texas in the 1993 corps, hoped to “reach just one student.”
The world wars of Nancy Mitford’s days had their consequential and unintended side effects—among others, economic growth, increased opportunities for minorities and women, and revisions to socioeconomic expectations. There were, of course, many negative and direct effects of the war, which makes today’s possibilities—expanding opportunity through quality education for all—even more appealing. Maybe it’s a neoconservative idea cloaked in pantsuits and heels instead of furs and jewels. But there is a radical idea afoot: “It’s a broken world,” said Farr. “And the fact is, the leaders who are able to fix its problems are more likely to come out of Roma than the high school I came from.”
Spanish-speaking waiters were bringing cheesecake and coffee. Farr looked around the room in astonishment. “Oh wow,” he said. “I talked all the way to dessert.”
Physically, however, I’ve been installed in air-conditioned conference rooms, imbibing PowerPoints and limp hotel sandwiches. This summer I’ll be working for Teach For America for the third year, helping to manage operations for its Houston institute, one of the nine locations throughout the country where corps members begin their training, which includes four weeks of teaching summer school. Institute is often described as an intensive experience—many corps members are fresh from college and new to the classroom. The Houston school system is facing budget cuts this year, and is considering shortening its summer school program, which means that our corps members will likely begin teaching three days after their arrival at institute. Setting up and running an institute, therefore, is an equally demanding and rapid endeavor, and requires thick-agendaed weekends in hotel ballrooms named after the stars in the Texan mythology—the Sam Houston, the San Antonio, and Liberty Hall.
In the sepia-ed world of Nancy Mitford, the moneyed classes would host charity balls and donate funds to various improvement societies. Things aren’t very different today, although the ballrooms are used for conference tables and the ladies get nametags instead of dance cards. Teach For America publishes a quarterly alumni magazine, and reports the marriages and births among its prodigious flock, and in that sense, it isn’t unlike the society pages of both past and present.
To be honest, though, the metaphor only lasts so long, for although Teach For America is known for its recruitment at elite universities, its corporate backers, and its appeal to those wanting to fortify their resumes in pursuit of white collar jobs, its structure is far more complex. The selection process assesses the quality of one’s leadership, rather than one’s alma mater, and a considerable portion of funding comes from federal dollars and regional donors. Perhaps a more interesting discussion revolves around the timbre and tone of Teach For America’s recently revised core values, which emphasize the necessity of “transformational change”—that is, “expanding education opportunity in ways that are life-changing for children and transforming for our country.” Integral to this are four other values: leadership, diversity, respect and humility, and team (a better term may have been "community," but that sounds too much another word that starts with a capital "C" and spells political disaster.)
Teach For America is promoting this revised vision both within and without the organization, particularly through the publication of a new book by Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp: A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All. A word cloud analysis of the text would feature the words transformational, leadership, and change in large, bold font. The ideas aren’t particularly new to anyone familiar with the organization, but the revived sense of urgency and clarity is palpable. Perhaps, on the eve of its twentieth birthday, Teach For America has simply bought a set of new clothes, but I don’t think the development is solely cosmetic—there is a steely edge to its voice.
And thus those of us at the institute-preparation conference found ourselves at dinner in the aforementioned Liberty Hall, listening as Teach For America’s Chief Knowledge Officer, Steven Farr, spoke over the sound of 200 dinner forks clinking against hotel china. Multiplying outward, we will be responsible for training over 5,000 corps members this summer. We placed our white linens on our laps, and listened to Farr detail the development of the organization’s teacher training and assessment methods. Teach For America uses what it calls the “teaching as leadership” model to select and develop its corps members. Essentially, it contends that good teachers do what good leaders do: set a vision, invest others, and persistently work toward results. This is a large leap from the early days of Teach For America, when many such as Farr, who taught in Roma, Texas in the 1993 corps, hoped to “reach just one student.”
The world wars of Nancy Mitford’s days had their consequential and unintended side effects—among others, economic growth, increased opportunities for minorities and women, and revisions to socioeconomic expectations. There were, of course, many negative and direct effects of the war, which makes today’s possibilities—expanding opportunity through quality education for all—even more appealing. Maybe it’s a neoconservative idea cloaked in pantsuits and heels instead of furs and jewels. But there is a radical idea afoot: “It’s a broken world,” said Farr. “And the fact is, the leaders who are able to fix its problems are more likely to come out of Roma than the high school I came from.”
Spanish-speaking waiters were bringing cheesecake and coffee. Farr looked around the room in astonishment. “Oh wow,” he said. “I talked all the way to dessert.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
