Category Archives: Education

Retirement

No doubt that one of the primary reasons I retired was burn out.  I had worked in secondary classrooms the length of my adult life and struggled the last couple years largely due to growing political pressure.  You see, I bought into the idea that hard work paid off and came to realize that I was dead wrong. My hard work didn’t matter. None of my colleagues hard work mattered. My student performance outcomes, though well above the national average didn’t matter.  Nothing moved policy makers except that they could hire two new teachers for the price of me, and many of my fellow staffers.

When the mortgage market imploded in 2008, Southwestern Idaho flat-lined economically.  While teachers, such as myself, fought draconian budget cuts the legislature didn’t listen. They didn’t care. The brutal impact on classroom numbers and lack of materials made no difference, their ears were closed. In fact, the Great Recession instead provided an opportunity to attack our union and kill protections such as negotiations, due process, and arbitration rights. I found that regardless of my expertise and my kids remarkable growth I was handed more students in class (220 every other day) and less time to teach (down 25% a week).

When I realized I could swing retirement I took it.

I worry about what is behind me in public classrooms.  There are enormously bright kids out there begging to be challenged.  These young people are smart, but need skills and information to develop their optimum potential.  However, as long as law makers settle for cheap, keeping salaries spartan, and classrooms packed, I cannot see America preparing for the future. The results will reflect the dismal investment.

In my state the Superintendent of Education denied that teachers were leaving education due to the perceived oppression from the legislature.  And he can tell himself and the entire House and Senate that tale.  It’s just not true. Teachers want to succeed, aspire to excellence, wish to see achievement among their students.  That is why the miserly funding and lack of support by policy makers has had such a negative impact.  No one wants to go into a job already set up to fail.

Teaching as a profession shouldn’t be done at such personal sacrifice.

English 101

 

Apostrophes

I worked with quite a number of English teachers during my long thirty-three year teaching career.  They, as a group of educators, contribute a great deal to the heart of a school.  Over the years it has become my opinion that the purpose of language arts is to cultivate the dreams of dreamers, the hearts of romantics, and inspire the hero in all of us.

Back during my days in high school I recall reading Romeo and Juliet as a freshman.  It surprised me that teen angst played a central role in a Shakespearean play.  I suffered deeply from those same dramatics and felt validated that I didn’t suffer alone, Shakespeare understood.  By my junior year I developed a serious crush on transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau–that dude sought the identical truths troubling my path at the same time.  In college, Flannery O’Conner’s A Good Man is Hard to Find haunted my thoughts for many months after reading.

In light of the power of the written word, I’ve never understood an English teacher’s penchant for dissecting the writing of their students.  Correct their grammar, okay, but the voice on the paper is so personal that trimming and cobbling feels more like slashing and burning creativity.  (Math teachers really hate it when English teachers correct their grammar.  In one inservice an offending math presenter snapped back, “now for your algebra equation).  I get the part about smoothing out sentences, polishing images and descriptions, but how much is too much intimidation and infringement on the writers soul.

This blog sounds somewhat defensive, and I am aware of my sensitivity.  My book is in it’s final edits and reviewers are hopefully at work as I write, plowing their way through my manuscript.  I have refrained from asking anyone from a Language Arts background to review my work, out of fear of a big red bad grade.  Writing River of January has been such a journey, such a sacrifice of my time and heart, I don’t think I could bear to have banal technicalities flaying the story.  I’ll let my publisher/editor suffer through those arcane changes.

The truth of the matter is that I did not set out in life to be a writer.  I was a history teacher.  In my area of expertise my students excelled in expository writing . . . you remember, the old blue book essays.  The mechanics weren’t as important as voice, evidence, and argumentation.  Where my writing lacks is in the finesse of perfect structure–and that is, I am painfully aware, my weakness.

So English teachers of America–give us heart, inspire us, and let us find our voices in our writing. Besides, since the start of this project I’ve written and rewritten so much that I can see sentence structure much more clearly.  It takes hours and hours of writing to become a better writer. Put away your red pen and let the kids write amok.  As they improve, then go back and point out the rules of sentence structure.  For young learners the corrections will make so much more sense.

Gail Chumbley is author of River of January

White Man’s Burden

Here, in my state a showdown is brewing between the LGBT community and legislators in the capitol.

Idaho passed a Human Rights Act a number of sessions ago believing their votes showed what good folks they were.  They won’t discriminate against women, Jews, Blacks, or Japanese Americans who were interned here during WWII.  There will be no genocide, no back of the bus, nor will camps hold citizens.

These largely white, male reactionaries didn’t realize they had opened a Pandora’s Box of outcomes.  Where they thought they had passed an ‘everybody wins,’ warm and fuzzy law, the residents of Idaho took the lawmakers at their word.

That brings our story to today.  The LGBT community has nearly begged lawmakers to ‘Add the Words’ to the previous Act.  Four words to be precise.  The gay community insists that Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity amend the law as it stands currently.  However, lawmakers will not permit any hearing or even tolerate such an incomprehensible notion.  That is this conflict in a nutshell.  The majority of rural-dwelling, agrarian conservatives cannot fathom that alternative sexuality is real.  Roosters like hens, steer like cows, billy’s like nanny’s.  It’s very simple.  For the religious right, they look to multiple translations and versions of the Bible, and Adam and Eve reads clearly.

The problem centers on real life and real people.  Whether most farm animals (most) behave according to expectations, humans are something more.  Sexuality isn’t a black and white issue like race relations.  And the gay community is real and is suffering.  Simply because those in power refuse to recognize reality–physical bashing, job and housing discrimination, bullying, it is happening.  Haters know what lawmakers refuse to see.  By taking no action the Idaho legislature has condoned persecution.

I am reminded of a story of Queen Victoria.  It was the late 1800’s in London and Jack the Ripper was waging terror in the impoverished White Chapel neighborhood.  However, the Queen refused to recognize the crimes because she did not believe prostitution was real.  How could there be prostitutes murdered when the profession did not exist.  End of problem.

The LGBT community is real.  Even if law makers refuse to recognize the demographic, everybody else in society does.  That’s why the discrimination and abuses are carried out.  Legislators may not believe in alternative lifestyles, and in return we are certainly losing our belief in our legislators.

There are gay characters in my book, River of January, and though it wasn’t my business to out them, I could see they suffered.  One in particular lost his career and died very young after an unhappy, unfulfilled life.

This is, in America, and in my state, the last acceptable prejudice.  Those who govern the people must govern for all the people, whether or not they personally approve of alternative lifestyles.  E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many Come One.

The Poetry of Protest

ImageAlice Paul

Today’s posting has nothing to do with my book.  Instead I am moved to comment on today’s news.

The news of Pete Seeger’s passing is popping up everywhere on all my personal media settings.  And I, as millions of others loved the music of Pete Seeger.  I always have.  The beauty of his voice alone, or with his group, “The Weavers” still echoes compellingly in my mind.

Yet, today, with his passing, I’m not thinking of the silenced music.  As essentially American as his voice and lyrics resonated, the lessons I learned from Pete Seeger are more linked to political conviction and courage.  His was the voice of the non-conformist, the social and political critic who challenged conventional beliefs.

Seeger served in uniform during World War Two.  Though he was a young man when he soldiered, his participation says a great deal about the justness of America’s struggle against totalitarianism.  But after the war, Seeger seems to have instantly grasped the politics of the Cold War for was it was, an excuse to stifle the voice of opposition.  Seeger suffered for his convictions.  When popular thought demanded unified anti-Communist behavior, Seeger did not comply.  It was justice he sought, and in the days of racism and blind war mongering, Seeger would not close his eyes and pretend America practiced equality and liberty.  And his beliefs landed him in political hot water.

His banjo and singing voice were his only sword and sidearm– yet still he made himself a dangerous man to an American government that demanded wall to wall consensus.  This troubadour appeared to be fearless in expressing his thoughts, singing anywhere and everywhere he saw injustice.

The Vietnam War provided Seeger and a growing segment of Americans a broader platform to protest Johnson-Nixon policies in Southeast Asia.

I remember that he was to appear on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” and sing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, an anti-war song.  Such a powerful message!  The lyrics at bottom called out the man in the White House as a “big fool.”  CBS pulled Seeger from the show out of fear of retribution from stock holders, sponsors and hawkish politicians.  To their credit, the Smothers Brothers refused to go on until Seeger was allowed back on the show.  CBS caved, Seeger appeared, the feelings of America soured more on the war, and for a wide variety of reasons America withdrew from that nightmarish miasma.

This blog is a tribute to other voices of opposition across many generations of Americans.  The list is long of patriotic citizens who understood the First Amendment meant what it said.  We should honor the lives of those who resisted the tyranny of a majority they believed misguided.

William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Helen Hunt Jackson, Homer Plessy, Jacob Riis, Henry George, Lewis Hine, “Mother” Mary Harris Jones, Ida Tarbell, Ida B. Wells, Eugene V. Debs, Alice Paul, Big Bill Haywood, Phil Ochs, Mario Savio, Cesar Chavez, Bobby Kennedy, Diane Nash, Bayard Rustin, Daniel Ellsberg, Harvey Milk, and the other thousands of names left off this list.

Hoist one tonight for Pete Seeger and the multitude of others who braved the currents of popular thought, for there is nothing more American than to question the status quo.

Define Truth

One question raised about River of January is,”Are my characters brushes with the famous true?”  The short answer is yes.  Helen dined with Maurice Chevalier, and they performed on the same stage.  Chum crossed paths with Amelia Earhart regularly at Roosevelt Field.   The celebrity passages are factual.  I have their pictures with the famous, references from documents, and proof in aviation logbooks.

Creative non-fiction appears to be a new genre in search of defining itself.  Where exactly is the line between creative and non-fiction?  Though I need to tell this story, I certainly wasn’t alive at the time.  Frankly who knows what the characters precisely uttered to one another at any given time.  I tried to rely on personal and business letters, quoting at length when I could, to add tone, cadence and a feel for the era.  I am adding a lot of pictures for readers to visually connect to the characters, and the sights they photographed on their travels.  Additional color had to come from my imagination, with clues found  in the archive of family memorabilia.

My personal preference in reading is non-fiction history.  I have lived on a strong steady diet of biographies and general histories.  Still I wonder how any scholar concludes their work without feeling uneasily incomplete.  The subtleties of human interaction, the nuances of personal connection are more than left out.  We simply can’t know all facets of historic lives.  Our only alternative is to flesh out the tale with what we understand about the human condition.  And of course every writer struggles with their own blinders, biases, and preconceived notions.

For example the age old question of General Washington’s taciturn exterior has intrigued historians for two centuries.  Was he grave and somber because his teeth hurt?  Possibly.  Did he wish to hide his false teeth due to the fact they were unsightly,  fashioned out of a number of materials–ivory to human–to wood.  Are both theories wrong?  Did Washington remain stoic in appearance to evoke nobility and dignity?  Maybe.  In fact, all of the above could pass scrutiny.  Different historians have differing opinions.

I am not too troubled about shaping feelings in ways I think makes sense.  I’ve fallen in love, held my own in arguments, and felt more regrets than I care to claim.  That is the truth I rely upon to craft the creative element in this historical narrative.

I think all biography and history  possess an element of the unknown.  Whether the history is filtered through professional scholars such as Robert Remini, Doris Kearns Goodwin, or Miss Nobody Gail in her Idaho cabin, we are analyzing viable evidence to apply shape and logic to past lives.

Did Helen meet Sophie Tucker.  Yes.  She told us in a letter.  What did she say to her?  How did she act around her?  I ask myself what would I have said as an American to another famous American performing in London?  That’s the creative portion of this non-fiction format.

All things considered, creative non-fiction is an exciting new canvas for writing.  I feel like a kid in a candy store each time I turn over another photo or letter.

Before War Was Cool

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The protagonist in River of January, Mont Chumbley, or “Chum,” as we called him, pined to join the Navy in 1927.  In fact Chum knew that the Navy was his destiny from the time he witnessed a barn-stormer, (stunt pilot) fly miracles across the rural Virginia sky.  What the boy didn’t count on in his hopes was the resistance he met from his own family.

The Chumbley’s were not alone in their disgust with the military.  All of America suffered from a giant hangover after the Great War (World War One), convinced Americans that their participation had been a horrible mistake.  Though not fully true, the US still viewed itself as a simple republic, not an empire builder bound for global influence.  That policy came later, after World War Two, in the Cold War.

President Wilson staked his own presidency on his Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations, which would have bound the country to Europe in a forerunner to the United Nations.  The public, through their Senators voted the Treaty down, killing it as dead as the soldiers who would never come home.  Books were written after 1919 that discredited war as nothing but a fools errand.  “Johnny Got His Gun” was one such novel, and Erich Maria Remarque‘s “All Quiet on the Western Front” was another.

Folks stateside strongly regretted sending Doughboys across the Atlantic to battle the Kaiser and his evil Hun army.  By the year Chum pushed to join the Navy, the US had negotiated a treaty with the French, called the Kellogg Briand Pact, which outlawed war as an alternative in international conflict.  (“Don’t plant that mine, if you can’t do the time?”  Seriously?)

The Nye Commission, a House investigating committee was charged to find out why America joined the war.  In the end these law makers judged money was the culprit.  War manufacturers, such a poison gas producers the Dupont Corporation and financiers,The House of Morgan, were condemned for their roles in fanning the flames while counting their profits.

It was in this cultural/political atmosphere that Chum wanted to join the Navy.  When his father and aunt objected, they simply parroted the opinion of a nation that believed the military was only for scoundrels and suckers.  If Chum succeeded in enlisting he would draw shame on the family’s name.

Now, I am a child of the Vietnam era and understand the power of public opinion concerning war.  Too many young men came home to condemnation for rendering their duty to their country.  Many were already angry from their combat experiences, especially if they were drafted in the first place.  War protestors vented their fury on those boys who did nothing more than complete their mission.

Still for many young people, such as Chum in the 1920’s, the service still offers training and opportunity.  Perhaps it would benefit us all to remember to separate the advantages of military training, from the poor use of young people deployed for uncertain, poorly planned political agendas.

Chum did meet his service obligations, later after Pearl Harbor.  But he would agree, I think, that he gained more from his service in the Navy, than he returned.

Servicemen have never been suckers, and decision makers must never lightly treat them as such.

Support Our Troops?

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The armistice ending World War One, also known as the “Great War” was signed on this day in 1918.  The idea behind Armistice turned Veterans Day, was to remember the price paid by servicemen living and dead.  A visit to Arlington Cemetery provides a sobering, powerful lesson in the extraordinary price paid by those who gave ‘Their Last Full Measure’, to quote President Lincoln.

Row after  exact row, rank and file marble headstones arc the green, rolling acreage of Mary Custis Lee’s childhood plantation. Surveying this overwhelming vista, proof of the price paid by those in arms raises a difficult, perhaps unanswerable question. How can Americans best provide solace, comfort and justice for our fighting men and women?

One option is pictured above.  While I was still in the classroom, my History Club provided Christmas gifts for those on duty overseas. We wrapped, labeled, and itemized customs slips–mailing the boxes to APO addresses nearly everywhere.  The soldiers pictured expressed their appreciation by sending this group photo, letting us know the packages had made it on time. Oddly enough, I don’t think they even cared what the boxes contained, it was simply being remembered while serving so far away. One soldier thanked us for adding a hometown newspaper sports section. It was the link to home that meant so much.

“Support Our Troops,” bumper stickers scold incessantly next to exhaust pipes. Do gift packages overseas meet that test?  What about promised services, and psychiatric aid from the Veterans Administration to those returned?  Is it enough to purchase artificial poppies from elderly veterans planted in front of grocery stores on this day?  Honestly how can we best “Support Our Troops?”

A former student visited my classroom after serving a double tour in Iraq.  He bore that “Five Hundred Foot Stare,” so common to soldiers scarred by the horror of battle.  In an earnest voice he explained, “We build schools for them (the Iraqis) during the day, and they try to kills us at night.”  This sweet, insulated, middle class boy, born in Idaho, raised on John Wayne movies, could not comprehend the absence of welcome from the Iraqi people.  They not only failed to show gratitude, but lashed out in lethal hostility. How do I support him?

I am reminded of two messages that resonate from two memorable episodes in my career.  The first came from the Chaplain of the House of Representatives in his opening prayer at the World War Two Memorial dedication in Washington. This minister reminded the gathering “that peace is not the absence of war, but the nearness of God.”  I felt not only wise calm in his words, but a new truth in his prayer.

Then there was the sage Chinese philosopher of war, Sun Tzu who has offered his own advice from ancient times. This brilliant military strategist observed that “the best wars are those not fought.”

Gail Chumbley is a historian and author of River of January, her new memoir.

 

Hat In The Ring

Hat In The Ring

This image represents the 94th Aero Squadron, made famous by their aviation daring in World War One. Commanded by Colonel Raoul Lufbery, the 94th formed from the earlier American volunteer unit, the Lafayette Escadrille. The 94th counted in their ranks, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. Rickenbacker became the most decorated American pilot of that war, with 26 verified German kills over France, and earning the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Later, Rickenbacker purchased Eastern Airlines, lending his famous insignia to the Great Silver Fleet. Chum was proud to have known Rickenbacker and proud to have been a part of Eastern. In retirement, Chum stenciled the “Hat” insignia on his competitive aerobatic plane in honor of his earlier career. Today REPA, the Retired Eastern Pilots Association maintains the memory of Rickenbacker and the storied days of Eastern Airlines.

Making Something of Nothing

I began teaching in 1979.  And if memory serves, Paul Volker headed the battered Federal Reserve, and Carter was in the White House turning off lights.  The economy had slumped badly from a combination of Vietnam deficits and the oil embargo, compliments of OPEC.  That was the year I finished college and began teaching, taking a job where I could find one.  While urban school district’s were letting folks go, I was forced to beat the bushes for a rural position.

Eventually I found a district hiring.  The town was quite remote, housing more raccoons than people.  There I taught and coached every sport available.  I didn’t have a choice, the economy was that bad.

Then came 2008–we all remember that disastrous economic mess when the whole financial sector was heading off a cliff.  That was the same time I started to consider retirement, and the prospects were certainly dim.  Due to the dire conditions of the financial sector I decided to hang in a few more years until circumstances improved.  And they did.

Persevering through through hard times is something I understand.  None of us can pause our lives and wait for better days.

It was 1933 when Chum decided to part ways with the US Navy.  The back story to his decision is drawn out fully in my book, River of January.  The short answer is ambition.  Based in Panama, where poverty ran rampant, Chum was insulated from a similar economic disaster that had befallen America.  Arriving in Depression-era New York proved a sobering and challenging experience.  Honestly, the young man’s only assets were his driving ambition, and he could fly airplanes.  As I described in the book, the country was broke.

The same could be said for Miss Helen Thompson.  In a sense the girl was luckier than Chum, (they hadn’t crossed paths yet).  Show business was and is a tough career to scratch out, and very few are lucky enough to arrive.  So she defied the odds of employment every time she auditioned.  In her letters and papers Helen is quite conscious of money and spending.  There are numerous makeshift ledgers of her expenditures throughout her papers.  But it is notable that she never mentioned the general economic disaster.  Helen accepted the terms of her time and place, and soldiered on.  Clearly her assets were drive and talent, the income came along as she persevered.

Neither Chum nor Helen, (or any of us for that matter) have control over the years we breath air.  Tapping into their personal reservoir of  inner drive, the two of them cobbled together incredible lives.  He won an air race, and met famous people, while she danced across Europe and met famous people.  I bet that was fun.  Fun in the time of scarcity.

Women-Relying on the Kindness of Others

Sifting through the stacks of Chumbley mementos, especially scrapbooks and journals, I sensed a distinct female flavor to the materials.  Women, arms around each other, posed in front of fences, on steps, on porches, at the beach, waiting it seems for a man to lead them home. 

In my book, River of January, a California relative married a physician, presiding over a grand home.  The rootless women in her family gravitated west to live with her, and it appears there were no questions asked.  Women without husbands found sanctuary with married family members, as a matter of course. 

Helen, the protagonist in River supported her mother from childhood on, performing across stages in North America, South America, and Europe.  This reverse support system, the daughter financially carrying her parent raised no eyebrows.  The mother expected care.  

Once Helen married, the arrangement became a problem for her new husband. 

Times were changing.