We Need Our Little Brother Back

The Children are Watching

When my father’s father was five years old, he was orphaned.  His parents died three years apart, each at age 42.  Everything changed. My grandfather recalled standing on the back stoop bawling while Old Bessie, the beloved family milk cow, was led away – and she was bawling!  The three older boys went to live with an aunt and uncle.  My grandfather was quite literally “farmed out,” sent to live with a farm family “down the road.”

He was too little to remember how much time passed, but he loved to tell this story:  at some point his next-oldest brother, then about 9, hitched up the horse to the wagon and set out for that farm down the road.  His purpose was clear:  “We need our little brother back.”  And so he took him home.

A sweet story of family ties.

The story is not so sweet for the thousands of families at our southern border whose children have been ripped away from them. Their already perilous lives are being shattered by the cruel, arbitrary and completely unnecessary decrees of a callous, un-American attorney general who, for whatever reason, is afraid of people who don’t look like him.   Jeff Sessions, defying all human decency, international human rights, and morality, has completely upended the American tradition – and laws – of welcoming refugees and asylum seekers.  People who are fleeing the immediate hazards of war, persecution, kidnapping, drug cartel violence, and other dangers may by law present themselves at the border to immigration authorities to request asylum.  They are, by law, entitled to a review of their situation and their plea, without prosecution.  The proceedings are not criminal.

That is, refugee and asylum petitioners are not themselves breaking a law; they are not criminals.  But their current treatment under the new Sessions directives is criminal in its cruelty and perhaps its illegality.  Sessions has declared that adults coming into the US are presumed to be lawbreakers, “illegal.” And to be “processed” as “illegals,” they must be taken into adult custody where they cannot take their children.

Most of the migrants coming to our borders are families with children, many of them young , even babies.   

Here is what is happening:

1,475 children are unaccounted for between October and December of 2017. According to the Guardian between May 6 and May 19, 658 children were separated from 638 parents bringing the total known separations to over 2,400.

Here is what the president’s own chief of staff said about where the children are being taken:

On May 11, John Kelly assured the American people, “The children will be taken care of – put into foster care or whatever.” 

Here’s what this means:

The children – and their separation from their parents – are the new border wall.   We as Americans, as parents and grandparents and heirs to the stories of our elders as they built “family” over the generations, must join together to stop this cruelty.

My next posts will highlight two heroes in this effort:  a senator who demanded to see – and show the nation -- the conditions of internment and detention these migrants face, and the lawyer nun who can tell us ways to intervene.

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Separating Families - Losing Children

"How Many Ways Are There to Hate a Kid?"
The Children Are Watching

Every time the state issued a ridiculous policy affecting our schools, like more and more tests in more and more  subjects and grades, or deep funding cuts, my colleague Ron Sass,  noted global climate change scientist and Rice professor, would ask "How many ways are there to hate a kid?"   During the almost 30 years we worked together in the Rice Center for Education, we saw lots of those ill-advised, harmful policies come and go, so I heard that question many times.  Ron is retired now, but I'm sure as he sees the news of the draconian ways the US immigration authorities -- backed by a rabidly anti-immigrant attorney general -- are treating the children who come to our borders seeking asylum, refugee status, or even just a safe place to be a child, he knows there are even more ways to hate a kid than we knew.

First, who are the migrant children coming to the US?

•    Children who arrive in the United States alone or who are required to appear in immigration court on their own often are referred to as unaccompanied children or unaccompanied minors. 
•    The vast majority of unaccompanied children and families arriving at the southwest border come from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, although unaccompanied children may arrive from any country.

Second, what is being done to them -- not by bandits or drug dealers or other predators, but by the US government?

•    Unaccompanied children are placed with a parent or guardian who acts as a sponsor while they undergo immigration hearings. The only follow up is a call after a few weeks or 30 days. However the agency that releases the children is not responsible for them after they are released.
•    As a result of this policy, between October and December 2017, 1,475 children are unaccounted for.
•    To calm a public outraged by this callous treatment of even very young children (one child was described as 53 weeks old,  just one week after the first birthday), the president's chief of staff assured the nation that "the children will be taken care of -- put into foster care or whatever."

Can this really be the US?  Can we take pride in being a "nation of immigrants" if the "acceptable" immigrants are only the ones with light skin (you know, those desirable Norwegians!)?  Do we really have official, legal ways to "hate a kid"?

Third, what can be done to help these children -- and to save the soul of American democracy? These separations of children from their parents -- separations that do not guarantee parents will know where their children are -- are so unimaginable, it's not unexpected that most of us didn't know this was happening.  But now we know.  So what can we do to make sure these policies end and that this never happens again?

For the larger questions, I'll be writing about this again. Most important, I'll be writing about what we can do individually and what organizations we can join with to end this cruel and embarrassing treatment of the most vulnerable among us:  displaced children.

As a start,  look into the lawsuit the ACLU has brought on behalf of immigrant children in the custody of US immigration authorities.  Make a contribution to the ACLU for this vital (and expensive) work.  Contact your member of Congress.   Insist Jeff Sessions, the nation's attorney, protect the rights of everyone within our borders, including the children.

To share your ideas about ways we can protect these children, click on the "comments" pencil.

What "Counts" as School Knowledge Here in Texas?

The Children are Watching

As a curriculum theorist, I’ve spent my career studying what “counts” as school knowledge?,  whose knowledge is of most worth?,  and who decides?

The Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Rights Movements created both the opportunity and the societal will to examine our textbooks and our school lessons for the truths they included, the lies they told (like The Lies My Teachers Told Me by James W. Loewen).  Perhaps most important, we learned to ask what histories they omitted, the people whose stories never made it into "The Story" of American history.  For decades Texas’ official science textbooks omitted evolution, and even in recent years the debate over “creation science” as essential to balance “the theory of evolution” has eaten up hours of State Board of Education textbook hearings and kept a Texas’ prominence in the routines of late-night comedians.   Just a few years ago the debate was whether Thomas Jefferson should be in the textbooks, not because he owned slaves but because he strongly favored the separation of church and state. The controversy over whether Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall were appropriate role models for children was an added comic touch:  after all, the law school at Texas Southern University, a state university here in Houston, is the Thurgood Marshall School of Law.

So here we go again:  The social studies curriculum is again up for debate.  Thank goodness the Texas Freedom Network is on top of this new round of curriculum policies. One might cynically wonder if the legislature and State Board of Education have a strategy to keep Texas children ignorant.  (That would make it easier to close public schools, a goal of our lieutenant governor and the politicians essentially owned by the charter school lobby and its billionaire backers, but surely there are people in power who don't share that goal).

For now, lets be less cynical and rely on Texas Freedom Network’s information and campaign for #Teach the Truth. Learn about this curriculum hearing — attend if you can.  Let the members know your strong support for truthful, culturally rich, research-based, engaging textbooks and social studies curricula for our children’s schools. After all, the children are watching!  (And from my research, when they don’t find school knowledge credible, they withdraw from learning — they see that the adults (we!) don’t take them seriously as students.)  Help make Texas kids smart!

Dear Concerned Texans: Eight years ago the State Board of Education approved deeply controversial social studies curriculum standards that even conservative reviewers have called “a politicized distortion of history” filled with “misrepresentations at every turn.” The standards for Texas public schools whitewash the history of slavery and the Civil War, politicize the struggle for civil rights, push a religious agenda, neglect the history of Native Americans and Mexican Americans, and promote other right-wing causes.  This year the state board has the opportunity to fix the standards and ensure that social studies classes  #TeachTheTruth to Texas students. On Tuesday, June 12, the state board will hold its first public hearing on proposed revisions to the standards. Read about some of the proposed revisions  here. What can you do? Join our campaign to get politics out of our public school curriculum standards and #TeachTheTruth. Sign the Petition TFN will testify at the hearing alongside scholars, educators and others who are tired of seeing the far right politicize our children’s public schools. Anyone interested in testifying can register here between 8 a.m. on Friday and 5 p.m. on Monday.  The hearing begins at 9 a.m., Tuesday, June 12, in the William B. Travis Building at 1701 Congress Avenue in Austin. Testify Keep up the fight! Dan Quinn  Communications Director

To weigh in on what our children should be learning in social studies, click on the “comments” pencil here.

Teacher Appreciation, A Gift of Love: The Children Are Watching

Let a teacher know how grateful you are for the many ways she cares for your child, stays up late and works weekends to create lessons that will engage your child's curiosity, expand his mind, stimulate her drive for learning. Let your child's teacher know how much you appreciate all the ways he helps the children make friends, discern the effects of their actions on others, master complicated ideas that transform them into bold know-it-alls, eager to tackle the next tough assignment. (Sometimes that
assignment comes from the tough questions the kids ask, like how colors got their names or why it's ok for countries to make war when kids are told not to bully )

It's time to give that teacher some love! Specifically, I Am Loved, the incomparably beautiful new book of poems by Nikki Giovanni! Ashley Bryan's luminous illustrations add both force and tenderness to these poems of love - love for a child, love for "our dance beneath the sun," love for elders who have passed, whom we sing as a

sad blue song ....

a Song of Blackbird

To Say

You will be missed.

The theme of this collection of poems is clear, the message strong:

I reflect the strengths

Of my people

And for that alone

I am loved

Nikki Giovanni is connected to my life as a teacher: she was a young poet when I was a young high school English teacher in Nashville, my first time in the South. As my colleagues and I sought out Black authors to add to what counted as "American" literature in the curriculum, I discovered Nikki Giovanni. We couldn't have imagined teaching poetry without her.

Give I Am Loved to a teacher. Donate it to your school library. Send a copy to your school board - why not? Remind them what our schools are for: the kids, the teachers who inspire them, and the dreams we have for the kinds of caring people we want them to become. After all, the children are watching.

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The Children are Watching

Image Source:  http://pix11.com/2017/09/11/artist-creates-giant-photo-of-toddler-looking-over-u-s-mexico-border-wall/

A child, wide-eyed, peers over a wall. 

He does not know barriers. He know curiosity, questions, possibilities.  

Who has power?  The builders of tall, menacing columns of steel lined up as far as the eye can see?  The fear shouters?   The definers of out and in, us and them, friend and foe?

Or the child whose mind leaps over the barricades of exclusion.  The child who can’t help exploring beyond what he can see.  The child who reminds us that our actions--and, even more, our failures to act--are being watched.  The child who must wonder if this wall of steel will always form the backdrop of his life.

The artist JR brilliantly and imaginatively takes us to the border and, through this beautiful child, takes down the wall.  I could not be more grateful for his creative vision, his kindness and humor, and his courage in shattering the silliest – and scariest – monuments to fear.   And I am grateful to the mom and little boy who, living in the shadow of oppressive (and insulting) barriers, bring grace to the border.  

AN INCONVENIENT GOSPEL: THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT SPELLS “PROPHET” WRONG

Being neither a theologian nor a scholar of Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic, I have hesitated to write about what passes as “Christian” in a lot of conservative language and policies.  Especially strange is the way “love thy neighbor” has been lost in the cacophony of voices against immigrants, Muslims, Jews, women, people living in poverty.  Whatever happened to taking care of “the least of these”?  Did our Sunday school teachers have it all wrong?  I really have struggled to figure out how people calling themselves Christians could say so many hateful things – and in public, on posters and t-shirts they’re wearing, sometimes shouting from microphones.

It’s not that I’m naïve about the uses of Christianity to justify slavery or subservient roles for women or wars against Muslim countries. And I know that’s not all just a history that’s nicely wrapped up in embarrassing rationalizations in our history books.

But really!  We have people in office bragging about de-funding Meals on Wheels, determined to take away health insurance from the sickest among us – our neighbors who may be too sick to hold a job, much less a job that provides good health benefits.

And these are the same people (you, Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz and….) who claim Christian values guide their decisions.

Image source:  http://d.christianpost.com/full/70797/img.jpg

I’m not qualified to do an exegesis of the gospel according to these self-identified Christian politicians, so I could not be more grateful that Nicholas Kristof has done it for us.  He writes to Pious Paul (Ryan) in the voice of Jesus, reminding him that our mission is to take care of the “least of these.”  Kristof crushes the transformation of “prophet” into “profit” in the Christian-right lexicon. 

Here is Kristof’s Jesus explaining to Ryan why he should learn from the Good Samaritan, though Ryan’s admiration is for the rich guys who passed by the suffering traveler to take care of their own business:

“A man was attacked by robbers who stripped him of clothes, beat him and left him half dead. A minister passed down this same road, and when he saw the injured man, he crossed to the other side and hurried on. So did a rich man who claimed to serve God. But then a despised Samaritan came by and took pity on the injured man. He bandaged his wounds and put the man on his own donkey and paid an innkeeper to nurse him to health. So which of these three should we follow?”

“Those who had mercy on him,” Pious Paul said promptly.

Jesus nodded. “So go ——”

“I mean the first two,” Pious Paul interjected. “For the Samaritan’s work is unsustainable and sends the wrong message. It teaches travelers to take dangerous roads, knowing that others will rescue them from self-destructive behaviors. This Samaritan also seems to think it right to redistribute money from those who are successful and give it to losers. That’s socialism! Meanwhile, if the rich man keeps his money, he can invest it and create jobs. So it’s an act of mercy for the rich man to hurry on and ignore the robbery victim.”

Then Jesus’s response to Ryan’s idea that prayer is “universal health care,” and that Jesus would be smarter to invest with the Donald in for-profit hospitals, making a little for himself on the side:

Jesus turned to Pious Paul on his left and said: “Be gone! For I was hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; and I was sick, and you did not help me.”

“But, Lord,” protested Pious Paul of Ryan, “when did I see you hungry or thirsty or sick and refuse to help you? I drop your name everywhere. And I’m pro-life!”

“Truly I say to you,” Jesus responded, “as you did not help the homeless, the sick — as you did not help the least of these, you did not help me.”

Read the column, pass it on, and pray (if such is your tradition) for this gospel of hate to wear out its welcome before too many more people get hurt.   Imagine if our national conversation right now kept coming back to the question of whether we and our policies really were taking care of the least of these.

Please comment on my post here

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