Rick Simonson

Teaching to the Choir (and Beyond)
October 7, 2007

A Saturday afternoon of many weathers in Seattle - wind, spits of rain, sun, clouds moving - all coming and going. It was all very evident from inside the glass 'skin' of the Seattle Public Central Library, the celebrated Rem Koolhaas building, which, for all its razzle dazzle of angles, glass, garish interior color highlights, and shiny tech-ishness, really is built to accomodate books.

Deep in the core of the library, out of sight from the weather, is a steeply-rising auditoiium, which is being kept busy these days by Elliott Bay and other bookstores co-presenting authors there. This past Saturday afternoon it was Jonathan Kozol with his newest, Letters to a Young Teacher (Crown). A packed house was on hand, a huge number of them teachers - past, present, future. Jonathan Kozol is a veteran of book and speaking tours - he knows what he wants to do and how (no q&a, sign-up sheets for his advocacy group to be passed out). And besides the packed house, he has a number of friends on hand, including journalist/author Paul Loeb, who was greeted warmly. Our own self was remembered, too - a nice thiing - Kozol is the kind of person who encounters gazillions of people, and it had been a while. He had vivid memories of  speaking in Elliott Bay's basement readings space on the homeless. gratified that there were a number of them there (usually those who are subjects of such books aren't around when the book is) - that had been nearly twenty years ago.

The 'subjects' of his new book - teachers - are definitely on hand. Letters to a Young Teacher is one of a number of such titles out now, short instructive, inspirational volumes, somewhat mentoring in tone, written to a younger aspirant (real or imagined). Interestingly, the book that really seems to be the genesis of these in present times is Rainer Maria Rilke's enduringly popular Letters to a Young Poet,  which RIlke stared writing (over a five-year period) when he was all of a sagely twnety-seven. Kozol's Letters are written to a young, first-year teacher in a Boston inner city public school, who had started the ball rolling by wriitng him.

While Kozol can and does hold forth on the marvels, mysteries and challenges that would go on in the 'easiest' of classrooms - what happens when you bring any number of young children from different homes together to embark on the complex journey of learning. He is a seasoned hand - himself once a teacher, and the author of a dozen books, most all on children and matters of great bearing on their lives - from their teachers and schools to their having homes (and not), to larger societal questions of the place of children in society.

Letters to a Young Teacher is an impassioned book, not only for what it imparts of classroom doings, but even more so for the obstacles increasingly being laid at teacher's hands - notably the present morass posed by the No Child Left Behind policies set in motion by the present Bush administration - as well as other policies aimed at reducing support for public education in general.

That passion is amply evident in how and what Kozol presents. A bit gaunt from a partial hunger fast he's currently undertaking to protest No Child Left Behind's present requirements, he leans into the microphone, jacket off, sleeves already rolled up high (ready to get down to it), and, often jabbing for points with his left hand, he drives home point after point. The man can work a pulpit. There are clear applause lines in the remarks - and the audience responds in-kind, enthusiastically. It's not all dark and dour, or high and uplifting. At one point, trying to contrast Seattle's more hospitable (he would say) receptivity to these issues than some other places, including his home big city, Boston, he suddenly weighs in with Boston's having a better baseball team. Applause for that line - and then he speaks of his mother recently passing away at age 103, as one of the very few who knew two Boston Red Sox World Series winners (we're talking 2004 and ... 1918). It's a funny (literally) segue - then he's back to the serious intensity.

Later, a journalist asks Kozol his age: 71. Allowing for the weight loss from his fast, he strikes one who has looked to be about age 55 for 40 years - he looked older when he was younger and now looks younger than his years.

Kozol concludes with a wrap-up, end-it line that goes for the standing o, and gets it readily and receptively. Then the long signing line begins, and the booksales that go with - many for multiple copies.

When it is all winding down - a few friends are waiting to go out for coffee, relatively few unsold books are being signed for stock, a journalist is plying him with questions - Kozol shows a whole other side of himself to one of the last hangers-on. It's a young public school teacher, herself in her first year here in Seattle. With incredible self-possession - she waited until the very end for this - this young woman makes a pitch for Kozol to come visit her classroom - which she describes in enticiing detail (some of us there know of the school,). But is something, what she does. In short order, the esteemed Mr. Kozol seems almost like 13-year-old Jonathan (this teacher teaches seventh-graders). The give and take - they go 'round and 'round - is hilarious - and wonderful. Kozol gives but also takes. And the young teacher gives no ground, gives even better than she gets in the banter back and forth. There are note-taking types around and they start transcribing the exchange. I have a feeling that if she is remotely like this in her classrooms, there are 13- and 14-year-olds whose lives will be the better, richer for it.

My only presence of mind at this point - we're trying to thank Kozol and leave, get back to the store - is to offer the teacher the big poster blow-up for her classroom. Quickly, the teacher proffers it for Kozol to sign. 'To sign? What?' 'Something inspirational ....' Kozol starts ... 'Be Joyful' ... then goes for another line ... 'Forget the Tests!' ... and then signs. For a moment, the teacher almost yips, 'No, I can't put that up ...' but then beams. She will. 'I've got a cool principal.'

There were plenty of reasons why this weekend afternoon was worth it - the people, the energy, the booksales,  Jonathan Kozol himself, but this last little dialogue - which brightened all present - was worth the time and effort and anything else of being there all by itself. Letters to a Young Teacher had here a living present moment of mutual exchange, a very vital 'older' teacher and a very vital young one. So the real teachng and learning go, both ways, all ways.

Posted by Rick Simonson on October 7, 2007 | Comments (0)