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A Scene to the Girl Who Rides the Bus with Me as I’m Coming Home from Work

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To the girl who rides the bus with me as I’m coming home from work:

You are very beautiful. I feel like I shouldn’t lead with that. But if I ever talked to you, that’s what I would say. It might go south because you might be a super independent woman who doesn’t need the affirmation of a man to make you feel loved and you might overcompensate by refusing compliments. It would be a risk I was willing to make.

I would tell you to smile more. Or I would try to make you smile. I want to see what you look like with joy on.

I would ask you about the books you are reading. I love books. That’s something you should know about me.

I would explain to you that this is not something I normally do. The last time I talked to a random girl whom I found attractive was never. You wouldn’t believe me. That’s cool. I would revel in the idea that you think I’m a player.

I would be a good conversationalist. The sincere kind. I would flirt, but I wouldn’t do that thing where I put you down just so you think I’m an asshole and so therefore desirable. I would ask questions. And hopefully I could coax more than one-word responses from you.

I would tell you about this movie I just watched – TiMER – in which the main conflict is that everyone has these timers that go off when you meet your “one.” I would ask you your opinion. You would tell me that the “one” is bullshit. And I would mostly agree. But then I would argue that “the one” is mostly a tautology. Successful partnerships last forever so of course those people believe in “the one.” For them, it’s effectively true. You would scoff at my theorizing. I would wrinkle my nose and ask “What?”

I would ask if you have a boyfriend. You would say yes. I would ask if you smoked pot. You would say no. I would say, “That explains it.” You would ask, “That explains what?”

I would laugh a little and then tell you my theory about how there are two types of people in the world: those who smoke pot and those who don’t. I don’t want to date those who smoke pot and the ones who don’t smoke pot don’t want to date me. You would say, “I never said I didn’t want to date you.”

I would laugh again until you figured out I had tricked you. You would smile and look away. I would be glad that you smiled.

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I Believe

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I believe words are powerful. I believe the things we say matter. I believe you can say the same thing two different ways and you can have effectively said two very different things.

I don’t believe the world is getting dumber. I don’t believe in apathy. I don’t believe that my generation has less of an appreciation of fine art than my parents’ generation.

I believe fine art is different for everyone. I believe that’s okay.

I believe in God and love and bagels.

I believe ideas accumulate inside of us and if we don’t get them out (through writing, painting, performing, dancing, laughing) then there is no room for new ones.

I believe Real Living hurts. I believe it aches the way a good workout does. I believe you always need a Gatorade after Real Living.

I believe in plans and forms of fate and connections.

I believe in serendipity.

I believe in this woman named Sarah whom I met sitting at a bar who told me that haircutting was like engineering.

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Three Conversations Ed Reformers Need to Move Past

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I made a Tumblr last week for ed reform. I want to talk about education from a global platform, but I don’t know how. The Tumblr is my first step in that direction. But right now, it doesn’t have the kind of audience this blog has.

I’ve been talking about education a lot the past couple of days. I was at the Statehouse for a while listening to legislators talk about it. And I’m frustrated. I’m actually beyond frustrated. I’m angry. We never get to talk about the good stuff, the stuff that will change kids’ lives because we are so busy misunderstanding things and phrasing questions in the wrong way. Here are three things we are doing wrong in the education conversation in this nation:

1. Whose kids are going to go to the trade schools? Legislators love to talk about how it’s not that we don’t have enough jobs to go around, it’s that we don’t encourage children to learn trades. We are always going to need electricians, they say. That’s true. We  will always need electricians. But no legislator would encourage his or her child to be an electrician. Their  children are too smart for that kind of job, right? And that’s where we run into a wall. In this country, not every student has the option of going to college, even if he or she is achieving at the requisite level. And so encouraging kids into trade schools starting in the ninth grade is a form of forcing complacency. Give these kids a trade in which they will be earning $40,000 a year, but don’t give them the education my children get, the legislators say. And so while we masquerade the trade school solution as the thing that’s going to decrease the gap between the haves and the have-nots, it’s actually just a way to make it bigger. Senators’ sons will turn into more senators, and electricians’ sons will turn into more electricians until those two worlds hardly ever talk. So let’s put the trade school conversation on hold until we are sure that every kid, no matter of their zip code or parent’s income, is getting the option of going to college.*

2. Liberty and equality are not opposites. I heard a speaker the other day that was trying to tell me that they are. But they aren’t. If I have a penny, and I want a bagel, but the bagel costs $2.50, I can’t buy that bagel. I’m not free to buy that bagel. That’s how education works. If I have a second-rate K-12 education because I grew up in inner city Detroit, and college expects a first-rate education, I can’t go to college. I’m not free to do the things that I want. Equality is not (as some people like to put it into metaphor) about making sure everyone is on the same starting line or about putting some people in front of others for the start of the race. It’s about making sure that no one shoots any of the runner’s in the leg, while they are running.

3. If you get rid of standardized testing, what do you put in its place to evaluate schools, teachers, and students? Look, I’m no idealist. I don’t think standardized testing is perfect. And if I could come up with something that took more of the learning process into account, I totally would. But we can’t just keep saying “Get rid of standardized testing.” That’s not helping the conversation. Come up with an alternative. Then we will talk.

Please, when we talk about education, let’s stop having the above conversations, and let’s start talking about how we are going to save the kids.

*I want to point out that I don’t believe that being an electrician or having any other trade is anything to be ashamed about. All I’m saying is that when a senator’s kid is good at math, that kid is encouraged to become an engineer, not an electrician.