A college professor responds: This American Life #562, #563

The recent two-part This American Life program "The Problem We All Live With" generated a lot of buzz. More than being buzzworthy, though, the investigation offered a real solution to education in America, however difficult it has been and may be to employ. It's so hard for journalism to not offer a thesis statement in order to appear balanced. But this program did more than peel back a few rotting floorboards on schools, which is oftentimes what education reports tend to do. It offered listeners a well-tested theory, a theory that seems so basic that it's laughable: Integration is the most powerful way to bridge the achievement gap between underresourced and well-resourced schools. Period.

It's much easier, one reporter noted, to dream up fixes for failing schools than it is to try to dismantle the systemic racism and classicism that rendered certain schools a failure.

I can get behind this. Even though I've spent less than 10% of my entire student life in public school. I believe in integration not just as an ideal but as a cornerstone of effective education.

I teach at a private university with roughly 40% students of color. It's a pleasure and a privilege to teach this mix of students. We build circles of trust in classes, in residence halls, in intramural sports, in clubs and the hope is that those circles enlarge to spheres much greater than our little campus. Prior to this gig, I taught at a diverse, urban community college. Most--not some--of my students spoke English as a second language. I taught English composition which was a delight since so many students could empathize with one another in the struggle to master another language. My classes came ready-made integrated. College is obviously elective, unlike public schools grades K-12 in which teachers must educate every child. Still, I agree with the findings of TAL: integration is the clutch in the manual car driving us toward educational reform.

But as TAL's reporting demonstrated, integration is the hard-fought battle, often trying to sell school integration without attaching it to the stigma of busing and without tokenizing students. Ayeeee. Hand me that magic wand....

The reason I believe so much in the power of integration goes well beyond my time in the classroom, however. I identified especially with TAL's coverage of parents expecting so much of schools that they "hand-picked" them. Parenting in America has swung so far to extreme protectiveness that schools seem to get stuck in a holding pattern of incubation rather than true education. Are parents in 2015 truly excited about the heightened challenges of their kids' classes or about the independence their children are gaining through projects and extra-curriculars? It does not appear that way, from the little I've gauged. Parents do their kids' entire projects for them. They "coach" by teaching their kids the position for which they want their kid to specialize. Rather than have their child experience the chagrin of sloppy penmanship or the pride of a job completed by hand--the pervasive attitude for parents seems to be akin to the LA Police Department: serve and protect.

Schools have become like restaurants rated on Yelp.com. Friendly service and immaculate facilities will earn high marks. High expectations of students and varied social dynamics are not always comfortable for patrons. Maybe the place down the road will be better--I hear they have even have a Groupon.

Universities are regarded as country clubs that exist to furnish four-star accommodations and luxury amenities. My students will rate me on the ease with which I grade assignments, the accessibility of my lectures, the availability of me in my free time. It is not enough to teach; teachers must aim to please.

Which is why I think TAL's program sounds the battle hymn for every teacher. We are helping to prepare a generation of students who will need to be problem solvers--solutionaries, if you will. These students will need to experience integration, which may (gasp) entail discomfort. These students will need to learn how to resolve conflicts and stand up for their beliefs. They may even need to learn to innovate using a limited budget, versus waiting for their parents to find something suitable on Pinterest to copy.

It's never our goal to fail: our kids, our schools, our communities. But there's an awful lot to learn through failure, largely so that we don't make the same mistakes--systemic and microscopic alike--again.

On being a one car family

We are a family of four with one car. Before I go further, I want to be clear: this is not a thing. This is not a slow cooking movement. This is not the capsule wardrobe gimmick. You will likely not find a One Car Family Ideas board on Pinterest.

This is also not a ponzi scheme or some other elitist scam for the 1%. This is written with full awareness that to own even ONE car is a privilege not enjoyed by a great majority of the world's population, nevermind an ability to fuel one's car on a regular basis plus the Nationwide Auto Transportation fees, etc.

This is, however, something of a lifestyle choice in an overprivileged overconsumptive sovereign nation and one I would choose over and over again. Do you like how I just cleared my throat for three straight paragraphs?

I've been asked by several people about being a one-car family, which appears to be something of a distinction in the carpool lanes in which I idle. I've thought quite a bit about this and what this says about me: that people would assume this would pose difficulty for us. Fair enough, I say. Because both adults in our family work outside the home in a geography where public transportation is not accessible/reliable for our purposes. Because we send our kids to a school that is not serviced by big yellow schoolbuses. Because we live in an age where 3-car garages are becoming standard in newly constructed homes.

So, I'll claim it as a thing--our thing. We are a one-car family. We have only ever been a one-car family. I brought no car to the relationship. My hubby inherited a green Honda CRV from his parents when we married, but she has since died (RIP Green Bus) and now we drive what I am told is the official car of the New England lesbian: a Subaru Outback. And we love her.

I'll also fully disclose that my hubby and I also own a mo-ped which he is crazy kind enough to drive much of the year to work and back.

There are many obvious perks to being a one-car fam. We pay less in auto insurance than if we owned, operated more vehicles. We only ever have to gas up one vehicle (the mo-ped uses less than $3/week in gas). When we lived in the city, I took the train everywhere, even when I had a double stroller for which I apologize to all who had to make room for me and my Hummer on the T. Now that we don't live near public trans, we work hard to economize our trips instead of just going out whenever we feel like it.

There are some less obvious perks, though, and these are the ones I value most. After speaking with another family who enjoys being a one-car fam, we agreed that there is a heightened communication system that is necessary with owning one car. Simply put: you have to share more. You have to share where you're going, what time you'll be home. I'm sure folks with multiple vehicles do this, but, in the case when my hubby drives the mo-ped to work, I have to stay mindful of the weather patterns. If it sleets, rains, or heaven forbid snows, I know we'll be packing up the kids in their jammies and schlepping downtown in the car to pick up Daddy. I love this about being a one-car family. We spend a lot of time catching up in the car. We work together as a family to keep it clean, inside and out.

Because of Loverpants' and my disparate schedules, we don't often share meals. Instead, we share the wide open road, sharing pieces of our day as we both gaze in the same direction, with our little backseat drivers chiming in and driving us absolutely nuts. And I would not have it any other way.

Lies about seashells

The seashells that make it into the collection, the ones that are worthy of gluing onto jewelry boxes and displaying in glass lamps are the whole ones. They are the bleachy white sand dollars, the shiny conch shells, the hardy raveneli. We search for the ones who have come through the storms at sea and remain in tact. But the lie we believe about seashells is the same lie we believe about ourselves. Because both people and shells who've not suffered a few dings, dents, cracks in their exterior are usually not very interesting. The ones who appear stage-ready with very little effort have secrets to tell. Rarely are they innately more impressive or distinctly beautiful. It's just they've been protected or had a distinct advantage on their journey here. The cracked ones, the ones who are missing a piece, the ones who are nicked with a few holes--these are the ones with epic tales.  These are the ones we stand back and wonder, how? How are they still able to drift over waves and dunes and land here, still shining as sunbeams glint off their jagged edges?

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We spent the week on Tybee Island with my old man and stepmom and their two pugs. We introduced the old man to American Ninja Warrior. I think he's hooked. Or, in his words, "At least I know not to turn it off immediately when it's on." It's really something to watch the old man with the dings in his back and all the white hair we gave him relish these moments with a five and seven year-old, lifting them up over cresting waves and accepting their sandcake offerings as if all of this beach tomfoolery were brand new. As if he'd never known the wonder of the seaside with children before.

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We took a trolley ride through Savannah one afternoon. Savannah with her mossy splendor ravishes me in ways that are more like a lusty romance than a fondness for a city. I think her combination of history and mystery make her unlike any other place I've been. The tour guide covered all the major players from Eli Whitney to Forrest Gump (ha!). She didn't spare us any unflattering anecdote about John Wesley or about slavery itself. History has a way of exposing the jagged edges of our shells that are undeniable. But as the tour wrapped up, we passed a housing development. The tour guide tried to direct our attention to the magnificent railyards across the street, but there was a nagging sense for anyone onboard that we were being diverted. The mansions and the fountains and the art districts well-preserved are all ruddy shells. Heaven forbid we talk about housing projects, though. We can't be looking at the difficult to explain, the less-than-ideal. Just like a clam shell that we cast back into the ocean, we look away from shells now occupied. We prefer to study the vacated, the accomplished shells, the cockles and raveneli who've weathered the storms and who came out unscathed.

The lie we believe about seashells--that the most beautiful ones are the ones who are unoccupied and unmarred--is the same lie we believe about ourselves. Ask any woman who has given birth if she felt at her most beautiful right after having a baby. She has just, with every fiber of her being, brought new life into the world. The magazine headlines will convince us that she can get her pre-baby body back in six weeks time, right on cue for bikini season. I say she will look awesome, sitting seaside under an umbrella with her baby, a mindless book, and a few cracked shells catching the sunlight.