by Lawrence Bush on May 5, 2012
I’m at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, here on a short break to allow the healing power of music work its wonders on me. Yesterday I visited Congo Square, in Louis Armstrong Park, where slaves here in the deep Plantation South were permitted, over the decades, to gather and drum and dance and develop an impromptu marketplace.
Here are the origins of jazz — and here’s where America’s Burning Bush is rooted.
I wept a little as I stood before this sculpture by Adewale Adenle, a Nigerian artist. I shed a few more tears a couple of hours later, standing before the Jazz & Heritage Stage watching an African dance troupe. There is no shade at this stage, and the the clouds had dispersed, and after about twenty minutes of standing there baking — but with my water and my straw hat and my freedom to leave and seek shade or even air-conditioning — my wife said to me, “Can you imagine slaving in this kind of sun and heat all day long every day?” [click to continue…]
by Lawrence Bush on April 29, 2012
My wife Susan is an educator who trains teachers in the use of creative movement in the classroom to teach curriculum. That’s right: Susan teaches grammar, arithmetic, history, literature, science, and more through kinesthetic lessons that get the kids up out of their seats, turn the hyperactive ones into classroom leaders, and restore the light to everybody’s eyes.
Whenever Susan comes home from work, she tells me these moving, redemptive stories about education, and I always yell at her: Write them down! Don’t just tell them to me, write them down!
Others of the stories she tells are about systematic stupidity. Here’s the latest, about two of her favorite teachers, a first-grade teacher and a second-grade teacher, both of whom actively use the arts in their classroom, and one of whom often has difficult children placed in her classroom because she has such success with them. Both teachers were recently evaluated by an observer from the New York State educational establishment — this is “a school in need of improvement,” after all — and were criticized for being “too nurturing.”
“Too nurturing” — to kids who have parents in jail, kids who bring home backpacks filled by their school on the weekend to make sure they have enough food, kids who are told “No, we can’t” whenever they want something, kids who are already convinced by age 6 that life is a bitchin’ struggle. You are too nurturing, dear teachers, because you’d better be preparing them for that standardized test, that “race to the top,” that system where competition, competition, competition, is the only virtue.
What a way to build human beings.
You can read more about Susan’s work at Minds in Motion.
by Lawrence Bush on March 11, 2012
Joe Holtz, General Manager
On March 27th, the venerable Park Slope Food Coop on Union Street will hold a membership vote on whether or not to permit a referendum among members on the issue of joining the Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS). For nearly three years, one faction of members has been urging the Coop to boycott Israeli products (as it has, in the past, boycotted products from apartheid South Africa, from the Nestle’s company, from Pinochet’s Chile, from Coca Cola, and from several other sources). Another, larger faction has formed to oppose Coop participation in BDS, on the grounds that the boycott movement itself constitutes an attack on Israel’s existence because of its support for a Palestinian right of return and a “one-state” solution.
A third faction, which I hope will win the day, consists of leaders and members who believe the Coop should simply be spared from having to deal with such a highly controversial proposal. [click to continue…]
by Lawrence Bush on March 5, 2012
She’s 25 and her name is Zoe. She lives in South Carolina (!) and works as a social worker with the victims of sex crimes. She called tonight and this is what she said:
“You know, I just about never go to Wal-Mart because they’re such an evil company, but Brian [her husband] broke his water bottle and I couldn’t find one anywhere else so I went to Wal-Mart for him. The people there, I don’t know why, but I find them so scary . . .”
“Scary, like threatening?” I asked. “Or scary, like, poor and sad?”
“Scary, like a 500-pound grandmother who’s threatening her grandkids that she’s going to call the police if they don’t behave. Scary, like, ignorant, and overweight, and poor, and angry, and I wish they would know better.” [click to continue…]
I wept a little as I stood before this sculpture by Adewale Adenle, a Nigerian artist. I shed a few more tears a couple of hours later, standing before the Jazz & Heritage Stage watching an African dance troupe. There is no shade at this stage, and the the clouds had dispersed, and after about twenty minutes of standing there baking — but with my water and my straw hat and my freedom to leave and seek shade or even air-conditioning — my wife said to me, “Can you imagine slaving in this kind of sun and heat all day long every day?” [click to continue…]
