Odysseus, Coltrane, and Picasso

I think much of this will be exploratory, which, given the nature of the material, the author's first metaphor, and the titular men atop this post, seems appropriate.

As I read the August excerpts this week, I sat her down with Ms. Delpit in my mind and listened in on their conversation.  Specifically, I was interested in what they would have to say to each other re: explicitness and The World As It Is versus The World As They Wish It To Be.

Pleasantries exchanged and coffee poured, I hear both women agree that to be explicit in one's instruction is necessary, incumbent upon those in positions of power, and ultimately a subversive act.

1. Necessary: Familial paradigms have evolved, not acknowledging this is erroneous.
     The author dedicates seventy percent of Chapter Six: Designed Dialogicality to Mr. Lerner's intentional attempts to "bend and stretch" the understanding of his kindergartners.  She shows both his successes and his struggles as his efforts alternatively elicit instances of nascent comprehension as well as snickering.
     To teach a lesson on the differences in the students' constituent families such as Zeke does is common to kindergartens across the country, as August points out.  But his specific inclusion of nontraditional "constellations" (such as on pages 189 & 191) taps gently on each student's glass, as it were.  His deliberate emphasis on dialogicality allows for all the childrens' voices "to be woven into a verbal tapestry of family life" (195). That Cody was reticent to share a story about his family (made up of 2 moms) despite the social space his teacher created surprised August, who later postulated that he was not yet ready to "come out" (198).  She also acknowledges a deeper point on page 195, namely, "Designed dialogicality, although planned and executed for its transformative potential, is not formulaic.  And emancipatory pedagogy doesn't necessarily set everyone free."
     It is here that Delpit would agree.  And though she would celebrate Zeke's classroom methodology, she would contend that Cody did not share readily because he perceived that his story would run contrary to the established codes of heteronormality.  Lerner works hard to provide a safe space for all his students, but there is little retrograde work he can do to un-form whatever non-inclusive socialization they have brought to his classroom.  Even still, he, Delpit, and August would all argue that a thorough explication of the myriad geometry of contemporary families is of irreplaceable importance, and the sooner the better.
     To not teach towards this end is irresponsible for August.  I imagine her equating the omission of texts like Who's In A Family from curricula with teaching 2011 geography from a Khrushchev-era map.  Her personal struggles aside, it seems that the imperative is less moral than evolutionary.  Times have changed people have changed times, and it falls to the teachers to articulate that cycle to their charges.  To resist, I suppose, is to willfully choose the negative side of the "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" equation.        

2. Incumbent: If not teachers, with whom students spend critical time, then who?
     It is precisely Zeke Lerner's role as The Most Powerful Person In The Room to develop situational lessons aimed at teaching inclusion, and do his best to correct his students' learned myopia.  Chances are good that school children receive enough reinforcement of societal norms without any professional or formal schooling whatever.  It is therefore the job of the educator to guide the class' understanding toward a greater and more inclusive perspective.    

3. Subversive: "A family can just be"
     Digital Underground emcee Shock G leads off his outfit's most successful track with a line aimed at dismantling conventional images of rappers in the late 80s and early 90s:
"All right, stop whatcha doin', cuz Imma bout to ruin the image and the style thatcha used to."
Popular culture is rife with examples such as this, both stated and simply acted out.  Shock G tells us what he's going to do, but many others have just gone about their business, not necessarily setting out to, but nonetheless challenging the establishment in the process.  Steve Reich's minimalism, Bjork's phrasing and vocalizations, and David Lynch's nonlinear narratives come to mind.  Each of these artists were doing work that needed to be done firstly, and as a result, tapped on the glass secondly.  The result is that their work has inspired countless people to do their own work, ad infinitum.
     Though this kind of boundary expansion is lauded in the artistic realm, when the results have perceived negative effects on children, people get defensive.  Jazz in the Twenties, rock and roll in the Fifties, and gangsta rap in the Nineties each garnered congressional attention at the vociferous demand of an enraged section of the public believing themselves acting in the best interest of the nation's children.  And now, these genres are being taught in universities as lenses through which to view the human experience.  One has even received the ultimate legitimizing tribute: a PBS memorialization at the hands of America's favorite documentarian, Ken Burns.
     Though the pattern is familiar and unbroken, this remains a lesson we'd rather not learn, it seems.  At the risk of sounding fatalistic, I offer that leaderless movements cannot be stopped, and that reconstituted understandings of legal, contractual relationships will happen.  And the families that these relationships grow will eventually be just that, families.  Free to "just be" (204).  August provides a memorable example of a step taken by traditionalists to arrest just such progress when, on page 184, she recalls the pressure same-sex marriage opponents levied on the federal legislature to provide parents with the chance to demand their childrens' exemption from classroom activities in which the intent is , "...to have children accept the validity of, embrace, affirm, or celebrate views of human sexuality, gender identity, and marriage constructs."  Traditional or otherwise, I suppose.
   
Perspective: Abstract expressionism, sheets of sound, and Argus.
     Both John Coltrane and Pablo Picasso were men of Brobdingnagian appetites, and the Twentieth Century has benefited greatly from their indulgences.  Each were totally obsessed with two things: a commitment to their craft, (often alienating sects of their audience) and the desire to drive their art beyond its confining borders.
     Owing much to Duchamp early on, the Spaniard took the idea of illustrating multiple perspectives simultaneously and produced some of the most confoundingly original paintings of the last century.  Similarly, while playing with giants in the Fifties, Coltrane developed his own sound and boldly pushed it into the next decade.  Like Picasso, he wanted the audience to experience multiple perspectives at once, and played like it.  His solos were flurries of notes, chords really, that he stacked upon one another, until all possible permutations were simultaneously achieved.
         The results were very often beyond description, and so were summarily dismissed as decadent, self-important, or worse.  As for me, I began thinking of their work the minute I began reading August, as their work's most enduring quality is the one most celebrated by the author: adventure.  The European poet R.M. Rilke wrote that being in front of certain paintings helped him "stand more seeingly."  This is the goal of the best of anything  - teaching emphatically included.  If "La Guernica" and "Giant Steps" can help us understand our world and our selves better by their challenge, their adventure, then teaching too can be artful in the same way and toward the same result.
     When the epic hero Odysseus finally lands in Ithaca after twenty long years of thwarted returns home, he is greeted by Argus, his loyal dog - now long neglected by the sophomoric suitors who have overrun his palace in his absence.  Though he has been disguised by Athena, the animal described as laying half-destroyed by flies upon a dung pile, recognizes his master's voice and manages a muzzle lift and a tail wag before giving up the ghost - satisfied to have seen Odysseus one last time.
     I include this anecdote to illustrate August's use of "adventure" as basis for education.  I agree with her.  Being in the mindset of adventure is a wonderful place from which to begin learning.  Since, to an adventurer, good fortune and bad fortune are the same - the goal is the journey.  But no matter the beauty along the way, we are all in some way gripped and guided by nostos - homecoming.  We long for what has not changed, what has remained in the face of time's passage.  Normally, the nostos is the hero's ultimate goal, the reward for the journey, but perhaps it could be re-understood as benefiting those to which the hero is returning, as well.  The hero returns not only with stories of battle, but simply of what else there is.  And if the hero remains responsibly engaged with the stories, they will function just the same way as sharing time in the ZK.  

Digital Underground's "The Humpty Dance"

"Giant Steps" 1960

Coltrane's version of "Summertime" from the following year.  His solo style is prevalent throughout, but if you literally only have a minute, listen to 1:00-2:00.  

Picasso's 1937 piece "La Guernica"

"Weeping Woman" from the same year.