Liturgies and yoga

Personality tests come in all sort of flavors, but I've never met one that precisely measures a person's attachment to predictable patterns and routines. I imagine I'd score pretty much off the charts, if such a thing existed. Though I consider myself open to the world in its infinite diversity, flexible in general outlook and downright pinko in my political leanings, I have always had a great fondness for the totally expected. Maybe because so much else in life seems continuously up for grabs.

Maybe some of these 'symptoms' are familiar to you? Cause I know I'm not the only one. For example, I never re-arrange my furniture. Ever. Once my classroom is set up, the desks don't move either. I tried. Once. It was horrible. It was wrong. I had to switch it back right away. I could happily (and often do) eat the same thing for breakfast or lunch (or any meal) for months at a time. Throughout childhood, I mourned the slightest alteration of holiday traditions, wailing, "But it's always been this way!" with all the righteousness of a Victorian matron. Routines are my bulwarks, my levees. They help contain and channel all that intensity and emotion. They sink deep very quickly. Uprooting them is never a casual undertaking.

This personality quirk has made me a big fan of liturgy. Many of you are familiar with the word 'liturgy' in the religious sense, meaning a pre-set arrangement for the celebration of communion in church. If you go to, say, a Roman Catholic or Episcopal service, you will hear the pretty much the same words and prayers each time. The theory is that the words remain constant, but the listener changes as the days and years pass. The variety comes from within rather than being imposed (change! eeek!) from the outside. Liturgies also strengthen a sense of community because, like any good bulwark, they stand firm on their own, independent of any one person or situation.

Just as cool as the church-type liturgies are the liturgies that exists in other areas of life. These are more than super-charged routines. Life liturgies engage a variety of senses along with being blessedly predictable. A weekly visit to the farmers market could be a life liturgy, as could the act of tucking a child into bed, a particular hike, reading the New York Times on Sunday mornings. Anything that's done in the same way each time on purpose in part because the repetition itself adds to the value and strengthens the ties that bind us.

My current favorite life liturgy is Bikram yoga. Yes, that's the hot one. But don't confuse it with "hot yoga." Many a studio these days are promoting their brand of yoga done in a hot room, which makes sense, given the amount of muscle-stretching that takes place. But hot yoga is not Bikram unless it specifically says so. Bikram is so much more than the act of spending 90 minutes in a room with a thermostat set to 105 F.

In Bikram yoga, we do the same 26 postures in the same order every time. Even the words the instructors use to guide the class don't vary much. The postures themselves are plenty challenging (I think) but not particularly pretzel-like. There is very little twisting. There is a lot of standing, balancing, breathing and holding firm. Every time. What we do is not at the whim of an instructor with years more experience than the rest of us. It is about the path we are all following at different points, constant and familiar. Some days I'm dehydrated and wobbly. Some days (rarer), I feel I'm actually making progress, not to mention doing wonders for my joints, muscles and general health. And through it all the liturgy remains the same. This inspires a deep sense of calm and gratitude, as liturgies often do.

The next question, of course, is why all this wonderfulness has to happen in an oven-like room. For an hour and a half. Ideally every day. A person's tendency to embrace extremes and rush head-long toward what seems right no matter how much it hurts is perhaps measured by another personality test. A post for another day...

Home visit bridge

The charter system that I work for is big on home visits. Although the format changes depending on the school, the basics remain the same: a teacher or a group of teachers visits the student at his/her house in order to meet the family and start to build that crucial bridge between home and school.

Forging strong links between school and home is something everyone in education agrees on. It is nothing but good. It helps families feel comfortable with teachers and administrators, who are often seen as inaccessible authorities or representatives of an unwelcoming system (aka: The Man). It's also one of those things that the schools I work for have chosen to actually do something about rather than simply nodding a lot when the topic comes up. Cause who has time? Not us. But we do it anyway. Because it makes a huge difference, and we are unrepentantly in the making-a-difference business around here.

So, I spent the past week in the car driving around Austin to visit all 21 students in my advisory. I sat on their couches or at their kitchen tables. I met their parents, siblings, dogs, cats and turtles (lots of turtles, actually...). I toured their bedrooms and looked at their family photos. I checked homework and went over the school calendar. If the families forgot or moved (this happened just twice), I called back and rescheduled. Thanks to Google, I can tell you with certainty that I logged 206 miles on my car (not counting the four times I got lost, and the one time a mom had to drive out and lead me down her very unmarked country road).

I'm not telling you this to sound all noble. Like our (in)famous Saturday School program, home visits are HUGE pain, in theory. Calling! Scheduling! Driving! Calling back! Waiting! Scheduling! All when there are bulletin boards to be decorated, lessons to plan, curriculum to write, systems to learn! Not to mention the language barrier for those of us who don't speak Spanish. (I am remedying this starting on Sept. 18, but I have nothing but a million hours of French and some Latinate cognates to help me now.) A near-fluent colleague wrote out a dialogue to use, much like those guidebook scripts that tell you how to book a hotel room. And like those scripts, it worked brilliantly...as long as the person on the other end didn't start ad-libbing (or asking very reasonable questions that weren't on the script)!

No, home visits are black-hole-level time sucks when you are contemplating them after a morning of meetings and Mapquesting intricate directions. And yet...when the door opens and your student is standing right there in a summer t-shirt and shorts with a toddler or a dog peeking out from behind their legs and they've made you peach ice tea from scratch or tamarindo (yummy tamarind drink!) or laid out their homework on the table or just finished vacuuming; and their mom or dad (but usually mom) is asking you to sit down and has rearranged her schedule or just gotten home from work and she offers you some water or take-out Chinese and tells you that she hopes this year is better than last year because no matter how her child has done in 5th grade, she wants 6th grade to be better. And you agree because you do, too. For that moment, you are all on the same page: the kid, sweetly shy regardless of typical demeanor, the adults grinning because there is nothing but hope in the equation right now, and we are savoring it. We know that the whole school year stretches out before us, a trail, a road, a mountain. It doesn't matter the metaphor or future difficulty, only that anything is possible from the perspective of this August afternoon. Through the curves, bumps, cliffs and storms to come, we will take the smiles, the sweet taste of tamarindo and this dazzling hope on the journey with us. The home visit has made it possible, put it in our figurative pack along with the sharpened pencils and the homework folder. It will sit at the bottom, and it will never lose its glow. It will help light the way through difficult conversations, frustrations and misunderstandings. We, as adults, know this. The student knows only that his mother and one of his teachers have spent the past 30 minutes nodding, agreeing, even laughing, and looking at him with expectant affection and love.

And that is what transforms home visits from a theoretical pain into an unmitigated pleasure. At least until the door closes and the driving starts again...

DMV analog

Between the Internet and cell phones, it's hard to remember the old days of analog interaction. You know, calling around to every airline to compare ticket prices, paying bills with stamps and envelopes, rolling up to the drive-in window at the bank and talking to a real live teller to get some cash. Yes, the dawn of the digital age has cut a lot of red tape, but alas not all of it, as I found out when I went to apply for a Texas drivers license.

Unlike California, the Texas DMV does not take appointments, phone, Internet or otherwise. To transact any business, you have to take your physical body and a number, park your 21st-century self in a hard, plastic chair and wait. In a twisted tip of the hat to the modern age, your number ticket does come with a printout of the estimated time until served. Mine read 'three hours and 11 minutes.' Ahhh...the good, ol' days. This time-honored method of obtaining a legal permit to operate a motor vehicle hasn't changed in decades, maybe even centuries.

Luckily, I didn't have to check my technology at the door of this time warp, so I had my laptop and lesson plans at the ready. I also had a good long time to eavesdrop on the conversations of those around me. And why not? Public places, like DMV waiting rooms and airport lounges are so safe in their anonymity, so egalitarian and transitory. I will never see the people I spent the morning with, and I perked up my ears to help pass the time.

The man leaning against the wall next to me was sharing with an admiring woman he'd just met how he and his wife adopted seven premature, biracial babies. This was awhile ago because the oldest was sitting two rows back waiting to take her driving test while two pre-teen brothers shuffled a bored orbit between the sister and dad. The young woman in the next row up was texting and led with, "I love how I got up this morning and just felt normal." All the words were fully spelled out.

The couple sitting next to me made me smile because they reminded me of my sister Bec and her husband Chris. It wasn't their physical appearance, but their steady patter of jocular extroverted conversation that bounced around topics through the two hours we waited side by side (they were four numbers--about 45 minutes--ahead of me). I dipped in and out, as I typed away but managed to pick up quite a lot about their lives. They had both come to renew their licenses (a family who wades through red tape together stays together?) and left their son, Ethan, at home. Much of the wait time was spent trying to figure out how to get Ethan (who sounded about 11 or 12) to do his chores in a timely manner. Mom was talking through an intricate system wherein Ethan would be paid a certain amount of money for each chore completed. Dad interjected every now and then with commentary about how much Ethan was being offered relative to his own childhood allowance.

Dad: He can't make more than I did in college.

Mom: Which was?

Dad: $20 a week! And it was plenty for pizza and gas!

Mom: Right now, if all of this works, he's making about $13.50. I have to write this down--where's my pen?

Although Mom's forthright and, yes, jolly demeanor reminded me of Bec, my veteran teacher sister would never make the amateur mistake of devising a kid-management system that is more complex for the adult than the child. Mom was offering the hapless Ethan $1 to vacuum his room, $2.50 to fold laundry, and a mere 75 cents for taking out the trash. (Mom: C'mon! It takes five minutes! Dad: That's a lot more than I made in high school!) Moreover, when Ethan failed to complete a task, she would deduct money from his total, according to the value of the chore. I was tempted to offer some teacherly advice to protect her sanity, when the kid himself dialed in to check on his parents' ETA. My opinion of Ethan (and my private eye rolling vis a vis his mother) increased when there was no squawking from the other end of the line even after Mom required, "another grammar page before you play the Wii." When they hung up, Dad floated the idea of charging Ethan taxes on his earnings, prompted by good-natured (if somewhat obvious) asides about our taxpayer dollars at work here at the DMV. I stopped listening.

Two hours and 55 minutes later (I guess they were running 16 minutes ahead of schedule!), I rejoined the year 2010 in possession of my temporary license: a computer printout of my information and a fuzzy rendition of the picture. As for the permanent version? It should arrive in 4-6 weeks. Right about the same time Ethan's mother decides she's had enough and chucks the chore plan...

Austin associations

Let's do some word association. I'm going to write a word and you are going to pay attention to all the images that come into your mind when you read it.

Are you comfy? Free of distractions? Now empty your mind, more or less, because we're about to begin...

The Deep South.

The Lone Star State.

Texas.

Austin.

Now, you may have had perhaps very similar thoughts about the first three words, and then your thinking shifted when Austin's name popped up. Because you know Austin is different. You know this because you've been told or because you've been here or because you know people (like me) who would never willingly live in a place associated with the images of the first three words.

But exactly how different IS Austin? For some of you (and I know because I've heard the doubt in your voice or seen the dubious expression on your face), the three words before Austin in our little game are still too strong to completely overpower the alternative images offered by this town. You might think, "Sure, Austin might be better for Texas, but it can't possibly compare with, say, Berkeley or Boston. I mean, really."

Let me assure you that it does. It really does, and I've been collecting evidence to prove it to you.

Evidence 1: Whole Foods in based here. The VERY FIRST Whole Foods in the whole world was in Austin and the flagship store sits like a beacon of pricey foodie goodness on its own city block. Unlike your local franchise, this Whole Foods features a bath salt bar, a jumbo body/cosmetic/clothing section, a trattoria, a gelato cafe, veritable acres of prepared foods, a waterfall, and a vine trestle in the middle of the store. I gawked and bought some bubble bath. Whether or not you like Whole Foods, you have to admit that it does boost the progressive/organic/green/foodie cred of the place.

Evidence 2: Brown rice eel rolls are available (and made fresh by request) at the local, non-fancy supermarket. I do not regularly shop at Whole Foods. Who can? But imagine my glee when I steered my cart through the local Safeway/Kroger/Food Lion/Lulus equivalent and discovered that a nondescript corner was dedicated to sushi making, with a dizzying array of raw, cooked and vegetarian options. (Seriously...I have never seen so many choices in one place.) When they were out of the eel rolls, I asked if they were planning to make more, and the guy whipped out his bamboo mat and rustled me up a fresh one. I even got to request extra sesame seeds. All for the low price of $4.59. I would challenge you to find similar sushi offerings anywhere in the country. And here they are at the HEB in Austin.

Evidence 3: Every single person in this town has a tattoo. OK, OK, my scientific and journalistically minded friends...not everyone. But practically everyone. I was sitting at a cafe once and identified a tattoo on every single person in the place at that time (about 15 people). And it wasn't some sort of wildly alternative coffeehouse. At yoga, I am usually the only tattoo-less person in the room where ages range from early 20s to early 60s. No joke! Now, tattoos don't automatically indicate a liberal lifestyle, but the tattoos in Austin do. They are whimsical and artistic, as advertised by the (no surprise) many tattoo parlors around town. The best one I've seen was sticking out of the knee-high boot of a very, very hip woman at a very, very hip restaurant where I ate with two former colleagues (we had no idea it would be so hip!). Right below the back of her kneecap was a detailed outline of a woman on a Vespa, her hair flowing in the breeze. Now that is cool--and unlikely to be found on the back kneecap of any conservative Republican or country bumpkin of your acquaintance.


Evidence 4: Food trucks. Much more on this in a separate post. But for right now, know that Austin is famous for its food trucks. You know, those UPS-sized vehicles or Airsteam trailers with a counter cut into the long side and the ability to prepare food inside. In other cities, food trucks are considered semi-sketch purveyors of tacos and burgers, as unfair as this assessment may be. They roll up to construction sites, abandoned parking lots and cheesy beach haunts. You know, anywhere there's not a Starbucks. In Austin, however, food trucks are a genre of cuisine all their own. Sure, lots serve yummy tacos, but others offer Korean BBQ, cupcakes, frozen bananas, fancy pizza, Czech potato pancakes, fresh bread, lattes, pad thai and Vietnamese pho. They are decorated fancifully, with fairy lights and neon signs. Far from a health inspector's nightmare, they are viewed as a welcome addition to the food scene. What makes food trucks a sign of rampant progressive ideals? Well, I'll use my former Abu Dhabi colleague, the RET as an example. R is for Republican, E is for evangelical and T is for Texan (but not Austin). When K and I landed in Abu Dhabi we had occasion to ask the RET for advice on which restaurants she'd recommend. We were very interested in her answer. And it never stopped being funny to recount it to each other over the years. She recommended Fuddrucker's. Now, there is nothing wrong with Fuddruckers and I don't want to sound like a total snob, even though I probably do. My point is that an American chain restaurant was the RET's idea of a good meal, and that's cool. However, this attitude toward food does not jibe with food trucks decorated like a Jackson Pollack painting serving vegan brownies. Just saying...

Now I realize three out of the four pieces of evidence provided have something to do with food. And it's interesting to note how food has come to represent a sort of socio-cultural/political divide, yet another code for "in my liberal tribe" or not. That is also perhaps a topic for another day. But the fact that this is the case only proves my point about Austin's coolness. Not Texas. Austin. Genuinely, truly Austin.

Day one done right

The charter organization I work for went into the business of opening elementary schools about five years ago. Today, on our campus (in fact, in the next building over), the first Austin elementary opened with 100 wide-eyed kindergartners in bright yellow uniform t-shirts and miniature khaki shorts and skorts. The occasion of them walking toward the buses at the end of their half day was enough to utterly disrupt our staff meeting as teachers rushed toward the windows to coo.

We knew we couldn't get any closer as they bobbed along (five year olds bob...there is no better verb) in their snaking little line. The elementary principal had sent around an email half-jokingly (but only half) reminding the middle and high school teachers that, no, we couldn't 1) pick them up or 2) take them home, tempting as it may be. In fact, it would probably be better if we didn't touch them at all. Or come anywhere near them in the first few days. So, we gazed through the glass at little ones on the very first day of their formal education. If they stay in the Austin area, they could spend every one of their K-12 years on our campus, moving from the elementary building to one of the two middle schools, then across the big parking lot to the high school. The theory is that after five years of a college-prep elementary education (not to mention dual-immersion bilingual Spanish-English), they will be able to enter middle school right on grade level (or above), literate in two languages and primed to continue their upward dash until they roar into college ready as any kid anywhere for the rigors of higher education. No need to play desperate catch up in middle school or high school. These kids will be well served from day one.

But this was supposed to be a frivolous post, and it is veering into serious territory, so let's get back to the uniforms. Is there anything cuter than a small child in a uniform? I challenge you to find it. Some might say polar bear cubs, but let's not forget that under that fluffy white fur are the jaws of a baby-seal-eating carnivore. Others might point to puppies, but I think that's a little redundant given the similarities between a kindergartner and a puppy (too many to name)! Baby elephants might be cuter, but baby elephants do not wear uniforms. So, that proves it. Small children in uniforms, solemn with the seriousness of their very, very first day of school, walking through the open breezeways of the Austin campus where every adult in the place is ready to drop everything just to look at their little faces. Imagine what kind of attention they'll get as they learn to sit in a circle, write their name, read their first words and solve their first word problems. Good luck founding class of 2023! Here's to the next 13 years...

Avoiding the single story

One advantage of having really smart friends like K is that when they go off and spend four weeks at, say, the NYU Summer Intensive in Global Affairs, they pass along all sorts of fascinating information. And, like much info these days, it doesn't exist in isolation, but rather links up with other cool tidbits, so that my brain starts leaping all over the place without ever going off-topic. Like parallel tracks (in keeping with the train theme) that intersect up and down the line, criss-crossing through politics, economics, education, technology, history, literature--anything that lives under the messy, vibrant umbrella of human experience in the early 21st century.

Oh, is that all? Don't worry. This post isn't about all of that. But it is about a biggie. Stick with me here, and don't let the next sentence or the use of the word "thereto" stop you...

This post is about the best frame I have ever heard for conversations that fit under the heading: marginalized peoples and the response of power/privilege thereto. So, things like stereotyping, colonization and legacy, economic justice, any "ism" you can think of, affirmative action, the concept of charity, internal vs. external development models, etc. This amazing frame comes from a TED talk given by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie. K, bless her, recommended it to me, and now I pass it on to you. It can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

If you haven't seen it and would like to change your life in 18 minutes, go ahead and click, then come on back to the post. If you don't have 18 minutes to change your life, close this blog, put down your computer and take a serious look at your priorities, then come back and watch the TED talk.

What did you think? Amazing, right?!

Adichie's concept of the single story isn't revolutionary in and of itself. Plenty of people have said as much before, mostly in the academic journal articles I read in college sociology classes. But like most brilliant ideas that blow off the top of our heads, Adichie's frame rounds up complicated and disparate strands of a highly charged argument and weaves them together in straightforward brilliance that anyone can understand and (more importantly) explain to anyone else. Genius! The practical implications boggle the mind.

For example, the next time someone says, "Well, I know this is a total stereotype, but..." You can say, "I hear you, but it seems you have a single story view of this issue. Let me suggest another part of the story." (I personally would use the American Psycho example Adichie used. Brilliant!) Or, if you are struggling with assumptions, internal conflicts and knee-jerk reactions, as all of us do, you can take a deep breath, give yourself a mental pat of encouragement and go off in search of more than one story about the person, group or situation in question. Because you know those stories are out there, thanks to Adichie's reminder.

In fact, I did this just last night when I was deciding whether to friend on Facebook two of my new colleagues who I'm pretty sure are fundamentalist Christians. (One of them is even in the Campus Crusade for Christ network! Gasp! Eeek! Jerking knee!) My little homo heart fluttered in fear their judgment and/or rejection (I have to work with these people...), but in the end, I took the plunge. It's the least I can do to have faith that they are more than the single story I have about Christian conservatives, just as I hope with equal fervor that they grow to see me in a similar multifaceted light.

It also got me thinking about this past week at the Summit and urban education in general. (Since I can't seem to write about anything else these days...next post will be frivolous, I promise!) There are lots of single stories swirling around about urban ed, even among teachers, and the Summit did a lot to challenge them. Several presenters railed against the single story of low-income parents as universally unable to care of their children "properly." There was repeated and vocal opposition to the single story that students of color are somehow deficient and just waiting to be "enlightened" by well-meaning middle class, mostly white teachers. The keynote speaker, Gloria Ladson-Billings continued her campaign against the single story of the "achievement gap," calling it instead the "achievement debt" and reminding us all of what we owe the descendants of those who saved the Union's bacon in the Civil War and helped build the nation we have today. The whole organization, in fact, was founded to debunk the single story that low-income urban students cannot be educated, cannot achieve at the level of their more privileged peers and cannot succeed in college.

But there are other single stories that have yet to be tackled. The thing about single stories is that they should always set off alarm bells. If one is out there, buzzing around unquestioned, then that's a pretty good indication to start questioning it.

For example, at the Summit, there were funders and board members who had a single story about the "deserving" kids who benefit from their financial largesse without doing much thinking about what "deserving" means in the current educational climate. (I challenge you to find an American child who is "undeserving." I mean, really?) Then, there is the classic single story of any movement, and ours is no different. It goes something like this: if all urban students could just go to OUR schools, everything would be OK. Well, yeah. No. We have wonderful schools full of wonderful teachers and wonderful students. We are, I totally non-objectively say, still one of the hottest things moving in education today. But even I know that some kids need different things, even (especially) urban kids and one size should never be required to fit all.

Perhaps the biggest, baddest single story that needs to be stood on its head is the one about the evilness of teachers unions, as if we exist in some sort of historical vacuum where advocating for teachers as professionals never needed to happen. As a member of my charter organization, it is total heresy for me to even bring this up, but it's a single story, so it needs to be questioned. Just because teachers unions need to change with the times, especially in guaranteeing jobs to incompetent members, doesn't mean they are sinkholes of anti-progress, laziness and everything bad about public education. In fact, I would argue that teachers aligning themselves in opposition to other teachers as a group (i.e.: charters vs. teachers unions) will hurt us all in the long run. We should not seek to metaphorically devour one another. It just can't be good--not when, at the end of the day, we are all in the business of educating kids. Moreover, this single story is keeping other stories about education from seeing the light of day, namely state/national funding practices, community responsibility toward education and lackluster or inauthentic content standards, just to name a few. This profession is too complex--and too much is at stake--for single stories about anything, even the bugaboo of the moment.

In closing...whew. Let's go back to Chimamanda Adichie. Isn't she the bomb?! Isn't her frame of the single story going to change your life? It's clear, easy to understand and doesn't use words like "dominant paradigm" or "hegemony." Not even once.

Yet it's a perfect way to subvert both. Let's hear it for more than one story!

Right there/all right

Has this ever happened to you? You are sitting around a table, or in a meeting or at coffee with someone, and your eyes just can't get enough of their face. And I'm not talking about romance here. In fact, the moment I'm about to describe has nothing to do with romantic love. It's a connection thing, a sense that the world is all right because this particular person is within your line of sight. Your eyes drink them in, and there is gratitude and a whisper of relief. The intensity of the feelings may vary, but the result of the emotion is the same. That person is right there, and you are right there, and that is enough for all to be right with the world.

This has happened a lot this summer: easy, peaceful time in mountains with K, meeting MW's new baby, reuniting with former colleagues in Austin and SF, visiting family, and every single minute with my goddaughter. It's also happened here at the Summit. And it's happened with an odd mix of people, some obvious and some not at all. The least obvious of these encounters happened yesterday in a workshop when I looked around and realized the guy sitting two rows up was a writing teacher I have always admired a ridiculous amount. Mind you, we have spent, maybe, two hours total in each other's presence over the past seven years. But when I saw him, I nearly fell out of my chair. Because he was right there, and I knew he had taken a similar path through the organization, moving from founding English teacher into various leadership positions, then running for the hills only to return to a different school in a different state. I couldn't stop staring at him (in what I very much hoped was a non-stalking way). When we finally realized who the other was, I felt as though five minutes had passed since we'd been in touch rather than five years. Please understand that this is not a person I had thought of even once in all that time. I am not attracted to him on any level other than through the bonds of common experience that connect us and brought us together in that moment. But those are powerful bonds, as I've come to realize this summer.

I've found myself hoarding these experiences of connection, tucking them away like acorns of stability in prepartion for the raw day when I will inevitably feel battered or shredded. I will remember a walk on the Appalachian Trail or the smile of my friend's long-awaited son or how this teacher looked from two rows back. I'm hoping it will bring back that feeling of right there/all right enough to stay on track until the craziness passes.

Roll call at the revolution

The official name for the Vegas conference I'm at now is the School Summit. The word 'summit' has a certain Reagan-Gorbachev mojo for me, as if someone might at any moment whip out a nuclear arms treaty and start signing it. But in the sense of a summit being a gathering of powerful entities that need to hash things out, the title is a very accurate. The 99 schools represented here in Vegas are truly educational forces to be reckoned with, as are the people involved. The main reason for this is because teaching at an urban charter school in our network these days is at least as hard as governing a superpower during the Cold War, with no prospect of a Camp David, presidential library or Nobel Peace Prize on the other end.

This charter network without doubt considers itself a movement as well as a collection of schools deeply involved in the business of helping low-income students of color succeed in college and beyond. Our movement is not to be confused with "the charter movement," a media-inspired umbrella terms for charters in general that doesn't describe a movement at all. (The roughly 3,000 charter schools throughout the United States are too diverse in their goals and reasons for being to be lumped into 'one' anything.) We consider ourselves a movement because the work of educating students who are routinely marginalized, ignored and discriminated against in the public system confronts head on the diseases of racism and classism. These are also issues that engage people's hearts and souls, as well as minds, and inspire the kind of zealous dedication that moves the conversation beyond lesson planning and into the heady realm of societal transformation. Hence the term 'movement.'

As with any movement, the Summit has its rituals. A kind of liturgy has developed around the act of coming together as a now-enormous group of teachers and talking about what we do for three solid days (pretty much without taking a breath even once). One of these rituals involves holding hands and reciting what is essentially a creed, a statement about what we believe. It actually begins with the words "I believe," and goes from there. To you, the mostly non-initiated, this may sound a little creepy/cultish. Let me assure you that it is. But it also works. Communal recitation strengthens belief and builds community, a two-for-one combo that any successful organization needs to sustain energy for its mission. And no one needs energy quite like 2,700 teachers who are working to change education in America.

Another ritual is the roll call. In this ritual, schools or school regions are allotted about 30 seconds to announce their presence at the Summit by whooping it up pep-rally style. At the first Summit I went to (waaay back in 2004), there were a mere 24 chants, cheers or songs to open the conference. This year, whole regions combined (the Austin region, where I work now, for example, has four schools) and still, the roll call was divided into four different items on the agenda because it would have taken too long to get through everyone at once. Some places write a chant or song for the occasion and practice it carefully beforehand (as the Austin crew did). Others use their school cheers. Still others put on a whole skit. The school in Indianapolis staged a mock Indy 500 around the conference hall. The LA schools donned sunglasses and turned their seating section into a glamorous red carpet. The Houston schools (all 18 of them) dressed my friend's husband up as an astronaut and passed him hand over hand (as he flailed in slow motion to signify his 'weightlessness'). Their punchline? "Houston, we have a...solution."

I'm sure sociologists or anthropologists would have a field day analyzing the way the roll call opens a kind of tribal space where everyone's voice (in the form of songs and chants) is added to the collective whole, symbolically preparing the way for all voices to be heard during the conference that follows. For me, though, it's fun to watch what other schools do. It's the kind of thing where everyone smiles the entire time, pride flowing one way from the schools in the spotlight and appreciation flowing the other way from the audience (who will soon be in the spotlight themselves).

It is possible that one day we, as a movement) will fit a stadium instead of a large room in a Vegas hotel, that roll call will need to be spread over days instead of minutes. It is also possible that we will work our way out of a job, as the conversations around what makes excellent teaching and learning hit a point that tips public education into a positive direction none of us can anticipate at this point. Just as history showed us with the summits of the 1980s and the end of the Cold War in the early 90s, there may be a time when the hashing out in public is done or one power recedes to be replace by another that calls for an entirely new response. Until then, though, the roll call goes on..

Vegas for teachers

I've been in Vegas for the past few days at the annual conference of the nonprofit charter school system I work for. I actually really like Vegas. I find it a remarkably genuine place, as weird as this may sound. It is absolutely itself at all times, unapologetic in its over-the-topness, something few places can claim. I wouldn't want to live permanently in such an uncomplicated environment, but its fun to drop in every now and then.

Holding a teacher conference in Las Vegas, however, is an interesting proposition. First of all, the wholesome vibe of education stands in stark contrast to the aforementioned excess: neon glitz, beeping slots, flashy showgirls. It is not uncommon, but definitely startling, for earnest conversations about reading comprehension strategies or math manipulatives to be interrupted by an impromptu bar show featuring a woman in a black negligee singing off-key karaoke to "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood. Things like that just happen in Vegas. Kind of all the time.

Then there are the other people in Vegas. The not-teachers, who take a look at a bevy of 20-somethings in miniskirts and spiky heels (this describes many of the conference goers after hours) and say, "They are... teachers?!" Half wistfully, half scadalized, as if young people who ordinarily work 75-hour weeks wouldn't naturally want to blow off some steam at the hotel's rooftop dance club. I suppose it's worse for clergy here, but only just.

Then there's the unique--and positive!--effect of the Vegas habitat, which heightens the manic energy and creative impact of any large group (2,700 in the case of this conference) that gathers for a common purpose. Hotels here are built around casinos that are carefully designed to suck people in and keep them there. The air is oxygen rich and cool; there are hardly any windows; lights blink, wink and flash in alluring, brain-pleasing patterns. This helps draw gamblers to the tables and prevent them from getting tired, but it has a simialr effect on teachers who don't have time to gamble, but really could use the extra oxygen and sparkly-cave-like atmosphere to generate ideas and stay up late into the night talking and thinking about them.

I'm sure no one has ever done a study, but I wonder if conferences that involve higher-level thinking held in Vegas are more productive than conferences elsewhere. I'm not the betting type, but in the spirit of this place, I'd put my chips on 'yes.'