Category Archives: Theories

Songs for Teachers

by theelderj

My brother recently wrote about his struggles in working with middle school students. He and I talk a lot about education (even though we come at the topic from very different perspectives) and I have tried to commiserate with him, but I know that he has one of the hardest jobs in the world. Now, this post isn’t just an excuse to ramble on and list some of my favorite songs about teachers, but it is a recognition of the important connection between music and education as well as the critical work that teachers do.

“Rock n’ Roll High School”, The Ramones

My brother is in a band now but when I was in high school, it was all rock n’ roll for me. I can’t think back to high school without thinking about being in a band. High school as the Ramones know, is a mentality and a time more than a place.

Now, the problem with my brother’s job isn’t just that it is underpaid (he’s not even paid as a full-time teacher but as a long-term sub) and that he’s leveraged for the next 25 years to pay for the education he got to get there; no, the real problem is that people don’t respect high school teachers—the general public doesn’t understand that educating our children comes at a great psychological cost. And, my brother works with the students who are most at risk but whose potential for change is the highest.

“I’m the Man”, Anthrax

My brother writes well on several occasions about his experience in and after high school. His soundtrack always has a bit of a hip-hop beat. My high school days were a little more heavy metal.  The attitude Anthrax lampoons in this song? That transcends musical genre.

One of the things that may not be clear already is that we come from a family of educators. Our grandfather was a superintendent of schools; our grandmother and aunt taught; our mother is still a teacher; my wife taught English in Hollis Queens (the neighborhood of Run DMC and LL Cool J) before fleeing to become a dentist. I have taught for fifteen years.

We were raised on the belief that not only is education a primary avenue for economic and social mobility, but that educating is a sacred task that rewards sacrifice and dedication with honor and meaning. As I have worked in a high school and Universities I have had to test that belief consistently. When I talk to my brother now, I know that he is struggling to do the same every day.

 

“School’s Out for Summer”, Alice Cooper

Oh, students run ecstatically into the open arms of summer. They don’t realize how relieved teachers are to get there at the end of the year. To all the talking heads who complain that teachers work only part of the year: try spending 9 hours a day with middle school students and see if you can make it through a week.

The end of the school year always brings me a chance to breathe a bit more deeply and reflect on what the year has brought. As a professor, I am afforded a shorter teaching year because I am supposed to spend the rest of my time in “the production of knowledge.” This rather masturbatory period allows me to refresh my mind and refocus. Even though many university educators do get tired out and bitter, we have a much easier time of it than our secondary school brethren.

So, I get to spend months working on articles, writing for the blog, spending time with my family and working on syllabi for the coming year. High School teachers often have to get additional jobs because we pay them too little. This is something I can’t really get over. Why do we pay those responsible for training and preparing the next generation so poorly?

 “Umass”, The Pixies

I have mentioned this song before. I love the chorus. I love the implied irony of the screamed chorus. I love the implied criticism of what ‘educational’ even means. Growing up in New England, the universities of Massachusetts loomed as castles of learning and bastions of experience. The farther away I get (and the more I listen to wrong-minded debates about higher education, the more conflicted I am about which is more important.

It isn’t only that we pay teachers poorly, we also don’t really think about what they do. A big difference between my brother’s job and mine is discipline. If a student doesn’t behave in my classroom, I tell him to leave. In 15 years of teaching, I have only had to do this once. Students choose (generally) to come to college.

Because middle school is essentially mandatory, students arrive with mixed expectation and preparation. Teachers like my brother are on the front line and the final line for some students. The sad fact is that by middle school, the general ‘destiny’ of many students has already been written. On most days, my brother performs a desperate kind of triage. On others, he just prays to survive.

“Oxford Comma”, Vampire Weekend

The boys from Vampire Weekend went to Columbia University. If you have ever spent some time on a college campus, listen to their first album, you can almost smell the dorm rooms around the lyrics. I love this song for the opening “Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma” because of the mix of high and low, the irony that to dismiss an oxford comma you must first know what one is, and because I had an advisor in graduate school who insisted on the damn thing.

But the thing that keeps bringing him back is some kind of twisted combination of (1) need (he has to work; (2) hope (he believes he can make things better); (3) and responsibility—he really does believe that this is a sacred task.

The problem with younger students and their teachers is that there is an asymmetry in what they’re trying to derive from the situation. Teachers want to teach (but they also want to make a decent wage) and students, by and large are not really there to learn. Too much of our social discourse is excessively pragmatic: we worry about how ‘education’ translates into dollar bills. But, much of what makes us smarter and wiser does not simply translate into a wage.

“Suspended From Class,” Camera Obscura

This is a beautiful song. The rhyme of “class” with “ass” both evokes the upside down nature of living inside a high school body and elides two things that shouldn’t go together but often do (class and ass, you see). I love this debut album—the airy vocals are both saccharine and sharp. Who doesn’t want to be suspended from class?

So, two problems to end this post thinking about—first, there is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is about facts; wisdom is about what to do with facts and how to evaluate them. Knowledge can be learned from books or websites or MOOCS; wisdom is gained from experience and process.

A good teacher can help you digest facts and guide you towards wisdom because he or she is wise in terms of process and judgment from years of training and experience. Human teachers will always be indispensable because education needs to be about the acquisition of a measure of wisdom, not the apprehension of myriad facts.

“One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces” Ben Folds Five

One of the reasons many of us keep remembering high school is that we still allow our self-worth to be gauged by who we were then or what we think other people thought about us. Carrying around such baggage is unhealthy, but it can be cathartic to let it go through fantasy or even reality. This Ben Folds’ song about such psychic revenge has one of the worst and most tortured titles of any song in my iTunes library. Despite the title, this is a great rock-revenge song.

The second problem is that we ask our teachers to bring knowledge and wisdom at a time when students are at their most vulnerable emotionally and biologically. Our teachers, furthermore, can be instrumental in helping students develop and navigate the confusing world they face in the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The more resources we give to these champions, the better chance they have to make a real difference.

And, despite terrible stories like those that have come out of Horace Mann and some other private high schools, many of those of us who do succeed owe some gratitude to high school teachers. My Latin, English and History teachers changed my life. I still think of them and shudder to think of the control and discipline they mastered to be so inspiring despite financial and cultural challenges.

“Bishop Allen,” Charm School

When it comes down to it, education doesn’t stop in the classroom. It also doesn’t start there.  A lot of the things we learn in life come from experiences far estranged from the conventional classroom. I love this song because it sounds fun and has a great feel to it. But, what I love more is that the speaker understands that he needs to learn something more, that what he can do is no longer sufficient. This type of ‘metacognition’ is the best thing we can learn because it teaches us how to diagnose what we don’t know, the first step towards addressing the problem.

So, this post is a way for me to remember my brother and all the teachers who labor every day with too few people noticing. The teachers in my family and my life have made my current life possible; they have endured me, inspired me, and, most importantly, educated me in more ways than they know.

Our best teachers are remarkable carry with them the most sublime and optimistic belief—that people can change and that education can be a catalyst in making our lives better. Without a conviction in the former, then we are all doomed to live out destinies over which we have no control. And, without a belief in the latter, we are cursed to a world in which we cannot improve the lives of those around us.

Dear Brother, have a beer on me.

Mmmmm

Mmmmm

Angry Music

by theelderj

“You guys should play more angry”

–The Mixtape Girl’s Brother

“Goddess, sing the Rage of Achilles, the son of Peleus / the destructive rage that sent thousands of Greeks to their doom”

Homer, Iliad 1.1-2

(We never took time on this blog to note the passing and commemorate the memory of the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch. It is always a loss when a good man dies young. Coverage of his passing made me think of this subject.)

When I was younger I had the peculiar experience of dating a girl a few years my senior. Now, as far as the dating goes, there was really nothing unexpected or abnormal (indeed, it was a formative and not atypical adolescent firestorm); the peculiar part was that her (the Mix Tape Girl’s) younger brother was my age and in my classes at school.

Perhaps that is not all that strange—it was, however, a bit awkward. At the beginning he and I were not friends or really all that friendly. (In fact, I am sure he was not all that happy to have me around.) But, by the end of the relationship, we were friendly enough—we actually ended up in a related network of friends. We went to at least one movie together. He farted around me openly.Where the Mix Tape Girl was a little ‘alternative’ (but still close enough to the in-crowd), her brother started out a little nerdy without being a geek—that is, he took AP Physics and Calculus, but definitely wasn’t into Dungeons & Dragons or They Might be Giants. He was a bit of a clown, atypically kind in private, and charmingly goofy outside of school.

One day, when the two of us were working together at a convenience store, I was inflicting another conversation about my band on him.  I am sure he heard me sing and play the guitar more than anyone not dating me or related by blood should have had to. But he never complained. Instead, he seemed to try to understand the maudlin lyrics, the prog-rock harmonies and the attempts to imitate TMBG on one day, Nirvana on the next, and bad folk music on the third.


I think I was complaining about how no one we knew would come see my band play. And then, he said it: “Why don’t you guys play more angry? You know, like Rage Against the Machine or something.” He impressed upon me the value of letting people feel pissed off, the adrenaline sparked by angry music.


In all honesty I have always been a little bewildered by the attraction of the heavier and angrier bands (to the extent that my own affinity for Fugazi is only half-hearted). Moshing, slam-dancing, intentional violence—all these things always seemed off to me. Of course, at the time, the alternatives were to be a full-fledged Lilith Fair supporter, or to dwell somewhere awkwardly between the extremes.


The angry, or aggressive side of rock was not a new phenomenon even then—the heavier sounds that arrived with Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath set the stage for the much later mainstream popularity of a band like Rage Against the Machine which drew on the Hard Core movement of the 1980’s. Punk, especially in its early days with the Sex Pistols, shared the same genes.



Of course, I did not think any of this that day behind the register as we sold 99 cent King Cobras to local drunks. Instead, I tried to figure out what such a kind, often quiet, and altogether ‘happy’ guy like my girlfriend’s brother found to identify with in the anger of Rage Against Machine and the mad noise of “Sabotage”?


The complicated answer I come to years later is that for most of us who lead normal lives, such flirtation with anger acts like an emotional release valve. On a cultural level, our raging musicians, artists (and sometimes crackpots) express the destructive emotions that might just destabilize society if they are given no release.


This is not to say that artists like Rage Against the Machine, Black Flag, or Fugazi have nothing to be angry about, but, rather, that their appeal to those who are not defined by protest and inspired to challenge authority confirms that they are filling a larger cultural need.
Or something like that.

But, when I think about this topic further, this explanation makes sense (although it needs nuance and support). Anger, or perhaps something more basic and animalistic like rage, appears as the central theme of one of the oldest narratives in the Western tradition, the Iliad, where the main character’s rage (Achilles) is so super-human that it not only destroys his enemies but it results in the deaths of his friends. In turn, as Achilles follows his anger to its (il)logical end, it secures his death as well. It is only when he gives up his rage to make common cause with Priam, the father of his enemy Hector, the man he kills and then whose body he disfigures in fury, that Achillles becomes something like a human. He re-enters society. To become a civilized man, he must foreswear his rage.

Led Zeppelin got angry. About a foot.
Yet, the society that tells his tale still ponders the dangers and effects of anger. Why? Because the sub-human, animalistic spirit resides within us—especially within men. I used to think that angry music was popular because anger is a simple emotion that often covers for more complex things. Now, I think that while anger may correlate with many other emotions—loss, frustration, jealousy, to name a few—it is more basic and profound than a mere cloak for tender feelings.

Anger, I could say, is that battle within as we negotiate the balance between our needs and the world that confounds us. Anger, on a larger scale, is the expression of fundamental disappointment in the way things are. Anger, when sampled even vicariously, must be tamed or released for us to live together in something like peace.

Or that’s the answer I have now for why a nice young man essentially implied that my band was too whiny and needed (as he put it later) “balls”. Perhaps this too may explain my brother’s disdain for ‘emo’. Who wants every day and self-pitying emotions  when stronger stuff is on offer, when angry music lets us feel something or express something that we don’t find every day?
Here’s some real angry stuff:

And what do you think my brother?  Does the theory pass the smell test? Did you ever think you’d read about Achilles and Black Flag in the same post?

To Solo or Not to Solo: Is that a Question?

by theelderj

My brother and I have had an ongoing debate for the past few years. In fact, I think that this debate probably predates this blog by a healthy length of time. See, he has a predilection for bands that use what I consider to be too much noise. I have a taste for music that he, at times, considers too ‘emo’ or something like that.

This summary, of course, doesn’t fairly represent either the depth of the discussion or the opinions on either side. The whole concern, I suspect, is so directly connected to our  converging but essentially separate music aesthetics as to represent in toto our different characters and world outlooks.

Most recently, we have been debating the musical structure of songs by Mumford & Sons. One thing we both recognize (and disagree about) is that what sets the band and their style (shared in part with bands like the Lumineers and The Last Bison) is in the eschewal of conventional rock instrumentation—the abandonment of both the drumset and the iconoclastic lead guitar.

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Why I love the guitar solo.

by theyoungerj

One of my favorite solos ever, almost certainly the favorite for the mighty Led Zeppelin. I’ve loved this one for over a decade which is not the same I can say for those old Foo Fighters records. Just listen to how he keeps building the solo until there is a climax, not unlike a sexual experience. Many people, including an interview I can now not find with Jimmy Page, have ascertained that songs like  ”Stair way to Heaven” are modeled like this for that exact reason.

The Elder and I talked about Mumford last week and he commented on my post after some back and forth that he thought most guitar solos are “superfluous ostentation” which I think is the equivalent of tail fins on a car. They look cool and add to the overall picture but don’t really do much for the ride. (He continues the debate here.)

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Written Elsewhere: Billie Jean in The New Yorker

by theelderj

In a recent issue of The New Yorker (Dec 24 & 31, 2012) Bill Wyman uses the publication of Randall Sullivan’s biography of Michael Jackson (Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson) as an opportunity to present his own reflections on the pop icon while saying barely anything about the biography.

In essence, that critical move is ok—review essays are not book reports after all—but the review, which focuses more on the cultural milieu of Jackson and his negotiation of ethnicity, cultural change and fame, leaves in the reader little sense of the focus of the book and next to no idea of which notions are drawn from the biography and which have sprouted full-formed from the reviewer’s mind.

Not that we can really blame Wyman. Have you ever met anyone who has nothing to say about Michael Jackson? He was one of the biggest and probably one of the last of the great entertainment titans. In the modern media environment, when everything is so clustered and people’s entertainment choices are so varied, can we imagine anyone standing so far and above the competition?

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Written (Better) Elsewhere: Prince in Harper’s

by theelderj

Hilton Als, in the December 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine, offers up “I am Your Conscious, Your Love: A Paean to Prince”.  The article navigates the dynamic between adoring writer and iconoclastic performer as both grow and respond to the demands of the world(s) around them. The article both educates about Prince and helps to (re)-create the world in which Prince was received and enjoyed.

Now, before I get to the article you might be wondering why I am reading Harper’s . If you don’t know the periodical, you should try it out (and if you do, you’re probably not wondering why…). It is easily one of the best written, best edited and most contemplative mainstream publications in the English language.

But, as always, my reading of this (probably elitist and left-leaning) monthly has deep roots in personal history (perhaps also anticipating my openness to this particular article). Our late father was a voracious reader. We always had subscriptions to weekly news magazines that my father referred to as rags with terrible writing, good for pictures and browsing at best. He extended this snobbery to newspapers. The local daily was rubbish. The closest acceptable newspaper was the Boston Globe.

(That still didn’t stop my father from getting in a car accident while attempting to negotiate cigarette, coffee and the local daily at an intersection. He also feared not having something to read so much that we used to get into terrible fights over merely possessing Newsweek. Eventually, we actually had to get two subscriptions.)

I never really thought much about this video. The song? Can’t forget it

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Growing Up and Growing Old With Tom Brady, Part 2

by theelderj

(This post is an insane continuation of part 1…)

Tom Brady is now is his 13th year in the NFL. I worry about every change in his offensive line. I watch every scramble for a sign of weakness. When the Patriots lose, I wonder if this is the game that heralds the beginning of the end. I fret over him as I do not even for myself. And, I know I am not alone in this.

We are all young. For a time.

But when Tom Brady was young, there was magic in the air. It almost seemed like the sudden excellence of the Patriots raised the tenor of the entire region. The Red Sox were transformed and it even looked for a moment that we would have a president from Massachusetts in 2004. Of course, most of this was simple escapism—I had my head in the sand to avoid the terrible truth of two wars, a nation speeding off into some of its worst inequalities in its history and a graduate career that at times seemed stalled and going nowhere.

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Growing Up and Growing Old With Tom Brady, Part 1

by theelderj

Note: We take a break this weekend from political posts, apocalyptic visions, earthquakes, and Marriage Equality, to consider another personal passion (sports). Part 2 will be posted on Sunday.

Even they might be giants love Bobby Orr

People who aren’t from New England often don’t understand the peculiar madness and fierce loyalty that infects us—even those of us in exile—when it comes not just to our sports teams but to our sports figures. We live and breathe the Celtics, Bruins, Sox and Patriots (and hey, some people even pay attention to the Revolution); and we fall desperately in love with their leading figures and the unlikely heroes that sports seasons create. (Mark Bellhorn, anyone?)

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Some more Political Songs

by theelderj

The Personal is Political, said Carol Hanisch. The guys in Fugazi know that

After I read my brother’s post about political songs, I knew that I couldn’t be silent. It is not that I do not like his list; in fact, I like it a whole lot. What I cannot leave untouched is his sense of disenchantment.  I think it is terrible that he feels so apolitical. I would call it tragic if it were not so common.

See, I feel  apolitical too. We live under a political system that is at best a plutocratic oligarchy where corporations are citizens. Our elections are so corrupted by money that we spend the GDP of some nations on elections. Even English speaking allies like the Canadians and British think our system is ridiculous.

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Apocalypse (Playlist) Redux

by theelderj 
Well sure as planets come, I know that they end. 
And if I'm here when that happens, will you promise me this my friend? 
Please bury me with it! 
I just don't need none of that Mad Max bullshit.
-Modest Mouse

 

Recently, my brother listed his favorite songs about the apocalypse. For various reasons, I cannot let this post stand alone. (This says far more about me than about my brother or his post.)

Why are we obsessed with the apocalypse? I actually ask this of my students on a semesterly basis. I think that the answer, if there is one, is partly psychological and structural. First, we know that we begin and end individually—part of our death drive or obsession also nearly demands contemplation (and fantasy) about everything expiring just as we will.

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