chainsaw reforms

one of the world's most under-rated tools - the mighty pulaski (not to be confused with the Revolutionary War Hero)

 
There is something exhilirating in wielding a chainsaw. It's machine against nature and for once I'm on the winning side. So, I smile too broadly as the limbs of our decaying orange tree fall down. On some level, I think there is something deeply human in the desire to destroy. Whether it's a two year old knocking down Legos or a twenty-two year swinging a wrecking ball, demolition is part of who we are. Call it creative destruction. Or just call it destruction. Either way, it's there in everyone. If I'm not careful, it becomes addicting.

After awhile, though, nature wins. The chain saw can't go through the tough branches and it seizes up with the scent of oil. On a philosophical level, the tree wins as well. Joel assigns the tree gender and says, "She was a good tree. She gave us lots of oranges." All of a sudden, I'm thinking of the orange juice we made together and the oranges we hit with baseball bats. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly an arbor-phile, though my mom used to sing to her plants when we grew up and on some level I can appreciate the connection to the land.

***

My grandfather's dying. A machine keeps him breathing. When we visit, it's painful to hear an eloquent, sharp-minded man fight a silent battle with an oxygen tank. I think about my grandpa a lot when I'm swinging the pulaski. It makes me sad to think that, when he dies, a machine will create the hole in the ground and a machine will carry his body. I think about our family friend who died and the way in which we hide from death by calling it a "Memorial Service" and nobody gets a chance to see the body.

I think about the health care debate and the danger in arguing who should and should not live. I know it's expensive to keep my grandpa alive and I know he's a drain on the system and I know that he doesn't contribute to our GDP. But he's my grandpa.

I heard a clip on NPR where a man yelled down a congressman and claimed that "it's the illegal's fault." I teach immigrant children and I want them to have health care as much as I want my grandpa to have health care. I don't pretend to know the answers. But I know there is a danger is creative destruction. I know the same impulse to shout down a congressman is the one that guides my arms as I pull the trigger on the chainsaw.

***

I mention all of this, because I despise the educational elite who lead reform. They walk around wielding chainsaws, uprooting communities, shutting down schools all in the name of change. Call it creative destruction. Call it chainsaw addiction. Call it whatever you want, but I know that there are kids who cried the day they painted over our murals and there are families who lost their community school when it shut down.

The Founding Fathers chose earthy metaphors to describe social institutions. In The Federalist Papers, Hamilton compared the government to a body. Jefferson often compared it to a tree shared by the locale. It's not until the industrial revolution that we see the business/factory metaphor applied to schools.

I'm not sure if it's right for Michelle Rhea and Arne Duncan to shut down schools. I do, however, know that it's wrong to boast about it. For what it's worth, I'd have a little more respect for them if they used the pulaski. At least then, they would experience the pain and labor and awareness of a school that's dying. Yet, as long as they engage in chainsaw massacres, I'll continue to cringe when I hear the word "reform."

-John Spencer

-Incidentally, I posted this a few months back on my blog but I thought it fit this one well.