Stanley Kiesel, poet in residence for Minneapolis Schools, talks with Dan Olson about education, poetry, and his new book, "The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids."

Transcript:

(00:00:05) The war between the pitiful teachers and The Splendid kids is the title of a new book by Stan Lee Kiesel. He sold his poet in residence for the Minneapolis public schools, and he has been an educator in Minneapolis and before that in Los Angeles for 20 years. He is also the author of The Pearl is a hardened sinner among other works the heroes in Stanley's new book are skinny, malenky the hyena girl big Alice and others who carry out a revolt against their school scratch land the forces arrayed. Them at scratch Land school include Sterling guts mrs. Solemn sides. Mr. Foreclosure and his status quo solidify. ER to be used in turning every kid into a perfect young person chapter 3 scratch land School in case you're interested in a description of this institution scratch land was a big school and an old one the wooden floors had buckled making Hills and Valleys across each room. The teachers had long ago close their eyes to the bumpy floors the peeling. Things the water fountains that refuse to work they were developing new curricula the classrooms were filled with Furniture whenever a school received new furniture. The old desks and chairs went to scratch Land There was a chair and table for every kid nothing brought water to a scratch land teachers. I faster than the pride in seeing every kid seated even though the chairs were pretty well scarred with carvings of one sort or another no sense in sending them new chairs. The kids will ruin them. Anyway, they held up. And stretched in rows across each floor bumps and all right up to the Blackboard. The main office was another world going there was like going to dinner with a rich relative. There were carpets vases of flowers on the tables fresh books on the shelves and not one desk blotter had an Ink Spot Of course A kid had to wait sometimes five or even 10 minutes before a clerk would look up from her desk to ask why he was there that was all right because there was always an open candy box 2-inch oneself toward or papers on a desktop. Decipher upside down or telephone conversations to over here occasionally the door to the principal's office was slightly ajar and Doctor pucker could be heard talking to someone about teaching strategies for promoting children's thinking or the responsibility of teachers to maintain friendly relations with janitors or why all staff must remain on school grounds during prescribed school hours unless accompanied by a doctor's note at scratch Land There were classes were everybody. Were kids there was a class called disadvantaged and there was a class called exceptional for kids who were exceptionally different. It was a class called social adjustment for kids whose IQs weren't low enough for EMR educable mentally retarded or high enough for enrichment kids and enrichment were disappointed to find out that it had nothing to do with getting rich, but with trips to libraries and museums any kid who was noisy rude or anchored down by a low IQ got into adjustment one kid from enrichment found his way to adjustment after trying to burn down a museum. There were plenty of teachers to go around if reading scores of four kids took a sudden plunge, lo and behold a special teacher and class sprouted in 24 hours like a mushroom. There was remedial one and remedial two and one class called the yes Center where kids said no speech class was called oral geography and it was popular with kids who didn't want to read music was learning to identify half notes and whole notes. And how to copy a clef signature art was being shown how to paint a horizon so that the sky always blue and the grass always green stayed where they belonged and there were kids there were classes the kids called bus stops transition rooms were kids waiting for their IQs to mature a portion of Stanley castles new book the war between the pitiful teachers and The Splendid kids and Stanley. I can only imagine that when folks have read your books. Or this book, especially teachers and kids parents teachers. They must come to you and say now, mr. Keisler. You certainly have some explaining to do wear a where is this scratch Land school? Anyway,
(00:04:17) well, it's get scratch Land school. Unfortunately exists a little bit of scratch land. I guess exists almost everywhere. Of course. The book is satirical and it obviously is a You're of a lot of things that go on and I hope that some the teachers will take it with a grain of salt and be able to laugh at themselves and other kinds of people maybe not be so defensive about it
(00:04:50) and we should point out that in case some Minneapolis Public School Systems. People are defensive about the book. You really haven't spent most of your teaching time in Minnesota at all. It's been most of it
(00:05:00) in California, right? And actually it's 27 years that I've been involved. That's right 20 seven with Public School Systems, right? I did most of my teaching as a kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles and I've only been here for 10 years
(00:05:13) Stanley is a native Californian. You are a graduate of California State College and your biography says that you hold a degree in English a master's degree in English. You have been a kindergarten teacher as you point out for many years. You are a poet a playwright a book author Stanley is married and the father of two daughters and We brought you to our studio and st. Paul today to talk not only about your new book, but also about education because you work with kids and and work with them on writing poetry in the schools. And I want to spend just a few minutes asking you about the new book and then give out some telephone numbers in a short time where listeners can call to ask questions of Stanley Kiesel. Not only about his new book, but education in General Stanley has agreed to offer an opinion on nearly anything to do with educational or Lord there you go. It's wide open the book spends a lot of time describing how teachers always seem to be involved in meetings. And finally you have said that you have little use for academic approaches and textbook theories of Education. I think you put it in poetry at one point in your life. When you say the professor's recline in the easy chairs of their minds cavalierly Distributing their ideas, like so many urine specimens to impoverished lab Is the air is ponderous with their overly masticated words and desiccated thoughts the hours spent with them drag like barnacled anchors along a sea Bottom now, that's not very nice.
(00:06:46) Well, I think anybody that's gone into teaching probably has experienced the boredom and the repetition of these block educate blockbusting kinds of education courses, like everything else doctors. Mechanics and dentist there are good teachers and bad teachers and my whole my whole feeling going through the educational mil to learn how to become a teacher was that I wish practice teaching had come much earlier. I think there may be some places in this country where that happens, but I still feel for the most part the Department's of Education are doing the wrong thing when they plunge young people into teaching the last year and sometimes not even the Half year perhaps of their four-year stint. I think I think young people ought to get into teaching right away right away from the very beginning. And I think there's nothing like experience and I remember when I was doing my practice teaching it was like nothing that had happened to me in college and I think the quote that you just from the poem represents my feeling of frustration and anger really at a lot of these people, you know professors really don't get don't get into classrooms. Once once they've become professors or associate professors. They lead the academic life and it's a very Altered life. I'm not the first one certainly to have said this this before but it needs to be said again. And again,
(00:08:22) I have the reaction. I have the feeling Stanley that you and many teachers are reacting to what you feel is the imposition of outside standards different forms of accountability and new teaching techniques that tend to come at you from the outside from many different directions. And I imagine that this can be a very difficult thing for a teacher and educator. Later to swallow very quickly because you are encouraged to adapt very quickly and teaching situations.
(00:08:53) Well, you know why I still feel the teachers living in the Dark Ages and maybe perhaps some of that is reflected in my new book where I talked about the three minute a lunch three-minute toilet break or restroom break. That's really not very much of an exaggeration. I know schools where teachers have to eat Lair lunches with the kids now that may sometimes be pleasurable. But I think after a morning of teaching three and four periods, or what have you. I think a teacher deserves to have their own lunch time and it should be a goodly hour of time where they can relax. This is not possible really in most schools. Anywhere
(00:09:40) teacher salaries in Minnesota can range anywhere from all about $11,000. As I guess these days for an entry-level job in some Minnesota districts on up to well, perhaps may be as much as 20 to 25,000 for a teacher with oh 20 years of experience in a PhD something like that. Some people feel that for working 10 months out of the Year teachers have a pretty good deal. And in fact some people believe that teachers should become more accountable that somehow kids these days aren't getting the education they need and it seems we have been seeing the rise again of popularity of Eyes testing in many of our schools and I'm curious about your reaction to this notion of standardized testing and what you believe the results tell parents about their kids.
(00:10:26) I think we I'm not an expert on standardized tests and I can't say that. I know a great deal about the various different kinds of tests, but I'm very suspicious of tests of these some of the tests that I see in the school's I don't think they're really I think the very narrow and rigid and for instance When I was getting involved with high potential kids which are gift gifted kids and I looked at the kinds of criteria that people were using to select these kids who are supposed to be very bright IQ tests other kinds of tests and I wanted to get together a group of kids that I thought were really self-motivated writers. I didn't want to rely on any of those tests. I wanted a more personal kind of choice. So I would ask teachers to give me lists of They thought were independent writers and I'm talking now about v 6 fourth fifth sixth grade kids. And then what I would do is I'd get these kids together and run them through a battery of absurd questions that I that I made up and and from the answers that they gave to the questions. I would choose them for my writing class. Now, of course, this is very subjective and a lot depends on my own taste and so forth in My Philosophy but to give you an example I would give a question like if a magician turned your mother and father into a thing what thing would they be and one kid wrote? My mom would be a washing machine because she's always going around in circles another another question and I thought in okay, that kid has got something going he may be a smart aleck. But then again a lot of these kids are they're very satirical kids, but that's okay was okay for my class. Another question might be is 3 funnier than 4 and of course if you go into a regular classroom, there are some kids will say, huh? What do you mean? I don't get it. You know, they expect logic is obviously ER surreal questions, but there are a lot of kids would say. Oh, I know, you know, and that's the kid to watch. So is three funnier than for one kid wrote. Yes ever heard of the four little pigs. Another one. That was a little different was A coffee pot is like what animal I had a lot of fun making up these questions and one kid wrote a bull because it has steamy breath. And I thought now that's poetry. That's a nice image great imagining and I yeah, right and and you generally I've been pretty pretty good in the selection of these kids just because of the Absurd question kind of thing. I also go by what teachers recommend, but sometimes you have to be a little careful about
(00:13:15) that. It's an interesting comment you make Kids can be smart-alecky as some people call them because they can be very quick with responses responses that may not fit something that we presume would be the correct response and then of course kids are just very active and appears smart-alecky on that basis. And I imagine that that is what is very threatening to a lot of teachers and to a lot of parents has this inability to know how to respond to a kid who is quick-witted or smart-alecky
(00:13:46) right if I find a lot of Of so-called high potential kids are eccentrics. Some of them are rather bizarre and they certainly don't fit in. Well, they're individuals you see and it's really hard for a very individualistic kid to fit into a normal classroom teachers. Well, sometimes they don't have enough time. But even if they have the time they as you say, they're not quite sure how to handle this kid. He gets in the way of the standard reading group program. He gets in the way. The handwriting lesson she gets in the way of you name it. They're in the way.
(00:14:25) The time is 27 and a half minutes after 12 o'clock. We're talking with Stanley Kiesel poet in residence for the Minneapolis public schools. And the author of the new book the war between the pitiful teachers and The Splendid kids in a moment Stanley. I want to have you explain the status quo solidify ER before that. We're going to give out some telephone numbers listeners interested in asking a question of Stanley can call us in the Twin Cities area at 2 2 1 1 5 8 9 2 2 1 1 5 8 9 you can also call us at two to one one five nine one one five nine. One two Twin Cities area telephone numbers that you can call to ask a question about Educators Stanley Kiesel. Now, I have the impression that this status quos solidify. ER is a device that you invented. This book that has to do with something that you have seen used in schools.
(00:15:24) Well, so to speak yes. Yes. It's a it's a machine in the book. It's a machine that is devised by a the greatest science teacher in the world and sponsored by mr. Foreclosure who was a great industrialist. Mr. Foreclosure is really I supposed one of the real villains in the book and his billions of dollars have gone into research and developing this machine. It's a very simple looking machine. One of the characters says it looks like a big refrigerator and that's really what it is. I didn't want to get into computers particularly. It's a machine where you put a kid and after a few minutes and you press a button or two and the lights go on so forth and as the door opens, he steps out he or she is a young person capital y capital P the young person is considered very conservative and It's very different usually dressed up rather well and all the things that have made a kid look like a kid of disappeared and these young people of course are great conformists. Let us hope they are not the Moral Majority.
(00:16:33) Well the status quo solidify our I suppose could be almost anything at use in in real schools. It could be anything ranging from tests. I suppose to various curricula the subject I guess of the new book is Is is one that must intrigued a lot of people who want to write a new book? Where does a teacher find time to write the book? How long have you been working on
(00:16:56) it? Well, I'm a writer as well as a teacher. And actually I was a writer before I was a teacher and If you want to do something you find the time to do it and I've never really had trouble finding time to write. I've been writing ever since I was a kid really young boy and there's always something on the back burner so to speak so and actually the teaching the school schedule works very well for Riders as many people know, you know, you have the holidays and the weekends and so forth and Etc. So it works out quite
(00:17:30) well, we have callers on the line with questions. Stanley Kiesel in before we get to the first one will remind you that you can call to to 115 89 1 5 8 9 or 2 2 1 1 5 9 1 to ask a question. We'll take the first caller right now and go ahead. We're listening for your question. Hello. Yes. Go ahead. Yes. Yes. Yes. I was wondering mr. Kissel if you had done any research or had heard anything lately about the Banning of books in schools by school. Boards such as The Grapes of Wrath and other such
(00:18:08) novels. Oh, yes. There's there's always that I'm not particularly doing research on it. Actually. Unfortunately one does not have to do research. It comes right up to the top often in newspapers and magazines. I guess that's an ongoing kind of problem that schools have to face and that Educators have to face. I think the Minneapolis schools has a very fine way of handling things like that. They have a committee and I forgotten the technical name of the committee, but it's a committee. Very bright sensitive people who are willing to listen to community people and I probably there are Community people on the committee and they handled it very well and air it out very
(00:18:51) well. Well Stanley, how do you explain to parents who become upset with reading material? Maybe some of the Poetry that their kids right? Maybe some of the things that they see you have written. How do you try to explain to them about what kids should or should not
(00:19:07) read? Well, I'm not Not a classroom teacher that's usually the burden of the classroom teacher, especially the secondary teacher the English teacher, but it's very important to educate the parents along with the kids. And I think if I were an English teacher presenting a certain book in which I felt there might be a problem with language or particular incident that the writers writing about. I'd before the kids even read the book. I would get the parents into the meeting and I distribute copies and Talk about it and talk about why I'm presenting this book and I would assume that the teacher would have darn good reasons for presenting the book in terms of quality literature, you know, and I think that's one way of handling it. It doesn't mean there's no guarantee that you're going to please everybody. But as a parent to I feel I have no right to tell other parents and other kids what to read if there's a parent who objects to a certain book they certainly have a right to object and to keep that that book away from their kids what they'll find though is that their kids will probably become much more attractive to that book than if the parents are never brought it up at all and those kids will read it. Anyway, you know, we all live double lives as parents and kids and we think we know our kids and we darn well find out sometimes we don't and it's interesting for me when I go into classrooms to find how the kids will say one thing to me and something else to their teacher and maybe something else to their parent. But going back to the band book thing. The only thing you can do is to be very is to find out get all your facts straight about the book and the author and get involved with with the people who are objecting right away and make sure you have some good authorities on your side. If you feel the book is important and should be in the schools
(00:20:56) have another caller on the line with a question and we'll get to that person right now. Good afternoon. We're listening for your question. Yes. Thank you. I have a question about kids who are encouraged for poetry and a writing in the high school. Quite often their teachers and their parents and peers will recommend that they do something like study economics and whatnot to get into the business world. How do you encourage a student to explore his writing talent and whatnot when he has people saying that you can't make money you can't make a living doing that kind of thing.
(00:21:27) Well, and there are a lot of a lot of fields can't make money at anymore and Well, I function as a writer in the school not just as a poet anymore since I'm a prose writer too and I never fool. Anybody. I say it's hard work and you may not make much money, but it's something you ought to know about and even if you don't become a professional Rider and after all I have no idea which kids are going to become professional Riders when I'm in the schools, even in the secondary schools. I want them to have a good feeling about writers to feel it writers are human beings to their fathers and husbands and brothers and they wash the diapers and a half. Take out the garbage and so forth like everybody else. Nothing too exotic about being a writer really not much of us are that exotic only one or two, maybe a century, but and I think it's important to present a good image for writing and show that writing is hard work but has wonderful rewards and that it opens doors into books and to literature into the most wonderful world it never ends. And I think that it's okay for a kid to be encouraged to go into other fields. I don't necessarily see my role as Encouraging kids to become poets or writers. I just want them to get familiar with language work with it in an imaginative way and respect the craft, you know and appreciate it and maybe discover some new writers of never read before I'm doing a program called literary dig and it's my program. I initiated last year. And what I do is I get about twenty fifth and sixth grade kids from several schools and neighborhood and bust them into a public library. And there we read for pleasure. Now, that's not a writing thing. But it's a reading thing and readers and writers go together. A lot of these kids are writers, but we read for pleasure. And that's one thing. I don't see very much in school. There's a lot of reading going on but it's not the kind of reading that kids really like in fact, it's very sad. Sometimes you come across a kid who I know is a wonderful reader and very bright and he says he hates reading when he doesn't really hate reading he just hates reading in school and that's kind of sad, so I try to give these kids Is an opportunity to read and I present the books I pick out all the books in there really good books and some from the past mostly contemporary and they represent the end. I have a lot of fun with that and that's important. I feel I'm doing something important presenting these books to these kids and we discuss them now we might even have an unreliable author come in of one of the books. Probably someone who doesn't live too far away because I can't afford to bring them in from New York, but Sort of thing. I do in schools. And I think there's just so much you can do as a writer or an artist in the school. It's important to let kids know that you're human and that you are friendly and that your art is not completely inaccessible. And I think those are the important things to present two kids
(00:24:25) time now is about 22 minutes before one o'clock. We're talking with Stanley Kiesel poet in residence for the Minneapolis public schools and author of a new book the war between the pitiful teachers and The Splendid kids. You can call us at 2 2 1 1 5 8 9 or 2 2 1 1 5 9 1 if you'd like to put a question to Stanley about education. Do you get a lot of parents? I'd like to have a lot more to do with educating their kids either out of school or or in school. Do you do see the interest among parents
(00:24:59) growing more going very much so very much. So when I think of how it was like when I started teaching kindergarten Los Angeles about 27 years ago. It was just beginning their and there was a lot of resentment in schools and there were I remember my own administrator at that time whom I thought was a pretty good administrator and a nice guy, but he resented some of the parents in the neighborhood. Neighborhood wanting to push for special programs in the school. He just couldn't handle it and he retired soon after I think that of course a lot of that has changed now and I think it's yes. I find a lot of interest from parents parents come up to me and hallways in libraries and so forth and want to know if I can get involved with the kids in their classes and and what they can do when there are a lot of these a lot of programs going on actually the Minneapolis schools where parents have some real Feedback and are involved in these
(00:25:53) programs. What's the point at which you think a parent should back off from trying to influence a teacher as to how to teach or what
(00:26:02) to teach gee? That's hard to say. I think any any good teacher would welcome an intelligent parent to come in and provide some free kind of good thoughts and ideas about, you know think but teachers to can be very defensive and I I understand that to some sort of split. I mean I'm a parent and I've been a teacher and I'm a teacher in a way and I'm a writer and there are those parents that perhaps make it hard for some teachers. They come on too hard, you know, it's just you have to be that's that's the problem with being a teacher you have to be all kinds of people. You have to be a psychology have to be a diplomat but most parents really want their kids to succeed in school and I think If you go along with that, you can work with that without having it be too much trouble to you as a
(00:26:56) teacher. I think you mentioned to me before we begin this conversation. You brought some materials with you perhaps even some poetry that kids have created for you and in a moment, I want to ask you if you have some examples and can share them with us, but I'm interested in this issue of parents teachers and kids and how the three groups get along. Do you feel Stanley the based on your observations that kids? Are more alienated from school than ever before than when you started 27 years
(00:27:25) ago. Well, that's a hard question to answer and I would only be giving my own subjective opinion. I don't think they are less alienated. They may be more I do see certain kinds of things happening that really disturbs me one is kids don't know how don't play the way they used to on the playgrounds on recess and a lunch hour the amount of violent games that kids fantasize on playgrounds seems to me much more. Sybil than they ever used to be in California years ago and I think really don't think it has anything to do with California be interesting to have a teacher call in give an opinion on this someone who's lived in Minnesota all their life. I've only been here 10 years, but I can remember kids, you know playing with balls and jump ropes and Jackson and drawing Hopscotch has and things like this. And of course California is an area where the weather is pretty good most of the time you can do this, but even so even so now I see kids Would rather even if they had the balls in the ropes to play with they would much rather Chase each other and kill each other, you know, literally kill murder all this kind of stuff and I think it's from television and no doubt about it. You're
(00:28:46) willing to go that
(00:28:47) far. So absolutely and I've talked to lots lots of teachers on all grade levels for lots of long time and they almost all feel this way that television has really become a very bad influence on I'm kids.
(00:29:02) So the the so the behavior that teachers are seeing among kids in classrooms. And on the playground is behavior that can you think can be linked to television in the violence aspect is one that a lot of people have cited in schools. The fact that it is simply becoming out of hand in the hallways in the classrooms and on the playground as you point out, but I would think to there'd be some reason to wonder about the rigid rules put on kids course. It's always been rigid in school, but you wonder if Arne acting reacting to that. I'm
(00:29:34) sure I'm sure that's part of it too. Right?
(00:29:36) Do you see the violence coming out and what kids right?
(00:29:56) Sometimes sometimes yeah, right that that is really interesting the kinds of things they they write for instance. I want to I want to tell you something but I just dropped my paper on the floor. So I'm going to pick it up by all
(00:30:08) means do that. And in the meantime, we can tell people that we're talking with Stanley Kiesel of poet in residence for the Minneapolis public schools. Now you've retrieved
(00:30:18) it. Well, I went into a classroom a long time ago and was warned about a particular kid who was sitting in the back. Native American kid and she was the Troublemaker obviously and he was the teacher told me he was always making noises and was continue to make noise and he was going to do all kinds of things. Of course. He'd never written anything. Well, I that was a kid I was interested in and I just went to the Blackboard and wrote something on the black guy wrote what I want my what I want my father to do I printed it because these kids are all had terrible handwriting problems. So I said if anybody wants to print anything under that caption, and I don't care about your spelling her. Writing do it and a lot of kids raised their hands and did a road all kinds of things what I want my father to do and you can imagine what some of them were. But finally this Indian kid came up and wrote come home and teacher hadn't known that there was no father in that home then later on. We were the kid did make noises. He hates an interesting noises. I stopped the whole class and I had the kid to come out and make the noise in front of the group. He was happy to do that. And I that sounded just like Like a lawn mower, it sounded like a hand lawn mower. And I told him that we got into a whole thing about machines and he was interested in that. He did his noise and other kids didn't imitated the sounds of other machines and pretty soon pretty soon. We talked about, you know, if you were a machine what kind of a machine you would be and And then we wrote it we wrote the kinds of machines and this kid wrote wrote something that I've kept or like to read. He wrote my dad broke down two years ago first. He lost his hubcaps and he got no brakes his gas tank started leaking so we run out of gas a lot. then serious stuff goes on like flat tires and and motor conking out mom and I revved him up very once And a while but no good happening. He's just a piece of junk somewhere. We don't know but I miss him sometimes and I'm going and I'm going to be a car fixer when I am 18. What a remarkable piece of writing. I thought it was I thought Not only was it remarkable piece of writing but it was remarkable statement on his how he felt about life and and people and I think you know when a kid reacts that way have Grab onto it and do something with it. You can't ignore
(00:32:48) it your find your your work with poetry and encouraging kids to write poetry releasing lots of emotions in kids that surprise you depths of expression that you hadn't expected to see.
(00:33:01) Well, they don't really surprise me anymore. But sometimes they do, you know, it's one way that kids if you ease up on the pressures of spelling and handwriting and punctuation and I know a lot of good TR lot of good teachers in the The schools are do that. And I know teachers that sit along give the kids a writing assignment and they write with them. That's wonderful because you see there the teacher is struggling along with the kid. A lot of teachers don't realize how hard it is to write and especially if you come from a culture where there hasn't been any writing going on in the past or even in with your family and aren't any books in the house. I mean, it's hard hard work is even hard work for a sophisticated professional Rider to right. So what do you expect from kids? So
(00:33:46) this can be a difficult thing to explain though to some parents and perhaps even some other Educators when you say listen, he's up on the rules for punctuation and grammar. Just let the kid right
(00:33:55) for well, you say there's a time and a place for everything. Of course. They're the kids should learn how to spell but how many of us adults spell everything beautifully and correctly, you know, there's a wonderful book out that I give to teachers that's called the bad spellers dictionary and all the words are misspelled you see and you look up the misspelling and then you find the correct word. It's a great book to get a royalty on that one. But anyway, well, you have to tell parents this, you know, of course, you know, and I tell kids when a writer types of something to send to his publisher. He doesn't want any any errors, you know, and when the book is printed you don't want any errors because it's out in the world and you don't want to be be made looking like a fool but so there's a time and a place and when you start begin to think and get ideas to ride down it's not important. Your spelling is perfectly correct or
(00:34:46) not. You have used misspellings in your new book as kind of an illustration of expression not only misspellings, but they say something about how the kid
(00:34:54) thinks Ryan totally right? Yes. And you know, there's a lot of wonderful poetry that's has a lot to do with are I mean poet sometimes themselves make an error in their writing and they like the error better than what they were originally trying to spell, you know, it leads to new words or new Expressions,
(00:35:12) but there are some forces in education these days that The back-to-basics movement, for example where I have the impression that the emphasis is on learning the correct way to do things. Do you feel that that is going to stifle some of the creativity that you see or is that not an issue in
(00:35:30) that? Well, I hope not. It depends on the teachers and that that admit that administrator. I've been in some of these we have several in the Minneapolis schools, and I've been happily I've been called to come in as a poet and I think that's great. So I think Think it depends on the individual classroom teacher. I hope that it
(00:35:48) doesn't some people may have a misconception of what Back to Basics are fundamental education means it does not mean rule by the
(00:35:56) yardstick. I would hope not no. It's a real emphasis on Reading Writing arithmetic and the kids are accountable to do certain kinds of things and certain kinds of ways. There's a good deal of parent involvement there. The parents are And reports maybe weekly reports on how their kids are progressing. I mean it's a very disciplined kind of and you know, some kids do better in these kinds of schools and they do an open schools and others don't
(00:36:30) you mentioned earlier your project the litter the literary dig and the fact that you lead kids to public libraries and help them search for materials that they can read for enjoyment or you alarmed at occasional reports that we see about reading. Levels among kids the fact that reading levels apparently aren't ahead of where they were some years ago or that their fluctuating usually declining that's what concerns a lot of people what do reading level scores. Tell us about
(00:36:58) anything. Well, it's very chancy. I sometimes think the whole reading thing in schools is like the arms race, you know, it's an escalation and no one knows where it's going to stop. We have have to be very careful. I think in determining How we teach kids to read and I think a lot of good Educators realize you know, there are a lot of ways to teach kids to read. We don't have to buy these fancy text books that cost millions of dollars and introduced in a one kind of textbook that all the kids are reading at the same grade level on the same page day after day after day. It's terribly uninteresting and flat and I'll never forget the book spinster by Sylvie Ashton wonder where she talked about teaching these and my Ori kids they made their own books out of their own vocabulary and became very real to them. Of course some of the vocabulary was obscene and that's hard to handle in public school setting but it seems to me there's should be a middle ground there where you can use a lot of different approaches and also get the kids involved in their own expect writing their own experiences down
(00:38:08) scores then in your opinion should not be taken as the literal truth of what Ed's can
(00:38:15) do I think they are very limited kinds of things. I think we should look at other kinds of behaviors and this kind of thing in school besides just the score. It's like the cumulative record cards that we keep on kids in school and people write these comments on kids. They're awfully funny to look at years later strange, you know and all these numbers all these tests numbers that we go through kids are add up to more than all these numbers and descriptions.
(00:38:50) What about the morale of your colleagues the teachers we've talked now about Quite a few issues within the past 50 minutes that have to do with kids. You've mentioned the change in Behavior. You've seen on playgrounds that relates to violence. We've talked about the imposition of structures that can be more rigid for kids the increase in popularity of standardized testing and so on is you travel around in the schools that you work in and talk with your colleagues. What do you ascertain about the level of morale among teachers these
(00:39:22) days now, I think it's low and and that's no secret a lot of reasons for it. You know, the whole economic picture is crushing to teachers the fact that their retirement plans are shrinking the fact that there are no jobs, you know for young teachers and there really is no concerted effort to put men in elementary school and that's something that really bugs me. I know you feel strongly. Yeah. I really do I was in a third fourth grade. From yesterday in a Southeast school is one man in this school. He's doing a wonderful job. He has a great rapport with the kids. There should be more man. And that's and I think that's the fault of the Department's of Education in the universities. They should they should stimulate there are men who would be willing. I know the pay isn't great but there are men who love to work with kids and have a natural talent for it and they're not just looking to make lots of money. Those are the people we should get into public schools. I think it would change things a bit and it's going to have both sexes there. It's a woman's world and shouldn't
(00:40:27) be there's been a powerful stereotype over the years hasn't there that Elementary education is
(00:40:32) women's work. Oh, right. I had a terrible time when I became kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles. I was really looked upon as a freak. I may have been the only one in La at that time certainly more than weren't more than one two or three and the thing is those numbers aren't really getting much larger anywhere. I don't think there are more in a couple men kindergarten teachers in Minneapolis. I've met one I don't know about if there are any more
(00:40:59) there's a powerful force at work to move teachers, especially men out of teaching positions into higher paying positions Administration right as
(00:41:09) part of right and they get tempted after all the money is better of course responsibilities are horrendous. I wouldn't be an administrator for anything. But yeah, so you see men aren't encouraged Always by Or administrators rather people. Sometimes they are I've met some some administrators who found out that I was a kindergarten teacher in LA and they said oh that's great. Wonderful not enough of those people though
(00:41:38) Stanley Kiesel. Thanks for joining us today as part of midday to talk about education and also to give us some of the background to your new book the war between the pitiful teachers and The Splendid kids published by Dutton and on sale we might add as many Any Minneapolis bookstores many Minnesota bookstores? No doubt Stanley is poet in residence for the Minneapolis public schools.