THE ROLE OF THE ARTS IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

I had the great good fortune to attend an Ohio University-sponsored elementary school, Rufus Putnam, that emphasized creativity, especially in the arts and in science.  Some parents in the city school system made disparaging comments about the academic program at Putnam, usually complaining there was too little emphasis on the three Rs rather than saying there was too much emphasis on literature, music, and art.  

But Putnam students did well in the city high school when they arrived there, and I––and surely others–––missed the environment of encouragement, the permission to integrate my personal interests into the program, the emphasis on creativity in the arts and in science, and the study of foreign countries and cultures that Rufus Putnam provided.  

Putnam creative arts programs also contributed to our mental health.  I was one of four abused and neglected children saved through a remarkable adoption. The arts programs of Putnam played an important role in our emotional healing. 

A fuller description of this amazing school can be found in Book One of Children of the Manse.  

SING OUT OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM

Sing Out!

Rather than a flag in the lapel, I suggest a better test of patriotism would be learning the words of our national anthem and singing this hymn to the nation from our hearts at public events.

What I hear, instead, at sports events is a single vocalist performing while the rest of us mumble in near silence.   

There are more and more important evidences of our love of country but learning and singing the words of our national anthem would be a good beginning.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD AMBASSADOR?

           Good ambassadors have a large capacity for human relationships, can give a finished speech or media interview at a minute's notice and on any occasion, can inspire the work and loyalty of embassy officers and staff.  They should also have excellent digestion. 

          The ambassador is Mr. or Ms. Outside.  The Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM), almost always a career Foreign Service Officer, is Mr. or Ms. Inside. DCMs assure the smooth functioning of the entire mission and deal with internal problems that do not require the ambassador's attention.  The DCM drafts the efficiency reports of the other senior embassy officers which the ambassador then reviews.

          Of the many fine ambassadors I worked for, I found two outstanding.  One was a career Foreign Service Officer, the other a political appointee.  The worst ambassador I worked under was also a political appointee.  In general, I have no objection to politically appointed ambassadors if they have experience in managing a team in a complex organization, are politically savvy, know something about the history and political culture of the country to which they have been sent, and have at least a minimal professional level in the local language.  A previous connection to the country in question can be helpful but is not necessary.               

GIVE AUDIBLE WARNING, CYCLISTS!

A back operation turned this cyclist into a pedestrian who walks with sticks.  To enjoy the beauty of the river paths, I began walking from the Campbell Center to the Rose Garden. In five walks to the Rose Garden and back, not one cyclist of dozens — NOT ONE— gave me an audible warning. Their reaction when I shouted, “Give warning” was a look of confusion to raising a middle finger towards the sky.  Year by year in the 23 years I have cycled in Eugene, fewer and fewer cyclists give any warning they are passing.  Something must be done to change this! I suggest a modest education program as follows. 

Plaster new yellow signs along the river trails that read, 

 “Cyclists, you are required by common courtesy to issue an audible warning whenever passing another cyclist or pedestrian.” 

I applaud the plan to create a two-way bike lane along High Street.  I and others began proposing that a decade ago as well as what I call “safe connectors” that would link all our bike paths in the Eugene-Springfield area. What I don’t applaud is that it will be at least 2020 before that project is completed.  Why?  Funding that depends on grants, the city says.  It is not a matter of money.  The city has enough money for such a relatively modest project.  It is priorities.  It is past due time this project was begun. 

FOSTER CARE;WHAT ARE WE DOING WRONG/?

When I became a volunteer CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) I was surprised to learn that most children in the foster care system eventually repeat the histories of their failed parents.  Even more surprising, many social welfare professionals expect them to do so.  I found such pessimism difficult to understand, I suppose, because I was a foster care child with a different history. 

My biological father, from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, dropped out of school in the 4^th grade.    From ages 14 to 31 he was out of prison only long enough to sire five children.   His younger brother and sister also spent time in the Ohio criminal justice system.  My biological mother was from a working-class family and dropped out of high school in the l0th grade.  In addition to me and my three siblings, four of our cousins ended up in the county orphanage.  

Did I or did my siblings repeat the failed histories of our inadequate parents?  Not one member of my family, my three siblings, our nine children, or our 13 grandchildren has ever been arrested or ever been in foster care.  Of our nine children eight earned college degrees, six earned graduate and professional degrees.  Our experience suggests that under the right conditions, the same or similar genes can lead to dramatically different results.

The right conditions for us are described in the second half of my first book, Children of the Manse.  I compare our lives before and after we arrived at the manse (the Luchs residence) in a chapter called “The Honeymoon.”  

“We had never been in such comfortable, spacious surroundings, eaten such good food, or slept in such pleasant rooms or beds. We had privacy for the first time I could remember, and our own closets and dresser drawers for our new clothes and new shoes. We could talk at meals in our turn and, incredibly, second helpings of food were available just for asking. We had a bathtub where, if we wished, we could bathe alone rather than having to stand in group showers as at the children’s home. Our lives were suddenly full of excitement and beauty — carpentry tools, whole rooms and boxes full of books, field trips to the country and free and noisy romps through the woods, music lessons, a delightful neighborhood of people and buildings to meet and explore, a large back yard to play in, and a friendly red-brick school on a university campus three blocks away. We were beginning to make new friends. While unending tedium filled our hours at the children’s home, we were now involved in a stimulating round of activities that never seemed to end. Janey would later sum up our first years in the manse and the surrounding neighborhood with, ‘What an exciting place to be a child!’”

I describe how Evelyn Luchs (our foster mother) restored our physical health and took on the much more difficult challenge of repairing our psychological health.  If I were designing a home for neglected foster children, I can hardly imagine a better environment than Fred and Evelyn Luchs provided for the four of us. 

Unfortunately, there are not enough foster moms with the qualities and background (a teacher trainer who had studied psychology) of an Evelyn Luchs.  The reality appears to be that the adopters in our society today are from the upper middle class, want babies, and often look abroad to find them.  Most foster care, however devoted, is not provided by that segment of our society.  There seems to be growing consensus that as currently designed, a troublesome percentage of foster care is failing.

          Alternatives for Placing Abused Children   

If we were doing it right, there would be different kinds of placements for children in foster care.   I paint a grim picture of county orphanages in Children of the Manse.  It might surprise my readers that for some children I could recommend a children’s home.   I have read memoirs of graduates of children’s homes, mostly supported by religious organizations, with highly trained personnel, small living units, nutritious and abundant food, excellent sports training facilities and first-class medical care --- everything my county orphanage lacked.   I think an ideal children’s home for some children would resemble a residential boarding school.  Moreover, I believe there are children who would respond well to residence in a residential military school. 

My point is we ought to fit the program to the child’s personality and needs and not place all children in the only model of foster care we seem to have.   If this proposal seems too expensive, our current foster care system is also expensive, and the total cost to society of not breaking the chain of failed life histories from generation to generation is surely even more so. 

ANOTHER IRONY IN US IMMIGRATION LaW

The following Letter to the Editor was sent to but not published by the Register-Guard

To the Editor:

O me, o my!  Irony upon irony!  The press is now criticizing President Trump for using the “chain migration” he has abhorred to make US citizens of his wife’s parents.  What the journalists who write such stories apparently do not understand is that, in its odd way, the Trump use of family unification fulfills the intent of the original legislation.  The original purpose of the law was to encourage the additional immigration of Europeans by admitting the relatives of those already here.  But not to encourage the “huddled masses” from Asia and Africa who had not yet begun to arrive in significant numbers.  When the Europeans did not come, eventually a single African or Asian could achieve citizenship and begin a chain to unite his family.   

Thus, in an ironic twist, the Trump family is fulfilling the original intent of the legislation.  Racist?  Yes, racist and hard to understand for those who believe our “golden door” has always been open to the “tired and poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” 

The door was open.  But only to Europeans.  

THE 14th AMENDMENT AND "'BIRTH RIGHT CITIZENSHIP"

I have yet to see an account in the media of the origins of what is now being called “birth right citizenship.” The 14^th amendment was passed for one reason and one reason only: to grant citizenship to former slaves. Once they were made citizens, it should have been repealed.   

          The 14^th amendment did NOT intend to grant citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants on the simple basis of having been born on US territory.   I have served in US embassies that deal with these issues.  

          In this case, Trump is right. If the 14^th amendment cannot be repealed (it should be), I think an executive action to nullify it is justified and long overdue.

          The problems and conflicts we are having today over immigration policies are the result of decades of ignorance and inattention.   

I LEARN I AM DOOMED

While one book in my father’s study, Sexual Behavior of the Human Male, relieved one of my anxieties and had a positive effect on my development, there were other of his books I explored that had their darker side.  That was particularly true of two books by specialists in child development.  In bold black and white they wrote that any child who was seriously abused and neglected up to the age of eight was doomed. I was exactly eight years old when I and three younger siblings were adopted by Fred and Evelyn Luchs, a young Presbyterian minister, and his wife.  All four of us had hidden histories of serious neglect and abuse.  Here I was, six years later at age fourteen, reading that I was doomed, that my dreams were never to be realized. This information came to me in authoritative black and white type written by authors with impressive credentials in the field of child development.

          There was, the psychologists observed, no possibility such a child could recover his emotional health and live a normal life.  He would be frequently depressed. His chances of a happy marriage were nil.  He would likely follow in the footsteps of his closest biological relatives.   If they were alcoholics, so would he be.  My biological father was an alcoholic.  If they became criminals, so would he.  My father, one uncle and one aunt were at various times locked up in the prisons of the state of Ohio. Furthermore, such a boy had little chance of  succeeding in a career.          

          I immediately fell into a depression.  How could I, at age 14. stand up against the verdict of such professionals?  What I read so depressed me I did not even want to turn for help to my wise and sympathetic adoptive mother.  I was afraid she would believe the psychologists.  I did not want her to know that their verdict was I was doomed.     

          My depression lasted for about three weeks.  Then, I became defiant. I rejected the verdict of the psychologists and–– most important of all–– I said to myself, “I am going to prove they are wrong!”  I was not saying I did not have a battle overcoming my anger because of the way I and my younger siblings had been treated by our biological relatives.  To this day I have a strong startle reflex, a certain sign of physical child abuse, and I have some terrible nightmares.  I am not saying that I was not sometimes depressed or that I was not an unusually sensitive child.  I was all of those.

          But the predictions of the child development specialists turned out to be wrong.  I was blest with a happy 30- year marriage.  My career? I passed a rigorous Foreign Service exam and became an American diplomat.  I served for 30 years with honor and was promoted to the senior ranks of the Foreign Service.  Not a single member of my own family (four sons and nine grandchildren) has ever been arrested or been in foster care.  One brother did become an alcoholic but joined AAA and had his last drink in his mid- 30s.  

           

Why I Cancelled my Subscription to the Register-Guard

To the Editor:

          A full seven weeks ago I cancelled my subscription to the Register-Guard and am still waiting for a $300 refund. It was not an easy decision for this subscriber of nearly a quarter of a century.  I made the decision thoughtfully, not because I was upset, though I don’t like what I see coming for this once friendly hometown newspaper.  

          I have been there before.  My family-owned hometown newspaper in Ohio was purchased by corporate interests and within three years, a respectable journal became something a bright 8^th grader could edit. 

          But, specifically, why did I cancel my subscription?   The first reason has nothing to do with the new ownership.  I found reading the paper every morning depressing. I cannot remember a time when there was such rancor, such meanness, in our national politics. At the state level, the PERS scandal continues.  The legislators who control the system are participants in this generous retirement program and, therefore, have no reason to reform it.  At the local level, the issue of a new city hall is as far from being resolved as it was years ago when I and others pushed for an easy solution: the EWEB building, That option  is even more attractive now that the area adjacent to the EWEB building will be developed into a highly attractive riverfront space.

          Yet another reason I cancelled the Register-Guard was the decision to sharply reduce the space allotted for letters to the editor.  That was an important community forum and, yes –– all the letters focused on Trump began to bore–– but surely an editor could have controlled that by choosing which letters to print.    

          Yet another reason to cancel my subscription was the decision to eliminate the weekly review section.  Yes, there are other sources for such thought pieces.  I subscribe to half a dozen of them. But how many R-G readers are likely to subscribe to other sources?  I would add that that section of the paper could have been made much more interesting.  The message I got from the closure was we are not interested in readers who think.

          That I have had to wait seven weeks for a refund of $300 seems to confirm the rightness of my decision to cancel.  I have called the circulation department twice and left an email once that should have evoked some response but did not.  l think the warm and friendly circulation staff, when under the former local management of the old Register-Guard, would have been more responsive.   And I would have had my refund weeks before now.