Running and Writing

Today I ran my first long trail race--the Ironmaster's 25K (15.6 miles) in Pine Grove Furnace State Park, way out past Harrisburg. Last year, I ran several half-marathons, and one full marathon, but they were all relatively flat. This course was not flat. Most of the running was on hiking trails that branched off from the Appalachian Trail and went up and down mountain passes. A couple steep climbs led to spectacular vistas, but I didn't stop to take pictures. The only pic I have from the event is right before the race started (courtesy of my wife, who came along for support, despite the fact that this is not really a fun sport for spectators).

I seldom think to take pictures. Perhaps this is because moments like today, which I would like to hold onto, are also moments when I am "fully present" and "living in the moment", and therefore reluctant to step out of that present-mindedness in order to document the present for the sake of the future.

When reading Thomas Sterner's The Practicing Mind, which my students will be discussing further this week, I realized that the joy of present-minded consciousness is a huge part of why I am drawn to trail running. Unlike road running, where the mind tends to wander (thinking about one's pace or how many miles are left to run), trail running requires the mind to stay focused on the present: failure to do so means going off-course or tripping on a tree root or rock. Long trail runs require one to stay present-minded for several hours--an experience we don't often get in our day-to-day lives. I find it to be paradoxically exhilarating and calming. Who knew? Trail running might be just as good for the brain as it is for the body.

Sterner notes that we tend to be pretty good at "present-minded" thinking when it comes to recreation, but not so good when it comes to "work." He argues this is just a result of prejudices we carry with us about different activities. (There is nothing either work or play but thinking makes it so!) If that's true, would it be possible to cultivate an approach to writing that is analogous to my approach to running trails? Could I experience the same calm and exhilaration from writing as I do from running? Can my students learn to practice their writing in a way that is not stressful, but actually relaxing, fun, and inherently rewarding?

The key seems to be in viewing writing not as "work" but as "art." "Art" carries with it a sense of "play" (throwing words around, throwing paint around, jamming on one's instrument), but also a sense of slow, patient growth. No one expects college students to write like Shakespeare (or even Stephen King); the only thing professors have a right to expect is that each student's writing improves slowly and steadily. Anything else is unreasonable and counter-productive. We don't want students who are so obsessed with "the product" (a polished essay) that the process (writing itself) becomes so fraught with anxiety that they can't bring themselves to practice. The act of writing, for too many students, is reminder of what they can't-yet-do rather than an opportunity to build on what they can do. What can we do to incentivize regular, present-minded writing practice, rather than fetishize the "A" paper?

Reading

For the remaining three weeks of the semester, my ENG 100 students and I will be reading, writing about, and discussing Thomas Sterner's book, The Practicing Mind. Although the book is quite slim, and we are taking our time with it, some students were offering some mock-groans and half-joking complaints last week when I reminded them that their final essay assignment would require reading an entire book. When students resist "longer" reading assignments, I tend to respond with snarky lines like, "It's college--you might have to read a book now and then," but my snarkiness is really a cover for a mix of anxieties surrounding the future of book-reading in our society. How often are students asked to read real books (not textbooks) for college classes? How often, when asked, do they actually read them? And does it matter? Is deep, sustained, close reading a mental exercise worth fighting for?

A significant minority of my students do enjoy reading, and thank God for that. But the vast majority of them do not consider themselves "readers", though they are quite literate. From my point of view, going to college and not reading would be like going to the gym and not working out. What's the point? You don't get fit just because you paid for your gym membership and you showed up once in awhile. You have to actually lift some weights, get on the treadmill, jump in the pool, etc. Reading--like weight-lifting, running, and swimming--can actually be fun if you do it often enough. Go for a run once a year, and you'll always be out of breath. Run every day and you'll start to enjoy it; in fact you'll feel weird whenever you don't run. The same principle applies to reading. Granted, there are other thinking-exercises at college besides reading that will improve one's intellectual fitness, but reading is one that you can practice for the rest of your life, no matter what you end up doing.

Sterner's book argues that we often fixate too much on our goals and not enough on the processes we engage in as we work towards them (our practice). Applied to reading, I feel this is the case for many students. The goal is always to be done reading, never to be doing it. Thinking this way makes the reading seem like an obstacle that one must overcome before one can pass a test or write a paper. The trick is to realize that the process of reading itself is the main thing; doing it--deliberately, thoughtfully, actively--makes you a better thinker.

To broaden the scope of the discussion, consider how many students think about college itself as the "thing in the way" of their career goal, rather than a set of inherently empowering practices. How many students want college to be done with already, even though they've barely begun? Sterner observes that this mindset provokes anxiety--we are intimidated by all we have not yet achieved. Instead, we should try to understand the usefulness of what we are currently engaged in. Reading (and other forms of study) would then become not burdens, but opportunities for intellectual exercise--acts that, each day, make us stronger where it counts the most.

College for the Incarcerated

This week, my ENG 100 students will be reading, blogging about, and discussing Adam Gopnik's essay, "The Caging of America," published 2 years ago in The New Yorker. Gopnik analyzes two important trends in American society that have taken place since the early 1980s: the massive increase in America's prison population and the impressive decline in urban crime. For many Americans, our national system of mass incarceration, fueled by the failed policies of the War on Drugs, is alarming--no other nation puts so many people behind bars. (No other nation even comes close.) From both an ethical and economic perspective, this is a major problem. But would decreasing the prison population erode the gains that have been made against crime? Are the lowered crime rates that we enjoy now only made possible by the ruthlessness of our "tough on crime" justice system?

Gopnik convincingly argues that this is NOT the case. Nationally, the most dramatic decrease in crime since the 1970s has been seen in New York, which, ironically, is one of the few places that has not seen its rates of incarceration rise. As Gopnik points out, "While the rest of the country, over the same twenty-year period, saw the growth in incarceration that led to our current astonishing numbers, New York, despite the Rockefeller drug laws, saw a marked decrease in its number of inmates. ... Whatever happened to make street crime fall, it had nothing to do with putting more men in prison." The reduction in crime had more to do with smart, preventive policing strategies than locking up all the "bad guys."

But if we were to start letting incarcerated Americans out of prison in large numbers, would they have the skills and opportunities to maintain their freedom and thrive? According to Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, a senior fellow for the Bard Prison Initiative, "Of the roughly 600,000 people released from US prisons every year, 50 to 70 percent return to prison." In order for America to deal with its mass incarceration problem, we will need to do more than simply lock up fewer people; we will need to help those who have been locked up access the education they need to transform their lives and obtain stable employment. Nothing has been proven to do this more effectively than higher education programs offered in prisons.

Just last month, in New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced a promising, but controversial plan to invest state money into college-in-prison programs. I'm interested to find out what my students think of this idea. Many college students, I'm guessing, would not think favorably about convicted felons getting free college classes while they have to work or take out loans to pay their own tuition bills. Yet, these programs, over the long-term, will likely save taxpayers money by keeping released inmates from returning to prison. Perhaps it depends on how you view "justice" -- is it more about rehabilitation or punishment?

Is Rhetoric Overrated?

As an English professor who teaches mostly composition classes, I am constantly urging my students to think in terms of argument and persuasion. How is your writing going to get your reader to accept your position on this issue as the best one? How can you convince your audience that you are right and that those who disagree with you are wrong? But frequently I wonder if thesis-driven, rhetorical writing really deserves its central place in college classrooms.

Of course I see the benefits of it. Being able to articulate one's ideas clearly and forcefully can be an empowering skill. But is something lost when we teach students to view a "counterargument" only as that-which-must-be-logically-dismantled-in-order-to-prove-one's-own-point, rather than what it is: another person's legitimate point-of-view? Granted, more sophisticated rhetorical pedagogies do just that. Respecting opposing viewpoints and taking them seriously is, itself, a sign of persuasive writing. But should our underlying goal always be to persuade?

Recently, while listening to a podcast of one of my favorite radio shows, Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap, I heard a "conflict resolution expert" by the name of Misha Glouberman speak about how trivial disagreements between people can transform into ugly, prolonged feuds precisely because both parties become fixated on proving that they are right. I instantly recognized that I am super-guilty of this myself. At times, I exhibit a compulsive and obnoxious need to demonstrate my rightness when caught in the midst of a debate, big or small. It's one of my ugliest character traits, and I try my best (though often fail) to keep it in check. For the first time, while listening to this podcast, I began to wonder if this is actually a result of making rhetoric such an important part of the way I write and think. After all, this is a character flaw which I undoubtedly share with a lot of other people in my line of work.

Glouberman went on to make a great point about how a firm commitment to proving your "rightness" in a dispute almost never works, precisely because that is what your "opponent" is trying to do as well. The result is stubborn entrenchment and divisiveness, rather than resolution or enhanced understanding. You are wrong and stupid and that's all there is to it; I'm not going to waste my time discussing this with you any further. Such an attitude is a critical failure precisely because it is incapable of being self-critical.

So what would it mean to teach writing as a means not just for "persuading your reader" or for "argument," but to teach writing as a means of resolving conflict? What if we presented more writing contexts in which the goal was a search for common ground or a negotiated settlement rather than a validation of the writer's thesis? What if the goal was not to prove what we already believe to be true, but to explore how others see the world differently--and sometimes more clearly--than we do? I'm not sure, but I'm interested in brainstorming ways to ask my students (and myself!) to do just that.

When Is It OK to Kill By Remote Control?

Tomorrow my ENG 100 students will be discussing Mark Bowden's article "The Killing Machines: How to Think about Drones," published last summer in The Atlantic. The essay begins by paraphrasing the Biblical story of David and Goliath in order to establish that technologies of violence which make fights unfair are nothing new--they go all the way back to this infamous slingshot. It's hard, however, to think of the U.S. military's Predator drone as a 21st century slingshot, or the U.S. as David. After all, the U.S. is not an underdog--it's the world's only remaining military superpower. No other nation on the planet spends even half as much as the U.S. does on its military. (China, #2 on the list, spends about 1/4 as much as the U.S. does.)

In other words, imagine Goliath had the slingshot. And a nuclear bomb. That's the scenario.

Bowden goes on in his essay to show his readers that many of the common conceptions about drones are, in fact, misconceptions. There is no reason to believe that law enforcement would start to use them to kill domestic criminals; the police don't have snipers take out drug dealers, after all. While the use of drone strikes may inadvertently lead to civilian casualties, ground strikes and manned air strikes on comparable targets actually tend to produce more such casualties. Other nations are not going to use drones against the U.S. on American soil because drones would be easily noticed and intercepted. The most innovative aspect of drone technology is not, in fact, its capacity to blow things up, but its capacity to gather sustained, accurate surveillance leading to unprecedented military intelligence.

But when is it legally and ethically justifiable to use drones as "killing machines"? Bowden seems to imply that if drones are used only in times of war against verifiable enemies and with transparency and accountability, then the Commander-in-Chief ordering such executions should be on strong moral and legal ground. From my own perspective, I worry about the slippery definitions of "war" and "enemy" in our current political climate. The U.S. has been at "war" with al Qaeda since 2001, though war was never officially declared and al Qaeda is a network of international criminals--not a nation. Many people have been killed by U.S. drone strikes who were not members of al Qaeda. Even the ones who were killed--why aren't they entitled to a trial before execution, like any other serious, suspected criminal?

If this technology can keep American troops safer, then it certainly has a purpose and a valid use. But as a means of executing international criminals? I think that contradicts American values. Let's work with local and/or international law enforcement to capture and prosecute those plotting to do us harm. If we have enough evidence to convince the President that someone is a legitimate target, then we should have enough evidence to convict that same guy in a court of law.

Meaty, Ethical Questions

I don't know how this is possible, but tomorrow my ENG 100 students are scheduled to discuss only their second professional essay of the semester. And it might not even happen, as another 6-10 inches of snow are forecasted overnight and into the morning. This semester has been such a mess; thank God I only teach English, nothing more important. ;)

The essay they will be blogging and chatting about is "In the Belly of the Beast" by Paul Solotaroff, published just a couple months ago by Rolling Stone. This essay looks at the investigative work done at meat farms and slaughterhouses by undercover associates of the Humane Society, and it raises a lot of interesting questions about ethics and consumerism. I'm hoping it will provoke my students to think critically not just about animal rights, but also about the rights and responsibilities of consumers, citizens, and food suppliers.

A philosophical question that I've often posed to myself (without ever definitively deciding what I think) is what does it mean to have an ethical relationship with animals--especially the animals that humans typically eat? Some people would probably argue that it doesn't make sense to talk about ethics in relation to animals; if animals don't think ethically about us, why should we think ethically about them? Others (mostly vegetarians and vegans) argue that it is never ethical to kill an animal for food when plant-based food is abundantly available (and generally healthier). Even though I haven't made up my mind on this question, I think my own sentiments are somewhere in between these two views. Solotaroff, too, seems to argue that there's nothing wrong with eating meat per se, just as long as the animals are treated in a humane and environmentally sustainable way while alive.

The animals I eat most often are fish and deer. My wife and I love salmon, mahi mahi, tuna, swordfish, and we try to get "wild caught" (usually from Wegmans) whenever possible (and affordable). The venison we are lucky enough to get for free, courtesy of my wife's father, a generous and skilled hunter. I feel good about the fact that these animals lived freely--not in cages, not covered in excrement, not pumped full of hormones--before they met their demise. Yet, I certainly could sustain myself without them. There's plenty of protein in nuts, lentils, beans, avocados, chia seeds, etc. What's stopping me from becoming a complete vegetarian? Habit alone? The sensual pleasure of sinking my teeth into fish and deer flesh?

The other question raised by this article--the more practical one, considering it's unlikely that Americans, who eat more meat per person than any society in the history of human beings, will suddenly become vegetarians--is how to get people to be willing to pay a little more money for meat that comes from humane and sustainable farming practices? Americans love a bargain, and we are willing to turn a blind eye to fairly horrifying business practices if it means low prices for whatever we crave. (Who cares about the paltry wages of the Bangladeshi workers who cut and sew our trendy Old Navy sweaters, if we can get those sweaters for $16.99 each?) Now some might argue that most Americans can't afford to pay more for their meat--after all, organic, free-range, grass-fed meat can be expensive. But if we eat less meat, we can afford to eat better meat, and most nutritionists, at least according to food journalists like Michael Pollan, agree that Americans would be healthier if they ate "mostly plants."

Still, it's a hard sell. How To Eat Less Meat and Pay More For It is not exactly a catchy ad campaign. I look forward to hearing how convinced my students were...whenever the snow stops and we actually get to have class again.

Have No Worries--Bloggin' Is Back!

Last semester I made my ENG 100 students buy a textbook (shudder!), and write weekly response papers instead of weekly blog posts. It wasn't a complete disaster (the textbook, The Composition of Everyday Life, was better than most, but still overpriced), but I decided to go back to my older way of doing business, with some minor changes. I picked articles that students will read, discuss, and blog about for Mondays; students will pick the articles we read on Wednesdays. Add in some sample student essays from previous semesters, and some peer review, and that's most of the schedule. Until...the last few weeks of the semester, during which we will read an actual, real book (not to be confused with a textbook). I gave students a list of 10, well-reviewed, contemporary non-fiction books about topics that might be interesting to them (affordability of college, parenting, consumerism, how the brain works, etc.), and they voted on which ones they would be interested in reading. The book that got the most votes was The Practicing Mind by Thomas Lerner. I'm hoping this book will help students become more "meta-cognitive", or aware of their own thinking patterns, and that the practical advice offered in the book will be applicable to the intellectual challenges they will meet with in college.

Yuriko and I went to dinner last night at the Bistro on Bridge (good pizza and duck risotto), and we ended up having an interesting conversation about the relationship between stress/anxiety and learning. We both acknowledge that many college students today show up with a nearly paralyzing fear of failure. Yet, what can teachers and advisors do to help such students (short of lowering expectations)? I made the case that, to some degree, college should make students feel somewhat uncomfortable. Pushing people out of their comfort zone is part of the learning process. If there is no risk--if one is not being asked to do something one has never done before--then what, truly, is being learned? Without a significant challenge, there cannot be significant growth.

However, for a student to respond favorably to such challenges, she has to believe that she is capable of  learning new, complex skills. Many students, unfortunately, lack that kind of self-confidence? How can teachers show students that, just because you've struggled with math or writing in the past, this doesn't mean you are incapable of improving? It doesn't mean you don't have what it takes. I hate to use cliches, but this one's true: It's not where you start that matters; it's where you end up. Actually, it is not where you end up that matters, either. It's about how you change along the way. It's about becoming the kind of person who says, "Just because I'm not so good at this now, doesn't mean I'm not going to be good at it in three months (or a year, or 4 years)." It's about learning that you are capable of learning, and taking that confidence into every challenge ahead. This, more than anything, is what I want my students to learn.

(For ENG 100 students interested in my thoughts on the assigned reading, please see my earlier blog posts about Jose Antonio Vargas here and here.)