As students, we are told that we are being made into an “informed citizenry” capable of maintaining a vibrant democracy. Indeed, we are told that we must give up most of our constitutional rights in the name of achieving this goal. We are compelled to attend an institution where our every action, from speaking, to moving, to going to the bathroom is strictly controlled by an authority figure. We have no right to due process in this institution, the word of the school authorities is final, and in fact our meager protestations of any wrongful accusation are often called “disrespectful” and used as another justification for punishment. We are also limited in our freedom of speech and of assembly, we cannot leave class to assemble and petition our government and the Supreme Court has explicitly prohibited any speech that would disrupt the educational process. Most of the first 18 years of our lives are fundamentally shaped by a process in which we have absolutely no say. This seems explicitly nonsensical. Should we give up our democratic rights in the name of preserving democracy? Does an institution which has power over countless individuals without giving them any representation or say in how this institution is run really the best preparation for a democratic society? Rather than creating an informed citizenry capable of engaging in the democratic process, compulsory education creates apathy, harms our ability to engage in real education, and actively harms democracy.

Read the whole article here

While your kids are very busy toiling over algebra and chemistry, international trade agreements are being forged and currencies are being manipulated by entities that most Americans don’t even know the names of, much less the inner workings of.  Kids are compelled to solve quadratic equations and write essays on Shakespeare, and they graduate without understanding how to calculate the interest on credit card debt or decode a mortgage agreement.  They learn an old fable called “How a Bill Becomes Law,” while corporate lobbyists draft legislation that will pollute their air and water, deny them health care and unemployment benefits, and put barely tested drugs on the market and genetically modified organisms in their food system. —Carol Black from her essay “Occupy Your Brain“

And being that this post has already begun with a self indulgent tone, I not intone anymore. I will leave it at that.

Power to the people.

As my son had not reached home yet when this call came, a family meeting was called as soon as he arrived. At first he feigned innocence, laughing it off. But as we probed, we quickly got a full confession, as he knew he was caught and that he would have to face the music the next day. As I was scheduled to attend school the next day with my daughter, who is visiting, it was an opportunity to observe “free-school justice” in action.

The first meeting was scheduled for 10 am in the RUC (Rampaging Underaged Children) advisory room. That group, aged 10-12, discussed the days’ topics, and added the incident to the day’s agenda. I seated myself behind a book shelf as to not be a distraction and to quietly listen to the proceedings, all conducted by the children. All three boys admitted to participating in the crime. They were asked to explain themselves, which they attempted to do. A proposal for punishment was made, but was voted down. As the motion did not pass, the accused thought they had escaped the axe.

Their advisor was not satisfied with the judgement. So it was brought to the larger all-school meeting, as the last agenda item. This time, the jury was not too kind. After asking why in the world they would consider doing something like this, and being admonished for “disrespecting” the school, a resolution was passed: 1) The 3 boys would have to decide on their own punishment. When they all came to agreement, they were to call an all school meeting, in which the student body would have to be satisfied with the resolution, and then vote on it. 2) The boys will have their “off-site” privileges revoked until a resolution is passed.

My son did not take this very well. He came to me for consolation after the meeting. We resolved the trauma over a lunch away from the school. By days end, they had decided on what their punishment should be (cleaning toilets for a week.) Hopefully, by this afternoon, I will know the outcome.

If you have been through public school in any capacity, you will admit that this situation would likely be handled in a very different manner. In my day, it would involve being sent to the principal’s office, or the dean of boys; or you would be kept after class, and made to do some meaningless chore in order to atone. Our parents would be called in. We are all familiar with the image of Bart, in The Simpsons, writing over and over how he will not be a bad boy anymore. I am told by guidance councilors and teachers in public schools, about how kids are handcuffed and taken away in squad cars. These modern day policies of criminalizing children is well documented in the film, The War on Kids. There is a public battle against children and how they develop naturally. Their rambunctiousness is seen as a constant threat to order, and only those who “behave” will be rewarded.

“I urge you to examine in your own mind the assumptions which must lay behind using the police power to insist that once-sovereign spirits have no choice but to submit to being schooled by strangers.”  ― John Taylor Gatto

I have recounted an incident of my own on this blog, as well as the innovative way my former home room teacher handled the incident. I have told Noah stories from my own past. We were constantly getting into mischief. We would regularly throw rocks at the neon letters over the local Food Fair supermarket, or break windows at the school on late night jaunts. We regularly raided trash rooms, stole old baby carriages to be used to create  soap box racers, set fireworks off under nasty neighbors windows and were branded neighborhood hooligans. The police would chase us on many an occasion, but we had the woods to hide in.

The difference for me was that there was no one looking out for us. Everyone was preoccupied. There was no real guidance. Our role models were  Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, The Little Rascals and The Bowery Boys.

The natural inclination for a developing boy, who is on the verge of becoming a full teenager, to create mischief, is as natural as breathing. I am glad that my son is in an environment where he can exercise this natural inclination, face the consequences of his actions, and learn from it all. He is not punished for who he is, but is allowed to explore himself, and see where his actions impact the greater community. In this way, he will define what his place in the world will be.

“…good things happen to the human spirit when it is left alone.”  ― John Taylor Gatto

Middle childhood is the time to make sense and make friends. “This is the period when kids move out of the family context and into the neighborhood context,” Dr. Campbell said.

The all-important theory of mind arises: the awareness that other people have minds, plans and desires of their own. Children become obsessed with social groups and divide along gender lines, girls playing with girls, boys with boys. They have an avid appetite for learning the local social rules, whether of games, slang, style or behavior. They are keenly attuned to questions of fairness and justice and instantly notice those grabbing more than their share.

Read the entire article here.

I spent the first day of 2012 visiting the grave sites of my family. My ex-wife proposed it to me, and I felt it was a worthy effort to make on behalf of my children, my family and my life. There is nothing rational about praying over a grave. Though I have become more and more of an atheist in recent years, my feeling that there are forces in the universe that have influence and are deeply interconnected to my own being, has grown exponentially. To stand over the grave of one’s parents, grandparents or a lost sibling, is to touch something so deeply distant, so primordial, as to invoke the essential reason for existing on this planet at all. It awakened me to the fact that, as an artist, it is the message I have been receiving from my subconscious for years.

Hibernating these past weeks, has given me an opportunity to regenerate my energy. After months of producing an inordinate amount of drawings (almost a hundred), setting them up for a showing in my home, creating prints, a T-shirt and a book, and then having dozens of people visit us over two weekends, I was left with an intense feeling of inner exhaustion. The prescribed antidote for this, was sleeping late every day and watching a continuous stream of Star Trek Voyager episodes over the past two weeks.

Since Halloween, this family has been on a Star Trek kick. Noah immersed himself in the character of Captain Kirk. This set off a chain reaction of streaming episodes from the entire series. But the focus has become Voyager, simply because I had seen so few of them.

In a house without television, we watch things on the computer with awful frequency. My pet peeve is commercials. I hate them. Therefore, I have taken to avoiding Hulu or other online venues that force me to watch them. Netflix allows me to view without limit and without commercials. Since their pickings for films have become less appealing, old television shows are what we seek out, which include selections from the BBC.

Star Trek seems to appeal to us for many reasons. But key among them is that it reflects a form of hope for humanity. It incorporates ideas, that would not be found in other shows. Alien beings can embody terrorists, fascists, republicans, buddhists and a variety of traits found in various human ethnic groups. This allows the writing to explore many varied topics.

To give one example, in episode 2 of Season four, the character of Kes, an Ocampa alien, who is about to exit the show, expresses the special transformation that is taking place in her. She is asked to describe her experience. I have taken the time to transcribe the dialogue between Kes and Neelix:

Neelix: So tell me more about what is happening to you. What does it all mean?

Kes: I don’t know… and that is what makes it all so exciting. It’s as if I can see into a place where the distinction between matter and energy—and thought no longer exists. And that is only the beginning. I feel that all the boundaries that are within me are about to fall away.

Neelix: It sounds er…er…ugh…interesting.

What this character is expressing is what people of all disciplines of meditation are seeking. A place where the inner boundaries fall away, and there is only pure being. The experience that I am a mass of energy, interacting with the eternal forces that are all around me, the planet, the universe. Connecting this to the simple experience of praying at a gravesite or lighting the holiday candles, is to touch the very energy that this fictional character expresses. My hat goes off to the writer (Joe Menofsky) who inserted this piece of dialogue. Sometimes media can clarify a hard to describe point of view by using an alien character to express it.

On top of our hibernation, my wife and I have had to tolerate our prepubescent son’s growing obsession with the online game of Minecraft. If your children are not of the age yet, you are in for exposure to a whole new world…literally. I have borrowed a paragraph from Wikipedia to better express the essence of this growing phenomena.

Minecraft is focused on creativity and building, allowing players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. Gameplay in its commercial release has two principal modes: Survival, which requires players to acquire resources themselves and maintain their health and hunger; and Creative, where the player has an unlimited supply of resources, the ability to fly, and no concept of health or hunger.

A sample of the Minecraft interface

One of the many aspects of playing this game online, is that the players begin to develop online relationships. Cooperative play, where the players are logged into a server, may also include live chat between the players. My son also, Skypes one or two of his online friends, where they interact in real time. He has made acquaintances from across the country who he has been speaking with live, on a daily basis.We are in awe of how fluidly Noah and his friends interact with the technology. They instruct each other on resources and other character development features, built into the game. Or offer creative help which involves other, more sophisticated software like Photoshop. In this way, they are teaching each other. And the hard thing to accept is, that with this new technology, we adults have no idea as to where this can lead. What form will this take as it develops? What are the practical applications in the world, as the boys grow into men? And how can an antiquated education system prepare them for the world they are creating?

The last thing I will add in this morning is a quote from the late great Christopher Hitchens. Although I found him a bit pessimistic, alcoholic and eternally grumpy, he is one of the most lucid and intelligent journalists of the past decade. An avowed atheist, he had the unique ability to dissect massively accepted conventions, holier than thou icons such as the British royalty or Mother Teresa, in a way that makes so much sense as to rip the veil from them permanently. And in truth, I may claim to be an atheist, but my views are that the human spirit has been created for greater purposes than to be limited by the pedantic version of God that is shoved down our throats on a daily basis. God, as a public idea, is dead. Jesus is a myth. Christmas is a bullshit tradition based on pagan rituals that have nothing to do with giving, or love or joy. And the sooner we destroy these icons, the sooner we can come together and have some meaningful interaction.

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more. – Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007

My only disagreement with the late Mr. Hitchens is that he says “there is nothing more, but I want nothing more.” I believe there is more, and as the Star Trek character of Kes states, we can aspire to touch that place in us where “the boundaries all fall away.” This is the place where truth appears. And this experience of truth tells me, that I am here for more. But what that “here” is, cannot be expressed in a mere quote. The experience of a boundless, endless interaction of the universe, is but a fleeting glimpse that comes from a struggle to connect to an inner stillness. And then for one instant, I feel connected to all that is. And my own ego centric existence no longer seems that important. This is my wish for humanity. And hopefully, the expected traumas of 2012, will point more of us, back toward ourselves, so that meaningful interaction can begin.

Happy New Year and Peace to you all.

The open studio is over. After weeks of gearing up for it, and then having guests in and out of the apartment, I have taken this day as a personal holiday. A reprieve. Time to digest.

I have no comments on education or political world. I have no philosophical or spiritual wisdom to impart. No handed down news, or upcoming events. Just taking a moment to reacquaint myself with the pursuit of creative enterprise. And being that I have just been through a big push in terms of creating and showing my work, it is nice to take a break.

The thoughts  and the feelings are brewing. I am sure a new article is in the works. But for now, I will let it rest.

Just one note though. Brooklyn Free School is about to launch its’ Annual Appeal. If you wish to support the school and our continued efforts to revolutionize education, you can contact me directly at bzeines@optonline.net

For a link to the pdf click here. Annual Appeal.2011Final

I have survived a week on jury duty, and as per the judge’s instructions, I can now talk about the case. But I am not interested in that. I am more interested in the process of the legal system. First the pros: It was a great experience being thrown into a room with people from different cross sections of the Brooklyn world. All ethnicities, and political inclinations sitting together in a room for a week and hearing a case, with the intention of being impartial. The interaction, for the most part, was friendly. Of course there was a backup of laundry and work I could not get to. But I am glad for the experience.

The cons: This is an imperfect system. We ended in a mistrial which means the jury could not come to a unanimous decision. We all heard the same case and the same testimony. In my mind, and the minds of 8 of the other jurors, the defendant is a serial robber and mugger. According to 3 of the jurors, they felt there was insufficient evidence to convict and felt like they did not want to put an innocent man in jail. What we learned afterwards from our court officer and the lawyers is that this guy was SO guilty. He was already in jail and going back there afterwards. He has had a long history of serial robbery (as most of us believed by the court testimony) and that he was EXACTLY how he appeared to be: a crook.

The truth is that when I entered court, I had no preconceived notion of the case we were hearing. I have no interest in the penal system and already feel that we have too many people in jail. We have a prison industry which is unmatched anywhere else in the world, which trades on the AMEX and I certainly do not want to be part of adding to it. That said, this idiot was so guilty that it was not even funny and because of the indecisiveness of a few of our fellow jurors to render a clear and impartial decision, a criminal could be pointing a gun in your direction any day now. He will do so for no other reason then he thinks the crap in your pockets has some value, and he seems to have an itch to get back to jail. The crime we heard was done “in concert” with others, and was a deliberate and foolish act. It is an indication of how screwed up our society really is. But the jury still gave me hope.

To place 12 people in a room and have them listen to each other is a miracle. Despite the differences. And from this vantage point, I would do it again in a minute.