Culture, Compliance, Community (Penn State part six)

Previous posts on Penn State: Cultures of Compliance,  The Teaching of Tribalism, Darkness at Noon (Saturday), The Realities of the Victims (Omelas), and The Silent Stadium. Please see Voices4Victims at Penn State for more information.

"They [the janitors] witnessed what I think in the report is probably the most horrific rape that's described. And what do they do? They panic. The janitor who observed this said it's the worst thing he ever saw. This is a Korean War veteran who said, 'I've never seen anything like that. It makes me sick.' He spoke to the other janitors. They were alarmed and shocked by it. But what did they do? They said, 'We can't report this because we’ll get fired.' They knew who Sandusky was. … They were afraid to take on the football program. They said the university would circle around it. It was like going against the president of the United States. If that's the culture on the bottom, God help the culture at the top." - former FBI Director Louis Freeh, 12 July 2012

a culture of fear and compliance

Last Wednesday I sat with Hamilton, Michigan schools superintendent Dave Tebo and liistened to him describe his efforts to get secondary school teachers to separate compliance from academic achievement in the grading process. And last Thursday I listened to former Clinton Administration FBI Director Louis Freeh describe the road to ruin which cultures of compliance create. On Friday I heard the Pennsylvania State University administrators respond to the Freeh report by announcing renovations to their football building. On Saturday I heard those same administrators insist that, regarding the campus statue of child rape enabler Joe Paterno, "[We] are hoping more time pass and people will forget about it and then it won't come down," one trustee said. "They don't get to tell us," the source said about members of the public clamoring for its removal. "This is a Penn State community decision."

We should not be surprised that the supposed "leaders" of a supposed "great research university" are betting on everyone in State College, Pennsylvania forgetting the rape of children - they worked so hard at forgetting it for 14 years. Nor should we be surprised if they - at least locally - succeed. "Happy Valley" has proven - again and again - to be the Omelas of Ursula LeGuin's fiction, a place where the comfort and glory of the majority are happily constructed out of the pain and misery of the forgotten few.

That happens not just because the Pennsylvania State University put football above all else (and women's basketball too), but because, clearly, Pennsylvania State University relishes unquestioning compliance in its community. It is the gruesome compliance of fake, forced smiles and pretend agreement which denies inquiry, investigation, and emotional and intellectual discomfort.

The football building must be rebuilt so that week-kneed Nittany Lion football players won't be "creeped out" by the thought of child rape. The Paterno statue must remain because "people would be unhappy" to see it removed. There remains - as Judge Freeh pointed out - not one thought about the victims. The voice of victims - whether whispered from the shower room tiles or shouted in the destruction of a monument to a monster - would force the Penn State community to think, to debate, to recall, perhaps even to disagree. And quite clearly, that is completely unacceptable to the leaders of "Happy Valley."

Which should force all of us to ask: what is education about anyway?

There are, in my mind, two forms of "education" we can choose from, or, as I might say, we can choose between "education" and "training." Now, I am not saying that there is anything necessarily wrong with "training" - the teaching of a specific form, a specific skill, through instruction and, usually, repetition - but I would argue that "training" is not something which moves us - as a society, as a community - forward. It simply reproduces what "we" already do.

What I would call "education" is something different. "Education" enables doubt, and doubt enables change, progress, and the future. If we simply "train" - for example, the mathematics educational efforts suggested here (or here) or the "go ask your elders" view which prevented Michael McQueary from acting when he saw a child being raped and prevented Graham Spanier from acting morally at any point - we remain locked in one place. I can recall being "trained" in a sport, but if I watch that sport today, there is not one technique which has not changed dramatically, and that change is the result of "education," of continuous investigation, challenge, learning.
 

Not, "how do I swim like that guy?" but, "how do I swim faster?"

1976 (above) 2012 (below)

When we "teach compliance" - whether by grading homework completion, or on-time appearances, or by insisting that a leading "educator" cannot be challenged, we are training. When we "educate" we force students to doubt their world, and to imagine all things greater.

This is not always easy in education. Many of the education professors I know speak of the trouble they have getting the future teachers in their classes to dissent, to doubt, to think beyond the linear. Many secondary school teachers, those who try to move away from "training," say the same things about their students. "I tried giving them choices," I've been told, "but the students want me to tell them what do do."

Faced with that, we can choose be "Penn State," and raise a generation which will challenge neither a Sanduskey nor a Paterno, nor a belief, nor formula, or we can choose to be something much better, and raise a generation which will lead us to new places.

Eight months ago I asked:

"What creates such a powerful interest in loyalty and stability that it completely over-rides the commitment to the best interests of children? And understand, I would not ask this question here if I did not think it had implications far beyond the ethically-challenged land grant university of Pennsylvania.

"This was not one of those, "uh, not sure it matters" kind of thing McQueary watched that afternoon in 2002 [turns out it was 2001 according to Freeh]. It wasn't a friend driving five miles an hour over the speed limit, or someone having a few too many drinks, this was - first - one of the "big crimes." In New York City's Police Academy we were told that there were only five crimes for which you could use deadly physical force to "prevent or terminate." The acronym was "Mr.Mrs." - Murder, Robbery, Manslaughter, Rape, (forcible) Sodomy. McQueary observed one of those, and - second - he knew the victim of this crime to be a child.

"What, one wonders, would McQueary have to see which might get him to call 9-1-1?

"Or, the real question, why did Mike McQueary not call police within this "educational environment" when - and I'm guessing here - he would probably have intervened if he had observed the same scene in another place, say, in a park or library rest room?"

In other words, the question becomes, how does the teaching of compliance and unquestioning respect for anything, deconstruct both our humanity and our communities? The Pennsylvania State University stands today as a monument to all that is wrong with the teaching of compliance in education, all that is wrong with traditional forms of institutional loyalty and "team spirit," and all that is wrong with reverence for leadership. All that is wrong with the community cultures of so many of our schools. And so, again, we must ask, how do we consciously, quickly, effectively, undo this.

What the Penn State story shows is that, at the "bottom" (to use Freeh's word), be it the custodial staff or a graduate student, the culture at Penn State was/is a culture of fear and blind compliance. No one, apparently, at that "bottom" felt allowed to trust their own judgments or to act on their own moral beliefs. All were sure that any challenge to the system would have devastating consequences for them. I suspect they were right, as was the reverse. Perhaps for his silence, certainly not because he had challenged Sanduskey or Paterno, Mike McQueary was the only graduate assistant coach of that time rewarded with a full-time job.

And this not only enabled child rape, it disabled thinking.

"Despite being children within easy reach of many supposedly great local figures, they were offered no outstretched hand. They were left to save themselves. This campus is plagued by desperate, insistent shrieks of `We are Penn State.' It's time for Penn State to realize that adhering to this mantra is distancing and self-defeating. It is time to follow a path of humility, not one of hubris." – Matt Bodenschatz, a Penn State student and spokesman for Voices for Victims.

And, I would argue, it is time to stop "training," and start "educating," because if Penn State had valued doubt, questioning, and individual decision-making, Jerry Sanduskey would have been jailed 14 years ago.

It may seem a huge leap to go from insisting on homework completion to Mike McQueary running away from the scene of a crime in progress and handing off moral responsibility to someone he had been told to respect ("You did what you had to do. It is my job now to figure out what we want to do," ... Freeh quotes Paterno as telling McQueary), but it is not a "slippery slope," rather, it is a direct path.

Do not challenge anything! Citizenship grading

Every time we tell a student what to do, we move decision-making from them to ourselves. Every time we decide how a student will learn something, we remove the learning of responsibility from that student. Every time we substitute our judgment ("You cannot skip class") for a student's own micro-economic decisions ("I have better things to do"), we block the learning of the connection between decisions and consequences. Every time we choose stock, pre-cooked rules for community developed moral and ethical expectations, we risk creating the next Mike McQueary, the next Graham Spanier, the next "Penn State."

A quick Google search found this "gem" of a definition of citizenship from a "California Distinguished School," Hilltop High School in Chula Vista, California:

"Citizenship grades are based upon the following criteria, each of which is observable during the grading period. Citizenship grades are also cumulative throughout the semester. Students are expected to be:

Responsible - Bring supplies regularly, submit completed assignments when due, have textbook covered at all times, request work missed during absences, put full name on all assignments, utilize class time wisely, be organized and neat (notebook, backpack, etc.).

Respectful - Behave in a manner conducive to the learning environment, follow all the rules within the class, be polite and courteous to the teacher and classmates, be friendly and helpful.

Reliable - Be on time and attend regularly (especially on testing days), make up work missed during absences, complete all individual and group work.

Honest - Some work is collaborative (group work) but most and especially quizzes / exams are not.  There is no tolerance for cheating, copying others, plagiarizing sources, etc. and severe penalties may result, including receiving an F grade in citizenship."

when your school reopens: don't be Penn State

This may seem like the "rules" in many schools, and it is probably close to the rules in Penn State's football building (We've been told many times this week that new coach Bill O'Brien's rules are "be on time and never lie to me."). It suggests that doubt, questioning, challenging, and making one's own decisions are not part of citizenship. It equates neatness with honesty, compliance with responsibility. It is a recipe for both school and community disaster.

Communities, societies, and nations succeed when people are not compliant, either in politics (think Thomas Jefferson), science (think Albert Einstein), arts (think anyone from Monet to Christo), or ethics (think about those French leaders in the late 1940s who began to forge a shared destiny with Germany). Communities, societies, and nations fail when they adhere to the past out of loyalty (think Czarist Russia, Imperial Germany, or Egypt's Mubarak Regime).

School begins (in the northern hemisphere) in five or six weeks. Will you be "Penn State"? Or will you be something better?

- Ira Socol

The Silent Stadium (Penn State part five)

Previous posts on Penn State: Cultures of Compliance,  The Teaching of Tribalism, Darkness at Noon (Saturday), The Realities of the Victims (Omelas). Please see Voices4Victims at Penn State for more information.

The Freeh Report on the child rape scandal and cover up at the Pennsylvania State University is a frightening glimpse into what can occur when an educational institution, from top to bottom, forgets what its purpose is.

Though the institution in question is one horrifically malignant example, that singularity should not make anyone, in any school, feel comfortable. One of the key things former FBI chief Louis Freeh's report does so well is to point out the very common mis-steps, many going back decades or even more than half a century, which led the Pennsylvania State University into this criminal place, and it is vital reading, because at so many levels of education - especially in the United States where being an educational institution conflates with so many other tangentially connected roles - the seeds of "the next Penn State" lie in fertile ground.

Case Hall at MSU houses both jocks and top students,
but that does not suggest that Michigan State students and programs
are treated equally.

As I read the report, I thought about my "own" Michigan State University. When I was an undergraduate student there in the 1970s a large field sat across the street from the "jock dorm" in which I lived. Actually, to MSU's credit, it was (and is) "half jock dorm" and half residential college for top achieving social science students, a fascinating mix. But then, that mix met every night in "the grill" on the third floor which connected the dorm's two wings, and flag football teams representing floors in all of the South Complex dorms (all of which housed varsity athletes) played each other on the broad green grass across the street in the fall, and floor basketball teams played each other in Jenison Fieldhouse (often on the same court used by Magic Johnson) in the winter.

Magic Johnson and the "Cannabis University [Fourth Floor of South Case Hall] Jointrollers"
both played on this court in the 1970s

Today, that broad green field is occupied by the "football building" - the Spartan equivalent of the infamous Lasch Building in State College, Pennsylvania - and vast, private-for-varsity-football, practice fields. The basketball teams play in the Breslin Center, where no intramural team would ever find welcome. And the third floor grill in Case Hall is now a private dining room for revenue sport athletes.

Splendid isolation from the campus and the norms of society:
The Lasch Building at Penn State (above)
The Skandalaris Football Building at Michigan State (below)

And I thought about a tiny Michigan high school I once coached soccer at. Tiny, the whole pre-K through grade 12 school district had fewer than 800 kids in one building, but football mattered in a huge way to the tiny city in which it sat. I had worked with kids who fought for boys and girls varsity soccer teams for years against, primarily, the football coach and his staff who thought that soccer would dilute his football pool of talent. (I continually pointed out that the football coach cut many potential players, and usually had a 14 boy team though only 12 would ever play most seasons.) When we finally got the teams, I reported to an Athletic Director who was the son of the football coach. Now, he was a really nice guy and a great physical education teacher, but... "Ira," he once told me, "you have no idea of what I go through at family dinners. We talk about you and your "fag" soccer players more than we talk about anything else."

And when the football team's star running back assaulted a teacher at a school-sponsored camp one summer, he was suspended for one game - that easy, non-conference opponent game which began the season.

Penn State Women's
Basketball Coach
Rene Portland sexually
harassed players for decades
without consequence

So, it isn't just Penn State, it isn't just NCAA Division 1, it isn't just big. The University of Montana football program tried to cover up gang rapes. The Baylor University basketball team tried to cover up murder. Penn State was just better at criminal behavior, or more successful, or both. They spent years covering up sexual harassment in their women's basketball program, and apparently much of this century covering up crimes committed by football players. The worst scandals, yes, but as I've said, the seeds of this lie everywhere.

What do we do now?

The only good thing I see which has come out of the Penn State crimes right now is the sudden commitment of Pennsylvania educators and politicians to the idea that "punishment doesn't work." I've seen that all over blogs in the past couple of days, and this is huge progress for a state last seen trying to charge an 11-year-old as an adult for murder. Pennsylvania has almost 500 people serving life sentences for crimes they committed as children, so it is fabulous to see that the Commonwealth will, apparently, revisit all of this, along with those in prison for drugs, and those currently on public sex offender lists.

I agree, punishment doesn't work, but required changes in behavior can work, and the Pennsylvania State University, the institution and community which together built the toxic culture Freeh's report speaks of, needs required changes in behavior. We know this not because a few morons gathered at the statue of child-rape-collaborator, but because, on the day after the Freeh Report's release, Penn State's one action was to announce that it would be spending money to renovate - yes - the Lasch Football Building. If anything says, "we don't get it," that bizarre news moment does.

Thankfully, European Football - the football with feet and no helmets - offers the answer. And we reach across the sea for new solutions when our issues overwhelm our old solutions.

Chilling: The Paterno statue right after Sanduskey's arrest.

Punishment doesn't work (please keep repeating that all you educators and politicians), and shutting down the Penn State football program for a year or two would punish current players and coaches, I am told, who were "uninvolved" (except for the few staff holdovers rarely mentioned). It might also punish other Big Ten football programs. OK, don't shut the program down. Yes, deprive it of post-season play opportunities. That's basic. Force it to contribute 100% of its Big Ten football revenues to non-Penn State related charities and research groups, that's vital. Do both for four years, enough to help break the cycle of football worship and profit across one "collegiate generation"... but then...

Do one more thing. End the football culture for four years. End it. When it returns, make sure it is part of the university, and that is is not the university.

UEFA, the European Football Association - and other global football associations worldwide - has the solution. When culture is the problem, culture is eliminated, and teams are required to play their home games in empty stadiums. This solution is used against clubs big and small, and it is effective. It targets - directly - the culture which lies at the heart of the problem.

in Kenya, a team endures the empty stadium

A Turkish team deals with the silence of fan misbehavior

Penn State should play its home games in an empty Beaver Stadium for the next four years. The games should not be on local television or on local cable systems or on the radio. ESPN3 and similar internet providers should block games from IP addresses in Pennsylvania. Those who "live and die" with Penn State football would have to find other things to do with their lives. The university would have to find other heroes. And, I suspect, all would gain dramatically from the experience.

Let the games go on, but let the culture die.

- Ira Socol

Twitter or Not

Through Twitter I found this article from a student in Allendale, Pennsylvania. A high school student journalist with some fine writing skills.

Alex Groves, in The Morning Call, thinks, "As a social network, Twitter is a pointless dud."

Social networking in general is a wonderful thing when not abused or used in excess. Most social networking sites have the potential to connect people around the world and are almost always valuable tools in communication. That being said, there are always things in this world that are kind of pointless, and social networking has its own pointless duds, Twitter being one of them.

Twitter is just another fad based on popularity, similar to MySpace and Facebook. The only difference is it doesn't relay information quite as well as other social networking sites. But it still detaches us from reality and lets us become absorbed in what we are doing rather than what we should be doing or what we want to do. It's pointless and ultimately brings those of us who already have Facebook and MySpace to the point of excessiveness.

For those who haven't heard a lot about it, Twitter allows members to post blurbs or ''tweets'' about what they are doing in no more than 140 characters. These tweets are subscribed to by followers, often friends or fans of the person tweeting. The followers receive the tweets online or via external services such as cellphones.

Twitter has attracted the attention of celebrities like John Mayer, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em and Britney Spears. Politicians such as President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain tweet as well.

The only problem with all this twittering by celebrities and politicians is that they are on Facebook much more often. Their Facebook walls are loaded with more information than their tweets. Anything they tweet about is usually also on their Facebook walls. So why spend time on both Twitter and Facebook?

By spending more time on social networks and the Internet than we need to, we enable ourselves to become reclusive, sheltered from family and friends.

How does one know if his friends are OK? We also miss the world around us. We don't get to enjoy a crisp, clean-smelling spring morning. We miss being involved in fun and recreational things. We miss the important things our family and friends do. We don't get to open an actual newspaper and enjoy it if we're constantly online. So, why have people become so fascinated with finding out what celebrities and politicians are doing rather than what they, themselves, could be doing? With all the good we can do online, including disseminating information and spreading knowledge, why do we become obsessed with Britney Spears tweeting about playing with the boys on tour?

When do we utilize technology for positive change? When do we use the Internet to our advantage, rather than as time-killing entertainment? Call me old fashioned, but I think that Twitter is unnecessary in a world already too obsessed with social networking.

Alex Groves is a sophomore at Emmaus High School, where he is a writer for the school newspaper, The Stinger.

I read this, then I looked at my Twitter feed.

willrich45 Please say hello to IT Directors from across the SW. Why should we use social tools in schools?

shareski @willrich45 Because learning is social. If the only thing we use the internet for is to look up stuff, we're missing the best part.

courosa @willrich45 Hi Directors from Canada. Social tools serve only to amplify & accelerate existing processes. Proper use in schools vital.

jameshollis @willrich45 Hello from Aurora, IL -Social Netwrking provides access 2 the knowledge-base of ideas & resources of people w/ similar interests

haretek @irasocol Agreed, what makes twitter an effective learning tool is I get to use and practice skills in real time and real life w/real people

willrich45 Join us live in 15 mins here: http://bit.ly/163yCz Model the network for some IT directors across the SW.

And then I wrote Alex this reply:

Alex,

As a PhD student and educational researcher, I can tell you that for me, Twitter is a continuous stream of incredibly valuable information. The people I choose to follow are not celebrities, but other researchers, professors, teachers, web developers, software developers, and global thinkers. All day long we exchange articles, resources, and ideas. We ask questions and cast doubts. We debate and challenge. And, through Twitter, we do this instantly, across continents and time zones, via a tiny window in the corner of our computer screens.

Is it all work? Of course not. Just as much conversation in my College of Education building is personal, so is much of Twitter, but that's because we are humans.

In the end, every communication system is only as valuable as the user makes it. Most of the books on the shelves at your local Barnes & Noble are "trash." Most phone conversations are nonsense. While there are great newspapers, most are worthless intellectually. Honestly, the majority of classroom time is useless. But all of these "tools" can be incredibly valuable if the producer and the user make them so.

With Twitter, you are producer and user, so the value lies almost entirely in your own capabilities. You make it what you want it to be.

I am not suggesting that anyone must use Twitter. It is always a choice. But I am suggesting that this kind of stripped-down instant social networking is, through the collaboration of a vast group of remarkable people, serving as a transformational tool in many ways. In my field it is changing classrooms, changing teachers, changing teacher preparation programs, and changing research paradigms.

In other words, we are indeed "utiliz[ing] technology for positive change." And we are using, "the Internet to our advantage." Our tool is Twitter, yours might be something else, but attacking the tool makes no sense.

- Ira Socol

book recommendation for Alex: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations