Ehrenreich: a writer who changed my thinking

One of the writers who changed my view of the world was Barbara Ehrenreich. Despite not knowing her personally, her book Nickel and Dimed changed my behavior. After reading her experiences as a waitress and hotel housekeeper, I have always erred on the side of generosity when it comes to tipping. So I was saddened to learn of her death last week.

No matter what our socio-economic status, each of us value those nickels and dimes differently. A million dollars is pocket change to a billionaire; that five-dollar tip left for the motel maid may mean the difference between her kids eating or going hungry. 

Below is a column the book inspired…

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Nickel and Dimed
HFE, March 2007

To succeed in today’s workplace, young people need more than basic reading and math skills. They need substantial content knowledge and information technology skills; advanced thinking skills, flexibility to adapt to change; and interpersonal skills to succeed in multi-cultural, cross-functional teams. J. Willard Marriott, Jr., Chairman and CEO, Marriott International, Inc.

Spring has always been the time I seem least content with being in education. I am usually pretty fed up with the antics of students, teachers, administrators, and a few parents. I am actively questioning whether I actually taught anybody anything during the year or any of my department’s initiatives did anything for kids. I am worried about the next round of budget cuts. 

So I always start wondering if long-haul truck driving wouldn’t be a far more lucrative and rewarding way to put Spam on the table.

I just finished re-reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s terrific little book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Holt, 2001). Middle-class writer Ehrenreich tells in a very readable, surprisingly comic style her experiences working as a minimum-wage waitress, housecleaner, nursing home attendant, and Wal-Mart worker around the United States including a stint here in Minnesota, trying to actually live on what she made at those jobs. It was a glance into a way of life I only vaguely remember from my college days. 

While I expected to read about the work being difficult and expenses impossible to meet for these low-paid, “invisible” members of our society, I was surprised at how demeaning the author found the working conditions themselves - describing drug and personality tests that attempt to weed out any “difficult” employees; supervisors that are suspicious, rule-bound dictators; duties that are stultifyingly repetitive; and simply the spirit sapping “dead-endedness” of the work and workers’ futures. Is it possible, I asked myself while reading the book, that many employers actually want workers who are mindless automatons? Kathy Sierra, in her Creating Passionate Users blog <headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/10/knocking_the_ex.html> facetiously lists 16 reasons why robots are the best employees.

This certainly goes against everything I’ve been reading from politicians and business groups who want “world-class” school graduates whose brains, initiative, and creativity will fire the engines of economic development in a post-industrial economy. The report from which the opening quote was taken (Are They Really Ready to Work? Partnership for 21st Century Skills, et al. October 2006) which is a survey of 400 employers across the United States found that professionalism/work ethic, oral and written communications, teamwork/collaboration, and critical thinking/problem solving were the most important skills cited.

Can one conclude that business and government don’t want everybody to be all that smart – just the middle and upper classes?

So what does this have to do with school libraries and technology? In his classic book Savage Inequalities (Crown, 1991), Jonathan Kozol concluded after exploring the best and worst of America’s public schools that there are two kinds of schools in this country: those for the governors and those for the governed. Sadly, I think he is absolutely right. Which kind of school do you work in:

• One that teaches kids to answer questions with a single correct answer, or one that teaches them to ask questions, especially of authorities?
• One that teaches kids to memorize factoids from textbooks, or one that teaches them to find pleasure, excitement, knowledge and wisdom in reading the work of a variety of compelling writers?
• One that teaches kids to follow directions, or one that teaches them to be self-directed?
• One that teaches kids only the realities and limitations of life, or one that teaches (and believes) all people can hope, dream, and aspire to great things?

Effective school library and technology programs can be the antidotes to education’s lurch to the test-crazy, standards-based, one-right-answer approach to “education.” Of course attention must be paid to basic skills for all children, but unless you want your kids to only have a blue vest or a vacuum cleaner in their long-term career plans, “basic skills” are simply not enough.

Our school library and technology programs that teach students not just to read, but to love to read; that ask students to listen to and judge different points of view; and that help students become effective, self-motivated problem-solvers are vital if we want our schools to be “those for the governors.”

So, if you get the same spring doldrums I do, remember just how important you really are to the children in your charge – not just now, but for the rest of their lives.

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Thank you, Ms Ehrenreich, for giving me a new perspective - and greater compassion.

A nickel Coke and a dollar's worth of reading

In the 1950s and 60s Lake VIew, Iowa’s small town Dueur Drug Store had not only a fine selection of comic books and magazines available, but also a soda fountain. For a five cents, we boys would order a small Coke (plain, cherry, or vanilla) and sit at the counter for hours reading unpurchased comic books from the nearby rack while nursing the drink. And nobody fussed at us.

Some of my love of reading has to be attributed to Superman and Batman and The Fantastic Four.* I could easily consume a ten-cent comic in ten minutes or so. I read Archie comics, but I really didn’t get the humor. The Classics Illustrated versions of novels like The Three Musketeers and Don Quixote were also among my favorites.

After finishing both my Coke and a few comic books, I would pay my dime for a comic I could take home, trade with buddies, and enjoy reading before going to sleep. 

As I got a bit older, I bought and studied Mad Magazine, much to my grandmother’s dismay. (I had to hide it when staying at her home.) But even more distasteful to her and appealing to me were the Eerie and Weird Tales magazines full of monsters, supernatural events, and bare-breasted women (who strangely never had nipples). 

Yes, I read novels eventually. My personal Edgar Rice Burroughs collection was extensive and I plowed through Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries. As I entered junior high and high school, my range of reading expanded to include Heinlien, Tolkien, and Ian Fleming.

As I relate these memories, I ask myself if we in traditional education have not taken the wrong approach to reading instruction. Would we inspire more reading and better readers (not just those who can read, but want to read) by using comic books, graphic novels, and self-selected materials rather than reading textbooks and professionally selected library books? (I love seeing the extensive graphic novel collections in many libraries today.)

For whatever reason (opportunity, a reading family, or a generous drug store owner), I am grateful that I became a life-long reader. Something stuck - I have already in August gone past my Goodreads’ goal of 52 books for the year.

Make sure your kids have access to comic books.

*A recent post (Why I Read) by Miguel Guhlin stirred this memory from my own misspent childhood. Miguel reminisces on how he sat in front of the comic book rack reading various issues, without reprimand from adults.

Don't complain until you've cleared a trail

Have you ever been on a hiking trail and thought, “Who in the hell takes care of this path and why aren’t they doing a better job of it?” 

Fallen trees across the trail, shaky bridges over swamps, confusing or nonexistent signage, and just overgrown branches make all the more challenging what is perhaps an already a difficult journey. 

Guilty!

This weekend has reshaped my attitude toward hiking trail conditions. An outdoor club of which I am a member has as one of its responsibilities the maintenance of the Border Route Trail - a 65 mile path that follows the Canadian border in northern MN. About a dozen Rovers made the six hour drive north to spend a couple days camping, socializing, and actually working on the trail.

We had several tasks:

• To add metal signs to unsigned portions of the trail that reflects its new status as part of the North Country Trail (Amazing how much work putting one of these things is.)

• Repair two bridges on the east end of the trail
• Add blue blazes on tree trunks for route guidance
• Use a chainsaw to clear large deadfall lying across the trail
• Use loppers and handsaws to clear overgrown branches and small deadfall in the path

After a demonstration and practice on how to install new metal signposts, I joined the seven members of the trail clearing crew. Shuttling to the trail head with our gear, we spent the day clearing and blazing the first five miles of the trail. It was hot, sweaty, buggy, and tiring. But rewarding. Good company and some amazing views were our reward.

A cold beer and a quick swim in McFarland Lake cooled one off at the end of the day. Suppers and breakfasts were communal. The tent and sleeping bag felt pretty darned good each night.

I probably did not contribute as much as I could or should have. I used my car as a shuttle. I lopped. I moved logs. I painted blazes. I carried a supply bucket. And I learned just how much work maintaining a trail actually is. Of the trail’s 165 miles, it took eight of us most of the day to clear just five of them.

So next time I am on the trail, I will be grateful for the bridges that are stable and the paths that are clear. Not grouse about the small annoyances while wondering about the competence of the trail caretakers. Now that I’ve been one of them.*

*Perhaps each of us should spend a day or two being a classroom teacher, a snowplow driver, a fast food worker, a nurse, or in any job which seems to draw criticism…