This passage, also from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, serves as a great metaphor for the content of my "Making the Grade" post.
*****
Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow.
*****
This is the type of passage that makes you put your book down and rest for a bit - unwilling to move ahead until it settles upon you.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Making the Grade
A few years ago, just days into my first year of teaching at the Center for Inquiry, I was walking out to my car with my then-new buddy Tim. I mentioned to him that I was sometimes frustrated by students and particularly parents who become far more concerned with grades than with learning. I offered an idea that I had toyed with for quite some time - asking parents on the very first day what grades they wanted their kids to receive and then giving it to them. That way, I surmised, we could be free of that nonsense and focus our attention and energies on far more important topics and work. Tim didn't know me well enough at the time to determine whether this was meant in all honesty or just in jest.
It'd be hard to persuade the masses that grades are harmful in that they negatively change the way teaching and learning take place. Some schools have been successful in this, though. I've been fortunate in that two of the four schools I have taught at did not have grades. Instead they offered narrative accounts of progress.
I've been reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the past few weeks. It's a great book in that it challenges you to reconsider the ways in which you've come to view reality. It becomes clear when reading the book that we've really narrowed our ways of looking at things in a way that keeps us from seeing the infinite other ways of viewing and constructing the world. Often we look for the simplest explanation, per Occum's Razor, and tune out all other possibility.
Here's a short passage I read yesterday that speaks to the notion of grades in schools as well as to the idea that to teach someone to write necessitates teaching them to do no more than mimic the ideas and styles of others. There's validity in what he says here; however, a good counter-argument could be made as well. That's what makes topics such as these so rich - you could spend quite some time chasing down an answer.
***
[Phaedrus had] been having trouble with students who had nothing to say. At first he thought it was laziness but later it became apparent that it wasn't. They just couldn't think of anything to say.
One of them, a girl with strong-lensed glasses, wanted to write a five-hundred-word essay about the United States. He was used to the sinking feeling that comes from statements like this, and suggested without disparagement that she narrow it down to just Bozeman.
When the paper came due she didn't have it and was quite upset. She had tried and tried but she just couldn't think of anything to say.
He had already discussed her with her previous instructors and they'd confirmed his impressions of her. She was very serious, disciplined and hardworking, but extremely dull. Not a spark of creativity in her anywhere. Her eyes, behind the thick-lensed glasses, were the eyes of a drudge. She wasn't bluffing him, she really couldn't think of anything to say, and was upset by her inability to do as she was told.
It just stumped him. Now he couldn't think of anything to say. A silence occurred, and then a peculiar answer: "Narrow it down to the main street of Bozeman." It was a stroke of insight.
She nodded dutifully and went out. But just before her next class she came back in real distress, tears this time, distress that had obviously been there for a long time. She still couldn't think of anything to say, and couldn't understand why, if she couldn't think of anything about all of Bozeman, she should be able to think of something about just one street.
He was furious. "You're not looking!" he said. A memory came back of his own dismissal from the University for having too much to say. For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look the more you see. She really wasn't looking and yet somehow didn't understand this.
He told her angrily, "Narrow it down to the front on one building on the main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper-left hand brick."
Her eyes, behind the thick-lensed glasses, opened wide.
She came in the next class with a puzzled look and handed him a five-thousand-word essay on the front of the Opera House on the main street of Bozeman, Montana. "I sat in the hamburger stand across the street," she said, "and started writing about the first brick, and the second brick, and then by the third brick it all started to come and I couldn't stop. They thought I was crazy, and they kept kidding me, but here it all is. I don't understand it."
Neither did he, but on long walks through the streets of town he thought about it and concluded she was evidently stopped with the same kind of blockage that had paralyzed him on his first day of teaching. She was blocked because she was trying to repeat, in her writing, things she had already heard, just as on the first day he had tried to repeat things he had already decided to say. She couldn't think of anything to write about Bozeman because she couldn't recall anything she had heard worth repeating. She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before. The narrowing down to one brick destroyed the blockage because it was so obvious she had to some original and direct seeing.
He experimented further. In one class he had everyone write all hour about the back of his thumb. Everyone gave him funny looks at the beginning of the hour, but everyone did it, and there wasn't a single complaint about "nothing to say."
In another class he changed the subject from the thumb to a coin, and got a full hour's writing from every student. In other classes it was the same. Some asked, "Do you have to write about both sides?" Once they got into the idea of seeing directly for themselves they also saw there was no limit to the amount they could say. It was a confidence-building assignment too, because what they wrote, even though seemingly trivial, was nevertheless their own thing, not a mimicking of someone else's. Classes where he used that coin exercise were always less balky and more interested.
As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn't have it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.
That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A's. Originality on the other hand could get you anything- from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.
He discussed this with a professor of psychology who lived next door to him, an extremely imaginative teacher, who said, "Right. Eliminate the whole degree-and-grading system and then you'll get real education."
Phaedrus thought about this, and when weeks later a very bright student couldn't think of a subject for a term paper, it was still on his mind, so he gave it to her as a topic. She didn't like the topic at first, but agreed to take it anyway.
Within a week she was talking about it to everyone, and within two weeks had worked up a superb paper. The class she delivered it to didn't have the advantage of two weeks to think about the subject, however, and was quite hostile to the whole idea of eliminating grades and degrees. This didn't slow her down at all. Her tone took on an old-time religious fervor. She begged the other students to listen, to understand this was really right. "I'm not saying this for him," she said and glanced at Phaedrus. "It's for you."
Her pleading tone, her religious fervor, greatly impressed him, along with the fact that her college entrance examinations had placed her in the upper one percent of the class. During the next quarter, when teaching "persuasive writing," he chose this topic as a "demonstrator," a piece of persuasive writing he worked up by himself, day by day, in front of and with the help of the class.
He used the demonstrator to avoid talking in terms of principles of composition, all of which he had deep doubts about. He felt that by exposing classes to his own sentences as he made them, with all the misgivings and hang-ups and erasures, he would give a more honest picture of what writing was like than by spending class time picking nits in completed work of masters for emulation. This time he developed the argument that the whole grading system and degree should be eliminated, and to make it something that truly involved the students in what they were hearing, he withheld all grades during the quarter.
Phaedrus' argument for the abolition of the degree-and-grading system produced a nonplussed or negative reaction in all but a few students at first, since it seemed, on first judgment, to destroy the whole University system. One student laid it wide open when she said with complete candor, "Of course you can't eliminate the degree and grading system. After all, that's what we're here for."
She spoke the complete truth. The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a little hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and the mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealistic attitude.
The demonstrator was an argument that elimination of grades and degrees would destroy this hypocrisy. Rather than deal with generalities it dealt with the specific career of an imaginary student who more or less typified what was found in the classroom, a student completely conditioned to work for a grade rather than for the knowledge the grade was supposed to represent.
It'd be hard to persuade the masses that grades are harmful in that they negatively change the way teaching and learning take place. Some schools have been successful in this, though. I've been fortunate in that two of the four schools I have taught at did not have grades. Instead they offered narrative accounts of progress.
I've been reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance the past few weeks. It's a great book in that it challenges you to reconsider the ways in which you've come to view reality. It becomes clear when reading the book that we've really narrowed our ways of looking at things in a way that keeps us from seeing the infinite other ways of viewing and constructing the world. Often we look for the simplest explanation, per Occum's Razor, and tune out all other possibility.
Here's a short passage I read yesterday that speaks to the notion of grades in schools as well as to the idea that to teach someone to write necessitates teaching them to do no more than mimic the ideas and styles of others. There's validity in what he says here; however, a good counter-argument could be made as well. That's what makes topics such as these so rich - you could spend quite some time chasing down an answer.
***
[Phaedrus had] been having trouble with students who had nothing to say. At first he thought it was laziness but later it became apparent that it wasn't. They just couldn't think of anything to say.
One of them, a girl with strong-lensed glasses, wanted to write a five-hundred-word essay about the United States. He was used to the sinking feeling that comes from statements like this, and suggested without disparagement that she narrow it down to just Bozeman.
When the paper came due she didn't have it and was quite upset. She had tried and tried but she just couldn't think of anything to say.
He had already discussed her with her previous instructors and they'd confirmed his impressions of her. She was very serious, disciplined and hardworking, but extremely dull. Not a spark of creativity in her anywhere. Her eyes, behind the thick-lensed glasses, were the eyes of a drudge. She wasn't bluffing him, she really couldn't think of anything to say, and was upset by her inability to do as she was told.
It just stumped him. Now he couldn't think of anything to say. A silence occurred, and then a peculiar answer: "Narrow it down to the main street of Bozeman." It was a stroke of insight.
She nodded dutifully and went out. But just before her next class she came back in real distress, tears this time, distress that had obviously been there for a long time. She still couldn't think of anything to say, and couldn't understand why, if she couldn't think of anything about all of Bozeman, she should be able to think of something about just one street.
He was furious. "You're not looking!" he said. A memory came back of his own dismissal from the University for having too much to say. For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look the more you see. She really wasn't looking and yet somehow didn't understand this.
He told her angrily, "Narrow it down to the front on one building on the main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper-left hand brick."
Her eyes, behind the thick-lensed glasses, opened wide.
She came in the next class with a puzzled look and handed him a five-thousand-word essay on the front of the Opera House on the main street of Bozeman, Montana. "I sat in the hamburger stand across the street," she said, "and started writing about the first brick, and the second brick, and then by the third brick it all started to come and I couldn't stop. They thought I was crazy, and they kept kidding me, but here it all is. I don't understand it."
Neither did he, but on long walks through the streets of town he thought about it and concluded she was evidently stopped with the same kind of blockage that had paralyzed him on his first day of teaching. She was blocked because she was trying to repeat, in her writing, things she had already heard, just as on the first day he had tried to repeat things he had already decided to say. She couldn't think of anything to write about Bozeman because she couldn't recall anything she had heard worth repeating. She was strangely unaware that she could look and see freshly for herself, as she wrote, without primary regard for what had been said before. The narrowing down to one brick destroyed the blockage because it was so obvious she had to some original and direct seeing.
He experimented further. In one class he had everyone write all hour about the back of his thumb. Everyone gave him funny looks at the beginning of the hour, but everyone did it, and there wasn't a single complaint about "nothing to say."
In another class he changed the subject from the thumb to a coin, and got a full hour's writing from every student. In other classes it was the same. Some asked, "Do you have to write about both sides?" Once they got into the idea of seeing directly for themselves they also saw there was no limit to the amount they could say. It was a confidence-building assignment too, because what they wrote, even though seemingly trivial, was nevertheless their own thing, not a mimicking of someone else's. Classes where he used that coin exercise were always less balky and more interested.
As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn't have it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.
That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A's. Originality on the other hand could get you anything- from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.
He discussed this with a professor of psychology who lived next door to him, an extremely imaginative teacher, who said, "Right. Eliminate the whole degree-and-grading system and then you'll get real education."
Phaedrus thought about this, and when weeks later a very bright student couldn't think of a subject for a term paper, it was still on his mind, so he gave it to her as a topic. She didn't like the topic at first, but agreed to take it anyway.
Within a week she was talking about it to everyone, and within two weeks had worked up a superb paper. The class she delivered it to didn't have the advantage of two weeks to think about the subject, however, and was quite hostile to the whole idea of eliminating grades and degrees. This didn't slow her down at all. Her tone took on an old-time religious fervor. She begged the other students to listen, to understand this was really right. "I'm not saying this for him," she said and glanced at Phaedrus. "It's for you."
Her pleading tone, her religious fervor, greatly impressed him, along with the fact that her college entrance examinations had placed her in the upper one percent of the class. During the next quarter, when teaching "persuasive writing," he chose this topic as a "demonstrator," a piece of persuasive writing he worked up by himself, day by day, in front of and with the help of the class.
He used the demonstrator to avoid talking in terms of principles of composition, all of which he had deep doubts about. He felt that by exposing classes to his own sentences as he made them, with all the misgivings and hang-ups and erasures, he would give a more honest picture of what writing was like than by spending class time picking nits in completed work of masters for emulation. This time he developed the argument that the whole grading system and degree should be eliminated, and to make it something that truly involved the students in what they were hearing, he withheld all grades during the quarter.
Phaedrus' argument for the abolition of the degree-and-grading system produced a nonplussed or negative reaction in all but a few students at first, since it seemed, on first judgment, to destroy the whole University system. One student laid it wide open when she said with complete candor, "Of course you can't eliminate the degree and grading system. After all, that's what we're here for."
She spoke the complete truth. The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a little hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and the mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealistic attitude.
The demonstrator was an argument that elimination of grades and degrees would destroy this hypocrisy. Rather than deal with generalities it dealt with the specific career of an imaginary student who more or less typified what was found in the classroom, a student completely conditioned to work for a grade rather than for the knowledge the grade was supposed to represent.
Monday, February 20, 2012
It's Been a Real Privilege
A few nights ago my classroom kids, their parents, and I had the opportunity to sit and watch a clip from a larger CNN piece about a group of Muslims in Tennessee who were trying to build a Mosque in the face of vehement opposition from their community. In the video we saw a variety of people lash out in pure hatred and call for the town to remain "the same as it's always been." By that, they meant largely white and Christian.
Here's the video. Watch just the first four minutes and see for yourself.
When I shared my plans to show the video a few people raised their eyebrows in either shock or disapproval. Some thought this might be going beyond our prescribed curriculum and be perceived as preaching rather than teaching. Others feared how the parents might feel or, worst yet, how they might react. However, the more I thought about it the more clear it seemed to me that speaking out against hatred and privilege should never be considered controversial.
The great thing about watching videos like this with kids is that, unlike adults, they are not prone to feel guilty or become defensive. They simply look at a situation as it is, decide how they feel about it, and share out their thoughts. Wouldn't it be great if all of society could engage in such honest discourse?
It struck me as I watched this video for a second time that it really speaks to religious privilege. Christians are welcomed into communities. Muslims are not. Christians can openly celebrate their holidays in very public spaces without fear. Muslims cannot. Christians can use their faith as proof of their trustworthiness (this is why EVERY presidential candidate prepares a lengthy statement of faith). Muslims cannot.
Privilege is a subject that most people don't like to hear about, never-the-less discuss. White privilege. Male privilege. Heterosexual privilege. Non-disabled privilege. It often falls on deaf or defiant ears. This is, in part, due to the fact that privilege is so embedded in our society and our very being that we fail to recognize it. For instance, as a heterosexual I am privileged in that I can speak openly at school about my wife and not have to fear how to explain my relationship with her when seen together in public. Homosexual teachers can do neither.
While reading the book Privilege, Power, and Difference, I came upon the following list of male privileges...
* In most professions and upper-level occupations, men are held to a lower standard than women. It is easier for a "good but not great" male lawyer to make partner than it is for a comparable woman.
* Men are charged lower prices for new and used cars.
* If men do poorly at something or make a mistake or commit a crime, they can generally assume that people won't attribute the failure to their gender. The kids who shoot teachers and schoolmates are almost always boys, but rarely is the fact that all this violence is being done by males raised as an important issue.
* Men can usually assume that national heroes, success models, and other figures held up for general admiration will be men.
* Men can generally assume that when they go out in public they won't be sexually harassed or assaulted just because they're male, and if they are victimized, they won't be asked to explain what they were doing there.
* Male representation in government and the ruling circles of corporations and other organizations is disproportionately high.
* Men are more likely to be given early opportunities to show what they can do at work, to be identified as potential candidates for promotion, to be mentored, to be given a second chance when they fail, and to be allowed to treat failure as a learning experience rather than as an indication of who they are and the shortcomings of their gender.
* Men are more likely than women to control conversations and be allowed to get away with it and to have their ideas and contributions taken seriously, even those that were suggested previously by a woman and dismissed or ignored.
* Most men can assume that their gender won't be used to determine whether they'll fit in at work.
* Men can succeed in nearly every field without other people being surprised by this.
* Men don't have to deal with an endless and exhausting stream of attention drawn to their gender (for example, how attractive they are).
* Men don't find themselves slotted into a narrow range of occupations identified with their gender as women are.
* Men can reasonably expect that if they work hard and "play by the rules" they'll get what they deserve and feel justified in complaining if they don't.
* The standards used to evaluate men as men are consistent with the standards used to evaluate them in other roles such as occupation. Standards used to evaluate women as women are often different from those used to evaluate them in other roles. For example, a man can be both a "real man" and a successful and aggressive lawyer, while an aggressive woman lawyer may succeed as a lawyer but be judged as not measuring up as a woman.
I read this list to Tricia and she nodded in agreement with each and every item on the list. They are all true. Yet when we notice this or any other system of privilege we avoid talking about it for fear of offending someone or making them uncomfortable. If it is true that every oppressive system feeds on silence, and I believe it is, then it is our job to begin speaking out. No matter how hard that may be.
Here's the video. Watch just the first four minutes and see for yourself.
When I shared my plans to show the video a few people raised their eyebrows in either shock or disapproval. Some thought this might be going beyond our prescribed curriculum and be perceived as preaching rather than teaching. Others feared how the parents might feel or, worst yet, how they might react. However, the more I thought about it the more clear it seemed to me that speaking out against hatred and privilege should never be considered controversial.
The great thing about watching videos like this with kids is that, unlike adults, they are not prone to feel guilty or become defensive. They simply look at a situation as it is, decide how they feel about it, and share out their thoughts. Wouldn't it be great if all of society could engage in such honest discourse?
It struck me as I watched this video for a second time that it really speaks to religious privilege. Christians are welcomed into communities. Muslims are not. Christians can openly celebrate their holidays in very public spaces without fear. Muslims cannot. Christians can use their faith as proof of their trustworthiness (this is why EVERY presidential candidate prepares a lengthy statement of faith). Muslims cannot.
Privilege is a subject that most people don't like to hear about, never-the-less discuss. White privilege. Male privilege. Heterosexual privilege. Non-disabled privilege. It often falls on deaf or defiant ears. This is, in part, due to the fact that privilege is so embedded in our society and our very being that we fail to recognize it. For instance, as a heterosexual I am privileged in that I can speak openly at school about my wife and not have to fear how to explain my relationship with her when seen together in public. Homosexual teachers can do neither.
While reading the book Privilege, Power, and Difference, I came upon the following list of male privileges...
* In most professions and upper-level occupations, men are held to a lower standard than women. It is easier for a "good but not great" male lawyer to make partner than it is for a comparable woman.
* Men are charged lower prices for new and used cars.
* If men do poorly at something or make a mistake or commit a crime, they can generally assume that people won't attribute the failure to their gender. The kids who shoot teachers and schoolmates are almost always boys, but rarely is the fact that all this violence is being done by males raised as an important issue.
* Men can usually assume that national heroes, success models, and other figures held up for general admiration will be men.
* Men can generally assume that when they go out in public they won't be sexually harassed or assaulted just because they're male, and if they are victimized, they won't be asked to explain what they were doing there.
* Male representation in government and the ruling circles of corporations and other organizations is disproportionately high.
* Men are more likely to be given early opportunities to show what they can do at work, to be identified as potential candidates for promotion, to be mentored, to be given a second chance when they fail, and to be allowed to treat failure as a learning experience rather than as an indication of who they are and the shortcomings of their gender.
* Men are more likely than women to control conversations and be allowed to get away with it and to have their ideas and contributions taken seriously, even those that were suggested previously by a woman and dismissed or ignored.
* Most men can assume that their gender won't be used to determine whether they'll fit in at work.
* Men can succeed in nearly every field without other people being surprised by this.
* Men don't have to deal with an endless and exhausting stream of attention drawn to their gender (for example, how attractive they are).
* Men don't find themselves slotted into a narrow range of occupations identified with their gender as women are.
* Men can reasonably expect that if they work hard and "play by the rules" they'll get what they deserve and feel justified in complaining if they don't.
* The standards used to evaluate men as men are consistent with the standards used to evaluate them in other roles such as occupation. Standards used to evaluate women as women are often different from those used to evaluate them in other roles. For example, a man can be both a "real man" and a successful and aggressive lawyer, while an aggressive woman lawyer may succeed as a lawyer but be judged as not measuring up as a woman.
I read this list to Tricia and she nodded in agreement with each and every item on the list. They are all true. Yet when we notice this or any other system of privilege we avoid talking about it for fear of offending someone or making them uncomfortable. If it is true that every oppressive system feeds on silence, and I believe it is, then it is our job to begin speaking out. No matter how hard that may be.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Hometown Heroes
When I was growing up, my heroes - like those of my friends - were athletes. Ozzie Smith, Tommy Herr, Willie McGee, Jim McMahon. In my years as a teacher I see many other young boys do the same. Any given day at school will find bunches of Carolina jerseys walking through the front door. As my boys get older they are beginning to notice this and consequently changing their own preferences to match that of the established norm.
This past Christmas Muluken received an Albert Pujols Cardinal jersey and a Marcus Lattimore Carolina jersey. Ty got both a brand new David Freese Cardinal t-shirt and a hand-me-down Chris Carpenter jersey. They are beginning, it seems, to make athletes their heroes.
I imagine this is pretty typical. Many kids over the past century have grown up worshiping Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Dr. J, Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, or Wayne Gretsky. With time most of them outgrow this.
At least in part.
A few months ago St. Louis lost it's best baseball player - Albert Pujols. After helping the club to win it's eleventh baseball championship in franchise history he bolted for Los Angeles where the Angels were willing to pay him $240 million dollars over the next ten years. Though he was deeply rooted in the St. Louis community he felt "disrespected" by the Cardinals and their paltry offer of about $200 million over those same ten years.
The Cardinals are not cheap but they are certainly not among the biggest spenders in Major League Baseball. While the Yankees top the majors in payroll ($210 million per season) the Cardinals generally rank somewhere between 9th-12th (in the ballpark of $100 million per season). To construct a 25-man roster this would average out to about $4 million per player. Of course some make more and some make less.
Over his eleven seasons with the Cardinals Albert Pujols was considered a hero to all, not to mention the face of the city. This was due in part to his willingness at the time to accept a "hometown discount" to help the Cardinals secure other players and field a competitive team. What does a hometown discount mean? Surviving on $12 million a year rather than $15 million? Or $20 million?
Albert Pujols was a stand-up guy for sacrificing a bit of his own gaudy riches to help other obscenely rich ballplayers make a few extra bucks as well. For this he was seen as a true team player.
But what about the team members who extend beyond the clubhouse? The ones who collect the tickets, clean the bathrooms, sell the merchandise, and pick up the trash? The ones making $7.25 an hour (if not working on commission).
How much of a hero would Albert Pujols have been had he decided that instead of squeezing out an extra $2 million dollars a year for himself or other privileged ball players he would help provide a livable wage for the stadium workers that make it possible to host 30,000 guests each night?
Estimating there are a thousand of these minimum wage workers he could secure them an extra $4 an hour for 5.5 hours per night over the span of 81 home games for just under $2 million dollars. That would mean an extra $1,782 for each of those thousand workers over the course of a single baseball season, or $274 per month.
Better yet, if instead of taking his contract for $24 million per season over the next ten years he could have told the Angels he would play for just $8 million a season and used the remaining money to fund the livable wage for stadium workers over the next EIGHTY years (and longer when considering the investment opportunities of that money).
Assuming owners don't treat these new wages as an opportunity to save a buck down the line, continuing to raise the pay rate in relation to inflation, what would Albert Pujols' legacy be? What would we remember most - his homeruns or his dedication to improving the lives of those that support his right to make millions of dollars hitting a baseball?
In the next year or two some new elite player will agree to a hometown discount and, like Albert, become a hero - the new face of St. Louis. His jerseys will fly off the racks, thousands will chant his name, and countless children will learn that this is what it means to be successful. To have done something truly good. Truly heroic.
Perhaps we need new heroes.
This past Christmas Muluken received an Albert Pujols Cardinal jersey and a Marcus Lattimore Carolina jersey. Ty got both a brand new David Freese Cardinal t-shirt and a hand-me-down Chris Carpenter jersey. They are beginning, it seems, to make athletes their heroes.
I imagine this is pretty typical. Many kids over the past century have grown up worshiping Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Dr. J, Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, or Wayne Gretsky. With time most of them outgrow this.
At least in part.
A few months ago St. Louis lost it's best baseball player - Albert Pujols. After helping the club to win it's eleventh baseball championship in franchise history he bolted for Los Angeles where the Angels were willing to pay him $240 million dollars over the next ten years. Though he was deeply rooted in the St. Louis community he felt "disrespected" by the Cardinals and their paltry offer of about $200 million over those same ten years.
The Cardinals are not cheap but they are certainly not among the biggest spenders in Major League Baseball. While the Yankees top the majors in payroll ($210 million per season) the Cardinals generally rank somewhere between 9th-12th (in the ballpark of $100 million per season). To construct a 25-man roster this would average out to about $4 million per player. Of course some make more and some make less.
Over his eleven seasons with the Cardinals Albert Pujols was considered a hero to all, not to mention the face of the city. This was due in part to his willingness at the time to accept a "hometown discount" to help the Cardinals secure other players and field a competitive team. What does a hometown discount mean? Surviving on $12 million a year rather than $15 million? Or $20 million?
Albert Pujols was a stand-up guy for sacrificing a bit of his own gaudy riches to help other obscenely rich ballplayers make a few extra bucks as well. For this he was seen as a true team player.
But what about the team members who extend beyond the clubhouse? The ones who collect the tickets, clean the bathrooms, sell the merchandise, and pick up the trash? The ones making $7.25 an hour (if not working on commission).
How much of a hero would Albert Pujols have been had he decided that instead of squeezing out an extra $2 million dollars a year for himself or other privileged ball players he would help provide a livable wage for the stadium workers that make it possible to host 30,000 guests each night?
Estimating there are a thousand of these minimum wage workers he could secure them an extra $4 an hour for 5.5 hours per night over the span of 81 home games for just under $2 million dollars. That would mean an extra $1,782 for each of those thousand workers over the course of a single baseball season, or $274 per month.
Better yet, if instead of taking his contract for $24 million per season over the next ten years he could have told the Angels he would play for just $8 million a season and used the remaining money to fund the livable wage for stadium workers over the next EIGHTY years (and longer when considering the investment opportunities of that money).
Assuming owners don't treat these new wages as an opportunity to save a buck down the line, continuing to raise the pay rate in relation to inflation, what would Albert Pujols' legacy be? What would we remember most - his homeruns or his dedication to improving the lives of those that support his right to make millions of dollars hitting a baseball?
In the next year or two some new elite player will agree to a hometown discount and, like Albert, become a hero - the new face of St. Louis. His jerseys will fly off the racks, thousands will chant his name, and countless children will learn that this is what it means to be successful. To have done something truly good. Truly heroic.
Perhaps we need new heroes.
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