Making things happen

... with integrity

Monday March 8, 2004 Volume VI Number 10

remember as a young preaching pastor now just about three decades ago, coming to the conclusion that some believers, obsessed with the gloom and doom of the End Times, were saying more about themselves than they were about the state of the world in general.

When you are twenty-something, you really don’t want to hear that the cosmos as we know it is coming to a terrible, calamitous end.  You want to think that there is a future out there worth working toward.  You want to believe that you and your peers are capable of leadership and problem solving and correcting the mistakes of the past.  You believe that all the stuff they taught you about what the world needs is right, and if you just get about doing it, you can make the world a better place.  If, after all, those grim seniors are right in their assessment that it will never be what it might have been, and that history is on a helpless, inevitable collision course with sure ruin, then what’s the point?

(This could well be a reason for drug consumption among the young.)

Certainly, the future is something to fear.  Toffler became financially independent when his popular book, Future Shock, became a NY Times bestseller, followed up by Richard Wurman’s Information Anxiety.  The rate of change, the proliferation of information, the exponential speed of communication, the shrinking of the globe, the upheaval in the economy all close in on us as from an overstuffed chair we get up close and personal with courtroom drama and accused criminals, war and rumors of war, the clash of cultures, terrorism run amok, violence and mayhem, political wrangling, the collapse of morality, storms and floods and droughts and fires, all this witnessed up close while sitting in a hypnotic trance staring at a brightly colored screen surrounded by you-are-there audio all while sipping a hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, well, do you see the contradiction?

Physically we are secure, well fed, enjoying comforts never imagined by our forebears.  But we are frightened - certain that the future will close in on us, and choke out the things that matter most.   Some of us are paralyzed by fear.

This week, several things happened that help me understand that this view of future things is misdirected.  Way off.

* * * * * * *

Cathey Anderson earned the recognition she got last month. 

She is an educator.  She is a motivator.  A dedicated teacher.  A community activist.  She brings high expectations to her classroom.  She believes in the power of discovery.  She is convinced that a series of little victories, a string of accomplishments, the accumulation of achievements in her students develops inner strength, character, poise and an appetite for success.  And when, in those formative years, those patterns are established, there is no limit to the possibilities in a child who has experienced hands-on triumph.

Her subject combines the science of chemistry and biology and physiology, with the practical skills of reading and planning and nurturing and delayed gratification.  It was her college major, back when as an energetic under-graduate, she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian.  Children and family interrupted her academic plans, but not her love of the soil and everything it can produce.  Closed in by the congestion of high density housing and busy boulevards, Cathey and Mark sold their cramped condominium and moved to the country more than a dozen years ago.  They took on their four acres, cultivating avocados and apples and grapes, and the children raised animals – horses and steer, goats, a couple of pigs all shipped off to the annual county fair where blue ribbons marked the success of the enterprise.

As her children grew and achieved, a new career came into focus.  Helping in their classrooms, she asked a few questions about what it took to land a teaching credential.  Soon she signed up for the course work, spent late nights preparing assignments and studying for exams.  Most people in town knew her as a mom, but soon a student teacher.  And then a position opened in the district, and Cathey became Mrs. Anderson to a room full of fifth graders.

Adjacent to the elementary school was a property that had fallen into disrepair.  It was a small farm – complete with red barn, animal pens, feeding troughs and gardens.  Once it flourished, but now overgrown, neglected, in need of repair.  Cathey understood the potential of the place, and began sharing her vision.  Our little town would be the first in California to offer hands on Ag activities and courses to elementary school children.

That’s when the Martin Gang Agricultural Learning Center took off.  She recruited local businesses, parents, other educators, and high school students to join in the renovation of the farm.  They planted, cultivated, cut weeds, repaired fences, patched leaky roofs, swept up barns, and turned that neglected property into a model out-of-doors classroom.  Cathey organized the first Annual Spring Ag Day, bringing in vendors and educators and local farmers to display their solutions to agricultural challenges.  Today, it is an annual event, bringing over two thousand students each year into a face to face encounter with the business of Ag.  Cathey calls it “A Salute to Agriculture.”

Our local paper quotes Cathey: "We believe students are able to learn more about agriculture in just a few hours than they could have understood after many hours of classroom instruction. Fewer and fewer people understand agriculture's importance to society. Increasingly, people with limited agricultural knowledge are determining agricultural policy.  As future voters these students will make decisions about agriculture ... California remains the number one agriculture state in the nation. It is imperative that we continue to educate our children on its importance, values, traditions and potential."

After several years developing the elementary school program, the District asked Cathey to whip the Middle School program in shape, which she did.

If you take the time to tell Cathey how much you appreciate what she’s done for the children and the families and the community she’ll smile, and thank you, and before you know it, you’ll be recruited to join in.  There is always something that needs doing.

I suppose that’s why it was announced just a few weeks ago with considerable fanfare; Cathey Anderson was named 2004 Educator of the Year by the California Foundation for Agriculture.  The State recognition puts her in the running for this year’s national award.

Most folks in our town think she’s a shoe-in.

* * * * * * *

Both our daughters have aspired to the classroom.

We’re old enough to tell the story.  We’ve watched them go through the interviews, submit their résumés, compete for an open position and land the job.  Then we’ve watched them struggle through lesson plans, early morning starts, overwhelming demands, parent conferences, disciplinary challenges, and long exhausting work days.  We’ve listened to them work through the knotty problems, wrestling with their values and the practical business of getting through the day, walking the tightrope between the student’s needs and the administrator’s expectations, balancing law and grace, and all the while hanging on to the core belief that theirs is a noble profession, which I fully believe, it is.

The classroom is a baptism of fire.  It’s a quick and intense reality check – from the idyllic and theoretical world of academia to the everyday rubber-meets-the-road world of real people with right-now expectations.  There’s a joy in watching those two girls excel in the crucible of challenge that is difficult to explain.  I wish I could.

This week, I listened in as our two girls shared some of those challenges with each other.  A thirteen year old cornered one of them just as recess ended and confided that she believes she is a lesbian.  She wondered what our daughter, her teacher, thought.

That started the discussion.  The headlines blare the news.  Gay marriages proliferate like a bad rash.  Momentum snowballs towards some sort of legal confrontation.  No one quite knows where it is going.  It’s the year of the queer eye.  And a thirteen year old girl is convinced: she’s gay.

The other of our two girls is a mom.  She spent three years in the classroom.  Her world has been transformed by motherhood.  Quite passionately, she feels a deep burden to create a world, a happy, healthy, wholesome world for her little boy (and another soon to be).  She wants to protect him from anything that will contaminate his development.  It’s something profoundly elemental, mysterious, this mother/child thing.

So the girls talked.  How to help a confused adolescent.  How to protect a newborn child in the years to come.  What it means to live in a world of conflict and hurt.  The damage that’s done when good parenting is absent.  The benefits that accrue when a home is guarded, a safe place to be affirmed and taught.

And after I listened, I walked away with a new sense of confidence that future generations will be OK.

I think they get it.

And they are not alone.

Mixed into this confused Generation “X,” or “Y,” or “Z” (whatever label they’ve placed on it these days) is a core of young people who will bring a wholesome set of values to their families and their work and their communities.  They will work hard to protect their children, and prepare them for a productive positive contribution to the greater good.  They will embrace their lives with energy and affection and caring, and bring honesty and integrity to the task.

They will be salt and light.

And the children will shine.

* * * * * * *

It’s Monday morning, you are a leader.

It may well be that you are lamenting the decline in moral authority; despairing over the disintegration of the foundational principles upon which our society rests; watching helplessly as this generation of young people slip down the slippery slope of debauchery and general disdain toward the world of grown-ups, and you’ve thrown up your hands, rolled the eyes back into your head and clucked your tongue thinking this is the beginning of the end.

I know a few grumpy seniors who will welcome you into their Grand Fraternity of the End Times a’Comin’.  I know other seniors won’t want you around.  These elder statespersons grace this new generation with their blessing, their confidence, their encouragement and their listening ear.

I suspect that one of the greatest gifts a seasoned adult can give a young person is to communicate a belief, a confidence that says, “You have everything you need to become all you’re meant to be.  Our community needs you.  I can’t wait to see the mark you will make on this world.  It’s a dangerous place, but you will navigate the minefield, you will inspire others with your gifts and your enthusiasms.  You are launching out into new territory, and you will enjoy the journey.  You will revel in the adventure.  You will take us to new worlds.  You will overcome the odds.”

They are like (a much younger) Cathey Anderson.  This is the message she communicates to her students.  And finally, the association saw it; and now they call her the Educator of the Year.  Our daughter follows Cathey’s example, and every day, she communicates these things to her students.  She learned it from her grandmother.  And her mother.  Our other daughter looks at that little boy of hers, and not a day passes when she doesn’t tell him - he’s a promise.  He’s got what it takes.  She’s going to shield him from anything that will rob him of that bright future she knows is his birthright.

My heart breaks over the children who know nothing of this.

As for me, as the senior years approach, I’ll take Plan B.  Like my eighty-seven year old mentor.  I’ll exchange Future Fright with Future Bright.

Because this week, I saw them.  They are for real.  The teachers who are willing to help a student on the road to discovery.  The parents determined to build a foundation that will last through the generations.

And those young people - with open eyes, a willingness to learn, eager to grow – well, they will.

With God’s help.

Posted in Valley Center, California

© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2004

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