Anchor 1

Nonfiction Samples

All I Want for Father’s Day Is My Two Front Teeth, Which Were Knocked out in a Barroom Brawl

By Kyle Heger

Well, to tell the truth, sometimes I want more. I mean, let’s get real. Little boys might be made of snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails, but we grownup men are a bit more complicated. It takes something more substantial to keep us going.

What I really want for Father’s Day are all the things that America’s marketers say that I, as a red-white-and-blue blooded American man, want. And that’s saying a lot. Because if anybody knows what I want, it’s those guys. But that shouldn’t come as any great surprise. After all, that’s how they make their money: by knowing what makes their target markets tick.

I have no apologies to make for wanting so much. I’m just that kind of a guy. A guy with big appetites. Big impulses. Big dreams. Larger than life. Like Paul Bunyan. Oliver North. Or John Cena.

On the other hand, I’m also a level-headed guy. A problem solver. Mr. Practical. So I know that not much can go wrong if I trust in America’s marketers. By putting myself in their hands, I’ll be a team player, conform to expectation, comply with the system, do my part as a consumer to keep our economy strong here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I have confidence that they’ll do right by me.

Patience has never been my strong suit. I’m more of the shoot-now-and-ask-questions-later type. So, to get an idea of what kind of gifts I can expect this upcoming Father’s Day, I did a little checking on the internet. And, boy, oh, boy: I was not disappointed with what I found. Here’s a heads-up for all of you who will want to recognize me on this special day.

First Things First: Getting the Greeting Cards out of the Way

Everybody knows that greeting cards come before gifts proper. Like Cheetos come before pizza. Yes, all that sentiment and communication can be boring. But it’s tradition. And, though I’m more than a bit of a rebel, I’m also all for order. Like any good soldier, I know when it’s time to snap to attention and salute. With that in mind, my first stop was at some ecard vendors.

Hallmark, the gold-standard in greeting cards, will serve as an example of the best of what’s out there with its Father’s Day ecard page. You won’t go wrong giving me one of their cards featuring Indiana Jones and his father. I fancy myself a bit of a rascally action hero myself, somewhere between John McClane of Die Hard fame and Marvel Comics’ Wolverine.

I also get a kick out of Hallmark cards with Star Wars characters, including one with iconic father figure Darth Vader himself, along with the inspiring words, “Dads have the answer.” I mean, sure: He was a tyrant and a murderer who cut off his son’s hand while attempting to kill him. But you have to admit he had charisma. And he was damned good with a light saber. There are worse role models: pacifists, socialists, secular humanists.

And you’ll be on the safe side picking one of Hallmark’s cards featuring superheroes, muscle cars, beer bottles, a hammer, nails and plenty of fishing scenes. It’s nice to know that even in the midst of chaotic social changes, there’s someone out there who knows that the foundations of fatherhood remain the same: fast driving, hard drinking, home repairs and sports. America still has a chance of staying true to the roots that made it great.

Shopping for Happiness in All the Right Places

After that bit of business was out of the way, I was free to take the bull by the horns. So I tracked down some of our country’s most beloved purveyors of consumer goods to see what they had in store for us men folk on our special day.

Target didn’t let me down. They never do. Their web site shows that they still know what I, as a red-blooded, true-blue American man want. They had me hooked from their eye-catching “King of the Grill” tee-shirt right on through the mouthwatering book “ManBque: Meat, Beer and Rock and Roll.” Just reading the title makes me feel like a five-alarm belch is on its way.

These savvy retailers don’t stop with more selling equipment for traditional forms of manly recreation such as horseshoes and golf. They prove that they have their feet planted squarely in the new millennium by highlighting electronic media. They offer wide-screen TVs; the classic laugh-till-you-puke comedy, “Ferris Buehler’s Day Off” and the inspiring death orgy of Frank Miller’s “300.”

In addition, Target also has the X-box games Madden NFL 25 and NBA 2k14 9 (because men never get enough of throwing, catching, kicking and bouncing balls, even if it’s only on a computer screen) and, my current favorite, Titanfall. Now that’s what I’m talking about! If fighting a war in the near-future as either an elite pilot or a huge, heavily armored “titan” doesn’t bring out the father in me, nothing will.

Good old Walmart doesn’t specify exact items for Father’s Day. But they do lay out some general categories under the Father’s Day umbrella, showing that their heads are still screwed on straight. Under the DIY Dad section, they have subsections on tools, auto gifts, outdoor power equipment and grills. So far so good. In their electronics section, they offer TVs, phones, video games, laptop computers. Still batting a hundred.

To Walmart’s credit, some categories are conspicuous by their absence. You sure won’t see categories such as “housekeeping,” “low-fat cooking,” “jazz,” “literature,” “yoga” or “parenting.” Everybody in his right mind knows that great fathers aren’t made, they’re born. Either you’ve got the gift of knowing how to toss the old pigskin around in the backyard with your boys or you haven’t.

And in a section called “Sporty Dad,” Walmart not only has subsections on fishing, camping and fitness but also has the gumption to include one of fatherhood’s most defining pastimes (and rites of passage): hunting. It’s going to take a lot more than a bunch of vegans, animal rights-activists, environmentalists and gun-control advocates to stop us dads from slaughtering animals. And enjoying it. And loving every minute of it. Hunting’s in our blood. Leave it to good old Walmart to stand firmly beside us on this.

Big-Buck Gifts for Your Favorite Big Buck

Next, I wanted to see what guys with loved ones who have more disposable income than mine do can expect for Father’s Day. I sure got an eyeful at the Sharper Image website’s list of Father’s Day gift suggestions.

Where else, outside of the IMAX version of “Top Gun” could you see such enticing forms of flying fun? They have a “video chopper,” a motion-controlled RC helicopter, and even a “football helmet copter” described as “the high-flying way to show your team pride.” Their engineers must be real Brainiac. These little whirly birds even come equipped with a “built-in projector to beam your team’s logo onto the wall!” Sometimes it seems that life just can’t get any better.

But the high-flying good times don’t end there for Dad. Not when Sharper Image has so m any ways to scratch his drone itch: from the relatively simple video camera drone, video camera drone with LED and video drones with real-time display, to the more sophisticated “Steady-Cam Professional HD Video Drone” and the “Quad Smart Drone.” It’s just too bad these flying beauties have to stop with taking videos instead of actually being able to drop a payload so I could see a little bug-splat action like those lucky devils who operate the real things in Afghanistan get to witness.

I don’t imagine that anyone who is going to buy me Father’s Day presents can afford to get me one of these gizmos. But if they could … wow, that would make my day! Imagine how high I could rise in the neighborhood-watch organization if I was able to track suspicious characters with my very own eyes in the skies. I could sure put one of these to good use the next time some punk kid has the gall to come prowling through my gated community on the way back home from a convenience store wearing a hoody and carrying candy.

The good folks at Sharper Image know the playbook of my heart by heart. They know that I want not only to play sports, but to excel at them, to be the best that gadgets can make me. Thus they sell golf swing training aids, golf shoe bags, golf club organizers, clip-on golf accessories, LED golf balls, US golf course travel maps, hybrid golf watches, electronic return putting matts and home golf training systems.

Of course, my sporting ambitions don’t begin and end with golf. So the company also offers Zepp Tennis Swing Analyzers and Zepp Baseball and Softball Swing Analyzers.

And the company realizes that my love of sports extends well beyond active participation to include the wonderful world of fandom. To empower me to improve my tail gate parties, they sell Mega-Can Sports Coolers to hold plenty of beer cans. These beauties come in NFL, NBA, MLB and college team designs.

To help me show my team spirit from the comfort and safety of home and in my day-to-day life, they sell: Washington Post baseball books, MLB ballpark maps, MLB money-clip wallets, 3-D football stadium replicas and even a Yankees World Series Display, which they describe as a “framed collection of replica tickets commemorating the unsurpassed 27 World Series won by the New York Yankees.” Gosh, owning something like that would be the next best thing to actually participating in history.

As everybody knows, some of the best man games take place up close and personal in recreation rooms. So Sharper Image is smart enough to sell 2-person basketball sets, Foosball coffee tables, 2-in-1 flip-top game tables, Pac-Man’s Arcade Party, Pac-Man's Arcade Party Cocktail Tables, Dead-Heat arcade games, and Deadstorm Pirates video arcade games. Put me down for one of the latter. If I’m gonna wish, I might as well wish big. Anything with the word “Dead” in it has got to be cool. I’ll be a natural when it comes to piloting a pirate ship with one hand and shooting down enemies with the other. After all, I’ve got years of suburban rush-hour commuting under my belt. I’m a cinch for the much-coveted yo-ho-ho rating.

And, of course, nothing barks out, “Man up” better than a good dose of blood-letting. So Sharper Image sells “A Time of War” 50-DVD sets and “WWII: The Ultimate DVD Collection.” Let the good times roll. Just like a tank over enemy territory.

These folks know my love of cooking starts and stops with BBQ grills, the modern equivalent of the caveman’s bon fire. These high-end merchants provide such man candy as: digital BBQ forks, digital BBQ and kitchen thermometers, stainless steel steam-cleaning grill brushes, cordless BBQ thermometer spatulas, BBQ grill lights and fans, automatic BBQ grill cleaning robots, Grillight BBQ gift sets, personalized grillmasters apron (prepare for some gut-busting laughs), personalized BBQ matts (equally big laughs), 3-in-1 BBQ tools, 6-in-1 BBQ grill tool sets and even 24-piece BBQ tool sets. Talk about pushing the envelope!

And they have something to please two-fisted drinkers like me, from those devoted to beer and wine up to those with a hankering after the harder stuff: craft home beer brewing systems, beer tasting guides, mini keg coolers with taps, double-walled beer glasses, stainless steel beer mugs, wine carriers, LED illuminated bar caddies, executive whiskey glasses and wall mounted liquor dispensers. Here’s mud in your eye, Pardner! Let’s take bets on who can drink who under the table. But I’ve gotta warn you: I’ve already made one hell of a head start.

Not ones to look down their noses at another time-honored masculine vice, the aficionados at Sharper Image offer double cigar holders and flasks, 3-cigar holders with cutters, 5-in-1 cigar tools, various humidors, cigar cutters and crystal cigar ashtrays. It gives me hope that someday they will even hearken back to the glory days of manhood by offering up the much missed, good old-fashioned cuspidor. Ping! Nailed it at 20 yards! They sure beat the hell out of the rusty old coffee can I’ve been using to spit out my wads of Skoal.

A Cave for Every Man and a Man in Every Cave

Of course not everybody can afford such costly items. Fortunately, thousands of rip-roaring gifts for men are but a simple Yahoo search away. For instance, by typing in “catalogs for men,” on this search engine, I found a result called “gifts for men” that, in turn, lead to a website called “Catalogs.com” and a page titled “Gadgets and Guy Stuff.”

Heh. Heh. They had me at “Gadgets.” Options there includes such meaty finds as “Sporty’s Tool Shed,” “Shop Knuckleheads” (all about the Three Stooges), “Pool Dawg” (about billiards), “Spy Museum Store” and “Air Rattle” (about Airsoft guns). Heady stuff. I knew I’d come to the right spot.

Best of all, they have a catalog called “Knife Cave” chock full of affordable items such as a V-42 fighting stiletto, throwing stars and blow guns. I couldn’t have found this at a better time because, somehow, I’ve managed to misplace my blow guns and could sure use some new ones.

They also offer a Maxam stun gun, handcuffs, various batons and a selection of concealed weapons, including belt-buckle knives and ink-pen knives. You never know when you’re going to need to slip somebody some cold steel on the sly.

Some of my personal favorites are the “Cold Steel Urban Pal with Black Rubber Handles” the “Black Hawk Serpa holster for Glock” and “Scorpion Knuckles Burgundy.” Hint. Hint. My old brass knuckles are falling apart, and they’re just plain brass colored. I could sure use an upgrade to something like that sweet little burgundy Scorpion number.

I hate to be a complainer. However, I can’t help pointing out how disappointed I was that I didn’t see any monogrammed blackjacks listed. Or any blackjacks at all, if you can believe that. But maybe I just missed seeing them under another name, such as “saps.”

The site helpfully lists themes by which shoppers can search for products, including: dragons, skulls, pirates, spiders, scorpions, serpents, ninja, samurai and the ever-popular catch-all category of “German.” It reads like a who’s-who list of guy fetishes.

It’s just a hop, pounce and jump from the Knife Cave to the holy grail of Father’s Day gift seekers: a magnificent site called Man Cave.

The term “Man Cave” was popularized by John Gray in his groundbreaking book, “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.” For those of you who need a reminder of what it means, the site provides this description: “A Man Cave is created by ‘the man of the house.’ … Man Caves are often used for spending time alone or socializing with other male friends. And yes, even women and children are allowed in as long as they remember who is ‘King’ of the castle. Particular events that take place in a Man Cave include: watching sporting events, getting together to talk, playing poker or billiards, beer or wine tasting …

“The Man Cave is a reflection of its owner. … His interests and passions are on display for everyone to see. Some themed Man Cave ideas include: The Las Vegas Casino Man Cave, the NFL Man Cave, The Classic Car Man Cave … the Cigar Lounge Man Cave.”

This place is the bomb. If it belongs in a Man Cave, you’ll find it here. When I found this site, I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven, where I could luxuriate in the true spirit of Father’s Day.

In the end, it turns out that guys who get gifts from Sharper Image aren’t all that different from those who receive the bounty of the Knife Cave and the Man Cave.

As fathers, we’re all men. We work hard, and we play hard. We drink hard, and we eat hard. We BBQ hard, and we even swing around in our hammocks hard.

Back to the Tusks

Sure, I want all the great stuff featured on these websites. I lose sleep at night, drooling over it.

But, when push comes to shove, I’m nothing if not a hardscrabble, bare knuckled realist, so I’ll take what I can get. I’ll stand by the title to this thing -- All I Really Want for Father’s Day Is My Two Front Teeth—with one slight amendment: I’ll settle for my two front teeth for Father’s Day, if that’s the best deal I can get.

But not just any old teeth. Oh, no. I won’t settle quite that easily. I may be a practitioner of realpolitik, but that doesn’t make me a pushover. Not me.

These tusks must be realistic reproductions of General George Patton’s teeth (or, in a pinch, General Eisenhower’s). One of them must come equipped with a little tracking device so that, in case my dare-devil lifestyle gets me kidnapped by eco-terrorists, atheists or illegal immigrants, members of my man pack can locate me, come swooping down out of the hills in full throat, lay waste to my jailers and free me.

The other tooth must have an easily employed cyanide capsule in it. Because I never know when I’m going to be called upon to make the ultimate gesture of self-sacrifice. We heroes are like that. And heroism is what Father’s Day is all about.

The above published in Umbrella Factory

Fun and Games at Office Depot:

An Argument for Agoraphobia

By Kyle Heger

I was about as eager to buy my seven-year-old son, Riley, a new backpack for school as I would be to enter a reality-TV game show that offered the chance to win some consumer goods by surviving interrogation at the hands of former Abu Ghraib prison guards.

To say the least: I put it off.

Either as a result of how I as an individual am aging or how society itself is being twisted by its roots (or maybe because of both), I find myself increasingly reluctant to engage in any kind of transaction outside my own doors. Any kind of transaction. Walking. Driving. Checking out a book at the library. Meeting a friend at the park.

Even what are on the surface the most innocent, natural, problem-free behaviors now tend to seem like actions performed in Kafkaland: exercises in absurdity and alienation. Usually, I chalk this up to the dehumanizing effects of bureaucracy and technology. But in my less optimistic moments, I suspect that it’s really because of a growing rot at the core of the universe.

I delayed getting my son’s backpack for as long as my conscience let me, until the poor thing (the backpack, not my son) was hanging on by a thread, ready at any minute to spill onto the street or sidewalk in a sad spectacle of homework, snacks and such lovingly school-ground- treasures as bark, pebbles and pencil stubs.

An Attempt at Pain Avoidance

Riley had been using his current backpack (an inexpensive number I’d purchased at Target) since a few months into kindergarten, when the Spiderman novelty backpack with which he’d started school fell apart at the seams.

Faced with his current backpack’s imminent failure, I determined to be a smart shopper when it came to buying its replacement. In my case, smart shopping comes down to an attempt at pain avoidance. Or at least pain reduction. In order not to feel too humiliated and frustrated by the experience, I would need to meet several goals which were in some ways mutually exclusive: 1) spend as little money as possible, 2) spend as little time as possible, 3) end up with something that would work OK and last long enough that I wouldn’t feel I’d been cheated.

I wasn’t in the market for anything fancy. The whole wheels-and-handle bit was out of the question both because I couldn’t picture a backpack of that type fitting easily into his cubbyhole at school and because I figure the more moving parts are involved the greater the chance of malfunction. Neither was I considering the heavy-duty type with a frame that serious hikers and campers use. His school is only a block away, so he won’t exactly need something in the survivalist tradition.

All I wanted was a backpack that would last a few years without falling apart, would be light enough not to saddle my son a lifelong posture problem, and would be big enough to hold his school belongings. In other words: something that wouldn’t fill me with buyer’s regret as soon as I’d bought it. I might as well have gone looking for the Holy Grail.

My Quest Begins

Since we were going to Target anyway for something else, I decided to check out the backpack selection there. The fewer times I leave the house, the better, so I’m a big fan of doubling or tripling up on errands.

I reasoned that it wasn’t Target’s fault that the last time I had bought a backpack there, it had been their least expensive model. If I was willing to spend a few more dollars, I told myself, I might even wind up with something that would last Riley through elementary school.

The first hurdle I had to overcome at Target was Riley’s sudden aversion to backpacks with sports stars or superheroes or cartoon characters or company slogans and logos. I could dig it. I mean, I don’t like being a walking billboard myself, pandering to the combined demands of pop culture, peer pressure, Madison Avenue and Hollywood. On the other hand, his dislike of these fashion statements meant that we had to look, not at the less-expensive children’s backpacks, but at the more expensive ones for adults. I approached the task with more than a bit of apprehension, wondering how much money this was going to set me back.

It turned out I needn’t have worried. They didn’t have any backpacks that fit the bill. Oh, they had plenty of duffle-bag-type affairs, scads of cases for laptop computers, and any number of those increasingly popular, medic/bike-messenger/courier bags that sling over one shoulder. I suppose I could have considered one of the later more seriously, but after years of reading about how important it is ergonomically to distribute backpack weight evenly across the body, I just didn’t know if this style was something to which I was willing to subject Riley.

Our Next Stop

Our next stop was Office Depot, where I remembered having seen some backpacks.

Again, I couldn’t help feeling solidarity with Riley when he turned up his nose at the sparkly pink backpacks (presumably for “girls” of all ages, from preschool to the assisted-living senior center) and the camoflouge-patterned ones for males who, presumably, all have a built-in urge to emulate hunters and soldiers. And, again, Riley’s precocious attack of good taste and independent thinking narrowed the field considerably.

Finally, after we had given up on that search and were heading to the exit, I spotted a few Jansport backpacks hanging on the end of an aisle in the “we must move this inventory now,” position. I dimly remembered having owned one or more Jansport backpacks before and finding them to be durable. So I pointed them out to Riley.

He picked out an unassuming gray model that seemed to meet all his qualifications as well as mine and came in at a price of $46.99 without sales tax. It was a bit more than I’d planned on spending, but, if buying an acceptable backpack was going to be as difficult as it was shaping up to be, I thought it might be wise to just buckle down, pay the price and get on with my life.

The actual process of the purchase seemed to go without a hitch, and as we left the store, I breathed a sigh of relief, believing that I’d got off pretty easily.

Then the alarm began screeching as we passed through the store’s scanning system. I assumed it was a mistake because those damned things are always going off when I pass through them (even when I’m not actually shoplifting). But, as I usually do, to avoid being tackled by a security guard or an overzealous clerk as I make my way down the sidewalk, I paused and looked back at the cashier questioningly. He looked over at me, nodded and waved me on.

An Unsettling Discovery

About two weeks after I had made this purchase, Riley put my hand on a lump in the backpack and asked me what it was. At first, I thought he was trying to pull a joke on me. But I certainly didn’t laugh when I peeled back the zipper area to discover a white plastic object which I identified as one of the magnetic devices that stores or manufacturers put into merchandise so they will trigger alarms if not removed prior to leaving shops.

“So that explains why the alarm went off in Office Depot as we left the premises,” I told myself. Apparently the cashier had neglected to remove this device when we were paying. I wasn’t tempted to try removing it myself. I had done this before with other products and I had always broken the items. I didn’t want to spoil this backpack with which Riley and I were both satisfied, and which had cost a pretty penny into the bargain.

For a few moments, I assumed I would just leave the device in place, but then I was seized with a clear vision of all hell breaking loose every time Riley entered or exited a store or other business. The fact that I’m always setting those systems off even without any merchandise shows me what a hair trigger they have. I could hear and see it all happening: alarms ringing, lights flashing, people staring, loudspeakers barking out to my first grader: “Stop where you are and drop the backpack. You have been caught red-handed in the act of stealing merchandise. A SWAT team is on the way.”

I decided that the only sensible thing to do was to take the backpack back to Office Depot and have the people there remove the device. But just as I was prompted to visit Office Depot by my clear, all too clear, imaginings of what the future would hold for Riley if I didn’t remove the device, so now I was likewise prompted to put off the visit by equally vivid imaginings of what would happen when I took the backpack to Office Depot to have the problem fixed. As I entered the store, the device would trigger the alarms, invoking the same sturm und drang described above.

To lessen the chances that the people who work there would perform a citizen’s arrest on me, put me in a headlock and sic the police on me, I settled on the simple expedient of bringing in my sales receipt to show that I’d purchased this item. Even with that in mind, I was still far from enthusiastic about the visit. I found myself procrastinating, certain that if I went back there, something would go wrong. Painful experience has taught me, time and again, that even the simplest transactions have become complicated and grotesque in today’s world.

Back into the Meat Grinder

One day, after I had gone through enough hours without trauma that I felt a little courage bubbling to my surface, I decided to get the pain over with and force myself back into what I thought of as either Kafka’s castle or simply “the meat grinder.”

So, shortly after Riley returned from school, I spirited his backpack away and drove, white-knuckled, to Office Depot, not telling him what I was doing in case I ended up coming a cropper.

Maybe I should have been pleased when I walked past the sensor in the doorway without setting off the alarm. On the encouraging side, it meant I might be able to avoid the whole flight-or-fight surge of adrenalin that I dreaded. On the discouraging side, it cut the ground out from under my feet. I mean, if this device didn’t trigger alarms, I had been putting myself through the wringer for the sake of an unnecessary worry.

Resolutely, I plodded up to the cash register, grateful to see that it was staffed by the same man who had rung up my purchase of the backpack. But, of course, he didn’t remember me. When I told him why I was there, he looked at the device with an expression with which I have become all too familiar, the look of someone who has just been struck between the eyes with a pole-axe, a look that expresses the dismay attendant upon an encounter with a completely unexpected event.

“You bought this here?” he asked in shock. He couldn’t have been any more surprised if I’d slapped a live iguana on his countertop and asked him to castrate it. Without the benefit of anesthesia.

Answering in the affirmative, I flourished the receipt as proof.

“This device isn’t one of ours. We don’t have the right kind of tool to remove this,” he told me in a tone of voice that managed to be accusing.

I couldn’t imagine what underhanded game he suspected me of playing. I mean, how many people come into Store Two with something they have stolen at Store One, trying to trick the employees at Store Two into removing the evidence of their dirty deed? I suppose it’s possible. But statistically, it can’t be anything but an insignificant blip.

“Have you tried removing it yourself?” he asked, squinting at me, again with that vaguely accusing, put-upon tone in his voice, as if he knew that I was a slacker at heart who just hadn’t had enough get-up-and-go to solve the problem on my own and now insisted on wasting his time instead.

“No,” I replied, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. “I’ve tried that with other items and haven’t exactly been pleased with the results.”

“Oh!” he said. You guessed it. The same accusing, suspicious tone of voice. He didn’t feel completely comfortable dealing with a guy who wasn’t a do-it-yourselfer, handy with pliers and bolt cutters. He looked at me briefly and barely succeeded in stopping himself from hocking up a gob in disdain. I guess those customer-service trainings weren’t a total loss, after all.

“I’m going to have to talk to my manager about this,” he said, plodding away dolefully.

I could see where this was going. If they didn’t think that I was a shoplifter trying a trick, they would think that I was a hopelessly confused or forgetful old soul who had probably bought this damned thing in some other city or state and was now making them suffer from the weight of my mental deficiencies. If they were polite, they’d try humoring me. If they weren’t, out on my ass I would go.

Studying the receipt to pass the time, I now realized that it was a flimsy piece of evidence. I was far from being sure that the cryptic words “BKPK, SPRBRK, AS” and a product ID number were sufficient proof of what I had bought. I am so accustomed to the people with whom I do business making mistakes, that I was not even sure that the information was accurate. The man with whom I had been attempting to do business a moment before certainly hadn’t been overly impressed by it.

“This isn’t one of our devices, Sir,” another voice spoke. I have heard that word “Sir” used in that same way far too many times for my skin not to crawl when I heard it now. It is the particular property of border guards, security guards, police officers and other practitioners of institutionalized violence who put a spin on the word that makes it feel like a slap in the face. “Will you please pull over to the side of the road, Sir? Would you like a little pepper spray in your eyes, Sir? Are you going to lower your pants yourself, Sir, or am I going to have to do it for you?”

I would prefer being called a “motherfucker” to my face to suffering the venomous sting of that smug and sarcastic word.

In the commercial world, unless you are already at gunpoint with the cops on the way with sirens blaring and a K-9 officer salivating with eagerness to get a chunk of you, you can sometimes get away with receiving the old passive-aggressive treatment for a while before being subjected to outright brutality. At least if you are, or are likely to be, a paying customer from whom they can wring more money by judiciously alternating the carrot with the stick as a motivator.

This was the case here. The person speaking turned out to be a large man who came toward me with Riley’s backpack swinging from one hand. He wasn’t armed. That was a good sign. He had that same pole-axed look, his forehead wrinkled in consternation, trying to make sense of the puzzling phenomenon with which I was confronting him, determined to spend at least some time tolerating my unwelcome presence.

“Are you sure you bought this here?” he asked, furrowing some more ripples into his brow.

“No. I guess I must be lying,” I responded before I could control myself, my patience stretched to the breaking point in a tug-of-war between the memory of similarly senseless transactions that have occurred in the past and my anticipation of more senseless transactions occurring with increasing frequency in the future.

“No, Sir, I’m not suggesting that,” he responded. But, of course, that didn’t stop him from subjecting my receipt to an intense scrutiny.

Apparently it passed muster because he asked, “I can’t remove this, Sir, but how would you feel about trading this backpack in for a new one without a device?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think I’d feel right about doing that to you folks. I mean, this thing has been used by my seven-year old five days a week for the last month. God only knows what he’s had in there.”

He looked stunned, as if he couldn’t quite take in the possibility that, in the dog-eat-dog war between buyers and sellers, I seriously wanted him to believe that I gave a rat’s ass when it came to fair play for a business.

Choosing to simply ignore my comment, he said “Let me go look and see what we have available.” Although I appreciated the fact that he seemed to be trying to solve my problem, I was still so uptight about all the time I’d spent on what shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place, that it was all I could do to nod humbly, say, “Sure, that would be great,” and try to slump into some kind of receptivity while I waited.

After five or ten minutes, he came back with a black Jansport backpack and said, “We don’t have your type anymore but we have these. They cost about $15 more. Do you want to trade your old one in for it?”

I must be a particularly unfortunate mix of persistent pessimism and recurrent naivety. This makes me an easy prey to disappointment. Somehow I just assumed that he was going to take the old backpack and give me the new one, maybe doing a little paperwork to record the transaction. I assumed that he would have Office Depot eat the $15 difference as a courtesy, a gesture of customer service in an attempt to pay me back a bit for the inconvenience they’d caused me.

But something in his manner led me to believe in a few minutes that this was not to be the case. To test the waters, I ran my credit card through a countertop scanner because it said, “slide payment card,” hoping that my crack about how I must be lying hadn’t blown the chances of his making a goodwill gesture and saying something like, “Oh, no. That’s not necessary, Sir. This is on the house.”

Of course, instead of saying anything like this, all he said was, “You have to wait a minute before sliding your card, Sir.”

Surprised that I was still speaking in a calm and measured voice instead of screams, I replied, “The machine told me to slide the card.”

“Oh, they always say that, Sir,” was his response. Of course. What else can we expect from the technology that everybody is so wild about than for it to regularly and predictably give us incorrect information?

After dutifully sliding the card on his cue and signing my name, I was just about ready to go. As a last-minute precaution, he showed me that there were no devices in the new backpack that would trigger their alarm.

I forced myself to thank him and say goodbye, reminding myself that he didn’t “make the rules” and was probably in many ways as much a victim of “the system” as I was. Heading toward the door, I considered that things could have ended up a whole lot worse.

As I passed through the doorway, the security alarm went off, more loud and shrill than I remembered. I froze in mid-step as if I had been transfixed by electric currents. I spun around and looked at the two men who had helped me. I held my arms out to my sides and tilted my head to one side in a “What do I do now?” attitude.

They waved at me in a way that was dismayingly familiar, making shooing gestures and said, “It’s O.K. It’s O.K.”

For a moment, I debated with myself about whether or not I should go back in and seek an explanation to make sense of what had happened, maybe even make sure that this backpack wasn’t going to trigger alarms wherever it went just as I had feared the first one would. If it did, I would have the same problem I had started out with, plus be out three quarters of an hour of my time, plus $15 and an immeasurable hunk of wellbeing. I would not qualify as a smart shopper.

But I felt that I was at the end of my emotional and mental resources, and that unless I beat a hasty retreat, I might end up exploding incoherently in front of a store full of employees and customers. So I settled for shaking my head, waving my hand and leaving.

A Sense of Doom

Now, of course, the unresolved nature of the situation leaves me with a sense of impending doom.

Is there a device of some kind in the backpack, a small device hidden there that will set off alarms the next time Riley goes through a toy store or library doorway, bringing the full weight of authority down on him? I guess to spare him this, I should myself put the backpack through some trial runs, bringing it through two, three, even four different types of security systems before letting him do so. But even then, I would never be sure that because of possible differences between scanners, he could pass through system number five, six or seven without setting off alarms.

I could just get another backpack, but I refuse to put myself through that financial kind of self-torture.

I could also take it back again to Office Depot to find out why the alarm system had gone off and to make sure it won’t happen again. But you know how successful my last attempt at that was.

And now I have a new worry too. I can’t help wondering if the whole situation, from the moment I bought the first backpack until the moment I bought the second one wasn’t just Office Depot’s sly way of squeezing an extra $15 out of me. I know it’s improbable. But the fact that I even consider it as a possibility shows how nightmarish the whole process of going out into the world and engaging people has become. Agoraphobia is beginning to seem like a more and more reasonable reaction to life.

Published in Corvus Review

When Is Kindness Not Kindness?

When It’s Twisted into Nonsense and Crammed Down Your Throat.

By Kyle Heger

If your e-mail inbox contained materials from a county jail cheerfully announcing its participation in something called “The Great Kindness Challenge,” complete with smiling faces, peace signs and flower graphics, you might feel a queasy sense of disconnection. Then you’d know how I felt getting a similar message from my son’s public elementary school, which, in my experience, is little better than a typical “correctional facility” in terms of how kindly it treats its warehoused population.

My first reaction was “School administrators are at it again, adding ‘kindness’ to the list of words such as ‘respect,’ ‘critical thinking,’ ‘safety,’ and yes, even ‘love’ that they deform for their own purposes.” And, the more I looked into this boondoggle, the more I found that my first reaction was justified.

Granted: Words are by their nature elastic, open to some interpretation. But, if they are to serve as a medium for communication, they must bear some kind of commonality of meaning. Hence the usefulness of attempts at definition.

A look at the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (hardly a radical, “alternative” authority) uses words such as “sympathetic, helpful, gentle and forbearing” to define the state of being “kind.” But, as used in materials included in “The Great Kindness Challenge” the word “kindness” is a catch-all under to include almost any activity, even those that have nothing to do with kindness as defined above, or can even reflect its opposite.

“Peace Dumbed Down”

The “challenge” is a turnkey program provided by Kids for Peace. A look at the group’s website reveals it as a nonprofit organization that seems to use “peace” the same way it uses “kindness,” as an umbrella for a hodgepodge of supposedly “positive” behaviors.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for peace. In fact, I’ve been a peace activist ever since I was nine-years-old, signing petitions, marching, contacting elected officials, serving on committees to oppose selective service registration, the nuclear weapons build up and military interventions all over the world. I was the disarmament coordinator for Greenpeace Great Lakes and worked for Ground Zero, Freeze Voter 84 and the Contra Costa County Nuclear Weapons Freeze.

But the kind of peace-making to which Kids for Peace resorts is a dumbed-down version of the real thing. It reminds me of the kiddie-menu fare that I despised so much as a child. Those things confine minors to a dietary ghetto, while this group’s “wag more, bark less” programs confine them to a political ghetto. Such programs often try using developmental-psychology to defend themselves, explaining that kids aren’t ready for the truth. What they end up doing is giving kids a bunch of misinformation, with the hope that they’ll eventually straighten it all out.

One assumption of the group seems to be that if only people understood each other more, there would be no violence. Despite the fact that the European countries involved in World Wars I and II were all linked by centuries of intimate contact, inter-marriage, cross-cultural pollination and business connections. And the fact that the warring Asian parties in the World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were hardly strangers.

Another assumption seems to be that if only people treated each other nicely enough, there would be peace. As if competitions for power and resources or a clash of world views and values aren’t the main causes of war. Usually, I feel a bit taken aback by bumper stickers that say, “If you want peace, work for justice” because they seem too threatening, but, compared to this treacle, I find them a breath of fresh air.

“‘Kindness’ in Action”

My son’s school kicked off the challenge by having students participate in group “affirmations” about how they “choose” to be kind. So much for the value school officials put on students’ freedom of thought, feeling and expression. This exercise puts me in mind of rituals during which people were forced to make propaganda statements out loud in the former Soviet Union during its Stalinist phase and in China during the Cultural Revolution. It also smacks of people here in the U.S. forced to sign loyalty oaths and pledge allegiance to a flag.

Third-to-fifth graders at the school got a version with fifty kindness “challenges” to perform. They were told to perform at least 30. If goals are met, the children will be rewarded by seeing the principal work on top of the school roof for one day. Talk about inspiration.

A look at a few activities on this list makes my point about how thin the program stretches the word “kindness.”

“SMILE AT 25 PEOPLE.” Does smiling really strike you as a “kind” act? How would you feel if you were one of the 25 people lucky enough to receive one of these smiles and were told that it was bestowed upon you as a “kindness”? What if the people who smiled were even more explicit, saying that they did it as an act of “sympathy” and “forbearance” and that they counted it as a “challenge”? The chances are pretty good you might be tempted to tell them to cram that kindness right back where it came from.

Of course, there are other types of smiles that might be more pleasing to recipients, for instance one that springs from a genuine, spontaneous pleasure in seeing them. But smiling by policy is, at best, a pretty cold affair.

"COMPLIMENT 5 PEOPLE." Right. Telling people what they want to hear is always kind. For instance, when you tell someone that his hairdo is attractive and he is thereby induced to keep trotting proudly about with that thing on his head even though everyone else laughs behind his back. Or when you say to the school bully, “I really think it’s great the way you shoved that little kid in the mud puddle.” The path to enablement is often paved with compliments. And who could imagine anything unpleasant about complimenting someone in a position to grant you favors? A little toadyism, anyone?

"TELL A JOKE AND MAKE SOMEONE LAUGH." Surely, by now, everyone knows that not all jokes, even ones that make people laugh, are kind. Feel free to provide your own examples here.

“LEARN SOMETHING NEW ABOUT YOUR TEACHER.” Yes, like her gambling addiction, her track record of promiscuous and unprotected sex or her compulsive lying. Now those are nice!

“GIVE YOUR FRIEND A HIGH FIVE.” Right. After he runs over a chipmunk with his mountain bike. Congratulations, like compliments, don’t always encourage behavior in others that could meaningfully be called “kind.”

“SIT WITH A NEW GROUP OF KIDS AT LUNCH.” Yes. You are God’s gift to other kids. You’re doing them a big favor by sitting with them. Kudos for sharing the wealth. Maybe you can become really popular by announcing to them that you’ve joined them out of kindness, not because they have something to offer to you, for instance, companionship.

“STEP UP FOR SOMEONE IN NEED.” O.K. As if there’s no way this can end up as a self-aggrandizing act that amounts to condescension. People love to be treated as charity cases. For example, the blind person who is “helped” across an intersection even though she hasn’t asked for help, doesn’t want help and is perfectly able to cross on her own. Revenge may indeed be a dish best served cold. I really have no idea. But clearly kindness can be a dish better in the serving than in the receiving.

“HOLD THE DOOR OPEN FOR SOMEONE.” I have two words for you to consider here before you get too excited about how kind you were to do this: “sexism” and “ageism.” See the “Step up for Someone in Need” above for an overview of how treating people as needy can backfire.

“BE ON TIME FOR SCHOOL.” Yeah. Very kind. Although I think the word “punctual” might be a little more on-target. Like many other activities on the list, this one clearly seems more a technical matter than one of kindness. But, hey, if you don’t value honesty as much as you do “kindness,” you might be able to make it work.

“Listen to Your Teacher the First Time.” Here we have obedience parading under the “kindness” banner. Combining this with all the suggested activities that involve thanking school authority figures (superintendents, principals, bus drivers, crossing guards, librarians, nurses, volunteers) will give you a pretty good picture of young sycophants-in-training.

“A Case Study”

On the day the group affirmations took place, I observed what use two third graders made of the checklist. I was surprised that they did seem motivated by a desire to see the principal working on the roof. But I had the sense that this wasn’t because they felt this was something admirable on her part, but because they wanted to see her look ridiculous.

They quickly buzzed through the list, checking off as many items as they could, using past experiences as criteria. When I said that I thought that the idea behind the program was for them to only count actions they took after they’d received the checklist, they were momentarily stymied. But they quickly found work-arounds. For instance, for “Smile at 25 People,” they smiled at each other and me repeatedly until they reached a count of 25. For “Draw a Picture and Give it to Someone” they knocked off fast doodles and exchanged them. You get the idea.

I applaud the ingenuity and critical-thinking skills they exhibited. But I didn’t see a lot of kindness brought into play.

After a few minutes of this kind of thing, even the inspiring image of the principal sitting atop the roof lost some of its sparkle, and they dropped the checklists, saying, “This is stupid,” and moved on to other things.

“A Monocrop of ‘Good Little Doobies””

Are teachers and administrators really still as out of touch with the reality of student experience as they were when I was in elementary school decades ago? Does is not strike any of them that the type of “kindness” they get on demand is likely not to be kindness at all, but something that ranges between lip service and downright imposture? Do they really believe that a program like this will do anything more valuable than confirming the high esteem of children who already pat themselves on the back for being kind and leaving the other children untouched in any but the most superficial way? Or are the adults simply going through the motions, hoping to placate each other or figures higher up in the organizational hierarchy?

The emphasis on kindness takes on even more disturbing implications when viewed as part of a larger trend at my son’s school to reach beyond students’ external behavior and try controlling their private, subjective lives. They are told that they are grateful, that they are respectful, that they work their hardest, that they love their teachers. They are told they must be attentive. Their progress reports measure how “positive” their attitudes are.

The school conflict-management program looks an awful lot more like a conflict-suppression program. Students are told to say they’re “sorry” even if they’re not and that they “forgive” even when they don’t. An “Emotion Management” program emphasizes reducing or eliminating students’ “disruptive” emotions and “calming down” their anger, frustration, worry, anxiety and blaming.

While this sometimes takes place under the banner of “social justice” and the goals of “inclusion,” “diversity” and “tolerance,” it has the effect of driving any hint of dissension or disagreement underground, churning out a monocrop of “Good Little Doobies” who respond to authority not only with obedience but with actual enthusiasm.

“You’ll Be Kind and You’ll Like It!”

Walking into my son’s school with the “challenge” in full swing was not unlike walking into a scene from “1984.” Big Brother was speaking for the children around every corner. Posters declared, “We Choose to Be Kind” and “We Believe that … Kindness is Everything.” Get that? Not just one among other (presumably important) things, but Everything. How’s that for saddling ideas with superlatives to the point where they are dumbed down to nonsense? Strung upon the walls were light-bulb shapes on which the students in my son’s class had been told to complete the sentence, “I will light up the world with kindness by ….” Of course, most simply filled in the blanks with words from the checklist.

Has it occurred to the program’s creators, or to people at the school who are foisting it off on us, that public schools don’t have any legitimate business trying to inculcate kindness in students? Or, that actually it is their business to avoid such mind control? Isn’t kindness, in most meaningful definitions, a subjective state? Since when do we pour tax payer dollars into an institution so it can brain wash our children, to tell them, in essence, “You’ll Be Kind and You’ll Like It!”?

Of course, on the surface, kindness is one of those subjective states to which it might seem that no reasonable person could object. But, as the above review showed, the activities recommended as part of the “Great Kindness Challenge” aren’t necessarily acts of kindness at all.

Consider the issue of precedents, and you might see that the “Great Kindness Challenge” casts ominous shadows. Even assuming that public schools will wield the power to shape subjective experience in ways of which you approve, what is to guarantee that, once given this power, they will always use it in ways of which you approve? Once given the power to cultivate kindness today, what is to stop them from cultivating cruelty tomorrow if it becomes convenient?

Consider this program in the “best use” context. Assuming that a school has limited time, energy and attention, and that there are more significant things to do with those resources than investing them in this program, is the school anywhere justified in using them this way?

“The Risk of Counter-Productivity”

In several ways, a program like the “challenge” actually threatens to undermine its stated purpose.

First, by being force-fed, the program runs the risk of becoming, for some students another task to be dodged, for some students another waste of time to be tolerated, and for yet other students another program to be opposed. This last is a predictable reaction from highly perceptive students who are already learning to maintain their independence by automatically distrusting and rejecting messages from authorities.

Being told that you are kind by the same people who tell you that you are guilty of breaking rules even when you’re not, who tell you that you “adore” a book even when you can’t stand it and that you “loved” a field trip even when you think it stank makes for a pretty big credibility problem.

Hypocrisy is not too strong a word in this case.

Second, by trivializing kindness into a set of quick, easily performed and easily measured stunts, the program risks being taken at face value by students who already pride themselves on their kindness, their ability to win approval from authority or their ability to out-compete their school mates. On the other hand, the independent-minded students are given just another reason to reject the whole notion of kindness out of hand as more garbage spewed from out by authority.

Third, presenting kindness as either a given or something that can be easily achieved simply by choice, risks making students complacent about the experience. If they come to believe that kindness is a universal constant, they have little incentive to observe or cultivate it.

Fourth, by offering external rewards for “kindness,” the program could easily lead some children to believe that kindness is something someone gives someone else to get “treats” from a third party, rather than being a naturally occurring experience that can be intrinsically rewarding.

Acts of “kindness” done in this context bear an unsettling resemblance to the kind of tricks dogs can be taught to do in exchange for a handful of Beggin’ Bits, tricks like “shaking hands.”

“A Martyred Sigh”

I can easily predict how some enthusiasts of this program will respond if they read this essay: a martyred sigh and the much-overused words, “No good deed goes unpunished.” But, in reality, a more accurate summarization of what I have attempted here would be, “This particular smug, superficial, ill-conceived attempt at brain washing has not gone criticized.”

Need I say that I am taking to task not kindness itself but the uses to which the word is put, in particular, misguided attempts to cram it down people’s throats as if they were so many geese being force-fed through esophageal slits in order to more efficiently produce pate de foie gras?

In fact, I feel that I am defending kindness from people whose efforts will end up misrepresenting, counterfeiting and cheapening it. Kindness is a deep experience which seems to blossom in most people if not stifled. Under the right circumstances it grows organically as people’s brains and bodies develop and as their experience with others widens. Seeking to tinker with something so profound is a bit like trying to raise more marketable fruits more cost-efficiently by growing them where they don’t belong, with growing media, light, nutrients and pesticides that are all synthetic. You could well end up with fruit that is weak, tasteless and diseased and with an environment that is poisoned.

Kindness Checklist Part Two

By Kyle Heger

Some go-getting elementary school students might find that they have completed all the activities suggested in the Great Kindness Challenge. If they want to take on some more challenges in the same spirit, I suggest that they try the following:

1 Wear suspenders

2 Agree shrilly

3 Wink

4 Tell someone using a wheelchair what an “inspiration” he is.

5 Pinky-swear

6 Kowtow

7 Ride a unicycle

8 Say “Cool”

9 Use a tuning fork

10 Say, “Patience is a virtue” to someone who is angry.

11 Seal an envelope

12 Call something “cute”

13 Perspire

14 Offer to flush toilets for people

15 Lick a stamp

16 Simper

17 Pop a friend’s pimple

18 Tell a classmate with whom you’ve never interacted that you love him. Then stick by his side all day.

19 Open a door

20 Grind black pepper

21 Give Disney princess erasers to girls and Darth Vader erasers to boys.

22 Amputate someone’s gangrenous limb.

23 Say “Awesome”

24 Polish your teachers’ shoes with a good spit shine

25 Blow kisses indiscriminately

26 Inhale

27 Exhale

28 Do the splits

29 Paint a smiley face on a hearse

30 Rhyme

31 Giggle

32 Call an old woman a “young lady.”

33 Assure a permanently paralyzed boy that he’ll be “up and running” in no time.

34 Floss a stranger’s teeth

35 Take a selfie

36 Use a shoe horn

37 Flip a coin

38 Add numbers

39 Subtract numbers

40 Tell a morbidly obese man than he is looking “in the pink.”

41 Turn a knob

42 Say “wahoo!”

43 Blush

44 Talk like Donald Duck

45 Volunteer to euthanize someone’s suffering pet

46 Use exclamation points

47 Hurry

48 Slow down

49 Enter

50 Exit

The above published in Storgy

Anchor 2

Anchor 3

Thanks, Schools, for Controlling Our Children’s Feelings.

Somebody Has to Do It.

By Kyle Heger

Even in these fractious times, there are a few things we parents can agree on. First, to succeed in our society, a person needs good behaviors. Second, good behaviors are largely caused by good feelings. Third, to make sure our children grow up to achieve success, we adults must control their feelings.

Unfortunately, we parents can’t always do this. We try role-modelling, rewards, punishments, rules, orders. But their feelings won’t always conform. Most of us don’t have specialized training to deal with a task this daunting. We don’t have time for it because we’re so busy working all day to churn out useful goods and services and spending the rest of our time consuming them.

Fortunately, allies to help us control our children’s feelings are as close as neighborhood schools. Educators there are already experts at making students toe the line cognitively: keeping them on track with the right facts, figures and technical skills. What many parents don’t realize is that these educators are in a position to also control students’ feelings: their emotions, attitudes, opinions, values.

If you want to find out how to enlist local educators in this campaign, you could do a lot worse than getting them to follow the example being set by a small school district in the San Francisco Bay area that uses four basic approaches to control “The Whole Child.” Let’s call it “District X.”

Approach One: “Feel as We Say You Must.”

Sometimes direct approaches are among the best. District X has great success simply ordering children to feel certain ways.

One of the main feelings it demands is positivity. A positive population is more likely to put its shoulder to the wheel. It’s less likely to waste authority’s time with foot-dragging or protests.

An elementary-school “Parent and Student Handbook” tells students, “Show a positive attitude ….” It doesn’t get much more direct than that.

In performance evaluations, conducted three times a year, a student here is measured on how well he “exhibits a positive attitude.”

Respect is another demanded feeling. In fact, it’s one of the “Big Three” rules at an elementary school in District X. Most dictionaries more or less define “respect” as a feeling of high esteem. And, because the “Big Three” don’t specify what’s to be respected, the implication is that respect is to be universally applied. People who hold everything in high esteem don’t generally stir up much trouble.

It turns out respect doesn’t have to be earned; it just has to be commanded. The same is true of attentiveness. The “Parent and Student Handbook” requires students to “focus attention on the speaker.”

Such dry language doesn’t go far enough to satisfy one gung-ho fifth-grade teacher. A sign in her classroom tells students, “Listen attentively the entire time with hearts and minds.” If it was worthwhile for our government to try winning the hearts and minds of Vietnam’s population while we waged war there, surely, it’s worthwhile for our schools to try to win them in an effort to socialize our children.

The district even uses a canned curriculum to spell out for students which feelings should be avoided and which should be cultivated, engaging them in homework and in-class exercises to practice “managing” emotions. Called “Second,” it’s provided by the organization Committee for Children. “Disruptive” emotions that it seeks to “manage” and “calm down” include anger, frustration, worry, anxiety and blaming. Feelings it seeks to cultivate include: focus, respect and being positive. You can’t get much more authority-friendly than this.

Approach Two: “Feel as We Say You Do.”

Educators here have also become skilled in a subtler form of manipulation: telling children not what they must feel but what they do feel. Think of it as authority making a declarative sentence (“You feel enthusiasm.”) as distinct from an imperative sentence (“Feel enthusiasm.”).

In some ways, the declarative form is more effective. It assumes as a fait accompli that students are already doing what authority says they must do. There’s no wiggle room. It’s as if compliance were a metaphysical, perhaps a divine, given. The message is that authority, at the least, knows children’s innermost experiences, and, at most, creates them.

Students here are assiduously told by teachers and parent-volunteers that they will enjoy, are enjoying and have enjoyed field trips. If adults do resort to a question, it’s along these lines: “We’re going to have a blast on this field trip, aren’t we?” or “Didn’t you just love that field trip?” They’re too smart to ask dangerously open-ended questions like “How did you feel about the trip?”

The “Parent and Student Handbook” shows educators here are masters of You-Talk by stating, “Our students want to contribute positively to the school. All students want to do well, be respectful … and value their learning.”

Approach Three: “Express Your Feelings as We Tell You to.”

District X has another trick up its sleeve: It instructs students to express particular feelings. This accomplishes two things. First, it requires students to have these feelings. Second, it requires them to “share” these feelings, to commit to them publicly.

Some of what it does in this regard is already standard fare across our great land. Kindergartens are told, near Thanksgiving, to create posters saying what they’re grateful for. The grateful feel that benefits they receive are a gift from above, and, as such, can be removed or withheld if they don’t continue to please authority.

And, of course, students are told they must say, “I’m sorry” even when they aren’t, as a way of “resolving” conflict. They’re told to use “dear” in letters’ salutations and “love” in their closings even if they have no affection for recipients.

The most spectacular example of the “Express Your Feelings as We Tell You to” type of manipulation here is a series of events and exercises held in District X last year under the rubric of the “Great Kindness Challenge,” a national program coordinated by an organization called Kids for Peace. Children had to make affirmations out loud in a group about how they “chose” to be “kind.” They also were required to make posters in which they finished the sentence, “I will light up the world with kindness by ….”

Approach Four: “We Will Express Your Feelings for You.”

Using this tactic, District X bypasses students altogether, steps into their places and expresses their feelings for them.

In the “multipurpose room” at one school, posters on the wall assume students’ voices, saying for them, “We Do Our best,” “We Know Learning Is Fun,” “We Are Part of a Caring Community.”

Encouraging her students to “share” information about themselves, a fifth-grade teacher has no hesitation in speaking for them, sending them a note saying, “We are so excited to learn more about you.”

A sign on a door, created by parent volunteers during Teacher-Appreciation Week boldly proclaims, “Thank you, Miss X. We Love You.”

Bringing It All Together

One fifth-grade teacher brings these approaches to feelings-control together in her classroom. Three lists are posted there, based on input she elicited from students. “Ways We Want Our Class to Be” includes the words “respectful, attentive, optimistic, compassionate, empathetic.” A “Please Do” list includes “be patient, be open-minded, believe in yourself, listen attentively.” A “Please Don’t” list includes “Be negative, give up, judge people.”

The lists are clearly the result of “brainstorming” sessions carefully orchestrated by the teacher. Which words did and didn’t end up on the lists were, of course, a foregone conclusion. And, though brainstorming is typically done at the start of the group decision-making process, here it was treated as an end-product without going through a critical thinking or editing stage.

This teacher has announced she will have students sign contracts agreeing to abide by these lists. You can bet that when kids were tossing these words around in a top-of-the-head way, they didn’t know they’d have to comply with them.

This visionary teacher also has students take turns serving as honorary members of the Feelings Police, or “scouts,” who watch for evidence that fellow students are complying with the above-mentioned lists in interactions with each other.

What a great way to make sure that, right from the get-go, kids won’t develop unrealistic expectations that there will be anything democratic or empowering in group decision making.

Parents in Unity

If you’ve read this far under the impression that feelings-control in schools is something supported only by the politically conservative, you’re in for a surprise. Sure, decades ago, in the name of “civil rights” for children, it was mainly people considered “Leftist” or “Progressive” that hamstrung authorities in public schools. Because of them, many schools no longer demand that children say prayers or say the Pledge of Allegiance. But times have changed.

Some of the most recent feelings-control efforts this district has undertaken have a decidedly progressive flavor. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president, signs appeared in District-X schools proclaiming, “We believe: black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything.” Signs saying “No room for hate” have been posted in response to accusations that some high-school students in the district engaged in racist and anti-Semitic expressions.

But conservatives shouldn’t get too worried. Using administrative ju-jitsu, school authorities in the past have turned campaigns against school violence, sexual harassment and the marginalization of certain groups into rules against anger, spontaneous affection and value judgements.

Tomorrow, if the winds of politics change, the signs posted in District X schools could just as easily read: “We believe: white lives matter, fetus’ rights are human rights, no war criminal is illegal, creationism is real, indifference is indifference, obedience is everything” and “No room for critical thinking.”

Today, the practice of controlling students’ feelings isn’t tied to a particular political stripe. It’s hyper-political. It can accommodate the Red and the Blue, in fact everybody except those so radical they question the foundation of technologically-based consumer society itself.

School authorities in District X command one of the most important subjective experiences: conscience. They’ve decided in advance what social justice is. There’s no longer a need for messy grassroots debates.

The district makes students learn “Social-Emotional and Social Justice Competencies” as measurable technical skills. In a “Social Awareness” component, it teaches kids to feel, “I care about others.” In “Relationship Skills,” they learn to feel, “I am a good friend.” Often, the lesson is a blend of cognitive and subjective experiences. In “Knowledge of Social Inequities, children learn the lesson: “I know what is fair.” Yes, they know because their teachers have told them.

District X even makes forays into a subjective realm often considered more elevated than conscience: states of consciousness. It offers instruction in “mindfulness.” Perhaps the time will even come to revisit the idea of prayer in public schools. It’s not a bad idea, considering studies showing how useful such practices can be in making people happier and more productive.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve given you confidence in educators’ ability to put your children on the right path subjectively. But they can’t do it without the support of parents.

So, elect the right people to office. Be the voice of reason on the PTA. Present a united front with educators. Help children work within the system. For example, explain that pretending to have demanded feelings is just as good as actually feeling them, if you do it well enough. Motivate them by explaining that in today’s competitive job market, employers are looking for enthusiastic team players who can share their organizations’ core values, missions, passions and love for customer service. With the right attitude, they can grow up to take a big bite out of the American Dream: fast cars, smart phones, trips to Epcot Center. The sky’s the limit.

More than anything, trust educators. After all, you’re a product of the system they’ve heroically sustained for decades, right? You didn’t turn out so bad. Neither will your offspring.

The above published in The Penmen Review

A Forced March of Hilarity through the American Revolution

By Kyle Heger

“Give this a chance,” I urged myself as my gorge began to rise. I was watching a young woman pretend she hadn’t heard a classroom full of fifth graders return her greeting. She stopped dramatically in mid-stride, raised a hand to her ear and asked them, “What did you say?”

From one perspective, I should’ve long ago developed a tolerance for this kind of thing. I’d heard it inflicted on my son, Riley, and his fellow students before by a wide range of adults, including the principal at their public school, a camp counselor at a “working farm” and a docent at a “hands-on” science museum.

But the truth was that each repetition of this bit of showmanship built on the intolerability of the ones preceding it, making me wonder: “Do these adults really still believe that what they’re doing is in the least bit original, spontaneous, genuine, entertaining or even useful?”

Judging by the woman’s big smile, vigorous head-nodding and fist pump when the students gave a sufficiently ear-splitting response, I had a sinking feeling that she either really stilled believed it or was still good at pretending that she did.

Lights, Camera, Salivate!

Despite this less-than-auspicious beginning, I tried keeping an open mind to the possibility that these children would end up gaining some value from this “living history” activity and the weeks of effort leading up to it. After all, at the farm, they got a chance to run around a meadow with goats. That was nothing to sneeze at.

Perhaps, this project would have a pay-off too. Perhaps they’d learn something, develop their abilities to think critically and express themselves clearly, use their imaginations.

But it soon became clear that this activity wasn’t likely to provide such results.

I had come expecting to find some kind of “home-made” affair that the children had whipped up with help from teachers and maybe some parent volunteers. I was prepared for the winningly amateurish, the forgivably clumsy. But what I found was a canned, turn-key production by a third party.

This production resembled nothing so much as a reality-tv game show of the “turn up the volume and dumb down the content” variety in which everything is scripted and rehearsed, exaggerated and at the same time superficial.

True to form, students were divided into color-coded teams. You guessed it: red for the British, white for colonial loyalists and blue for colonial rebels.

The teams competed for a grand prize of a certificate. They earned points depending, in part, on how well members acted out historical scenes (The Battle of Saratoga) or recited brief speeches either in the roles of historic characters (John Paul Jones) or as “experts” in historical fields (the Coercive Acts).

Watching them try to earn extra points by coughing up answers to a quiz and by scrambling to beat the clock while piecing together a jigsaw-puzzle map, I couldn’t help thinking of Pavlov and his dogs. It’s called positive reinforcement.

Are We Having Fun Yet? Don’t Ask.

This game-show vibe came through loud and clear through the activity’s shrill emphasis on positivity. Students were expected to applaud wildly whenever one or more of them acted out a scene or spit out memorized lines. Of course, just like the audience in a TV game show, parents in the classroom reacted with enthusiasm too, clapping and yelling “woo-hoo” right on cue whenever the students did anything.

Every time points were given to their teams by the facilitator, students were also expected to stand and make whatever meaningless noise of triumph she’d assigned them. Parents even applauded these acts of self-celebration as if to say, “Good job of applauding your own team, Junior!”

This facilitator had all the spontaneity, sincerity and warmth of a game-show host, calling the students, “my friends.” Depending on how far one’s willing to stretch the definition of “friends,” I guess she might not have violated the word beyond the point of recovery.

I’ll say this for her. She wasn’t a slacker. She tried awfully hard to be funny: admitting that when put on refrigerator doors, the winners’ certificate would be ignored by students’ siblings; calling Thomas Jefferson “T.J.” and speaking in silly English and French accents. Of course, she makes the same jokes at each school where she does this, but somethings just never grow stale, right?

Humor was at such a premium that the audience even laughed when students pretended to be Crispus Attucks being shot to death by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre and Nathan Hale being led away to execution. Understand: These were “heroes” of “our side,” the colonists. Somehow or other, the parents had got it into their heads that these deaths were supposed to be funny. So, determined to be supportive of their children, they dutifully laughed. I hate to think what they would’ve done if they thought they were supposed to be amused by a re-enactment of the bombing of Hiroshima or the interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

But don’t get the wrong idea. This show was not just about fun. Oh, no. It was about respect too. The facilitator insisted upon this. She was an iron fist in a velvet glove.

How does one show respect while reliving the American Revolution? Simple. Through attentiveness and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm meant being loud on demand. Attentiveness, the facilitator informed students, meant that they must be sitting upright at the edge of their seats. Further, they must keep their eyes and ears on her (anatomically challenging, to say the least).

How does one induce students to give respect? Positive reinforcement, of course. This time, in the form of lollipops, thirteen of them, one for each of England’s North American colonies. When the facilitator singled out individuals to be rewarded for showing respect, she turned on a flashing light. Students had to come up on center stage before the flashing stopped. Then, each removed a lollipop from a stand. Candies with golden sticks earned teams fifty points. When students picked these, they had to say, “Goody!” in a funny voice. When students picked lollipops without golden sticks, they had to say, “Bummer!” in a funny voice. When the children went back to their seats, they were instructed to say, “Nighty-night, Lolly.” Big surprise: They were told to say this in a funny voice too.

Take-Home Messages

The demand for positivity also extended to the content of the performance, to historical lessons students were meant to learn. In particular, the rebels and the country which they created were painted in a glowing light.

Sure, the facilitator took about thirty seconds to admit that Native Americans and African-American slaves didn’t exactly have equal rights under colonial rule. But she did it the way a TV station might run a public service announcement in favor of gun control in the middle of a Dirty Harry marathon.

The take-home messages fell into the predictable good-guy vs. bad-guy category in which “we” (the colonial rebels) were the good guys.

Benedict Arnold was described as “one of the worst traitors in American history” for switching from the rebel side to the British side of the conflict. But George Washington, Paul Revere and John Adams weren’t described as “traitors” for taking up arms against their government in the form of the British king, parliament and army.

According to the facilitator, the rebels “hoped the American Experiment” would bring “freedom to the colonies.” Really? What kind of freedom? For whom: slaves, indentured servants, the working poor, women, Native Americans? Or just rich, white men?

Also, according to the facilitator, the freedom colonists exercised by violently removing themselves from the rule of one government and setting up their own government is directly comparable to the freedom people in the U.S. have exercise today by voting, petitioning and protesting. For a reality check on how free we are to remove ourselves from the rule of our current federal government, consider what happened to southern states that tried to secede from the union.

Solidarity in the Warehouse

Trying to find comfort as the two-and-one-half-hour presentation wound down, I reminded myself that at least for this activity I hadn’t been required to sign a waiver absolving the sponsors of responsibility if my son was injured through the sponsors’ negligence. To that extent, it was one step above a YMCA camp and an art-instruction group with which Riley’s school does business. It was two steps above a bike-safety training organization that insists on even being absolved from responsibility for student injuries caused by gross negligence.

Also, if nothing else, by being there throughout the performance, I’d been able to express solidarity with my son, not the kind of solidarity that says, “Yeah. Celebrate what a wonderful thing you’re doing,” but the kind that says, “I’m sorry you have to endure this. But at least I can keep you company.” How depressing it was to realize that this was the same kind of solidarity I often end up expressing while visiting people warehoused in other institutions: hospitals, nursing homes and jails.

One Dimension Isn’t Enough

Also depressing was how eagerly other parents in the room lapped up this nonsense. They weren’t just tolerating it. I didn’t see any rolled eyes, hear any sighs. Apparently, it didn’t dawn upon them that these children weren’t learning much beyond a few lines they were forced to memorize and would soon forget. Other than a few kids who enjoyed hamming it up for a little extra attention, most seemed to go through the motions rather sheepishly, as if they felt a bit humiliated by the whole thing.

And why not feel humiliated? They weren’t there to think critically, be spontaneous, feel agentic, express themselves, use their imaginations. They were there to be told how to feel and think and act. They were there to smile and laugh and applaud on demand. They were there to be dressed up and posed like dolls for photo opportunities.

I shuddered as one mother cooed to another in the following vein: “Isn’t this great? I can’t believe that when we were kids, we just had to read books about this stuff.” Has our need for constant “entertainment” reached the point where the idea of reading a book seems so awful?

After the performance, a number of mothers descended upon the facilitator, assuring her in falsetto voices that she’d done a “wonderful job.”

But, of course, for most of the parents, the success of this project was a foregone conclusion. They simply couldn’t imagine not enjoying it, much less objecting to it. After all, the classroom teacher had sent a message home beforehand describing it as “an exciting and engaging interactive educational presentation of the American Revolution.”

In a follow-up e-mail message, the teacher told parents: “Students were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the experience; I think we can all agree, it's a great way to learn about history.” There’s all the proof they need that they’d been right to join in the celebration.

Sad to say, I believe these parents, if they thought they were supposed to do so, would cheer their kids for hitting each other with a dead possum. And shout “Encore” when they stopped.

The futility of my years of protesting such occurrences at this school led me to remain mute in the classroom. If I challenged them, these parents, I knew, could easily turn on me like a swarm of angry bees.

Back in the mid-1960s, social critic Herbert Marcuse warned of how in modern society, people are increasingly raised to be one-dimensional, able only to assent to and agree with the life options mass produced by social structures. What would he make of an ordeal such as this put on four decades after his death? And how many people except me are still able to care?

The above published in The Bookends Review

Anchor 5

Anchor 4