 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
The Dorchester Men's Program By Taylor Stoehr (profile) Section 1. Introduction Section 2. How We Began Section 3. Class Exercises: March 11, 18, 25 Section 4. Class Exercises: April 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 Section 5. Class Exercises: May 6, 13 Section 6. Graduation Ceremony Class Exercise: April 1st Do you think that the victims in the two cases (first, the robbed person, second the person who robbed him and is now punished for it) have similar feelings? Obviously one deserves punishment, the other doesn't. But what are the effects on them? Are they similar, or different? Is this "an eye for an eye," where the criminal is made to feel like his victim? Is that the best outcome we can hope for? Bill: "What does punishment do to its victims? And what does it do to the person who does the punishing? Can a person inflict pain and suffering on someone else without being cruel?" What difference does it make if the punishment is deserved? "Well, it makes him look at himself to see what he is doing wrong, to get punished for. I mean, as in a learning lesson, like when you scold a child, that you can't do something sometimes because it brings consequences. And of course our parents are not being cruel when they punish us, they are teaching us a lesson for life. Teaching us to have morals, to know right from wrong. God is the ultimate punisher, but He is still God and your parent is still your parent, even though we get angry at God and our parents for punishing us. It only means that someone is trying to be a good disciplinarian, like the teacher, military training, to make you a better person. Love vs. hate. You can't mix." Taylor to Bill - I agree with a lot of what you are saying here about the way that certain kinds of "punishment" (from parents, from God) are not "cruel" - because they are not meant to be cruel, but are intended to help the person who suffers them. Nonetheless, as you point out, "we get angry at God and our parents for punishing us." You seem to be saying, at the end, that we have to learn our lesson and we have to forgive our punishers. But can we? Even when a person understands, on one level, that the punishment is not "cruel" because it's not meant that way, isn't there another truth - that it is felt as cruel because it is necessarily intended to make you suffer? How do we get around this? It's pretty hard for people to forgive some kinds of suffering, even when they are " deserved" because of our own acts. You say love and hate can't be mixed. I wonder about that: maybe what's necessary is exactly a mixture of them, so that the punisher can tell the victim that he hates his crime but loves him, and therefore punishes the crime but then, afterwards, tries to help him or somehow remove the pain from the punishment? Is that possible?" Andrew: "What does punishment do to its victims? And what does it do to the person who does the punishing? Can a person inflict pain and suffering on someone else without being cruel? What difference does it make if the punishment is deserved? Well, for the first question, punishment does a lot to its victims. It makes them made, feel less than a person (varies), not loved, betrayed, etc. What it does for the person doing the punishment is make them feel good, macho, superior, etc. I believe a person can inflict pain and suffering on someone without being mean, because a person may not think they're being mean; but the other person could be sensitive and take it personal. I think it makes a big difference if the punishment is deserved or not, because if not deserved, the person is just cruel, mean, or has a cold heart, but if deserved sometimes it can be justified." Taylor to Andrew - It's interesting how your answers gradually narrow down on the really hard questions. First there are the clear-cut cases. Then there's the case where punishment might seem one way to the punisher, another to the punished person. Then there's the third situation, where that difference between how it feels to be on one end of the stick or the other gets still more complicated by issues of justice. I can think of another degree of complication: What if the punishment is deserved, and the punisher is coldhearted? Or, what if the punishment is deserved, the punisher is not cruel but only trying to do justice, but the person punished is "sensitive and takes it personal," not understanding the justice involved?" Ernesto: "What causes cruelty? I don't know what causes cruelty, could be a lot of things. Maybe these three could be a possibility: 1) dejection and bitterness, 2) being the center of attention and jealousy, and 3) impatience. Why do people inflict pain on others? Some reasons could be anger and hatred, but others could be personal satisfaction or personal vendettas. What's the effect of cruelty on the person who is cruel? On the victim? Like I wrote above, it could be personal satisfaction or something else, but that's what it is mostly. On the victim, it could have a lot of different effects, like hopelessness or maybe even becoming cruel themselves. Punishment often makes its victims think, and then hopefully realize the wrong things they do to get punished in the first place. Sometimes punishment can push a person in the right direction. The person who does the punishing could get a better sense of judgment from the punishment he gives, and for the person he/she is punishing. I don't think a person can cause pain and suffering without being cruel, because I think pain and suffering come from cruelness." Taylor to Ernesto - The part of your answer that is most interesting is the matter of effects - and the way those effects are tied up with intentions or motives. You say at the end that you "don't think a person can cause pain and suffering without being cruel," and that suggests that you include the punisher - that a person who punishes, even for good reasons, is cruel. You also say that in most cases the motive for punishing or being cruel is "satisfaction." But before that, you said it was: "1) dejection and bitterness, 2) being the center of attention and jealousy, and 3) impatience." I think that your last reason, "impatience," might also apply to the cases where the punishment is undertaken by society, or a parent, because it is deserved - because society demands "satisfaction," or because a child is behaving badly and deserves punishment. Society or the parent runs out of "patience." But the questions still remain: is it cruel to punish, even for "good" reasons? And if so, what about the effects on the punisher and victim?" Don: "What causes cruelty? The things that cause cruelty are the wrong decisions people make. The main reason is mistakes, but sometimes people get satisfaction from the pain they cause others. They like to see other people hurt, whether it is physically or mentally. But I bet they always regret it. I've been cruel sometimes, in different times, but I always regret it. Why? Because of my conscience. I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Why? Because I don't like it done to me. Physically, I've never been a violent person except when I was a kid. But I'm grown up now. People change. I've changed. So can others. Punishment is good for a victim that deserves it. For example, people that break the law deserve punishment. People that hurt other people deserve it too. I think the person that does the punishing learns more from punishing people - sees the mistake that person has done, and try not to do it themself. If punishment is deserved, you can learn from it. Punishment hurts. So you'll learn." Taylor to Don - You have a way of saying things, especially at the end of a series of thoughts, that is unbeatable! Both these paragraphs end that way, with a powerful set of short sentences that are utterly convincing. Here's a question about learning: do people only learn when the lesson "hurts"? I'm not talking about punishment now, but in general. Sometimes I think all the real lessons of life come with hardship and suffering. The rest of it may look like learning, but it's not the important stuff. Another way of saying this might be that we learn only from our mistakes. Does that make sense to you? I'm not sure about it, but sometimes, like I say, that's the way it seems. Leo: "A man does not come to jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstances, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Circumstance does not make the man but reveals him to himself. Cruelty is caused by our inner thoughts and desires. Man able as lord and master of his thoughts and maker of himself as a character been. It is our evil desires and thoughts that cause us to inflict pain on others. Man is manacled only by himself; our thoughts and actions are the jailer of fate - they imprison. They are also the angels of freedom - they liberate. The effect of cruelty on the person who is cruel is, he gets not what he wishes and pays for but what he justly earns. Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves. They therefore remain bound. Punishment is used to discipline an individual. It brings about your awareness of the reason why we are punished. The person who punishes someone for something that is considered wrong may develop a sense of gratification based on his/her thoughts of the circumstances that he/she considers to be wrong and requires some kind of punishment. Yes, a person can inflict pain and suffering on someone without being cruel, by working on someone's emotions. Strong words can be used. A person's tongue is a very strong weapon. It is what comes out of the mouth that destroys the person. It cannot be reversed, and it can be used as a weapon without putting hands on the person. If the punishment is deserved, the person who it is applied to would become aware of the reason for his punishment, and would think twice before doing the same thing again." Taylor to Leo - I'm interested in the idea that punishment (if deserved) brings about awareness of the reason for it. This is certainly the basis for much punishment - to "teach a lesson," as we say. But you also claim that words are "a very strong weapon." Remember our discussion in our group this week, and what Henry said about there being two kinds of punishment, mental and physical? Is this part of what you are saying here too? In your argument, it seems that you are saying that physical punishment is more effective (at least when deserved) than mental punishment (words), though you also think words can be strong. Are there any convincing arguments against this view? Does any kind of punishment change a person? I'm wondering whether you would say that physical punishment might change behavior, while mental punishment (words) might change character. I'm led to this idea by what you say in the earlier part of your writing this week, about the power of the will, the mastery of desire by discipline. Pedro: "Where do people get their courage? I believe people get their courage from fear within. It starts inside and you build it up, and your self-esteem depends a lot on the way you're brought up in life, your family. Your friends can build or lower your self-esteem. Society plays a big role in self-esteem - church, schools, friends, etc. Righteousness. With the way you're brought up. Your higher power and just plain fear, meaning that you're so afraid of something bad happening that you're good." And here's what you wrote for this week: "Well, I believe punishment hurts victims physically and emotionally. And what it does to the person who's doing the punishing is [make them] feel better, because they're letting go anger they had built up inside against the victims. It's not right. Can a person inflict pain and suffering on someone else without being cruel? Yes, I believe so. What difference does it make if the punishment is deserved? It's a big difference, because it's just using force and it's not right. There are other ways of correcting or teaching someone when they're wrong, without using force." Taylor to Pedro - I think our conversation this week in the small group probably clarified your thinking on some of this. Remember, we got talking about the difference between physical and mental punishment - and how Richard Wright's mother, using mental punishment, had a bigger effect on him that his father's beating would have had. But then we also discussed cases that are more complicated, like locking someone up as a punishment - where physical force compels the person into prison, but there mental punishment takes over. I wonder what you think about that. Is there cruelty involved? Is it likely to reform the person punished? Is the incarceration what does the work, or is it the mental state caused by imprisonment? Paulo: "While if the punishment is deserved, then you have to deal with the mistake that occur at the time of the ordeal, or learn how to adjust to society. Meanwhile, it can be cruel if a person is being punished for something he or she did not commit." Taylor to Paulo - I'm not sure I understand everything you are saying here, but I guess it's something like this: If you deserve your punishment, you have to pay the price ("deal with" it) or learn to adjust to society (what exactly do you mean - reform? If you don't deserve your punishment, then it's cruel. Have I understood you correctly? You seem to be saying, then, that there's no cruelty in any punishment that's deserved. I suppose you have a further view, that the punishment should fit the crime. Otherwise there might be a cruel and unusual punishment? Bert: "I'm clearest about what it does to the person who does the punishing. The power to punish is the power of one person to stand in judgment over another. We do it all the time, as parents, bosses, policemen. We do it even on the national level, as when the U.S. declares itself in a position to punish Sadam by punishing Iraq. One can't say that such authority is always arbitrary. Parents must assert authority over children, because limits must be put on children, sometimes in areas where children have no understanding. But punishment itself is always demeaning. To be punished, is to acknowledge one's inferiority to the punisher. And even while the person punished may have to acknowledge the authority, or superior strength, of the punisher, he will also resent it. The resentment can fester in any number of ways. But one of those ways is a violence that wants revenge. Sometimes, if the person punished can't directly avenge himself on the punisher, he will do it passively. Or he will take it out on someone else. Anger like this can last a long time, a lifetime. Re whether a person can punish without being cruel, I'm not sure. We claim that we can, with the "this hurts me more than it hurts you." And in some cases that may even be true. Yet punishment in cold blood can be crueler than impulsive punishment. Dr. Spock thought it was. The core problem of punishment is the assumption of inequality implicit. Imposing one's will on another, though a popular practice, is always cruel." Taylor to Bert - plenty of clear thinking here. Cruelty seems to me a dual question: On the one hand, what's meant to hurt; on the other, what's felt as such. You can have either without the other, but in any case it is always a matter of intention. Does that sound right? Handout of Writings from 3.25.03 Cruelty and Punishment Lee - "Jealousy and envy are just two of the factors that cause cruelty. People lash out at others because of their own inability to cope with their shortcomings. Whether it's low self-esteem, hatred, stupidity, this act only serves to justify the shortcomings of a complete being. Some people have "control issues" etc. The sick part about it - some people take pleasure in tearing another's soul out. The psychological effects are lasting and damaging. The abuser doesn't care. Just because you can impose your will on someone, or have them petrified, doesn't make you supreme. In any event, the perpetrator and the victim both suffer long-term effects. Punishment can be a way to rehabilitate an individual. As for the victim, it can be a sense of relief, a feeling of being safe, or getting back to the "norm." I don't see how you can not be cruel while inflicting punishment on someone. That's like in biblical times - "an eye for an eye." What purpose does that serve? Now two people are without an eye." Don - "What causes cruelty? The things that cause cruelty are the wrong decisions people make. The main reason is mistakes, but sometimes people get satisfaction from the pain they cause others. They like to see other people hurt, whether it is physically or mentally. But I bet they always regret it. I've been cruel sometimes, in different times, but I always regret it. Why? Because of my conscience. I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Why? Because I don't like it done to me. Physically, I've never been a violent person except when I was a kid. But I'm grown up now. People change. I've changed. So can others. Punishment is good for a victim that deserves it. For example, people that break the law deserve punishment. People that hurt other people deserve it too. I think the person that does the punishing learns more from punishing people - sees the mistake that person has done, and try not to do it themself. If punishment is deserved, you can learn from it. Punishment hurts. So you'll learn." Class Notes 4.01.03 (Stoehr) Bobby brought Elmer to our class tonight. How good it was simply to see his big, smiling, handsome face! He could only stay ten minutes, Bobby said - for all the world like his manager. The room was already full. Fernando and Marty were absent, and a few others came in tardy, but most of the class was there, including a visitor from Michigan, a probation officer who works in the Domestic Violence Court in Ann Arbor, and is here to exchange views with the similar experiment in Dorchester. Unfortunately Matt was absent. He's being ordained this week, and is preparing for the ceremony. I'd like to know what he thought of Elmer. But however you look at it, there was a lot going on tonight. Elmer could be called our star pupil, the graduate "most likely to succeed" - as they used to say in the high school yearbooks. In one of the earliest semesters of our program, long before we had instituted regular writing assignments, he took me up on the invitation to write and receive feedback aimed at revision, getting ready for college. After finishing our ten weeks he went on to a community college, where he immediately made the Dean's List, and graduated in a few years. Since then Elmer has been in front of the judge again at least once, after some family altercation, but he has obviously turned his life around dramatically. Bobby knows the whole family - including Elmer's son, who has also been on probation - and he reports back to us periodically on our graduate's success story, often promising that Elmer will come and speak at our graduation ceremonies, though he never has. Last semester Elmer's mother came to our graduation, with her camera, because she expected him to be there, and tonight Bobby brought along the photos she took that day. One smiling face in the line-up - a class leader last semester, and an orator just like Elmer - is now back in prison. Like Elmer, Robert can't control his temper. It was sobering to think about this pair - Elmer, who has made good, side by side with Robert, who hasn't. There's always more to the story than meets the eye. As I've already mentioned, Elmer hasn't climbed to his current heights without a fall along the way. Contrariwise, Robert hasn't actually committed another crime since our work with him; all last semester, while he was telling me how he had "counted to ten" and kept from losing his temper at a co-worker on a job, he had an assault charge pending, a rather serious one I am told by the judge who has now sentenced him to two years in prison. So, is Robert a lost cause? Did we do him any good? Is Elmer safe in port? Can we stop worrying about him? The cases are even more complicated than this. Robert was self-taught, a hungry reader in his last incarceration. There's a lot of "show" in him. He dressed elegantly, and I sometimes felt that his classroom speeches had a little too much polish to them, though underneath there seemed to be something real. Compare Elmer, whose ten-minute talk stretched out to fifteen. I suppose his tendency to boast a bit is built into the situation, giving witness and testimony. You are trying to tell something that can really only be experienced. Elmer told us about his accomplishments - his degrees, his business, his house, his truck - tying to find the formula for encouragement: You can do it too! According to Bert, one of the men in his group said that Elmer's list of the things he owned, the rewards of his hard work, made no impression on him. "I've got all that stuff too," Ralph said. "Changing your life" is about something else. My own group was respectful, but most of them are still facing a lot of pain, and I'm not convinced that a "success story" is what they need to hear. I'm glad for Elmer and proud of him, but he leaves out the hard part - his re-arrest, his struggles the forces of society seem lined up against him. I'm thinking of how hard it is for a man with a felony record, and a black face, to get a decent job. At least half our students have been out of work for months and years. The jobs they could get, if they would take them, are the lowest paid. There's shame and resentment attached to being poor, and risks that are everywhere around you, or your children, in poor neighborhoods, with poor schools. These are the things Art wrote about in his first class exercise. Elmer's pep talk brings them all up again, as the world he claims to have escaped from. As I now think about it, I realize that I should have found a way to lead my small group into a discussion of Elmer's speech and its significance. At the time I was unwilling to call any of it into question, afraid my own reservations would spoil whatever good effect it might have on students who found encouragement in his example. Instead, I decided to stick with the topics our syllabus laid out for us tonight, letting format dictate our course. When does it make sense to abandon the syllabus and swim for it? In my group, for example, two people had read the homework - stories of cruelty and punishment - and two hadn't. We could have spent our time discussing Elmer's case and explored the questions it raises, but that would mean undermining Lloyd and Leo, who had come ready to talk about Richard Wright's Black Boy and Maxim Gorky's little prison sketch, "Notch." Maybe it doesn't matter - they would have had the satisfaction of being prepared, regardless, but for those who haven't done the reading, Pedro and Henry, it would confirm them in their delinquency. Our policy is pretty loose anyway. We try to stay with issues central to our situation here, not by virtue of the reading but because of the lives people have led, and our encounter with one another in the classroom. But the readings are not mere pretext, and can help us get some purchase on matters that are hard to deal with directly. How to find the balance? - it's an ongoing question, and the answer, I think, is not to be hardnosed and insistent, but to feel our way along from week to week. Every class is different, and so is every student, and you don't really know them until you've spent a lot of time together in an open-ended format, where risks are taken and mistakes made. Tonight I should have treated Elmer's speech as if it were our text. I've sat with each of these four men in earlier sessions, for instance, but I see them anew each time. Tonight every one of them surprised me. Henry, who is so earnest and thoughtful, hadn't read the texts. Why not? Neither had Pedro, perhaps the liveliest and most confident of the whole class, a man with wonderful social gifts - including the ability to sell shoes on straight commission and make good money at it. I guess I can see why he didn't do his homework. His relation to the class is jovial. He doesn't really need us, and he is completely ready to get on with his life, has no apparent wounds to lick, and is not at a reflective moment in his development. There may never be such a stage for him, whereas with Henry I feel that prison and other troubles have brought him to a permanent condition of brooding and sadness - he's like an open wound, grieving. I don't mean that he is lugubrious or self-pitying, for I don't think that's true. He's not stuck, exactly, either - but seems to be listening and offering, ready to connect. It's a very complicated case, perhaps because he allows so much to show. I find him and Pedro, from totally different angles, enormously appealing. The other two, Leo and Lloyd, also surprised me. Leo is so "military" in bearing. After arriving the first night in his camouflage fatigues, he's come in civvies since then, but always pressed and creased, with his head up and with his homework in hand - and yet his surface appearance is not always to be trusted. Tonight he reported having read the texts, but it turned out, when I asked him and Lloyd to repeat the plots for Henry and Pedro, that Leo had only just glanced at them, or one of them, in the few minutes before class. On the other hand, Lloyd not only knew the texts very well, but had thought about them and was ready to engage in interpretation as well as mere plot summary. Before this evening, on the basis of our first encounter on opening night, and the blank look on his face thereafter, I've been taking Lloyd for a man who is slow-witted and silent. I couldn't have been more mistaken. My rush to identify people and begin building personal connections with them often leads me astray, but not usually so thoroughly. Lloyd may wear a mask of diffidence, but his mind is alert and confident. He had worked out a theory of the events in Wright's childhood anecdote: in his view, the five-year-old boy Richard killed the mewing kitten because he had mistakenly taken his father's demand literally. I suggested that Richard was only pretending innocence, and we had an interesting conversation about Richard's guilt. While Lloyd and I were talking, Leo and Henry and Pedro all had their texts out and were examining them, and each was quick to catch on to key parts of both stories. We now spent some time comparing the boy Richard and his motives to Gorky's character "Notch," and his reason for dipping a cat in that story into a paint can. "He meant to kill it," Pedro says emphatically, although the story allows you to suppose that he merely meant to regain his own place in the limelight of the prison yard, by turning his rival into a gruesome green joke. But Pedro convinced us that Notch meant that cat to die. Returning to the second part of the excerpt from Black Boy, Henry pointed out that there are two kinds of punishment, mental and physical. Both can be effective, and we discussed whether prison is primarily based on one or the other. It's not just being locked up, Henry said. The inmates and guards may beat you or otherwise harm you physically. When I asked whether that was intended by society as part of the punishment, everyone agreed that, since judges and prosecutors know that it happens, a conviction and sentencing must be construed as intending that physical suffering as part of the punishment. We talked about Wright's story as an example of both kinds. His father's physical punishment, a possible beating, is avoided by Richard's trickery, but his mother imposed a worse punishment on him. "Mental," says Henry, leaning forward and tapping his head with his finger. Then we discussed exactly what Richard suffered, and whether or not he learned anything. Why was he so frightened by the things his mother required - taking the kitten down from its nail and burying it, out in the dark night? We discussed whether his fear came from the darkness, or from his mother, or from a new sense of guilt. I suggested that he only realized the horror of his act once the kitten was stiff and dead. I remembered something from my own boyhood that I now offered as an example. It was just before adolescence, I think, when my best friend and I used to spend hours throwing rocks at the birds in our neighborhood. Unlike me, Jack was an excellent athlete, with a powerful and accurate throwing arm, but despite thousands of rocks neither of us ever hit a poor robin or sparrow. Then one day I'll never forget, I happened to connect with a little bird under a bush a dozen feet away, and killed it. Oh, what a shock - it was dead! Somehow I had never realized that I would kill the bird if I happened to hit it. My remorse - which I kept hidden from my friend - was a powerful lesson to me. I don't believe I threw rocks at birds after that. I know I never killed another one. Leo and Pedro both remembered similar behavior, except that Pedro lived in the country, so there were many animals to chase and pelt and sometimes kill, while Leo reported an experience more like mine - the same horror - but followed soon after by getting used to it, and continuing his bombardments. By this time we were talking about the text and our own experiences in ways that would probably sink in pretty deeply, according to character. I ended with the feeling that we had covered a lot of important ground, despite the fact that we had neglected Elmer's challenge. Meanwhile, in other corners of the room, other significant conversations had been going on. I know that Bert came prepared to give Don a self-searching assignment for next week, part of his ongoing work with him. Last week Don had asked Bert of the first piece of advice he's ever been called to give in our program: What should Don do, in the tight spot he's suddenly in? Living with his girlfriend now for ten years, and more or less supported by her while he looks after their several children, Don has blundered into a major family crisis. He's gotten another woman pregnant. Don brought up his predicament in front of others in their group last week. Bert has been thinking about it all week, and tonight he's giving Don a special assignment for his next homework. This won't solve Don's problem, of course, but Bert is asking him to make a list of three things he wants to change in his life, along with the reasons why and the obstacles. In the other corner of the room several of the most vivid members of the class were sitting with Bobby and our visitor from Michigan, two probation officers and four probationers. The noise tonight came mainly from this very loud group, especially Bill, who I saw haranguing them every time I looked up, but also Lee and Art, and our problem student, Paulo - all of them with strong voices. Once again, Paulo had his cell phone and was using it, though he's been asked to shut it off three weeks in a row. He walks into the room every night talking on it, and not only does it ring more than once during class, but he has also called out on it several times. He doesn't leave the room to do his talking. Tonight Bert and Bobby and I each asked him to shut it off, several times. Bobby finally lost his temper when it rang again in the middle of their group discussion. We talked about the problem after class, and Bobby is going to speak to Paulo's probation officer about the situation. Maybe they'll take him out of the program. I guess Paulo is the other side of the coin, an example to stand against Elmer's success story. Here's a man we've been able to do nothing for. Paulo is from Cape Verde, or his parents are. He is built short and heavy like Don, who is Guatemalan. Paulo has a big smile he can flash, not warm but sunny enough, with a big black hole where one of his upper front teeth is missing. He's probably around thirty, maybe younger, very self-contained. From the first day he's sat in the back of the room all by himself with his cell phone. Trying to get a class roll on opening night, I asked everyone to print his name clearly on his blue-book. Paulo's was illegible, a scribble, and that's the way he intended it - Read me if you can! Each week he shows up with a tiny bit of homework in his blue book, but he hasn't done the reading and doesn't answer the questions. Instead, he writes a few words, not quite sentences, that seem to be the opening lines of a rap lyric: "Whas up boo?/Time past pair a Gucci/Got you on the next level/Light skin mommy with crush diamond baslo/Except you was the type to not care/Only about the cost/Next nigga spare/Remember peep's past, played you cost." Somewhere he's learned to use slash marks for the intervals between lines, rather than formatting them as poetry. Maybe he's gotten this trick from liner-notes. These "lyrics" are in an idiom that is familiar enough, and Paulo catches the rap rhythm too, but his inarticulateness goes deeper than the genre. Bert has had Paulo in his small groups twice, and has discovered that he fancies himself a rap "producer." Whether there's any truth in it, it's a stance, a claim to identity. Is his cell phone a prop, or a sign of real connection? In any case, Paulo represents a hostile, flip, unreachable segment of today's culture. His values are its values, caricatured. Paulo wants to be rich and famous and feared. What's under that, he's unwilling to reveal. Perhaps it's a measure of our program that he is so dug in against us - he can tell we're after his soul, and his cell phone is part of his defense, a lifeline to his fantasy reality. Of course, I'm reading a lot into behavior that is pretty opaque. Paulo baffles me in a way that Lloyd doesn't, because Lloyd isn't really hiding from view, and the mistakes I made about him were all mine, whereas Paulo doesn't want to be seen or understood. Class Notes 4.01.03 (Stern) For me, this homework is a kind of a conjuring session. What I'm really looking for is the souls of these guys. If we're going to touch one another, as the class demands, it has to be not just on the level of mind. Behind the facilitator's desire to be trusted is the deeper desire to be able to meet each other at a level of deep authenticity. We approach this through various forms of testing and probing, the students in their way, we in ours. Anyway, it's in these exchanges, in their evolving forms, that you and I find the heart of this course. Your response to Pedro this week, like mine last, is one kind of example. Pedro's doing fine, and he's good to have in a group, as a model. Another kind of example is Paulo, for whom we're still probing. For me, in this last session, the heart seemed to be at the edges. I mean, the core conversation never quite got going, but other things happened - like Don's warm response to my suggestion that he sort out his problems on paper. I think he's very ready to make changes. But I thought that last time too. I found out Tuesday that Don's family is from Guatemala City. I suspect he may have been born there. He still goes down pretty regularly. It was interesting to look at his face again and recognize that it's Mayan, right off the stone carvings. Anyway, Don's asking us for help in getting his problems sorted out so that he can live without being his own worst enemy. We can provide that help through structures already built into the course. So here's a concrete instance of changing lives, a process I truly believe got started through literature, though in Don's earlier experience of the course. This was the first time I sat with Andrew. He reminds me of Pedro in that he too has that confident air that he has already changed his life. He's not as personable as Pedro, in part because he has more evident anger. But he's smart and able. For him, success is an act of revenge against his father, who deserted him. Andrew is the one who had most actively done the readings. Ernesto had read "Notch," and Don's got a vague grasp of the material from his earlier reading. I don't know if Ralph is reading. Andrew gave a good synopsis of "Notch," but I didn't run with it as I might have. My own attention was poor all evening. The conversation soon got onto the subject of missing fathers. At one end of the line are Ralph and Don, both of whom are tight with their families. But Ernesto and Andrew's fathers walked out, and they both admitted to anger, though Ernesto, I think, sees something of his father. Andrew doesn't. He refuses, although his younger brother is now in a good working relationship with the father. Andrew says, "he was younger," meaning that for whatever reason, the brother didn't bear the full shock of being abandoned by the father. Andrew is angry, as I said. But the anger is easily defused. At one point, when we were talking about cruelty and punishment, he said that he considered this course as punishment. I'm sure it is, in many ways. He has to give up time he doesn't have to give for the course. I suggested that as an alternative to paying for sessions with his probation officer it might be an asset. But he said he didn't pay those anyway. He hadn't worked out an agreement on this with the court or anything. He just didn't pay them. He's got a strong sense of justice. When we began to talk about ways this course might be an intellectual opportunity, he listened and agreed. He's a smart guy, and I think already, just doing serious reading for the first time, he has a higher estimation of his own intellect than he did before. He told me that he'd never read anything serious before. Andrew takes pride in the life he's made for himself, independently. He seems to use his anger against his father to his advantage, avenging himself on his father by showing him that he doesn't need him. Classic example of the best revenge being living well. When Andrew and Ernesto were talking about losing their fathers, Don broke in with his sweet smile, and, looking a little embarrassed, he said he was close to both his parents. His father beat him when he was a kid, and I wish I'd asked him about that, because it might have led us to talking about forgiveness. But I didn't. Through much of the conversation, Ralph kept his usual quiet, worried presence. I can never quite make him out, only that I like him. He has depth and intense values. But he's not very articulate. Ralph spoke from time to time. He speaks quietly, leans toward you a little. But I'm never exactly sure what he's saying, except in the rare moment, as in the first session, when he made plain that his family, though poor, was a circle of love. For Don, the family is the primary support group. Don mentioned to me before class that his mother had told him they "shouldn't kill the baby." Obviously, for Don, this was the last word. Ernesto spoke little, but was very attentive. He too has an issue with his father, but it's not clear to me. Fourth Assignment: Due Tuesday, April 8th Reading: 1. Frederick Douglass, Narrative, Chapters 6 and 7 2. Handouts from Malcolm X, "Self-Determination;" Bill Russell, from Second Wind, Muhammad Ali, "I Don't Have to Be What You Want Me To Be" Writing: How did you learn what you needed to know in your childhood? Make a list of events in your childhood when you learned something important. |
