Spencer for Higher

23 Saturday Oct 2010

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Spenser For Hire Title Screen, February 26, 2008. Source: http://www.aolcdn.com/new_promos/dl_spenser_733x270.jpg

Higher education, that is. Sixteen years ago this weekend, I put my application in the mail for a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. It was a $15,000, one-year award that would give me time off from teaching or doing grunt work for my advisor and other professors. I’d have a year to do nothing but do work on my doctoral thesis, to travel, do additional research and lock myself in my apartment for week on end to write what would become a 505-page document.

 

But don’t let me over-glamorize the moment. After all, I’d applied for fellowships and been in search for grants in the years before and after this application. The University of Pittsburgh had made me part of the first class of recipients for their Challenge Scholarship in ’87. I’d been awarded a graduate student assistantship and teaching assistantships throughout grad school. The Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship — I applied for it twice, in ’91 and ’93. Soon after my Spencer application, I also applied for the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) Dissertation Fellowship (which they disbanded the following year).

I’d later apply for a few postdoctoral fellowships in ’96 and ’97. Then, once I became part of the nonprofit sector, grant-seeking became a part of my jobs. Including letters of inquiry, concept papers, about three dozen grant proposals that I worked on in part or in whole. Not to mention meetings with foundation program officers, numerous networking opportunities at the Independent Sector and other conferences. Between them all, I directly or indirectly helped raise about $1.4 million over the past ten years, and played a role in programs that possessed about $11 million in funding overall.

 

Spencer Foundation Logo, October 23, 2010

But the most satisfied I ever was in putting together a proposal, or in receiving an award, or in participating in a grant-related experienced, was when I applied for the Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. You see, I’d spent nearly eighteen months preparing myself to apply. I started doing my dissertation topic research a full year before the October ’94 application deadline, months before my advisor and committee were to officially approve my topic and research.

 

I’d started going through microfilm of Black Washington newspapers from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, looking up Census data, thinking of places to look up old records of DC Public Schools  from the segregation era, and contemplating interviewing former teachers and students who’d worked at or attending DCPS between 1920 and 1970. It was exhausting doing that and taking a full load of classes, struggling with finances so badly that I had no money for new sneakers, that I’d walk in three-year-old sneakers with holes in them to and from campus in ankle-deep snow to push this project forward. Of course, I lined the sneakers with plastic bags from Giant Eagle to keep my socks and feet dry and warm.

Yes, I was committed to the task all right, and probably should’ve been committed in the process. But it was also worth it. I felt — rather, I practically knew — that it would all work out with the Spencer Fellowship somehow. And it did, not just because of the award, and not just because of my friend and mentor, Catherine Lacey (see April 2009 post). It worked, because it helped me find my calling as a writer and teacher. It worked because it helped bring to the fore my ambivalence about academic writing and scholarship as the raison d’etre of an academically-trained historian.

The application, fellowship and that year free from Carnegie Mellon’s clutches helped put me on the right path. Even if I didn’t know it at the time.

The Land of Second Chances – For Who?

21 Thursday Oct 2010

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Purple Mountain Majesty, October 21, 2010. Source: http://bojack.org

I’m so tired of hearing commentators talk about how this is a country that gives people second chances. “What? Really? Are you insane?,” I think when I hear such drivel from people like Tony Kornheiser and Joe Scarborough. Do these talking heads even think about who they’re talking about or what they mean when they say the words “second chances?”

Seriously, true second chances in this country are reserved for folks who are among the elite — rich, famous, public officials, entertainers, athletes (sometimes), usually (but not always) White, almost always male and heterosexual. For these folk, America is a land of second chances. For most of us, this isn’t even a land of first chances, much less second ones. As Bruce Springsteen would say, “born down in a dead man’s town, the first kick I took was when I hit the ground” is an apt description for a majority of Americans.

The working-poor and living-from-paycheck-to-paycheck sub-middle class, while doing all they can to improve the life chances of their kids, ultimately are dependent on breaks provided within our society for their kids to have a chance. It comes down to a decent, if not happy family life, with no major financial or job disruptions. And living in a decent neighborhood, along with being able to attend an above-average public school or having parents willing to scrape together the money for private or parochial school. Not to mention finding opportunities for outside opportunities for their kids to explore themselves, like through art classes, soccer teams, travel, and so many other things that make growing up more than just a biological process that occurs in chaos.

Little Pink Houses, Carole Spandau, Uploaded October 21, 2010. Source: http://fineartamerica.com

Little Pink Houses, Carole Spandau, Uploaded October 21, 2010. Source: http://fineartamerica.com

If anything goes wrong, if a kid makes even a relatively minor mistake, that first chance will go away. Homelessness, bankruptcy, poor grades, even minor criminal activity or rebellion against authority figures will short-circuit chance number one. For kids of color, especially males, a robbery, playing around with marijuana, a fight at school or repeating a grade puts them in jeopardy long before they may realize that life doesn’t grant them a whole lot of first chances to begin with.

If these kids are lucky or disciplined enough to make it to adulthood with a high-school education, that may open a door, but it still won’t grant even the first chance. As comedian Chris Rock would say, many of these kids have to “make miracles happen” — force open doors — for that first real chance for their lives.

Not so for the likes of Eliot Spitzer, Ben Roethlisberger, even (to a lesser extent) Michael Vick. These folks aren’t struggling to find themselves while living in obscurity, and have more opportunities to work with in any given day than the average American person will likely have in their lifetime. But for White males with money and/or the public spotlight, second chances are almost automatic. Spitzer has his own show on CNN. Roethlisberger would’ve only lost his job if he’d been convicted of rape. Former Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle is still a respected journalist in many circles, even though he’s a proven a plagiarist and fiction writer. Vick, meanwhile, only got a second chance after he served two years hard time for dogfighting.

Even for the famous and financially fortunate — yet of color — the second chance remains elusive. Tiger Woods didn’t break any laws, didn’t commit a crime, but has spent the past year as a pariah (no need to go into the psychosis that comes with race and males of color, Black ones in particular). Jayson Blair will probably never have another shot at hardcore journalism. Maybe Blair shouldn’t have a second chance, but then, neither should Barnicle.

1%'s Playing Field cartoon (applicable to who gets second chances, too), December 28, 2013. (Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

1%’s Playing Field cartoon (applicable to who gets second chances, too), December 28, 2013. (Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

To be sure, John Edwards, Larry Craig and Jim McGreevey won’t be running for office again. But they are exceptions to the rule. Edwards could’ve jeopardized the Democratic Party’s ’08 election with his scandal, while Craig and McGreevey were outed as closeted gays involved in down-low activities. We don’t give politicians like these second chances.

So, we are a land of second chances. At least for those with the keys to the kingdom of the public arena. You just have to be straight, White, male, affluent, committed a crime before the age of twenty-one — and one that didn’t involve murder or Black-on-White crime — to have them.

As for Ray Rice, because many assume that his one act of domestic violence toward his now wife Janay Palmer Rice is the only one he’s committed, and because of all his charitable contributions, the NFL will grant him a second chance. The question isn’t whether Rice deserves a second chance. The question is why Janay Palmer Rice never had a first chance at a violence-free relationship. The answer is patriarchy, misogyny, racial animus, and increasing class inequality. What second chances, and for whom indeed!

The Testing Season

12 Tuesday Oct 2010

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Mock SAT Answer Sheet, October 12, 2010. Source: http://kellgradcoach.blogspot.com

This really is the testing season, isn’t it? In many more ways than one. For voters, the underemployed and the unemployed, the welfare poor, for undocumented workers, for the Obama Administration, for so many others. But the testing season I’m talking about is standardized testing. Between the SAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, and ACT, high school students and college undergrads face incredible amounts of stress over a five-decade-long practice that, in the end, reveals more about the system of competition that technocratic university administrators and eugenics-type scientists have created than it actually does

ETS Logo, from http://www.ETS.org, October 12, 2010

about our own abilities.

 

My own standardized testing history includes the following (not counting the AP or New York State Regents exams, which occur in May and June, another testing season), starting with elementary school:

1. SRAs (1st through 6th grade – ironically, started by Lyle Spencer, who also founded the Spencer Foundation, which sponsored my doctoral dissertation research in 1995-96)

2. PSATs (10th grade)

3. SATs (11th and 12th grade)

4. GREs (junior and senior years, Pitt)

5. LSATs (senior year, Pitt)

My highest score on the SAT — 1120 (540 Verbal, 580 Math). My highest score on the GRE — 1730 (530 Verbal, 580 Math, 620 Analytical). On the LSAT, I scored in the 50th percentile, not bad for someone who studied for it for only two weeks. What does any of this prove in the whole scheme of things? Nothing, really. If these scores were truly great predictors of future academic performance, then Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Carnegie Mellon should have graduation rates approaching 100 percent. Which would explain why many elite institutions have either downgraded their use of these tests in their admissions formulas, or in the case of the big three and UC-Berkeley regarding the SAT, are barely using them at all.

 

My GRE Score, October 1990.

But for most colleges and universities, these tests are a critical factor in a student’s acceptance and enrollment. They are a necessary evil for figuring out who has academic potential and who doesn’t, at least according to ETS and admissions directors. Which is why I still don’t understand why educators and other folks haven’t taken former ETS vice-president Anthony Carnevale’s work around “strivers” seriously. Or, rather, I do understand. Why give someone like me a leg up because my SAT score was an 1120 — giving my score more weight than a 1280 score for a White kid from a middle class background? All scores are equal. That’s why we call them standardized tests, a standard that doesn’t measure up to the realities of earning a degree.

 

I guess for those I know who are rolling into these exams this fall (and in some cases, before March or April), the best advice I can give is to get the best score you can. But don’t despair if your scores are only in the 51th, 64th, or 74th percentile, like mine were on the different sections of the GRE. What will ultimately matter is how you perform after you’ve been accepted by and enrolled in that institution.

I’ve given some thought to going back to school in the next couple of years, possibly even law school. Not to become a lawyer, but to make myself more marketable outside of academia and within the philanthropic world. For some odd reason, there are lots of people with law degrees who are working in education reform, international development, and social justice. Go figure.

But even this professor will likely have to take the LSATs again in order to apply to a law program at Georgetown, UPenn or some other school. And that will mean trying to figure out why A and B won’t sit together at the same conference table, but B can sit next to E, except when meetings are held on Tuesdays.

An a-ha Moment

08 Friday Oct 2010

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Screen shot from the music video of “Take on Me” *Artist(s): a-ha *Director: Steve Barron *Copyright: ©1985 Warner Bros. Records==Fair use in “Take on Me”

Today’s date marks a full twenty-five years — a whole quarter century — since me and my AP US History classmates rolled out from Mount Vernon High School at 6:30 am for a trip to Albany and Hyde Park. But nothing historical was especially eye-opening on this date. No, it was really more about the people, one in particular, that made this time an a-ha moment.

Our eccentric and late AP US History teacher, Harold Meltzer, used this trip to get us out of the classroom. to make history and government more real to us. We — meaning our AP class and folks from Meltzer’s Government class — went to Albany to meet our state representative and to learn a bit about the history of New York State’s governance. We also made a stop to visit the FDR mansion in Hyde Park. The trip to Albany was itself a three-and-a-half hour school bus ride.

Besides the standard exaggerated bouncing up and down we did whenever the bus hit a bump somewhere along I-87 North, there were a couple of things to note. It was my first time outside the New York metro area since ‘78, when Darren, my mother, my soon-to-be-stepfather and I went to Amish country in Pennsylvania. The Roosevelt’s master bedroom and “king-sized” bed was much smaller than I thought. FDR and Eleanor both looked pretty tall to me in their pictures and in those ’30s newsreels. And the Norwegian pop band a-ha had climbed to the top of the Top-40 pop charts with “Take on Me” a few days before.

A-ha? Well, “SD” had a brand-new $150 Aiwa Walkman (its normal retail value in ’85) with a state-of-the-art design and stereo system, including Dolby noise reduction and equalizer controls. The entire trip to Albany and Hyde Park and back she played a-ha’s Hunting High and Low album nonstop on the bus. After hearing the beginning of the song for what seemed like the 117th time, I chimed in, and SD sang briefly out loud with me: “Talking away, I don’t know what I’m to say….” I’d heard the lead singer’s “TAAAAAKKKKEEE!” without the need for an interpreter so many times already, since SD sat a row or two behind me. So me being me, during the return trip I attempted to hit the same high falsetto note to see if I could compete with a Norwegian pop star.

As soon as I hit the note for “TAAAAAKKKKEEE!” — badly, as it was in my balls-strangled version of high falsetto — the window in the row behind me on my right shattered and scattered all around D and A’s seats. D was closest to the window, and she was unhurt, but we had to stop for about ten minutes. Everyone was laughing this nervous, “this-is-funny-but . . . ” laugh, like audience members laughing at a Richard Pryor joke. Five of my classmates all but gave me a sarcastic standing ovation. After all, it turned out that no rocks or stones were found on the bus, and there wasn’t a sign of a sniper anywhere. All we could think was that I’d dialed up the correct frequency and shattered a glass window that may’ve been weak already from everyday wear and tear. I thought it was amazing to generate that kind of power with my voice. Even if it meant that I’d get flack for it.

But that’s not all I took from that day. I’d accidentally become more than an acquaintance with SD. Not only did I eventually go and buy a-ha’s Hunting High and Low. I appreciated all of her ’80s pop music. From Heart’s “What About Love” to Scandal’s “The Warrior” — it’s listed in our yearbook as SD’s favorite song. I picked up a writing habit that I use to this day, putting a dash through my 7’s and Z’s to make sure to distinguish them from 1’s and S’s.

It was a fun trip for me, even though most in my class would’ve likely preferred a trip to Grand Central over Albany and FDR’s mansion. It was fun because I had made a connection that would lead to friendship.

How People of Color Should Re-Interpret the Rules of Race

05 Tuesday Oct 2010

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LeBron CNN Interview Screen Shot, September 29, 2010. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvQhaCIa8lM

Soledad O’Brien, LeBron James (and his foot-in-mouth manager) and Rick Sanchez all have something in common. They are persons of color whose understanding of the rules of race — or the “Rules of Racial Standing,” as law professor Derrick Bell describes them — is about as sophisticated as an amoeba’s. If you ask me, they all played “the race doesn’t matter, even if it does” game, and they all got burned in some way as a result.

O’Brien to many — mostly Black and Latino — came off as a race-baiter, while James looked overly sensitive in his understated response to O’Brien’s “Do you think there’s a role that race plays…?” question. Sanchez was the worst of all, calling Daily Show host Jon Stewart a “bigot” and insinuating that CNN and shows like The Daily Show are controlled by Jews, liberal Jews of course, but Jews nevertheless. All while scoffing at the idea that Jews are an oppressed minority in the US.

It all points to one simple problem. That many, if not most, persons of color in the public eye don’t understand — or care to understand — the rules of race in the media. This is important. For people of color cannot re-interpret these rules without understanding them first.

Faces at the Bottom of the Well Book Cover, October 5, 2010 (Donald Earl Collins)

Derrick Bell‘s “Rules of Racial Standing,” from his bestselling Faces at the Bottom of the Well (1992), is a guidepost for why independent voices on issues of race are difficult to come by, in law and in the media. But as a person of color, there are ways to re-interpret these rules to make them work in unintended ways, at least, unintended by those in the media. The five rules (and their re-interpretations) are:

First Rule

(“Rule of Illegitimate Standing”) …No matter their experience or expertise, Blacks’ statements involving race are deemed “special pleading” and thus not entitled to serious consideration.

Translation: when in the public idea and asked a question on race, give an unexpected answer, one that is thought-provoking, even controversial, to at least push a more lengthy and serious discussion of race.

Second Rule
(“Rule of Legitimate Standing”) Not only are Blacks’ complaints discounted, but Black victims of racism are less effective witnesses than are Whites, who are members of the oppressor class. This phenomenon reflects a widespread assumption that…cannot be objective on racial issues…

Translation: While even having a DVD or an iPhone filming racist behavior or actions in progress may be ignored, having a multicultural group in support of a complaint will receive much more attention than striking out alone.

Third Rule

(“Rule of Enhanced Standing”) …The usual exception…is the Black person who publicly disparages or criticizes other Blacks who are speaking or acting in ways that upset Whites. Instantly, such statements are granted “enhanced standing” even when the speaker has no special expertise or experience in the subject he or she is criticizing.

Translation: Let the Tara Wall’s, Anna Holmes’, John McWhorter’s and Dinesh D’Souza’s of this world know that their opinions will not go unchallenged, that their alleged expertise on race is nothing more than an opinion sanitized for center-right consumption. That’s what blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Huffington Post are for.

Fourth Rule
(“Rule of Superenhanced Standing”) When a Black person or group makes a statement or takes an action that the White community or vocal opponents thereof deem “outrageous,” the latter will actively recruit Blacks willing to refute the statement or condemn the action. Blacks who respond to the call for condemnation will receive superstanding status…

Translation: See the re-interpretation of the Second Rule, especially in the case of Fox (or Faux ) News. One Alan Keyes or Alex Castellanos does not equal a group of progressives using their numbers, media savvy and social media as an antidote to the “one sane person of color” rule.

Fifth Rule
(“Rule of Prophetic Understanding”) …Using this knowledge, one gains the gift of prophecy about racism, its essence, its goals, even its remedies. The price of this knowledge is the frustration that…that no amount of public prophecy, no matter its accuracy, can either repeal the Rules of Racial Standing or prevent their operation.

Translation: This may be true, but there are still millions of Americans who would prefer to hear people of color and truly progressive Whites make better use of the media to dilute the piss and vinegar that is pseudo-liberalism and mainstream news these day.

There are exceptions to these rules, such as when someone White or of legitimate standing vouch for his or her otherwise controversial views. But people of color need to bend these rules, break them when necessary. All so that the answer to the question “Was race a factor in…?” isn’t, “No,” or “No, this is a colorblind society,” or “Yes,” without a sophisticated answer. This is what the media wants, not necessarily out of racism, but out of making money. In order to get what Americans need, the media it needs, people of color must resist giving the media the hype that it wants.

Montgomery County Parks & Its Poorly Maintained Basketball Courts

30 Thursday Sep 2010

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Forest Glen Park basketball court, Silver Spring, MD, August 10, 2010. Source: Donald Earl Collins

Montgomery County Parks has done a poor job of maintaining its facilities. Especially its outdoor basketball courts, where the department has spared precious little funds for their maintenance and renovation. Even in cases where renovations have occurred, some courts remain substandard. Others are so poorly maintained, though, that they have fallen into non-use.

Given the growth in the county’s population over the previous decade – particularly of working-class Latino immigrants – and the growth in obesity rates, Montgomery County Parks is taking a risk with its poor maintenance and renovation record. The risk: that residents will assume – rightly or wrongly – that the county believes that certain parks and certain basketball courts aren’t worth the time and money to fix for fear of certain kinds of people.

Montgomery County, Maryland, part of suburban Washington, DC, is one of the ten richest counties in the United States, at least according to the US Census Bureau. As part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) for Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, Montgomery County Parks has worked with an annual average budget of $121 million over the past five years for its dozens of parks and facilities. Yet in all eight parks that are part of this article, visited between July and September, the outdoor basketball courts had numerous deficiencies (see pictures attached). Montgomery County Parks has not responded to inquiries on this topic.

At Meadowbrook Park in Chevy Chase, there were two full basketball courts with an asphalt surface. That surface, however, was one that was weather-beaten and had undergone a series of patchwork repairs that from all appearances occurred more than a decade ago. It had rained the day before, and the multiple puddles on the court had yet to dry up or drain. There were muddy footprints and tire tracks on one side of the court. The faded-white backboards had severely rusted mounts and piping. One of the hoops had twisted about 45 degrees to the right, so off-centered that it would need to be replaced completely. Not more than fifteen yards away from the unfenced outdoor courts was a group of four tennis courts, well maintained and properly gated, with lights that can be turned on after sundown for night-time matches.

At Jessup-Blair Park on the Silver Spring-Washington, DC border, a renovation that had occurred in 2006-07 had already shown signs of disintegration. The surface of the renovated full court and half-court was the same as the surface of the tennis court, a hard but modified green asphalt surface. There were grass-filled holes and cracks in various spots throughout the basketball court, likely from the stress of full-court basketball games and the constant dribbling of basketballs.

The full court at Jessup-Blair was easily the largest one of the eight examined here, regulation size, with sixteen paces between mid-court and the three-point lines of each half court, and twenty-one paces between the three-point line and the hoop. The hoops themselves measured 10.5 feet off the ground, set up no doubt to discourage dunking, but a bit of a challenge for anyone attempting a jump-shot. Outdoor courts at other parks, including Montgomery Hills, Sligo-Dennis Avenue and Woodland, varied between six and thirteen paces between mid-court and each half-court’s three-point-line, and between twelve and eighteen paces between the three-point-line and each hoop. All had sloping issues, in which the court tilted lower or higher from one side to another.

Forest Glen Park’s basketball court was also in critical need of repair. The court was full of potholes, and grass had grown through the numerous deep cracks in the buckling asphalt. The pole, hoop and backboard was missing from one of the two full courts, and the high, uranium-cake colored wall dividing the basketball court from I-495 North had faded graffiti scribbled on it.

All in all, the outdoor basketball courts, while the worst facilities offered by Montgomery County Parks, were hardly the only facilities in need of repair. But they are among the easiest facilities to renovate and maintain. Leveling ground the size of a high school or college court, pouring concrete and asphalt, installing poles, hoops and backboards and painting mid-court, half-court, three-point and other lines costs little compared to re-seeding a soccer field (Jessup-Blair Park) or detoxifying a lake (Wheaton Regional Park).

It would also help to put up fences and gates around these courts, to separate them from the rest of these parks, the same thing Montgomery County Parks would do automatically for tennis courts or a skateboard park. Having neglected these facilities only shows how little one of the richest counties in the US cares about providing low-cost outdoor activities for its new generation of younger residents.

Half-Baked Z and Christian Zeal

27 Monday Sep 2010

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Sometimes I’ve let my enthusiasm for good things in my life get the better of me. Perhaps that’s because there have been few periods in my life where nearly everything has gone the way I’d expect, especially in my Humanities years. One of those times had been in the months before, during and after my conversion to Christianity in ’84. After I outed myself at the beginning of tenth grade as a Christian and stood up (for once) to my idiot stepfather by refusing to wear my kufi ever again, things in my mind had improved. So much so that I was ready for my life to change, as if my conversion were a magic wand and I was Cinderella.

My conversion became a badge of honor, my Bible my new crutch in the first few months after becoming a Christian and the beginning of tenth grade. I read it every chance I had. At lunch, in my trips into New York with my father Jimme and my brother Darren, before I went to bed at night. Like a nine-year-old, I so wanted my life to change that I forgot that I still had work to do in order to change it. Prayer and fasting (deliberate, of course, and not the empty refrigerator kind) wouldn’t be enough. But I acted like it was.

Torture & the Spanish Inquisition (the direction of unchecked zeal).

It didn’t help that I had Z as a history teacher, one who almost automatically rubbed me the wrong way. She assumed that she was right about everything and looked like an older, worn-out, schoolmarmish version of Madonna to me, a woman whose best days were long past. She was about average height with blonde-gray hair, which looked like it had been freeze-dried. She dressed like a woman who didn’t realize we were in a public school and who didn’t see herself as a real person. Her voice was a slow-whine Brooklyn-accented version of Cyndi Lauper’s, the kind that made me think that she was talking down to us. It irritated the heck out of me when she’d call one of us “Peaches” or when she’d say, “When they’re slow they’re slow,” a reference to how long it would take us to answer one of her idiotic, non-history history questions. A personable person with emotions and empathy, the kind of person equipped to teach a diverse student body, Z was not.

After finishing one of Z’s bubble tests early, fifteen minutes early, as a matter of fact, I handed it in and pulled out my Bible. When she noticed what I was reading, she panicked. “Put that away! Put that away now!,” she yelled from her gray steel desk, exasperated. The exchange we had occurred while other classmates were finishing their exams.

“I’m just reading my Bible.”

“You can’t read that in school!”

“I know my rights! I have a First Amendment right to read the Bible in school, and you’re not teaching right now anyway!”

She threatened to send me to the principal’s office. I called her an “atheist” and put my Bible away. It was the start of a confrontational relationship between me and her.

We got into it quite a few times. One time was over what she was teaching in class, what exactly I don’t remember. What I did in response to it was to blurt out “Is this what you call history? All you talk about is art and music!” She banished me to the hallway outside of class for that one. I called her a “stupid atheist” on my way out.

We were both right and both wrong, both arrogant in our own way. Z was a teacher without an appreciation for student development and socialization. I was a new Christian on a high, believing that my spiritual status would by itself put me in right standing whatever I did. In the end, Z should’ve allow me to read my Bible, and I shouldn’t have confronted her based on her religious or non-religious beliefs. Our perspectives were half-baked, our stances too inflexible. I’m just glad that I’ve become a better person and Christian since those first days.