Stuart Egan, NBCT High School Teacher in North Carolina, writes here about the lessons learned from a TV series set in the 1980s called “Stranger Things.” Remember the 1980s? There were no charter schools, no voucher schools. Public were and still are the heart of their communities. But some communities have been ripped asunder by false notions of choice and competition, whose main goal seems to be to sow division and break community spirit.
“The fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana became the epicenter of a lot of “binge-watching” in the last month as the second season of the hit series Stranger Things was released in nine episodes.
“Following the trials and tribulations of these school-age kids and their families is rather surreal; the music, the fashion, and the hair styles are as authentically presented now as they were actually in the 1980’s, especially if you are a middle-aged public school teacher who listens to The Clash like he did growing up in a small rural town in Georgia where he rode his bike everywhere without a digital link to everything else in the world.
“He just had to be home by dinner.
“While the kids and adults in this fictional town battle forces from the “upside down” amidst a government cover-up during the Cold War, it is easy to get lost in the sci-fi aspects of this well-written show. And it is very well-written and produced. But there is one non-human entity that is foundational and serves as the cornerstone to those people in a small section of Indiana: Hawkins Middle School, Home of the Tiger Cubs…
“If there ever was a cornerstone for the characters in Hawkins, IN, then it is the public school. It serves as the greatest foundation of that community.
“The AV Room. Heathkit. School assemblies. The gymnasium. Science class. Mr. Clarke. Eleven channeling Will. Makeshift isolation tank. Portal to the Upside Down. The Snow Ball. Parents were students there. Ghostbusters suits.
“Those are tied to Hawkins Middle School.
“So is growing up, coming of age, hallway conversations, epiphanies, learning about others, following curiosities, finding answers to questions you learned to ask.
“Those are also tied to Hawkins Middle School.”
The question that we should all try to answer is how “conservatives” became devoted to the idea of destroying community institutions.conservatives used to serve on the school board and lead the PTA. When did it become conservative doctrine to oppose public schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The question that we should all try to answer is how “conservatives” became devoted to the idea of destroying community”
There are very few conservatives in positions of power these days, as there are very few liberals. Nearly every politician is some flavor of neoconservative/neoliberal, both of which are very far from the apparent root words. Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are just flip sides of the same coin, both dedicated to protecting the economic interests of major corporations and banks, whether through military might (neoconservatism) or economic/fiscal policy (neoliberalism). There is no room for anything squishy like “community” or “humanity” in either neoliberalism or neoconservatism – it’s all the “free [sic] market” and the need to protect it.
The sooner both liberals and conservatives realize this and stop bickering pointing at the Republicans and Democrats, respectively, the sooner we can realize that both parties are the problem and unite to get rid of them both.
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Nice delineation between what the terms neocon and neolib signify. Thanks. Will steal and use.
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I am a conservative, on most topics. ( I part with most conservatives on topics like reproductive rights, LBGT rights, etc. ) I can say, that most conservatives do not wish to destroy community institutions, nor to oppose publicly-financed (and publicly-operated) schools.
I attended publicly-operated schools. I support the publicly-operated schools in my community. I have no children, but I want to live in an educated society. I know that investing in the education of young people, is more than a moral imperative, it is cost-effective. I must live in the society, which will be run by the children who are in schools now.
I cannot fail them, because I would be failing myself.
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Loved the show and the role of the teacher. For the first time in a long time, a public school has been put in a positive light. Public schools and their staff of dedicated teachers have not changed, American society has. It is a society dedicated now to a cult of selfishness—and we know who is the leader of this cult. I also loved and remember our disconnected world. To communicate remotely, you needed that phone attached to a cord or a walky talky. It was a time when we had privacy and could disconnect ourselves completely. Furthermore, those kids did not need formal play dates. Watching the main characters play games in the first season, reminded me so much of my childhood banter as I played with my friends 20 years earlier in the mid 1960s, I was a young teacher at that time and remember kids who acted just like the fictional friends on that program. There is no something missing in our society now that existed at that time. Yes, it is a sense of community and a sense of belonging. I am still friends with two of my childhood friends and to this day we share a special bond that I do not think most kids have any longer. Online friendships and but a shadow compared to boys or girls who spent hours with each otheri imagining and doing things together.
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While I too enjoyed the show, it is important to think about other aspects of the school that have not been mentioned here. The main characters were close and spent time in the AV room because it was a refuge from the bullying and physical assaults that they faced on a daily basis in the school for being the smart ones (though we also hear about bullying based on sexual orientation, though we do not see it on screen). The bullying by classmates is so sever that it nearly leads to the death of a main character. Bullying in the community schools had apparently been going on for generations (recall Bob the Brain’s discussion of this in season 2)
I do think the show depicted unrealistically good race relations for the time. There is no way that the only African American boy in town is bullied in a rural Indiana town in the early 1980s (or today, for that matter) and racial slurs are not part of that bullying.
Having know several very bright people who grew up in small rural towns during that time period, I would expect that the main characters would move out of the town as soon as they could and never look back. To quote a song of the period that was not on the soundtrack: “nothing but the dead and the dying back in my little town”.
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You are absolutely right in all your points obviously. And imagine an Afro American boy kissing and dancing with a white girl at a school dance. I just felt relieved that here is a show with so many positive messages in this Trumpian world of division, hate and negativity. Plus, I always love a good sci-fi story, which is my favorite genre of literature. Mr. Schwartz, my seventh grade English teacher hooked me on to the genre by reading to us the short stories of Bradbury and Asimov.
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There are several reasons that so-called “conservatives” want to destroy or dismantle not only public schools, but all public institutions and public gods, including but not limited to: the insane norion that “taxation is theft”, taxation is “punishing success”, the disproven Victorian notions that poverty indicates failings of personal piety and/or a dearth of morality or ethics, and a loathing if paying for the education and well-being of “those” people (insert disgusting racial or cultural epithet). The problem is that far too many people in the US today are completely self-centered, lacking in any sense that humans thrive best in communities, with common goods shared for the benefit of all community members. Until we get that back, we are stuck in trumpland.
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Like Dienne, the following idea about “conservatism” gave me pause:
“The question that we should all try to answer is how “conservatives” became devoted to the idea of destroying community institutions.”
There truly do appear to be people who identify as “conservative” who see life as a greedy, selfish, profit-driven, power game where righteousness is proven by wealth and a very twisted version of religiosity that does not challenge their self-affirming words or actions and supports their feelings of superiority. These people have money to control politics and government, but they are few and other conservatives do not share their values but may come under their control and influence.
Anti-Public School and Pro-Charter statements from politicians are developed and used to motivate potential supporters because the school is an easy target. Those who wish to motivate potential voters to fear the Public School, for example, can demonize the school because exposure to other races, encouragement to think objectively, and cooperative learning teach children to respect others and give them a context to form friendships and be influenced by the world outside of their family. These organizers and politicians who want their vote can easily find real or fake stories that point to the “socialist” aspects of school and claims that through innocuous exposure to facts about other cultures can be turned into a fake story about trying to “convert” students to “foreign” religions — like the photos of blonde blue-eyed children from Holland that were passed of as being from a Public School in the US. Many of the people, who respond favorably to these fear tactics and fake stories that play on their fears, used to favor the “member of the school board” brand of conservatism that you described.
Conservatives who are truly positively engaged in fighting for Civil Rights, using valid Scientific Research to drive innovation and law, Religious Tolerance, Protections for the Environment, and Whole Life Pro-Life do still exist. They could be called Radical Conservatives. My own roots are conservative, I don’t believe in change for the sake of change and allowing random changes in Education because it is “shiny & new” or backed by a well-liked million/billionaire. My conservatism and morality values life; this motivates me to advocate for making investments that we know to be effective: paying Teachers more, treating Teaching as a serious & valued Profession, Small class sizes, Individualized Education, Fully staffing Public Schools with professional support staff (School Nurse, Speech Therapist, Counselors, Social Workers, Behavior Specialists, etc) and classroom and behavioral aides… I would love to see Public Schools across the US be known worldwide as a model of quality and effectiveness where each child is respected, encourage to succeed, making progress at their own rate, and able to develop a love for learning. I am willing to work alongside everyone to do this. Am I still a conservative? We may need new definitions and labels.
We keep teaching, speaking out, caring, advocating, voting and resisting together, we persist.
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