My Interview with the New York Review of Books

33 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

1. speduktr says:

   August 2, 2020 at 1:13 pm

   I like it. It reads like a reflection on a casual conversation rather than a preprogrammed questioning.

   LikeLike

   Reply
2. LeftCoastTeacher says:

   August 2, 2020 at 1:23 pm

   Poetry.

   LikeLike

   Reply
3. carolmalaysia says:

   August 2, 2020 at 1:24 pm

   How fortunate this country is to have you standing up for what is best for children, teachers and ALL public schools across the country.
   Thank you for speaking out for almost all of us who understand education and how it works inside the classroom. Your voice is SO important.

   LikeLiked by 1 person

   Reply
   • ciedie aech says:

     August 3, 2020 at 1:41 pm

     truly

     LikeLike

     Reply
4. LG says:

   August 2, 2020 at 1:44 pm

   Thank you, Diane, for everything you have done for our public schools. Your advocacy is legendary.

   I remember meeting you several years ago at an event in Princeton, NJ where you were a guest speaker talking about charter schools. I identified myself as one of your blog commenters and you thanked me for the conversations. The day after, I came down with a horrific cold. I monitored your blog for a couple of weeks with worry that you might have gotten sick from me since I had spoken to you face-to-face the night before I had symptoms. If memory serves me, I don’t believe you did, thankfully.

   You remain a hero to me. I, too, wish more people would be open to rethinking their positions when the situation warrants instead of just continuing to carry the torch for ideas that no longer ring true to their own sensibilities. In our country, people tend to get so entrenched in their “team” platform that it makes it difficult for them to see any other way of thinking.

   Thank you for sharing this interview.

   LikeLike

   Reply
5. retired teacher says:

   August 2, 2020 at 3:18 pm

   When someone changes her mind from courage of her convictions, that is strength of character. When history is written, it will show that Diane Ravitch was on the side of democracy, social justice and the common good. You are an outlier because you “took the path less traveled,” but it was the right one. Keep throwing stones to bring down Goliath.

   LikeLike

   Reply
6. John Ogozalek says:

   August 2, 2020 at 4:17 pm

   Really nice interview.

   “I have had more than 600,000 comments on my blog and I have read them all,” you said.

   Wow!

   LikeLike

   Reply
7. Bob Shepherd says:

   August 2, 2020 at 4:39 pm

   So great. Thanks for sharing, Diane!

   LikeLike

   Reply
8. Bob Shepherd says:

   August 2, 2020 at 4:43 pm

   I was totally tickled by Diane’s comment to the interviewer about regulars on her blog being like so many “imaginary friends” from childhood. This inspired me:

   How to Change a Lightbulb

   Diane Ravitch. Yes. I used to be fine with people using conventional lightbulbs, but something kept bothering me. These things use a lot of energy, and if you trace that back, you find that the energy originates with fossil fuels. So, I changed my mind because it matters what kind of planet we leave for our kids and our grandkids. I remember once when I said to Lamar Alexander, as he was leaving the room, “Are you going to turn that out?” He stopped, looked at me, and sighed. But he did it. Hah!

   SomeDam Poet.

   Everyone, across the nation,
   seeks consistent illumination,
   except for certain Republican sharks
   who’d rather keep everyone in the dark.

   Señor Duane Swacker, Hidalgo. Is it possible, really, to measure when a lightbulb needs changing? No, I say! [insert 20 pages of Wilson on educational measurement here]

   Bob Shepherd. Look, there’s no single way to change a lightbulb, OK? Sometimes they are too hot to handle. Sometimes they are too fragile. Sometimes all they need is a jiggle. What matters, as Heidegger tells us, is engagement in the act of changing the bulb—enowning it authentically in its “readiness to hand.” Let me explain. [Insert eight dense paragraphs of mansplaiing here, along with a dozen links to poems and short stories and essays on Bob’s website, skimmed, over the past few years, by about six people.] Oh, and Trump is moron. CX: ” a moron,” ofc

   Dienne77. OK, sure, go ahead and use the low-energy lightbulbs. And attack Trump for championing conventional bulbs. See where that gets you. But how much energy did Obama use up lighting the White House in the colors of the rainbow flag when the Supreme Court ruled on gay marriage? And don’t even get me started on Gore and his fuel guzzling airplane flights and multi-million-dollar mansion with its lighted, heated pool.

   Linda. And what about the Catholics? Pope Pancreas VII, in Lux mundi et hocus-pocus ad nauseum, was just fine with lighting up the Vatican and churches around the world from one end to the other. Talk about waste! And what about churches everywhere still using candles like it’s the Middle Ages or lit up even when there are no services? And high-level officials like Cuccinelli who used to be candle-lighting altar boys? Where’s the outrage?

   GregB. Sorry. But I just can’t. People really don’t understand. Yes, it’s important for people to have light. I get that. But Willie Brandt understood that that doesn’t mean that you just leave them on until they burn out. You turn it on, do your business, and turn it out. Bulb lasts a long, long time. It’s that simple. We keep using bulbs like this, it’s all going to be darkness soon, folks.

   RT. Edison didn’t actually invent the lightbulb. He just figured out what kind of filament to use in it. Just image what the 1893 World’s Fair looked like to people used to real darkness at night when Grover Cleveland pushed a button and 100,000 bulbs illuminated the White City! Must have been like the farm, when I was a kid, before light pollution, with the Milky Way laid out like jewels above the corn fields and an owl flying across the full moon.

   Lloyd Lofthouse. So, Trump probably sticks the old bulb up his _____ and it glows orange then Barr comes and dances around it and they chant “Biden will not replace us” until the Capitol Police show up to escort them out of the White House at the point of a gun but they escape and go to Russia and raise an invasion force and I’m like bring it on, you cowards!

   Laura Chapman. There are actually over 428 types of lightbulbs, which you can compare here [link] and here [link] and here [link]. I did an analysis of their energy usage and longevity must say that I agree with the recommendations of this report from the Society of Electrical Engineers [link].

   Mamie Allegretti. Well, there IS a step-by-step procedure for bulb changing, but let me ask you: How much is left out of any simple set of directions? What about the non-rational, nonlinear dimensions of the actual experience of darkness, transition, illumination? The Shadow and the Light. Very Jungian.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • Bob Shepherd says:

     August 2, 2020 at 4:45 pm

     All in fun, folks. Love to the whole Diane Ravitch blog family!

     LikeLike

     Reply
     • GregB says:

       August 3, 2020 at 8:37 am

       I’m going to have to write a letter to the editor to respond to this. 🤬🧐😒🤓😃

       LikeLike

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 8:41 am

       LOL!!!

       LikeLike

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 9:00 am

       Trump, Daddy Warbucks, Kamilla Harris, Groucho, Pollyanna. There, I’m a stable genius.

       LikeLike

     • GregB says:

       August 3, 2020 at 9:47 am

       Actually, my phases of “good grief!”

       LikeLiked by 1 person

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 10:18 am

       In my defense, Greg, here’s what I think these caricatures highlight:

       Diane’s intellectual integrity, concern for kids and teachers, and experience
       SomeDAM’s comic poetic gifts
       Duane’s commitment to making us think about what we mean when we talk about measurement
       My own tendency to blather on
       Dienne’s commitment to not letting either side in the ongoing political debate off easy
       Linda’s sensitive antennae for religious hypocrisy
       Your own historically informed abilities to cut through a lot of nonsense, get to the core of an issue, project trends forward, and deliver warranted warnings about the course we are on
       Roy’s capacious knowledge of American history and empathetic understanding of what matters to people in the American heartland
       Lloyd’s iconoclastic novelists’ ability to spin comic scenarios
       Laura’s astonishing gifts as a researcher and careful, fact-based thinker about issues
       Mamie’s gift at looking below the surface and posing philosophical questions

       Glad that your stages of good grief (kudos for the use of that allusion to Kubler-Ross) end in a smile!

       LikeLike

   • dianeravitch says:

     August 2, 2020 at 9:38 pm

     Brilliant, Bob!

     LikeLike

     Reply
     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 2, 2020 at 9:40 pm

       Thanks, Diane. I hope no one is offended. I love these people and many others here whom I spared, the members of one of my online families.

       LikeLike

   • speduktr says:

     August 2, 2020 at 11:49 pm

     Hilarious!

     LikeLike

     Reply
   • Bob Shepherd says:

     August 3, 2020 at 12:24 am

     GregB: Check out this video of Sid Viscious and Dolly Parton covering “Roxanne, You Don’t Have to Put on the Red Light.”

     LikeLike

     Reply
     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 8:05 am

       erggg. Vicious

       LikeLike

     • GregB says:

       August 3, 2020 at 8:32 am

       No link. Can’t find on YouTube.

       LikeLike

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 9:01 am

       But you have to admit, Greg, that it’s a dream match-up!

       LikeLike

     • GregB says:

       August 3, 2020 at 10:43 am

       I yearn for two collaborations that were planned but never happened: Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix, because Jimi died, and Miles and Prince, because Miles died. Those would have been something.

       LikeLike

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 11:01 am

       Oh my Lord, Greg. I had no idea that there were planned collaborations of these people! Either collaboration would have been breathtaking. These three geniuses had a lot in common. And Miles is high on my list of heroes.

       LikeLike

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 11:08 am

       Highly recommended, if you haven’t read it, John Szwed, So What: The Life of Miles Davis. Simon and Schuster, 2002.

       LikeLike

     • GregB says:

       August 3, 2020 at 1:42 pm

       I got that info from Miles’s autobiography, a very fun read. (Saw him live 3 times, dig, dig.) Will check into book you recommended when my mood shifts, as it will. This summer I’ve been focused on presidential bios and history of slavery and discrimination with some Handel sprinkled in just because. Probably not the best reading list for these times

       LikeLike

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 3, 2020 at 1:44 pm

       You saw him live!!! You b_____!!!!

       Why couldn’t they find Beethoven’s teacher?

       Because he was Haydn.

       LikeLike

9. Neil Kulick says:

   August 2, 2020 at 4:58 pm

   Diane,

   Congratulations on your interview and on your publication in the NYRB.

   Long ago I lived in Somerville, Mass. In the morning I used to take the subway to get to my law job. I would get on at the Red Line stop at Davis Sq. and take the train in.

   Did you know that the now-faded text of “Casabianca” (I mean Bishop’s poem, not the Hemans poem that inspired it) is inscribed in the brick platform at Davis Sq.? Every morning, as I waited for the train, I would stare at the lines of this lovely poem (which begins, as you perhaps know, with “Love’s the boy stood on the burning deck”) and lose myself in a reverie.

   Like you, I love the “golden oldies” of English poetry. Sadly, too few read them anymore or are asked by their English teachers, even at the college level, to do so. There is an essentially well-intended movement to enlarge the canon (or as some would prefer, dismiss the very notion of a canon as an instrument of political oppression) to include worthy, typically minority voices that would otherwise go unheard. But increasingly the result has been to marginalize the best writers in the history of Western literature. This does not serve our students well.

   Some months ago, a well-known education site published a young teacher’s essay claiming that English teachers should teach less Shakespeare, so as to teach other, often contemporary writers, and also urging teachers to get their students to “interrogate” Shakespeare (as if he were a criminal suspect or as if his views, as distinguished from those of his characters, were easily discernible). There was a time when it was obvious to strong readers that Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets are truly great literature that transcend their time and place and that their language is beautiful beyond compare.

   Soon, I think, even English majors will be skipping Shakespeare. (Chaucer and Donne even sooner, if not already.) His works have survived for a good four centuries. But our Age, in which even the President communicates by tweet, has little time or use for him. The language of the plays and sonnets is just so hard. Soon no one will even bother.

   LikeLike

   Reply
   • Bob Shepherd says:

     August 2, 2020 at 6:32 pm

     I’m wondering, Mr. Kulick, if you have read Stephen Greenblatt’s GREAT book Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, which is really about Trump. It’s magnificent, and by one of my favorite scholars:

     It’s short but rich, rich, rich. A wonderful read.

     LikeLike

     Reply
     • Neil Kulick says:

       August 2, 2020 at 9:01 pm

       Bob,
       Thank you. Greenblatt’s “‘Will in the World” I have read but not “Tyrant.” I will take your recommendation and read it. I imagine Greenblatt has much to say about the protagonist of “Richard III.”
       Thanks again.

       LikeLike

     • Bob Shepherd says:

       August 2, 2020 at 9:04 pm

       HAAAA! You nailed it, Neil!!! A major topic of the book.

       LikeLike

10. SomeDAM Poet says:

    August 2, 2020 at 7:56 pm

    “Changing your mind”

    Changing your mind
    Is not a crime
    When err you find
    In reason or rhyme

    LikeLike

    Reply
    • Bob Shepherd says:

      August 2, 2020 at 8:16 pm

      This is what happens when a person of intelligence is driven by compassion and a love of the truth, when someone has the independence not to be blinded by ideology.

      LikeLike

      Reply