Steps to writing well_10 pps

580 PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL READINGS you go across to the Glee Club now, because you’re going to work your tails off here!” 7 I was soon under Miss Hurd’s spell. She did indeed teach us to put out a newspaper, skills I honed during my next twenty-five years as a journalist. Soon I asked the principal to transfer me to her English class as well. There, she drilled us on grammar until I finally began to under- stand the logic and structure of the English language. She assigned sto- ries for us to read and discuss; not tales of heroes, like the Greek myths I knew, but stories of underdogs—poor people, even immigrants, who seemed ordinary until a crisis drove them to do something extraordi- nary. She also introduced us to the literary wealth of Greece—giving me a new perspective on my war-ravaged, impoverished homeland. I began to be proud of my origins. 8 One day, after discussing how writers should write about what they know, she assigned us to compose an essay from our own experience. Fixing me with a stern look, she added, “Nick, I want you to write about what happened to your family in Greece.” I had been trying to put those painful memories behind me and left the assignment until the last mo- ment. Then, on a warm spring afternoon, I sat in my room with a yellow pad and pencil and stared out the window at the buds on the trees. I wrote that the coming of spring always reminded me of the last time I said goodbye to my mother on a green and gold day in 1948. 9 I kept writing, one line after another, telling how the Communist guerrillas occupied our village, took our home and food, how my mother started planning our escape when she learned that children were to be sent to re-education camps behind the Iron Curtain, and how, at the last moment, she couldn’t escape with us because the guerrillas sent her with a group of women to thresh wheat in a distant village. She promised she would try to get away on her own, she told me to be brave and hung a silver cross around my neck, and then she kissed me. I watched the line of women being led down into the ravine and up the other side, until they disappeared around the bend—my mother a tiny brown figure at the end who stopped for an instant to raise her hand in one last farewell. 10 I wrote about our nighttime escape down the mountain, across the minefields, and into the lines of the Nationalist soldiers, who sent us to a refugee camp. It was there that we learned of our mother’s execution. I felt very lucky to have come to America, I concluded, but every year, the coming of spring made me feel sad because it reminded me of the last time I saw my mother. 11 I handed in the essay, hoping never to see it again, but Miss Hurd had it published in the school paper. This mortified me at first, until I saw that my classmates reacted with sympathy and tact to my family’s story. Without telling me, Miss Hurd also submitted the essay to a contest sponsored by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, and it won a medal. The Worcester paper wrote about the award and quoted my essay at length. My father, by then a “five-and-dime-store chef,” as the paper CHAPTER 26 - EXPOSITION: CAUSAL ANALYSIS 581 described him, was ecstatic with pride, and the Worcester Greek commu- nity celebrated the honor to one of its own. 12 For the first time, I began to understand the power of the written word. A secret ambition took root in me. One day, I vowed, I would go back to Greece, find out the details of my mother’s death, and write about her life, so her grandchildren would know of her courage. Perhaps I would even track down the men who killed her and write of their crimes. Fulfilling that ambition would take me thirty years. 13 Meanwhile, I followed the literary path that Miss Hurd had so force- fully set me on. After junior high, I became the editor of my school paper at Classical High School and got a part-time job at the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. Although my father could only give me $50 and encouragement toward a college education, I managed to finance four years at Boston University with scholarships and part-time jobs in jour- nalism. During my last year of college, an article I wrote about a friend who had died in the Philippines—the first person to lose his life working for the Peace Corps—led to my winning the Hearst Award for College Journalism. And the plaque was given to me in the White House by Pres- ident John F. Kennedy. 14 For a refugee who had never seen a motorized vehicle or indoor plumbing until he was nine, this was an unimaginable honor. When the Worcester paper ran a picture of me standing next to President Kennedy, my father rushed out to buy a new suit in order to be properly dressed to receive the congratulations of the Worcester Greeks. He clipped out the photograph, had it laminated in plastic, and carried it in his breast pocket for the rest of his life to show everyone he met. I found the much- worn photo in his pocket on the day he died twenty years later. 15 In our isolated Greek village, my mother had bribed a cousin to teach her to read, for girls were not supposed to attend school beyond a cer tain age. She had always dreamed of her children receiving an education. She couldn’t be there when I graduated from Boston University, but the per- son who came with my father and shared our joy was my former teacher, Marjorie Hurd. We celebrated not only my bachelor’s degree but also the scholarships that paid my way to Columbia’s Graduate School of Journal- ism. There, I met the woman who would eventually become my wife. At our wedding and at the baptisms of our three children, Marjorie Hurd was always there, dancing alongside the Greeks. 16 By then, she was Mrs. Rabidou, for she had married a widower when she was in her early forties. That didn’t distract her from her vocation of introducing young minds to English literature, however. She taught for a total of forty-one years and continually would make a “project” of some balky student in whom she spied a spark of potential. Often these were students from the most troubled homes, yet she would alternately bully and charm each one with her own special brand of tough love until the spark caught fire. She retired in 1981 at the age of sixty-two but still avidly follows the lives and careers of former students while overseeing 582 PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL READINGS her adult stepchildren and driving her husband on camping trips to New Hampshire. 17 Miss Hurd was one of the first to call me on December 10, 1987, when President Reagan, in his television address after the summit meeting with Gorbachev, told the nation that Eleni Gatzoyiannis’s dying cry, “My children!” had helped inspire him to seek an arms agreement “for all the children of the world.” 18 “I can’t imagine a better monument for your mother,” Miss Hurd said with an uncharacteristic catch in her voice. 19 Although a bad hip makes it impossible for her to join in the Greek dancing, Marjorie Hurd Rabidou is still an honored and enthusiastic guest at all our family celebrations, including my fiftieth birthday picnic last summer, where the shish kebab was cooked on spits, clarinets and bouzoukis wailed, and costumed dancers led the guests in a serpentine line around our Colonial farmhouse, only twenty minutes from my first home in Worcester. 20 My sisters and I felt an aching void because my father was not there to lead the line, balancing a glass of wine on his head while he danced, the way he did at every celebration during his ninety-two years. But Miss Hurd was there, surveying the scene with quiet satisfaction. Although my parents are gone, her presence was a consolation, because I owe her so much. 21 This is truly the land of opportunity, and I would have enjoyed its bounty even if I hadn’t walked into Miss Hurd’s classroom in 1953. But she was the one who directed my grief and pain into writing, and if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have become an investigative reporter and for- eign correspondent, recorded the story of my mother’s life and death in Eleni and now my father’s story in A Place for Us, which is also a testa- ment to the country that took us in. She was the catalyst that sent me into journalism and indirectly caused all the good things that came after. But Miss Hurd would probably deny this emphatically. 22 A few years ago, I answered the telephone and heard my former teacher’s voice telling me, in that won’t-take-no-for-an-answer tone of hers, that she had decided I was to write and deliver the eulogy at her funeral. I agreed (she didn’t leave me any choice), but that’s one assign- ment I never want to do. I hope, Miss Hurd, that you’ll accept this re- membrance instead. Chapter 27 Argumentation PRO/CON ARGUMENT: THE EXTENDED SCHOOL YEAR U.S. Kids Need More School Time Ellen Goodman Ellen Goodman has written for Newsweek, the Detroit Free Press, and The Boston Globe. Her popular newspaper column, “At Large,” has been syndicated since 1976; in 1980 she won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. Her essays have been collected in Close to Home (1979), At Large (1980), Keeping in Touch (1985), Making Sense (1989), and Value Judgments (1993). Her most recent book is I Know Just What You Mean: The Power of Friendship in Women’s Lives (2000). The following essay was published in 1988. 1 The kids are hanging out. I pass small bands of once-and-future stu- dents, on my way to work these mornings. They have become a familiar part of the summer landscape. 2 These kids are not old enough for jobs. Nor are they rich enough for camp. They are school children without school. The calendar called the school year ran out on them a few weeks ago. Once supervised by teach- ers and principals, they now appear to be in “self care.” Like others who fall through the cracks of their parents’ makeshift plans—a week with relatives, a day at the playground—they hang out. 3 Passing them is like passing through a time zone. For much of our his- tory, after all, Americans framed the school year around the needs of work and family. In 19th century cities, schools were open seven or eight hours a day, 11 months a year. In rural America, the year was arranged around the growing season. Now, only 3 percent of families follow the agricul- tural model, but nearly all schools are scheduled as if our children went home early to milk cows and took months off to work the crops. Now, three-quarters of the mothers of school-age children work, but the cal- endar is written as if they were home waiting for the school bus. 4 The six-hour day, the 180-day school year is regarded as somehow sacrosanct. But when parents work an eight-hour day and a 240-day year, 584 PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL READINGS it means something different. It means that many kids go home to empty houses. It means that, in the summer, they hang out. 5 “We have a huge mismatch between the school calendar and the real- ities of family life,” says Dr. Ernest Boyer, head of the Carnegie Founda- tion for the Advancement of Teaching. 6 Dr. Boyer is one of many who believe that a radical revision of the school calendar is inevitable. “School, whether we like it or not, is custo- dial and educational. It always has been.” 7 His is not a popular idea. Schools are routinely burdened with the job of solving all our social problems. Can they be asked now to syn- chronize our work and family lives? 8 It may be easier to promote a longer school year on its educational merits and, indeed, the educational case is compelling. Despite the com- plaints and studies about our kids’ lack of learning, the United States still has a shorter school year than any industrial nation. In most of Europe, the school year is 220 days. In Japan, it is 240 days long. While classroom time alone doesn’t produce a well-educated child, learning takes time and more learning takes more time. The long summers of for- getting take a toll. 9 The opposition to a longer school year comes from families that want to and can provide other experiences for their children. It comes from teachers. It comes from tradition. And surely from kids. But the crux of the conflict has been over money. 10 But we can, as Boyer suggests, begin to turn the hands of the school clock forward. The first step is to extend an optional after-school pro- gram of education and recreation to every district. The second step is a summer program with its own staff, paid for by fees for those who can pay and vouchers for those who can’t. 11 The third step will be the hardest: a true overhaul of the school year. Once, school was carefully calibrated to arrange children’s schedules around the edges of family needs. Now, working parents, especially mothers, even teachers, try and blend their work lives around the edges of the school day. 12 So it’s back to the future. Today there are too many school doors locked and too many kids hanging out. It’s time to get our calendars updated. The School Year Needs to Be Better, Not Longer Colman McCarthy Colman McCarthy is a journalist, teacher, social activist, and columnist for The Wash- ing Post. In 1982 he founded the Center for Teaching Peace, which teaches courses on nonviolence. He is the author of Involvements: One Journalist’s Place in the World (1984) and All of One Peace: Essays on Nonviolence (1994). His work as a volunteer teacher in Maryland high school English classes influenced this essay, which first ap- peared in The Washington Post in 1990. CHAPTER 27 - ARGUMENTATION 585 1 In eight years of teaching high school students in both private and public schools, I’ve learned that on the subject of education their ideas are often sounder and their opinions sharper than what’s coming from the on-high experts and theorists. Two of them, in particular. 2 Thomas A. Shannon, director of the National School Boards Associa- tion, is pushing for a 12-month academic year. No summer idleness, either for students or school buildings. In Massachusetts, Michael Barrett, a state senator, has introduced a bill to extend the school year from 180 to 220 days. 3 Both of these time-savers are fretting that compared with other countries the United States is encouraging laziness and ignorance by its short school year. Students in Japan, West Germany, South Korea, Israel and Luxembourg all have a minimum of 210 calendar days of class. No slackers there. Longer Year Theory 4 Barrett, as if scratching his fingernails on the blackboard to make us dolts understand, writes in the Atlantic: 5 “First, compared with their peers in Asian and European countries, American students stand out for how little they work. Second, compared with Asians and Europeans, American students stand out for how poorly they do.” Barrett believes a school year of 220 days is an essential re- form—“a superstructure under which other changes can be made.” 6 The unsuper arguments from Shannon and Barrett have been regu- larly thrown into the education hopper since the late 1940s—and just as regularly rejected. The longer-is-better theorists—Barrett spent a day teaching seventh-graders, so his experiential knowledge is vast—are like teachers who begin each class, “Let’s get started; we have a lot of ground to cover.” This is the track coach method, substituting pages in a book for yardage. 7 Teachers intent on covering ground won’t be any better at their craft with 220 days than at 180. An inspired teacher can change a student’s life—rouse the imagination, stir once-hidden powers of the intellect—in a day, week or month. Extra teaching talent, not extra time, is needed. Keep Students Enthusiastic 8 This theme ran through the papers I asked my students at Bethesda– Chevy Chase High School to write. A young man offered this: 9 “The problem does not lie in the number of days students attend class but in keeping students enthusiastic about learning. . . . Instead of being followers of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, why doesn’t America use its innovative spirit and reconstruct its educational program, not by adding days but by adding stimulation to the classroom.” 10 On the issue that the young waste their time in June, July and August, a senior woman wrote: “Nothing is like experiencing life firsthand by spending a few months in nature, in another country, living with another culture or working at an office or in Congress. I learned more about 586 PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL READINGS myself this summer when I traveled with the circus than in four years of high school.” 11 A third student asked: “If people are so concerned about education, why don’t they increase the amount of money available for teacher salaries? It is hard to attract good educators to teach when they earn lit- tle money.” More Funding 12 Students are right to resist the call for a longer academic year. They know it means more time in custody, not just in class. The issue is more money, not more schooling. With 70 percent of federal research-and- de velopment funds going into military programs and less than 2 percent to education, the message is obvious: Soldiers are more valued than stu- dents, weapons over wisdom. 13 Despite the generosity of a few corporations, private money to schools is niggardly. Robert Reich reports in the winter 1991 issue of The American Prospect that corporate largess is seldom showered upon public primary or secondary schools: “Of the $2.6 billion contributed to education in 1989, only $156 million went to support the public schools (about 6 percent); the rest went to colleges and universities (especially the nation’s most prestigious, which the firms’ CEOs were likely to have attended), and to private preparatory schools (ditto).” Public schools received only 1.8 percent of all corporate donations. 14 Calls for a longer school year are like parents lengthening the time for the family’s dinner. If there’s little or nothing to eat, why bother? Schools are famished for money. I’ve never had a student who didn’t know that. A Scientist: “I Am the Enemy” Ron Kline Ron Kline is a pediatric oncologist and director of the bone marrow transplant program at the University of Louisville. In 1989 Kline published the following essay, arguing the necessity of animals in medical research experiments, in Newsweek magazine’s “My Turn” section, a column of opinion written by readers of the magazine. 1 I am the enemy! One of those vilified, inhumane physician-scientists involved in animal research. How strange, for I have never thought of myself as an evil person. I became a pediatrician because of my love for children and my desire to keep them healthy. During medical school and residency, however, I saw many children die of leukemia, prematurity and traumatic injury—circumstances against which medicine has made tremendous progress, but still has far to go. More important, I also saw children, alive and healthy, thanks to advances in medical science such as infant respirators, potent antibiotics, new surgical techniques and the CHAPTER 27 - ARGUMENTATION 587 entire field of organ transplantation. My desire to tip the scales in favor of the healthy, happy children drew me to medical research. 2 My accusers claim that I inflict torture on animals for the sole pur- pose of career advancement. My experiments supposedly have no rele- vance to medicine and are easily replaced by computer simulation. Meanwhile, an apathetic public barely watches, convinced that the issue has no significance, and publicity-conscious politicians increasingly give way to the demands of the activists. 3 We in medical research have also been unconscionably apathetic. We have allowed the most extreme animal-rights protesters to seize the initiative and frame the issue as one of “animal fraud.” We have been complacent in our belief that a knowledgeable public would sense the im- portance of animal research to the public health. Perhaps we have been mistaken in not responding to the emotional tone of the argument cre- ated by those sad posters of animals by waving equally sad posters of children dying of leukemia or cystic fibrosis. 4 Much is made of the pain inflicted on these animals in the name of medical science. The animal-rights activists contend that this is evidence of our malevolent and sadistic nature. A more reasonable argument, how- ever, can be advanced in our defense. Life is often cruel, both to animals and human beings. Teenagers get thrown from the back of a pickup truck and suffer severe head injuries. Toddlers, barely able to walk, find them- selves at the bottom of a swimming pool while a parent checks the mail. Physicians hoping to alleviate the pain and suffering these tragedies cause have but three choices: create an animal model of the injury or disease and use that model to understand the process and test new ther- apies; experiment on human beings—some experiments will succeed, most will fail—or finally, leave medical knowledge static, hoping that ac- cidental discoveries will lead us to the advances. 5 Some animal-rights activists would suggest a fourth choice, claiming that computer models can simulate animal experiments, thus making the actual experiments unnecessary. Computers can simulate, reasonably well, the effects of well-understood principles on complex systems, as in the application of the laws of physics to airplane and automobile design. However, when the principles themselves are in question, as is the case with the complex biological systems under study, computer modeling alone is of little value. 6 One of the terrifying effects of the effort to restrict the use of ani- mals in medical research is that the impact will not be felt for years and decades: drugs that might have been discovered will not be; surgical techniques that might have been developed will not be, and fundamental biological processes that might have been understood will remain mys- teries. There is the danger that politically expedient solutions will be found to placate a vocal minority, while the consequences of those deci- sions will not be apparent until long after the decisions are made and the decision makers forgotten. 588 PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL READINGS 7 Fortunately, most of us enjoy good health, and the trauma of watch- ing one’s child die has become a rare experience. Yet our good fortune should not make us unappreciative of the health we enjoy or the ad- vances that make it possible. Vaccines, antibiotics, insulin and drugs to treat heart disease, hypertension and stroke are all based on animal research. Most complex surgical procedures, such as coronary-artery by-pass and organ transplantation, are initially developed in animals. Presently undergoing animal studies are techniques to insert genes in humans in order to replace the defective ones found to be the cause of so much disease. These studies will effectively end if animal research is se- verely restricted. 8 In America today, death has become an event isolated from our daily existence—out of the sight and thoughts of most of us. As a doctor who has watched many children die, and their parents grieve, I am particu- larly angered by people capable of so much compassion for a dog or a cat, but with seemingly so little for a dying human being. These people seem so insulated from the reality of human life and death and what it means. 9 Make no mistake, however: I am not advocating the needlessly cruel treatment of animals. To the extent that the animal-rights movement has made us more aware of the needs of these animals, and made us search harder for suitable alternatives, they have made a significant contri- bution. But if the more radical members of this movement are successful in limiting further research, their efforts will bring about a tragedy that will cost many lives. The real question is whether an apathetic majority can be aroused to protect its future against a vocal, but misdirected, minority. Sack Athletic Scholarships Allen Barra Allen Barra is a sports columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a contributor to news- papers and journals, such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Ameri- can Heritage. In addition to sports, Barra frequently writes about movies, books, history, and popular culture. His books include Football by the Numbers (1986), That’s Not the Way It Was (1995), and Inventing Wyatt Earp (1998). This essay originally appeared in The New York Times in 1990. 1 “Of the making of reforms,” Confucius is said to have said, “there is no end.” With regard to college sports, he might have added: Especially when the reforms are half-hearted. 2 If the N.C.A.A. is serious about making reforms in college sports, there’s one sweeping measure that is simple, fair and economically ad- vantageous: Do away with athletic scholarships. 3 Scarcely a week goes by without news of some fresh scandal involv- ing the football programs at our major schools. Steroids at Notre Dame. CHAPTER 27 - ARGUMENTATION 589 Chaos at Oklahoma. The off-campus activities of the Miami Hurricanes alone could have kept Don Johnson and the crew on “Miami Vice” busy for another season. And how serious is the N.C.A.A. about solving these problems? 4 The N.C.A.A.’s usual response, when it gets around to taking action, is to punish thousands of students and student athletes by barring their school’s team from TV and post-season competition. Of course students and student athletes are easier to punish than coaches and administra- tors; they have no rights. 5 In a recent issue of Sports Illustrated the writer Douglas Looney sug- gested that a return to one-platoon football would cut the average school’s athletic budget by nearly 25 percent, largely because the N.C.A.A.’s current limit of 95 scholarships per year could be reduced to 69. 6 Why not go a step further? Since most of the schools that compete in big-time football would lose money if not for TV, why not save everyone a lot more money by eliminating athletic scholarships entirely? 7 Today’s college athletes are professionals in every significant way except one: they don’t get paid. They are there not to learn but to make money for the colleges. The money is a fact of life and can’t be done away with so long as millions of alumni and fans are willing to pay for tickets and turn on their TV’s. What’s to be done short of turning 18-year-olds into legitimate professionals? 8 For starters, colleges can get out of the business of being a cost-free minor league for the National Basketball Association and National Foot- ball League. The elimination of athletic scholarships would mean that football and basketball players would be ill prepared for pro sports. But why should that concern colleges? 9 Colleges would be forced to try something new: to field teams com- prising college students, not future pro draft picks. There would be no more preferential treatment for “scholar-athletes.” Nevertheless, more athletes would graduate because they would be entering college as stu- dents, not athletes. 10 Without athletic scholarships, we’d really find out if students from Miami play football better than students from Notre Dame. More to the point, we’d find out if Miami and Notre Dame, once their recruiting ma- chines are gone, are really better than, say, Northwestern and Georgia Tech. 11 The primary objections to this come, as you’d expect, from the coaches and N.C.A.A. administrators. It would cut down on revenues, they say. But why? Even if the networks paid less for a game played by nonscholarship athletes, the schools would still earn big bucks; certainly more than it would have cost them to field the teams. . . . 12 There may be nothing that can be done about the vast sums of money N.C.A.A. sports are bringing in, but something can be done about how it’s spent. Most colleges put most of their basketball and football money back into their sports programs. Eliminate athletic scholarships [...]... it together This is our hope This is the faith with which I return to the South With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to. .. for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality You have been the veterans of creative suffering Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing... that you will not have an opportunity to punish your children for bringing you to this hellish place Brakes cut in and you slam to a stop You gingerly touch your face to confirm it has fallen off “Wasn’t that fun, Dad?” your kids ask “Why are you kissing the ground?” At the end of the day, you let your teenager drive home (After the theme park, you are impervious to fear.) Hush, Timmy—This Is Like a... or woman who went to Viet Nam,” says Wheeler, who visits at least monthly “It has to do with the felt presence of comrades.” He pauses “I always look at Tommy Hayes’ name Tommy’s up on panel 50 east, line 29.” Hayes, Wheeler’s West Point pal, was killed 17 years ago this month “I know guys,” Wheeler says, “who are still waiting to go, whose wives have told me, ‘He hasn’t been able to do it yet.’” For... the Congressional Budget Office, said: “It’s something I never thought I would do”—referring to his jumping into the water to drag an injured woman to shore Skutnik added that “somebody had to go in the water,” delivering every hero’s line that is no less admirable for its repetitions In fact, nobody had to go into the 595 596 PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL READINGS 4 5 6 7 8 water That somebody actually did... to the stewardess telling him to fasten his seat belt and saying something about the “no smoking sign.” So our man relaxed with the others, some of whom would owe their lives to him Perhaps he started to read, or to doze, or to regret some harsh remark made in the office that morning Then suddenly he knew that the trip would not be ordinary Like every other person on that flight, he was desperate to. .. County for advice and then he had crossed the roof of the building to the apartment of the elderly woman to get her to make the call “I didn’t want to get involved,” he sheepishly told the police Suspect Is Arrested 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Six days later, the police arrested Winston Moseley, a 29-year-old business-machine operator, and charged him with homicide Moseley had no previous record He... want to feel reckless But there was nothing to do then at the beginning of a decade that changed almost everything I could not wait that May for the Sixties to unroll I worked in women’s news; my stories came out like little cookies I wanted to be brave about something, not just about love, or a root canal, or writing that the shoes at Arnold Constable looked strangely sad Once I read of men who had to. .. thin and no longer fast The jump suit, the equipment, the helmet, the boots, had made me into someone thick and clumsy, moving as strangely as if they had put me underwater and said I must walk It was hard to bend, to sit, to stand up I did not like the man with me; he was eager and composed I wanted to smoke, to go to the bathroom, but there were many straps around me that I did not understand At twenty-three... for delaying the troops I was hooked to a static line, an automatic opening device, which made it impossible to lie down or tie myself to something The drillmaster could not hear all that I shouted at him But he knew the signs of mutiny and removed my arms from his neck He took me to the doorway, sat me down, and yelled “Go!” or “Now!” or “Out!” There was nothing to do but be punched by the wind, which . day. 12 So it’s back to the future. Today there are too many school doors locked and too many kids hanging out. It’s time to get our calendars updated. The School Year Needs to Be Better, Not Longer Colman. will not have an opportunity to punish your children for bringing you to this hellish place. Brakes cut in and you slam to a stop. You gingerly touch your face to confirm it has fallen off served as director of expository writing at Harvard University. He has also been an editor for The New Republic, The Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report, and is currently editor-at-large