The Disgrace of Horace Mann and Robert Berman

Ever since the New York Times Magazine published a story last June revealing the long pattern of sexual abuse allowed at Horace Mann over the course of thirty years, the school has had to contend with the problem of how to deal with the past crimes of its faculty. It's not an easy question to resolve, since many of the alleged perpetrators are dead, and the statute of limitations -- in the strict legal sense -- has expired. Amos Kamil, the writer of the Magazine piece, was an alum of the school, and the fact that he himself has a stake in the outcome is complicated and interesting.

My reaction to Marc Fisher's new piece in The New Yorker on the Horace Mann scandal was different. His primary subject was a particular teacher, Robert Berman, who taught English at Horace Mann for many years. As a father and a person, I am saddened and disgusted by the stories about Jerry Sandusky and the abuse by Catholic priests. But Fisher's description of Berman provokes something even more visceral.


image from http://horacemannsurvivor.org/

I teach at a private school, and have done so for more than 20 years. I am personally invested and interested in my students. I keep in touch with some of them for many years after they graduate. As a result, I feel smeared by Berman, besmirched by association. Here's what I mean: Megan McArdle, of The Daily Beast wonders aloud why we have not more generally questioned the existence or structure of private schools as an institution, given these accusations. Her hypothesis is that too many journalists and other people of privilege went to these schools, and therefore are reluctant to expose the problem. In other words, my school is probably just as bad as Horace Mann, but the issue is being covered up.

That Horace Mann administrators fell for the intellectual facade is sad in itself. That they allowed him to use it in the furtherance of a crime is beyond disgrace. They do not represent us as a profession; they are not representative as a cross-section.

To teach is to empower. Berman prowled for the weak and vulnerable, found them at their lowest ebb, and then exploited them. He belittled them, according to Fisher, and exalted himself.That he could abuse his power in that particular way is worthy not only of anger, but of contempt. If Fisher's story is even half right, Berman is a despicable human being, the lowest of the low.

Not only that, but he appears from Fisher's account to be a loser. The beatnik affectation of suits and sunglasses, the writing of lists (the refuge of intellectual dwarfs), and the tedious, pedantic writing he did, using big words in an attempt to mask small ideas, indicate a wannabe seeking approval.

What Gitmo Means

When President Obama promised five years ago to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, he recognized the blight of an American regime of indefinite imprisonment. All of the fundamental principles of American government abhor the imprisonment of people without trial and without the opportunity to confront the charges against them. Even the current Supreme Court, which includes staunch security-state advocates like Samuel Alito and John Roberts, has repudiated the claim that the executive has the power to hold people at its whim.

Today, prisoners at the camp continue a hunger strike in protest of their 11-year detention. That the United States government is a target of such protests is itself shameful. Only people in the weakest of positions, facing the most egregious abuses, resort to such tactics. They should never be necessary against a government committed to individual liberty.

Student Ability Tracking and Educational Policy

Where I teach, at an independent school,students must pass through a relatively rigorous filter before attending. Our admission office considers standardized tests, essays and interviews, and accepts those it figures are best suited for the school. In other words, the whole school is "tracked." Only people who have chosen to undergo the process and then have met certain standards ever enroll.

Even so, teachers will sometimes remark on how difficult it is to teach classes in which the range of students' ability is too wide. These complaints bug me in part because of their factual context, but also because I think they represent a kind of professional laziness.

In its latest report on educational policies and trends, the Brookings Institute includes similar comments from a survey of public school teachers:

A substantial number of teachers believe that heterogeneous classes are difficult to teach. The 2008 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher asked teachers to react to the following statement: “My class/classes in my school have become so mixed in terms of students’ learning ability that I/teachers can’t teach them.” Responses were: 14% “agree strongly,” 29% “agree somewhat,” 28% “disagree somewhat,” and 27% “disagree strongly.”³¹ The percentages are surprising given the questionnaire’s blunt assertion that heterogeneous classes are impossible to teach. Moreover, the 43 percent of respondents that either agree strongly or somewhat agree with the prompt is up from 39 percent on the same survey item in 1988. Teachers’ beliefs about the impact of achievement heterogeneity on instruction undergird the use of ability grouping and tracking.

Now, public school teachers have problems that I don't. They don't have an admission office, and they don't always have the support of the parents. But this extreme hand-wringing is embarrassing. It's our job to teach kids where they are, not where we wish they were. Just get on it.

Tracking in certain subjects -- math, foreign language -- may facilitate certain kinds of learning and may even be necessary. But I'm not positive that's true all the time, and I think it's time for teachers to think carefully about what they are doing and why. I do not think it's right for teachers to call on administrators to filter student differences just to make the teachers' job easier