Introduction: A Journey Begins. "The Fatal Mistake" or "The Face of the Child on the Courtroom Floor."

One Day After the "Battle."

I imagine how Paton felt standing on the battlefield, after the fight, looking out on a landscape filled with smoking war-tanks and leftover weapons. It is quiet now, six oclock in the morning as I sit in front of my keyboard at the LeBlancWorks, the LeBlancWorks which is now more of a classroom than ever. My journal here is a patchwork collection of my thoughs and efforts to understand one child and his relationship to the school, the community, and the world of which he is a part.

Reflecting back on my simple question: "Why can't children read?," a smile comes to my face at my naievity in thinking that the "study" was going to be simple.  I was merely going to interview six teachers, write up their interviews and interpolate the results.

It was a simple plan; retire to a studio and make sculptures. I rented the studio, moved in months in advance of my retirement and set up. Then I began constructing sculptures and all was well. But, as retirement time loomed closer I began to feel that I needed something else, a little ballast perhaps, to give me some contact with the outside world, other than friends, of course.

So I registered for a program with Wesleyan's Graduate Liberal Studies Program. I would explore "education." Sure! What better way than to choose an area that I was already involved with and interested in. Yes, a good question would be: "Why can't children read?" That would be easy, just find a good advisor, interview six teachers in the area and write it up, a fine scholarly effort, keeping me busy and involved. I contacted the person who I thought would be the best resource in that area. Marjorie Rosenbaum, retired director of the Educational Studies Program agreed to "take me on" as an advisor.

Then I had another thought, "Well, perhaps I need a real student of my own to give me a practical sense of what "the lay of the land" was like in the local educational milieu. Ken Woodward from "The Connection" took care of this avenue, providing me with a twelve-year-old who needed something beyond the academic subjects, and I was in business.

Shortly after that I was invited to teach computer graphics at Central Ct. State Univ. This invitation was a surprise. I couldn't refuse, so I took on 25 students, teaching twice a week in New Britain.

Several months later I found myself drenched in sweat and fighting, at juvenile court, for the freedom and perhaps the very life of a 13-year-old and my retirement was forever changed. Looking back now I can see that a man who lost his wife and friend, over a quarter of a century ago and then, two decades after that, lost his only son and friend to AIDS is an easy "patsy" for the face of a sad looking kid. Hind sight is great, isn't it?

Yesterday was the culmination of a long battle with "Jeremy," and with his middle school. I found the answer or rather answers to why children can't read but it had little or nothing to do with their ability. And so I began:

The paper presented here began with the aim of understanding why some children can't read but, to me, it brought into question many more issues including: What is the responsibility of a community to one another and to its children? Why have we become such an anonymous society? How are we using our resources to make "our" children's lives worthwhile? What values are we giving them? What role models do we provide? Who cares? How do we make use of the resources of those who DO care? How are we, each segment of society, communicating the needs of the children to one another, for their well being? Is there a coordinated effort? Is there communication between agencies, organizations, individuals and how does that work? Does it work?

These are the questions for further exploration, not necessarily an academic one perhaps, but an area needing a crucial evaluation. I've seen the "face of the child on the courtroom floor" and I know "him" personally and I care what happens to his life. And so too do I care about his "friends" those faceless ones who knock on the door in the dark of night, inviting him to come out and play, and to join them in their games - "five finger discount" or "lets break up the neighborhood." I need to find a way to teach him -- the him that's been hurt, the him who desperately needs friends and acceptance by his peers and will accede to the wishes of "the gang" for a moment's acceptance. There has to be a way to give him confidence in himself so that he knows right from wrong and is enabled to say: "NO!"

Finding the right way to teach is not an easy task. Rick Masten, teacher and poet provides a special insight into how one teacher inspires his students:
 
 

"The Way to Teach" "and so he let them have their games until the tide was fully out     and when it was he came upon the rocky beach a may-pole of a man among the shouting children and bending down beside a magic pool     peering in he waited till a ring of faces gathered at the edge of this attention then slowly reaching through the   mirror gave a sea anemone     a punch who did what sea anemones will do quickly folding in on what should have been a lunch     WOW! "he said - eyes popping then abruptly rising but keeping in mind the length of his legs moved on up the beach the children scrambling behind with questions" by Rick Masten

Perhaps the true "method" then is to live our lives with the realization that we "are" a model for children. And so, looking down at the reflection in the dark wood at my feet I find that the face on the courtroom floor is "US."

Like a scene from some crazy Pinter play we come tumbling into the world, dazed confused, practically blind and helpless on our birth day. From then on, through a process known as education, we try to make sense of the world we've been dropped into .

At the beginning of this journal I thought to explore something of this process of education-- (Frankly I was at a loss to understand how children could go through twelve years of schooling and still not know how to read) I wanted an answer for that question. Yet there was more to it than that. I was searching for a personal area in life to focus on, to pursue in this, the latter part of my life.

I felt that I couldn't understand the problem from the outside and had to get "inside." The inside work occurred when I was given the "task" of working with a youngster, Max, in a program run by a local organization, "The Connection." (The Connection works with children who are at a stage just before judicial intervention in their lives.)

I thought too that my own personal experiences in teaching at the college level would be useful too in one way or another.

But first to put things into perspective: As I began this project there were numerous factors at work in my life: I was at the moment of retirement after thirty five years of work and teaching at Wesleyan University; my father had recently passed away; my mother was gradually succumbing with congestive heart failure;  I received a part-time position at Central Connecticut University teaching computer graphics, and I accepted a commission from "The Connection" to work with a "problem" student (Max age 12), and his friend Jeremy. In addition, I began another phase of my life as a kinetic art sculptor with a studio on Main Street with a commission from the City of Middletown to complete a series of photographs, in book form, on the 350th Anniversary of the town.

I mention these factors because they all, to one degree or another, became elements of the paper. My mental frame of mind, my overview of life, and death, and my optimism for the next generation all were connected. I had hopes that "the paper" would allow me, by looking at education today, to focus my attention on the foundations of my own value system which was a compilation of the education I'd received, at home, in school, "on the street" and at church, since education doesn't stop when schooling ends but continues in various forms all throughout life.

Children killing children in our schools, mothers murdering their babies, a whole nation of people involved in the destruction of another race. We talk of "civilization" as a mandate which guarantees each of us protection from the fangs of wild beasts. Yet, it is apparent that the "beast" resides within each of us, sometimes tethered, often tamed, but lurking nevertheless. (Some of us have lived through an epoch where our favorite president was killed before our eyes.)

I have found that half a century of living provides some kind of perspective wherein social patterns become apparent; we see how children begin the destruction of their health early by smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, not from a physical need but  in an attempt to act like their heroes and role models. Drugs are often used by these same children as a means to escape from a world they find confusing and frightening.

I see a process that begins somewhere in childhood wherein kids emulate adults. From watching the grownups in their lives kids take on the mannerisms that they feel make them look adult. Somehow, in many folks, the stereotype continues into their grownup lives, and so we end up with adults trying to act and think as they think adults should be. So the model is perpetuated from generation to generation. Trying to comprehend the complex web which makes up our society is, indeed, a very difficult task.

Remembrances of a childhood past:

My understanding of the process of education goes back to our first personal remembrances of being inducted into the social life of school. One can only look at that process from a personal view, whether it was a happy time or traumatic. In my case it was traumatic, a feeling of being controlled by others, of losing freedom and being in a "jail" of sorts. To some extent the culprit was the physical plant of the Catholic School at Saint Peters in New Haven.

There is no abstract process known as education with a purity of transmission of knowledge from the specialist in a subject to the blank mind of the student. Instead it is all a personal experience with a complex mix of personalities, often in a confined classroom, wherein all the dynamics of the personalities involved become kinetic parts of a competitive "dance" of knowledge.

The process itself then, the interaction of the students and teachers, and students and students, and everybody else for that matter,  becomes the complex subject known as education. Education is not the accumulation of some vast body of specific knowledge of a given subject but the construction of our individual personalities through this integrative process via this dance of life. Every breath of life, every observation, every insight is part of that process. Our guides in this journey, often called teachers, are also fallible human beings with needs similar to our own.

My first question began as I reflected on the many periodical articles and books concerning young people graduating from high school who can not read. I thought about the vast amount of money spent on schooling and wondered why that was the case. What was wrong? Gradually as I began my exploration of the "problems" I realized that the story of public education in America today is a much more complex issue than I had imagined. So too it became clearer that my question on education was a "mask" of sorts for the bigger question of understanding the culture itself, the changes I'd seen, been subject to and watched others "suffer" beneath.

We make choices in life; we have values that shift with our perspective and our experiences throughout time. We accumulate these experiences in memory building up an interlocking data base from which to make new decisions.

I had been given a copy of John Gatto's A Different Kind of Teacher, which appeared to open up to me the structure of "the system."  I wondered why I had not been able to see what the problems were, since, once explained by John Gatto in his book, everything seemed so clear, perhaps a testament to his great teaching skills. As I understand Gatto's thesis, the trouble is the system itself, the politics, the administration and indeed the original design of public schooling from its inception. As Professor Gatto points out, schools are designed to teach conformity, not to educate.

• "The sheer craziness of what we do to our children should have been sufficient cause to stop it once the lunacy was manifest in increased social pathology, but a crucial development forestalled corrective action: schooling became the biggest business of all. Suddenly there were jobs, titles, careers, prestige, and contracts to protect . . . "

Gatto, in his book, appears to want to throw out the present day school system as a complete waste of time. But, considering myself as a product of the public education system I had to wonder how I managed to get through it and keep an open questioning mind? Today I work daily constructing sculptures, kinetic art, collages, expressing myself in various ways which make my life feel rich and full. How did that happen? I see a glimmer of an idea, I see the faces of special teachers, individuals who opened doors, or sometimes merely hinted that "doors" might exist. Those "special" teachers worked within the system that Gatto rejects-.

As a college professor I have had the opportunity  to test some teaching methods and I have begun to explore new techniques in liberating the imagination of my students, exposing them to the work of others, giving them the opportunity to express their creative energy.

When I was teaching The AV Workshop at Wesleyan during my first few semesters I gave the students complete freedom of time and space. The end product was to be a "slide movie" expressing some area that each student was interested in. I found that at the end of the semester there was a "crash" effort on the part of almost all of the students to finish their projects. I realized then the need for structure and redesigned my course to include four projects, instead of one, with deadlines at specific dates in the course. At the end of that first semester all of the students had completed their work on time.

The question is not only in finding answers but more of acknowledging there are questions, though it may sound like a metaphysical problem, defining the meaning of existence; perhaps the question is not just "to be or not to be," but to be what?

In the course of my life, thinking back to the early days of elementary school I have had some fine individuals as teachers. Most of those folks provided me with the best instruction they were capable of. I realize now that those same teachers were hampered in their methods sometimes by the system itself, but they still found ways to achieve their ends.

It's too late, for me, to go back and interview most, perhaps all of these teachers, though I'll give that avenue a try. So, how does one make the system work in one's favor -- to work for one, instead of against. Perhaps that is the question.

I had though long enough on the subject of education and now it was important to speak with those teachers who actually worked in the system and to obtain their views on the problems of teaching children and to ask them, "Why can't children read?" I felt that by looking at a "worst case" scenario, the inner cityi school system I might see the "reading' problem at its most crucial point. So  I began with Jim Fellows, a middle grade teacher in the Hartford school system.

"Experiences in teaching the children of the south end of Hartford."

The area in which I teach includes the whole Caribbean Island scene, including primarily Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Santo Domingo, Haiti, a bit of Saint Lucia, Trinidad, Tobago, and also, on the coast, Guiana particularly -- especially children of oriental background whose family migrated to Guiana and the U.S. And then there's a mixture of many other areas that have been settled by Catholic charities; you have Vietnamese, Cambodian, Somalia, a lot of Bosnian, and now Cosovar families, whatever people have been in refugee situations for the last twenty or thirty years who have gradually moved into the neighborhood. So with that particular segment of the population you have to be aware of the language issues but also of the cultural issues.

I know it sounds like a difficult mix but it's not that hard to work with them once you understand what works and doesn't. The problem is that most of the educational programs that you're forced to use make little note of any of those issues. They really only teach from a point of view of transfer of knowledge from a willing giver to a willing receiver. Whereas that's useful to know once the person is interested in learning, what you have to teach them, that's totally useless if the person is suspicious and if that student understands on some subliminal level that you're asking him to throw away their culture and adopt yours. That's what it basically comes down to when you're dealing with kids from uneducated families with agricultural jobs or basic laboring jobs or service jobs of some kind then you're asking them to adopt the educated middle class culture and throw away running barefooted in the fields and growing turnips.

That's a big problem especially if, like one of the kids you work with, if the father's in jail, and you're telling the child that he's likely to end up in jail if he doesn't get an education then its not such an obvious choice to such a child. You have to be very careful in what bait you use with a child since you might convince them to do the very opposite of what you want them to do.

The other thing is, once the child is interested there are definitely ways of teaching that are more successful than other ways but it really depends on the subject and the teacher and the teacher's interest in that particular program. The program that I use is from "Boys Town, Girls Town" which makes very simple basic lessons out of every basic skill from saying hello to someone to thanking somebody or accepting or giving a compliment, to asking a person a question, to getting somebody's attention, to sharing somebody's attention.

All these are numbered skills that you teach, step by step. They are all very specific in what they teach like, looking at someone when you speak to them, using a pleasant tone of voice. It might seem to a teacher that it's ridiculous and almost demeaning but its really quite important to the children because its exactly what they need. The kids are not going to practice something like that if you can't break it down, step by step, so they feel totally confident. You have to be very specific and give them instructions like, walk up to the person, put your right hand out, with the thumb up, take their right hand up to the thumb, shake it just firmly enough not to hurt them. That's how you shake somebody's hand and say "It's nice to meet you."

Once you've outlined the steps then they will practice it and most likely all week long they'll be coming up to you wanting to shake your hand, or to accept a compliment or give one or to help someone or to hold a door. It's very easy to get frustrated with these kids because it seems so obviously basic like to raise their hand and then wait for you to call on them when there are ten other kids and not to be shouting out your name for recognition. Most of them will do it the way you want once you've taught them. It just doesn't seem that it should be necessary to teach them, but it is. So you have to choose whether you want to be right and insist that they don't need to be taught these things, they're so basic or whether you want them to actually do what you want them to do in which case you have to teach them.

Even when it is part of the curriculum teachers tend to resist because they don't think that's their job. Many teachers are exceptional to this but teachers especially at middle and high school level have a very different approach than elementary school teachers. Elementary school teachers tend to go into the business because they want to help nurture and raise children. But middle and high school teachers frequently want nothing to do with that and are very offended and will come right out and tell you: "I'm not here to be somebody's parent," or "guidance counselor. I'm just here to teach them english, science, or math or social studies or other." Now, they don't always mean it, but they will say it. Often those same people will get quite attached to their students because they're the first ones to jump up and help, adopt a kid that needs to be adopted, and so . . .

I don't think there are many kids who can't read. But the problem is with kids who don't have much language though whether they can read or not, they're not going to understand what they read. One problem is vocabulary. There are very few words that they're familiar with. And, I mean, very very very few. More important than that is that they may understand what some of the words mean but they have no sense about any kind of variation in language except for very basic sentence structure.

So they won't understand what your saying if you read it out loud to them either. But if they can understand it when you read it out loud to them they can basically understand it when they read it to themselves. So its not really very often a reading problem. Now, are cases where kids don't read but I don't know much about that since I haven't run into too many kids like that.

What I find with inner city kids are lots of kids who have very little experience with language except for very basic English. And that's just a language acquisition issue it's not a reading issue. They may have parents who certainly don't speak English or not more than a few words so that they would even try to speak English. But they don't speak much other language either; they don't really have command of the Spanish language and if you try to speak to them in Spanish you would need to know a very particular dialect, and a very particular vocabulary that goes with that dialect. You'd have to limit your conversation to certain types of things that you could talk about. You could talk about food, you could talk about the weather; you might be able to talk about romance, you might be able to talk about typical life situations. But beyond that you would have difficulty in that particular language getting into any kind of academic subject.

I've seen the same thing in other countries too. I've seen it in Spain when I was working with some gypsies in the mountains of southern Spain who could not speak Romany, they certainly didn't speak much Spanish. How they really communicated with anybody in the world I really don't know. But it was very similar to kids that I work with here. They are essentially non-verbal.

If they have to phrase a question it's all but impossible. You have to guess what they're trying to ask you because they can't put it into words to ask you. They say, "You know that thing." And that's the question. "You know that thing?" And that means, "I have a question." That's about as much as they can tell you. Then you have to play a game of like Twenty Questions and rarely you'll find out exactly what it was they were trying to ask about. But some other children will understand them perfectly and will offer to interpret. They'll say, "I know what he means!"

Let's say you've just taught about division of fractions. They might say, "You know that thing where you do that thing?" Then I would say, "You mean where you change from division to multiplication and use the reciprocal?" This is after you've just defined all these words on the board and it still says "reciprocal" on the board and here's three halves and two thirds and they go, "No! I mean that thing where you do that thing." And another kid will say, "I know what he means." The kid will interpret and you still don't know what they other kid is saying but they say, yeah, they agree that that's what they are talking about.

So now you give the child a math book says, "To divide fractions change mixed numbers to improper fractions and then multiply the dividend by the divisor." You can go through the whole thing and explain it and its in the math book but that's just not the way their brains work.

If you take a word like reciprocal and associate that word with turning a number upside down that seems to be a foreign concept. You can ask them to write it down, the word reciprocal, and pronounce it, and have it in their book. They can pronounce it, they can read it just fine, and they will tell you that that's when you take a flat fraction and substitute the numerator for the denominator or the divisor for the dividend if you want to use that terminology. They can explain all that but then later in a sentence they can't use that or understand that as a term that they can grasp and use.

Now, I don't have a solution to the problem. What I do to teach reading is to get very interesting book, books that I think are interesting and that are also my experience tells me that children are interested in but you can't tell that right away because most children will not be interested in a book at first. But most children will be interested in whatever book a teacher is interested in eventually. That's just the psychology of children. So you have to see past that situation to see what books are interesting to children.

Children are never going to be interested in any book at first, but they'll always be interested in every book if you're persistent enough. So, to determine what they're actually interested in or that means something to them takes a little bit more time and perception and experience.

But once you've determined what books are interesting to children I find that books with certain emotional and social situations are the most interesting. Books where there is a definite emotional and life problem that needs to be dealt with. Common problems such as losing a parent, dealing with fear of new situations, whatever it is that's likely to be a real problem in the child's life or a fear that they might have; or something they might have to deal with in the future.

For instance, how to survive in the wilderness, that would be something that kids would generally be interested in or about. So you find a book that has an emotional situation and a solution. Also it is useful if it has some spiritual element to it where there is an appreciation of the world beyond the scientific; having to do with faith or karma or rebirth or good versus evil or being tested in difficult situations or having to grow through a challenge, you know, fairy tale kind of stuff.  If you find something with that sort element and the story's interesting and provides information about children somehow like themselves but different enough to be interesting and safe to study.

For instance, a book that's most popular that I use is World War Two orphans in Japan living in a warehouse with no adults to feed or provide for them. The title is "My Brother, My Sister, and I" by Yoka Kowashima Watkins. That books is universally popular with children that I work with. First of all because the kids are worse off than they are in their own lives which gives them some comfort that children can survive circumstances much worse than their own. Then that there are children who are worse off than they are gives anybody hope that they are not at the bottom. So they can feel some compassion for somebody else. They can feel that they would be able to help that person.

The need to help others is an important reason for children who are poor. If you don't give them the feeling that you can help someone else then they feel that there is no point to their education. They wonder what they are going to do with it and they don't want it. So you have to immediately provide a situation where they are going to help somebody else with what they learn. Most poor kids are extremely altruistic and will be motivated, if nothing else, by just the thought that the education they acquire can be used to help another child, especially a younger brother or another kid on their street.

There are very few kids, if any, that I've met who wouldn't be motivated if they thought that what they learned could help somebody else. Whereas they have very little interest in learning for their own benefit. If you give them something, a book or something, they'll usually take it home and give it to a younger brother or sister. And if you give them a box of candy they'll take it out and share it with everybody in the hallway. They're not likely to keep anything for themselves. That's just a cultural difference in this group.

Teachers who've grown up in traditional American culture don't always understand the difference in cultures of kids from Caribbean or third world countries or non affluent societies where sharing amongst the village community is such an ingrained part of the way people deal with things. Kids from those cultures just aren't going to be motivated by acquiring things for themselves; it's distasteful or repugnant to try to think about acquiring knowledge and wealth or the ability to get a good job or a college education for themselves; so that seems rather unattractive to put out as a bit of bait for a child. But if the bait is the motivation that what they learn can help others and that they have the chance in the classroom to tutor other children who haven't yet mastered that problem then they'll learn it just so they can teach someone else.

So too, I began to recognize that my interest had begun to find a focus. It was already clear to me that my question about why children can't read would not be answered just by the process of interviewing teachers as the entire fabric of our society was part of that problem. Still, the interviewing I had begun was in itself a worthy effort.

I decided to try the question again but in a different social setting.

For contrast I interviewed Steven Ambrosini, instructor at East Haven High School, a fairly affluent community, asking Steven what he thought of the reading ability of his students.

Some of my intensive courses involve intensive reading and I don't see any problems there except for focusing on projects. Tutorials that I have in Visual Basic, C Plus Plus and CAD (Computer Aided Design) require the student to continually go through the "process" so that's one of the few courses that require real applied reading. That's just reading the course material for a report or a response to a teacher. You're reading it in order to get a real time response.  It's one of the few courses that requires applied reading. My video courses do require the students to do some research but I found it very difficult for students to take a topic, go find out information and bring it back to be used in a video project.

Therefore I changed that course to "tell me something that you already know." I wasn't putting the course on that level where what the content was being created, this was strictly how well they learn to write down what they need to know, to be able to express themselves and then be able to apply video to it, bringing images on to it. So the whole technological process is graded  and not necessarily the final output.

I have my students write term papers All my courses do term papers. One thing they were not ready for, I guess, was the fact that I wanted them to hand in drafts of their paper at least four times before I accepted the final one. For the most part kids would write a first draft and feel that it was perfect and done and that they would no longer have to do the project. They were taken back when I said, "Here's your paper back. Here are the corrections you should make. Here's where you should develop for a better paper. That seemed to be a big problem, writing and expressing themselves.

I find that some students have a very difficult time trying to express themselves. It kind of goes contrary to their argument, "well you never listen to me. " I say to them, Now I'll give you a chance to tell me something. Yet they can't seem to put it down on paper. So that might be linked to reading too, reading versus writing; the applied word on paper. They would then create some kind of a script for their production and they would actually read that script into the production line and that would be the sound track for the final product.

In terms of the term papers some of them are finally coming around to it; some of them have very good topics, some of them have shown real change. I think another part of "the problem" is that some of them don't seem to know that they "know." I have a few students who say, "I have nothing to write about. " I respond with the statement, "Well, tell me something you know." And two or three students were unable to say that they know "something,." or "anything."  So there seems to be some kind of lack of confidence in there. I believe they do know something. I mean ten, eleven, twelve years of school must have taught them something. And yet they can't seem to be able to pull that back and spit it back out again.

So far the observation of these two teachers seemed to be that there really was no reading problem per se. Perhaps the problem wasn't in reading as a skill, as Jim Fellows mentioned, but more in how our society socializes its students. Steven Ambrosini seemed to be saying that students, left to their own devices didn't have the imagination to create something out of their own thoughts.  I was beginning to feel that my specific area of interest concerned "imagination" and how society and the schools treated that entity; reading was only one part of it.

The Theme of "Imagination"

Imagination is my theme, always has been. The remarks on my report cards talked about a boy who daydreamed too much, would not concentrate on the work presented, had excellent potential but would not concentrate . . .  etc. . . . I was told by most, but not all, teachers to stop drawing in math class or to write about the assignment given, not write a fantasy. It seems to be as Gatto says, when the math bell rings we study math.

And in asking the question: "How does one develop the imagination?," I needed to refer back to that area called "Methods."

Perhaps a major question needs to be stated: Why, indeed, should imagination be taught in school? One answer: In a time when the problems of the world are many and complex, answers are needed to everything from traffic control to weapons development; our civilization needs minds that can leap beyond conventional solutions to find ingenious answers. The imaginative mind, the non-conformist is able to find unique solutions to problems that others might not be able to see. We need to find ways to cultivate those minds, not shackle them.  It is a matter of survival. Of course survival is an issue for teachers as well.

I thought that I might, in future studies,  begin my interviews with teachers in the system with a series of questions:

1. How have you managed to survive as a teacher?

2. Are you able to teach the material that you believe is pertinent to your students?

3. How do you deal with the "muscle" of creativity, which often is seen as nonconformity?

4. And, rather whimsically, why don't we teach "daydreaming" in school?

The Landscape of Imagination:

There is a landscape populated by creatures who have never walked the earth. They stride across fields and streams whose dimensions are infinite in scope yet occupy only a few microns in the brain.  The artist, the writer, the visionary know this territory well and build their images and create tales from their dreams.

Welcome to the human imagination, that area of our brain that deals in abstraction. We may share that talent with other creatures, our cats and dogs who seem to chase mice and rabbits in their sleep. Lord Dunsany describes one vision of this world in "The Shop on Go-by Street," as:

• "... And I wanted to see the sailors again who came from Durl and Duz and to hear from their lips what befell Perdondaris when its doom came up without warning from the hills and fell on that famous city. And I wanted to hear the sailors pray at night each one to his own god, and to feel the wind of the evening coolly arise when the sun went flaming away from that exotic river. For I thought never again to see the tide of Yann, but when I gave up politics not long ago the wings of my fancy strengthened, though they had erstwhile drooped, and I had hopes of coming behind the East once more where Yann like a proud white war-horse goes through The Land of Dreams. . . " *1.

Yet the imagination is a double edged sword; it is not only a weapon of defense, but a spike in the heart as well.

As I sat with my invalid mother one day at a table in the day room of the convalescent hospital, another woman sitting at the table, looked at me and with curled lips said, "What are you getting paid for this?" I told her that I was the son of her companion, my mother, at the table. The woman turned away as if not believing me.

Last night as I visited mother, she was traveling some other pathway in her mind and my visit was short. As I walked down the hallway to fill mother's drinking cup and passed the room of this woman she yelled an obscenity at me, then as I came back with the full glass of ice water the same woman yelled, "Get the hell out of this house, old man." Her anger chilled me to the bone, even though I realized she was mistaking me for someone else. I wondered who she saw me as and I vowed to try and avoid this woman whenever possible.

But the incident showed me the other side of imagination, or what I call, "negative imagination," another landscape from the mind of Breugel wherein the damned of Hell populate that world. It is well to understand that the imagination is not merely a world populated by Harry Potter but does indeed have its share of witches, warlocks, and vampires, who are "real" in the minds of some. That moment with the angry woman illuminated the world of the insane imagination and made it clear that fantasy is not the exclusive property of precocious children; it is a part of us all and manifests its effects in many ways.

So, as a citizen of the land of imagination who was frequently chastised during childhood for his excursions, during class time, into the land of fantasy I now consider how one moves from the land of children's nightmares and the distorted visions of the mentally ill, and even "normal" psychotic incidents to the use of imagination as a tool in the classroom. It is the realm of "method."

As an instructor and guide I'm not a stranger to this "tool," called "imagination." Many years ago I formed a group in Middletown known as "The Children's Theater of Imagination." Our group was made up of kids ranging in age from 10 to 14 from both the Wesleyan community and the local town. There were about ten in the group and they practiced storytelling through words and images with the end result being multi-media slide movies. The whole group was involved in creating and acting out the roles while only a few were part of the "road crew" that took the show on the road to local libraries, convalescent homes and daycare centers.

Several years later I formed the troop again in Provincetown with children whose parents were members of the Pro Musica chamber musical group, and other kids who were children of artists and summer residents. This informal bunch was mostly created to build a sense of esprit de corps in the children who came from Boston, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts and who only knew each other through their summer contact. In writing a group story, "The Children of Gronicus" or "Toby on Mars," the children were connected to one another through the characters they portrayed in the story. The "Gronican" "adventure" continued each summer for four years, until the children became teenagers and found different interests.

Recently I heard from two of the "kids," (Now in their late 30's) Toby, still in Provincetown and the other major character, Amy, now a single mother of a 13 year old boy. Amy is an elementary school teacher in New Jersey; Amy and her son came to visit last summer and we had a wonderful afternoon reveling in remembered incidents from that past. One thing Amy said to me about the story, "Gronicus" was that as it was being written the children were actually living the fantasy. It helped to know this as I'd wondered over the years what effect the adventure had upon them.

Storytelling then becomes a primary tool in evolving the mechanism of exploring imagination in education. I say storytelling as opposed to writing since it covers both areas and allows those who are uncomfortable with writing to be on equal terms with those who are handy with a pencil.

In an area that is less familiar to me but should also be included here is that vast abstract land of mathematics which is another area wherein perhaps the word story has not been used very often. Yet a mathematical expression is indeed a story in itself with its own topography and features and tells its own tale. Spalter in "The Computer in the Visual Arts" speaks of ". . . the world is the space in which objects are created and moved about. The world is a 3D Cartesian coordinate system with three axes conventionally called x, y, and z. In most 3D programs, multiple views into the world can be opened on the screen simultaneously; 3D programs allow separately stored 3D objects to be brought into a world at any time. . . "

Technology has opened up for us a "separate reality" the world of virtually in which the "real" becomes an analog of itself, existing on "the electroplane" of consciousness, and the "imaginary" becomes real as measured on the surface of a computer screen or visual projection system.  Whether we like it or not, the two planes of existence have come into conjunction, rather we have brought them into conjunction. Now it becomes a matter of how we use them. So too the area of artificial intelligence, whether biological or electronic are fields that have opened up and will grow steadily over the next few years.

Technology has become a tool which continually evolves, from pencil to typewriter to word processor and computer and presents a changing template for the artist and writer to choose from. It seems as if we need to find a "new type" of artist to master the complexities of multi-media. But, we've already seen this kind of individual in artists of the past, the Leonardo DaVincis, Jules Vernes and H.G. Wells. So perhaps we don't need "new types" but better training in the arts and "new sciences" for this and the next generations.

I began to consider how to use "Imagination" as a tool in education. The computer becomes one important device in this adventure in storytelling.  The goals are simple, the development of storytelling skills, graphics, computer graphics and problem solving and the packaging of such material into "stories."

"Method" now becomes a necessary consideration.

• How large a group can one work with?
• At what age should one begin teaching children to tell stories?
• Should children work singly or in groups or both?
• What limitations should be considered?
• What methods of control might be used to keep the group in check?
• How much should technology be used? Or not used? What percentage?

1. In the public schools?
    a. elementary schools?
    b. high schools
    c. college
2. In magnet schools?
3. In private schools?
4. In "special" educational milieus?

I have heard the world imagination used countless times, both in the field of education, in advertising and in politics. Mostly the term is used improperly, apparently for effect but without much depth.  The meaning of imagination is difficult to pin down; we all know it when we see it in movies such as "The Wizard of Oz," "Star Wars," and other films, and we feel it in many writings from Shakespeare to Hemingway. We "see" imagination in paintings by Breugel or Salvador Dali, or in a Brancusi or Mholy Gnagy sculpture or any of the works of the Bauhaus group of the 1930's.

Yet, in trying to develop a method to teach or explore "imagination" the word itself becomes elusive, elastic and difficult to pin down. I decided therefore to ask various individuals whose creativity I have experienced to define "imagination" for me or to describe some experience of their own involving imagination.

I began with Mel Ash, writer and artist, author of "Shaving the Inside of Your Skull."

"Mel, how would you define imagination? I mean, at what point did your writing begin to connect to some inner source? "

Mel Ash:

"Up to the age of 39 I'd been a professional graphics artist all my life; visually oriented, spatial, color, texture, and I read all the time, mostly the stuff I write about now. But I never considered writing as an option for my art. In meditation one day at the Zen Center something happened to me.

I went to one of the monks and he called it "falling into emptiness," which is a stage you go through, and he laughed. It was a letting go of all conceptual thought, of any attachment to life. It was very depressing and I went into a very deep depression for a while. It was kind of a free fall realizing that nothing really exists without my consciousness. When I'm dead it would all disappear. That was the essential truth of what I was being taught.

He said the solution was that Zen was to attach to form. I fell into emptiness now I detached to form which was to inhabit the world, claim it and forget about the other stuff. So I became really very sexually active after that, aggressively, very materialistic in some ways, enjoying the world, the form, just form and formlessness. During another meditation right after that I found that a part of my brain "lit up" that I'd never known before, some part of me. And I started writing, that day. I couldn't stop writing, and it was good. That writing became my first published book, "The Zen of Recovery."

It was automatic and it was good. It was like a dam had let go. So, something in that process of sitting there quietly just looking at my "shit" had led to this moment of opening. It was like a violence that was done to my consciousness. Then after I wrote that first book, I found that, I don't know if smart is the word for it, but my ability to assimilate information, to put paradoxical ideas together, to weave new concepts, increased exponentially. That happened subsequently. So, when I finished this new book I'm walking around now feeling that my consciousness has expanded in ways that I don't begin to understand. And its really hard to share that with other people.

I think most people arrive at a plateau when they're around 18. I said it in "Skull." They know what they like and the like what they know and they don't want to know anything else. I think that you have to aggressively pursue things that are going to challenge you, that are going to shake up your world, that are going to threaten you, even physically, and keep pushing out. But I don't know where its all going to end.

There was that story in the 60's; I worked in MR (  the field of mental retardation ) for a long time. The story was "Charlie," I believe, where this retarded guy all of a sudden becomes normal for a time, and then he becomes more than normal before he slips back to where he started; it was this big tragedy since his intelligence kept increasing but at the end of the story he went back to being retarded. In some ways its analogous to using your brain and  . . .

The things I've done to do that are just to challenge myself; so now I'm reading stuff that I couldn't have read a couple of years ago, real academic stuff; I just blow through hundreds of pages of it. A year ago I probably would have struggled through it.

So the brain, I think, is a muscle and the physical to the machine is that you reprogram . . .  almost at random,  it will pick things at random, challenge me or pick information that will unsettle me, rather than confirm what I know. That's the closest I can get to it (the genesis of imagination) I believe part of the Zen initiated it.

It's almost like a computer looking at itself when you sit there in meditation for hours, you're looking inside at how your brain works, the thought patterns, and you look for the "I" in the thought -- where is "I" where is "me." And you discover soon enough, if you're good at it, that there is no "I" present, there is no "me" there. That the thoughts are in fact creating your consciousness. And that without this pattern of thought you're not there. Without the stimuli, you're not there.

So you start to walk around not being "there," not really believing in your ego anymore, acting as if. So, at that point anything is possible, because if there is no "me" you just need to restructure your thoughts to create a new conditional "you." I think that this is the borderline area where people lapse into psychosis or schizophrenia, but if you can stay in that zone, anything is possible. This is the "stuff" that I don't put into my books.

That's the dirty secret of Zen, you know, that there is no god, there is no life after death, no reincarnation, there's no "nothing." You're led down to the point where the self is destroyed, that is, your idea of yourself. But then nobody gives you any clue as to how to rebuild that, so you're walking around almost dead to the world. But, there is immense freedom in that, because you're dealing with everyone else who actually believes that they exist, that they can actually affect things, that what they do matters, or that the thoughts they are having are unique to them."

I found in the work and life of Mel Ash, a perspective in life that I could understand, though his path was considerably more dramatic than mine. Abandoned to the streets by his parents at age fourteen Mel fought his battle in his own way to define who he was and to find the path that was right for him. He abandoned public education and walked off into a world wide search for meaning. Eventually he "found" his teacher in India, in a culture far different from the one he grew up in.

Mel Ash and children Ethan and Aeren at the virtual LeBlancWorks

Exploring the "Realm of the Imagination."

The LeBlancWorks came into being as a place where I could design and construct kinetic structures in the tradition of the Bauhaus movement. But, little by little, some friends began to bring their children up to the studio to look at the pieces and then to begin building sculptures of their own. One friend, Heric, a Wesleyan graduate student in physics,  brought his two boys who were both artists in their own right. Mel Ash and his two sons were frequent visitors and son Ethan became a student of mine.

In October The LeBlancWorks in partnership with Heric of Wesleyan sponsored a day long workshop in art and science and in the construction of sculptures made from cast off children's toys. Jeremy and Max became the instructors for the sculpture portion of the workshop and Heric gave a talk and demonstration on the physics of air pressure.

Early in September I was offered a teaching position with a local university to teach computer graphics. Of course i went over to the school to explore the equipment and programs I was to use in the course. I expected to find standard graphics packages such as Adobe Photoshop as a basic tool. Instead I found a classroom that was dedicated to the use of business programs which had little to do with graphics other than charts. The graphics programs which were installed were practically useless for graphic art.

When I reported the "problem" to the department  who reprograms the computers I was told that I should have requested the appropriate material last semester. I started to argue, to tell them that I'd just been hired and hadn't been there the previous semester, but then I realized the counter productivity of that remark and remained silent. I smiled inwardly, recognizing the signs of the "administrative beast," that completely unimaginative creature I'd dealt with for years that seemed to have  little or no compassion.

Taking the situation to my department, the chairperson and her advisors I was met with sympathy but a similar frustration on their part in dealing with said administration. The chairwoman said that they were trying to put together a "lab" but were having problems in appropriating such a classroom. I was heartened by the fact that they were working on the problem too but were stymied by the same "the administrative beast."

Going back to the classroom I was assigned to I tried to explore the existent programs  on the computers, but I realized almost immediately that this was not the right tack to try. I considered installing my own program disks on the machines but found that this avenue was locked out by internal safeguards, of course administered by "the beast."

My first class came up much too quickly and I decided on a policy of honesty. I expressed to my students the problems we were going to encounter and suggested that we cover material in classroom and that they work on individual projects at home, offering my own program disks to those who needed them for their home machines. I told them that we could not follow the direction of the class textbook, albeit that it was a very good book, and that they should use it as a reference.

From the start I told the students that they were going to have more artistic freedom in this class than they'd experienced in any course they'd ever had in the college. At the conclusion of the course they were going to be graded on the quality of their course portfolio which was to visually express "any" interest they might care to express. At first there was confusion and so I instituted a series of exercises to get them going.

Gradually, through a series of lectures I tried to show how much they were influenced by the conventions of society.

One example consisted of asking the students to visualize any painting they'd ever seen. "Do you have a picture in your mind?" I asked. "Yes," they answered. "Fine," I replied, "Now, what color is the frame that surrounds it?"

Students nodded and refocused on their internal image and each had a different reply. "Okay," I continued, "How many of you visualized the picture with no frame?" No hands were raised and they were a bit confused by my thought. "What I'm getting at," I replied is that most paintings are enclosed in a square or rectangle and very few artists have broken through this mold, they've all worked within the box."

Finally there were nods of agreement as they understood what I was trying to show them. Later, during another class when I asked them what they thought the purpose of the class was one student said, "You're trying to teach us to work outside the box."

During the mid semester review when I had each student give a lecture on his or her portfolio there was one student who brought in wire sculptures he'd constructed. The numerous pieces, representing various animals, turtles, salamanders and others were fine pieces of work but I wondered how they connected to the computer aspects of the class. I was about to bring this thought up when I realized that he'd begun working totally outside the box, so I held the comment. Later, at another class meeting I told him and the class of my reaction, that I'd reacted as a "typical" instructor and wanted to put him back into the box. I did suggest though, for the purpose of his portfolio that he photograph his work so that he could use them as representative of his work.

The student commented that he'd done considerable computer graphic work and that he appreciated his having this time to work in other areas which he'd always wanted to explore but never had the time. He thought he would photograph the images eventually and work with them, varying various parameters for different effects.

I was happy with all of the projects and portfolios submitted and realized that each of the students was doing what I'd hoped they'd do and that was to work independently on ideas that were dear to them. One young woman put together a family history of photographs, representing a very valuable gift to her family.

At the present time I'm working with several children, through "The Connection" and also independently with kids who are interested in technology and art. I found there too that I, as the "teacher" was pushing them in directions that I thought best, but then, when I found some of them resisting my advice I decided to listen to them, to see where they wanted to go. "We want to make a store, a computer business," said one young man. I nodded and sat down with him and his partner and made up a list of things that were important in starting said business. Now their motivation was at a high level and no further pushing was needed on my part to motivate them.

I decided quite early in this "research" to say, as honestly as I could, that my review of education is personal, that life and death are personal and that all I am trying to do is understand why many individuals, perhaps including myself, within our culture are not living life to the fullest. There is something missing? As Monica Viti says in Antonioni's film, Red Desert, "There's something wrong with the world and I don't know what it is." Many of us feel that there is a missing ingredient, what is it?

Somehow the perspective that comes with old age, the accumulation of experiential knowledge provides a vantage point to recognize patterns in our civilization;. Through our study of history which we eventually begin to realize is flawed we nevertheless gain an overview.

Yet that's all we have, flawed though it is, the writings of others which provide a vantage point to see more of the whole that we are able to see through our own eyes. Through education over time, though, we become no smarter than we were as children, but we do gain a sense of something called wisdom that provides a new perspective.

Time itself seems to be a major culprit in life. Everything we do revolves around it. How much time do I have? How much time do I have left? Who is in control of "my" time? The clock, that running chronometer seems to meter out our life, telling us when to eat, when to work, love, sleep.

And so it's obvious that they who manage the clock control our lives.

We make choices in life; we have values that shift with our perspective, our experiences throughout time and we accumulate these experiences in memory building up an interlocking data base from which to make new decisions.

Late yesterday afternoon I drove down to the Arden House in Hamden to visit my mother, convalescing from a recent bout with congestive heart failure. As I arrived an attendant was wheeling my mother into a lounge area and I walked along, then sat and tried to open a conversation with my mother. She sat there, apparently disinterested in almost everything. I asked if she'd like to look out the window and she nodded that she didn't care, but as I opened the curtain and a cool wind spread across her face she took a deep breath and I could see that she appreciated the fresh air.

Looking around the room I saw mostly old women, sitting in their wheelchairs or lounge chairs, each staring off in a direction of their own, few talking with each other. I asked mother if she'd talked with any of the people there and she responded that she didn't know them, and by inference wasn't interested in meeting them. She mentioned, in a weak voice, that she wasn't "an old lady" like them. I didn't reply that they were all approximately the same age, but merely smiled, seeming to agree.

I watched them all, as if they were on a stage like some abstract Pinter play, each waiting for something, rather someone to come for them to take them over the edge, to say as Ferlinghetti might, "You have reached your station, descend . . . "

Yet at one table there were visitors with one of the older woman; the visitors, a middle aged woman, perhaps an aunt or grandmother, and her charge, a young boy, maybe six years old. I watched as the boy, without prompting, poured a cup of tea for his great-grandmother "Gran" in the wheelchair, then talked with her and asked her if she wanted to go for a walk.

Gran nodded and the boy released the brakes from the chair and wheeled her off down a corridor. The middle aged woman followed behind them. In a short while they all came back and the youngster asked his "Gran" if she wanted a refill on the tea. She nodded and he did the honors. I noted the attention he paid to "Gran" and the concern he had for her and her comfort. I sensed the process of education going on here, a deep sense of loving commitment by loved ones to one they loved.

Then a tall woman, quite dignified in countenance, came hobbling into the room and settled first in one chair, then another, by the front window. Without asking my mother I told her that I was going to wheel her over to the window so that she could see what was going on at the busy street there. As we "parked" I said hello to the tall woman, introduced my mother and asked the "the tall one" her name and where she lived. I discovered that she had been brought up not far from the City Point neighborhood of my mother and I tried to get mother to begin a conversation, but Mother merely responded as needed and then went back to her quiet reverie.

At a chair nearby a woman, sleeping, carried on a conversation with two young men of her imagination. I watched her legs moving, as if she was walking and I realized that, in her mind she was living a life, perhaps a memory of bringing up children somewhere. Her world now was the landscape of yesterday's images . . .

As I looked around the room at the isolated old women sitting alone, their lives seemingly over, I thought again of the concept of "oneness" that we are all part of the same fabric of life, individual cells in the complex matrix of civilization. Our means of connectivity in the main seem crude; we talk and write, we touch, point, make "eye contact" yet the true meaning of our conversations is open to interpretation; each face is a mask, behind which many hide their true identity.

It would seem to me that our mechanisms of communication should be greater than they are, that we could have a means of talking with each other - mind to mind - directly, instead of through the innuendo of words and actions that we use. Yet, we seem not to have such a mechanism or perhaps may have lost that ability over time.

I said goodnight to my mother, but as I left the room I stopped to talk, for a moment, with the woman and child. I said, "Someone has done some wonderful training here with this child, a fine thing to do." The woman nodded and agreed with me. To the child I held out my hand and said to him, "You're a good man, doing good work." He shook my hand and we nodded as equal colleagues to one another.

On another occasion I sat, eating breakfast, at O'Roark's diner, watching the toddler of one of the waitresses as he waddled back and forth along the aisle. The door of the diner opened and an unkempt bearded- man straggled into the diner for coffee. I thought of how easy it would be to pickup the toddler and cuddle him, yet how repugnant, even the thought, to do the same with the unkempt man. Yet at one time, years ago, the man was a toddler like the one in front of us now, and who knows what the fate of the toddler will be in years to come, he or someone like him will certainly become the unkempt man.

This is all part of this process of education, learning to develop tolerance without resorting to indulgence.

Valuable input from my advisor, Marjorie Rosenbaum

On a relatively warm day in December I visited with my  advisor, Marjorie Rosenbaum and we discussed the ideas that I'd put down on paper and specifically my major reference, John Gatto's "A Different Kind of Teacher." Mrs. Rosenbaum had many points including her observation that Mr. Gatto condems the entire education system of America but ignores the fact that he is also a product of that system.

Mrs. Rosenbaum compared Gatto's study to the work of Ayn Rand and I quickly saw the similarities. Marjorie pointed out that throughout Gatto's condemnation of the American system he made little effort to show any of the positive effects of the system. It is obvious that Gatto has a first class mind, yet this same mind is a product of the same education system that he condemns.

The comparison with Ian Rand's works was not lost on me and I remembered reading "The Fountainhead," "Atlas Shrugged," and other works in my youth. Yet as I grew older it became obvious that Rand's works had a juvenile perspective to them in that she saw the world as black and white with no shades of gray. This was true as well for Gatto's book. Yet, at the same time there was a value to Gatto's words in that it gave us pause to consider "the system" as a whole and to look for ways in which to improve it.

It was over a decade ago that my son Tony died of AIDS. I remember when he asked me to drive him down to New York to pickup "secret" tests he'd had done and the results were positive. I didn't understand then -- didn't know what AIDS was or how it was cured. Certainly every illness today had a solution and I thought this one would be the same, perhaps Penicillin was a cure.

Gradually I became "educated" to the disease that my son was to battle for the next seven years, a battle that he eventually lost, though he never gave up hope that he could win.  Tony's words to me were that he was going to give me an education in life and death that would make me stronger than I ever realized I could be. He was right. That "education" was perhaps the most extensive and painful period in my life. At that time I gained insights into life: mine, Tony's and others that I consider invaluable, yet would trade them in without an eye blink to gain his life back again. Since that is not possible I will have to live with those painfully received "gifts."

Are there other ways of "reinventing" the system without trying to throw it out, which as Professor Gatto has also agreed is not the route to travel?

And I can not overlook my own insights. I was a product of the public education system. How did I manage to get through it and to keep an open, questioning mind? Today I work daily, constructing sculptures, kinetic art, collages, expressing myself in various ways which make my life seem rich and full. How did that happen? Yet, I see a glimmer of an idea, I see the faces of special teachers, individuals who opened doors, or sometimes merely hinted that they might exist. Those "special" teachers worked within the system yet they were not shackled by it. On the other hand, what heavy burden did the system bring to them as they struggled to release the shackles of conformity to their charges?

As a college professor I now have the opportunity to test some theories and I have begun to explore techniques in liberating the imagination of my students, exposing them to the work of writers including Gatto, and others, giving them the opportunity to express their creative energy. So how do they break through those barriers and begin to realize their own personal potential? What knowledge do I give them to show them the way out, and into creative space?

And, on another day, the question is still who and what are we and why do we do what we do?

Questions and more questions

The search therefore is for meaningful questions, specific questions in the area of personal interests. That particular quest which seems like a simple one is more complex than when looked at with a first glance. It becomes a matter of peeling back the layers of one's personality and as Mel Ash in his book "Shaving the Inside of your Skull," extolls, removing much of that material which is extraneous to my needs and desires.

I find that I'm interested in people, who they are, what they are, in the culture of the world and it all interconnects. And this, not from an academic point of view, but from a personal vantage point. Who are we? What are we? and Where are we? In effect reiterating the questions of so many writers like James Joyce in "A Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man" where the boy Steven places himself in time and space by listing his address in the universe.

Education itself, the process of gaining that information on who and where we are in space and time is one of my prime interests, perhaps the main one. I accept the fact that some schools who purported to provide me or "us" with that information were remiss in their methods. I feel that most of those early teachers were well meaning, caring people (teachers) who were often caught up in a system that hobbled their ability to educate and makes them often "baby-sitters" instead of educators.

So then, with that as a given (that schooling is flawed) it becomes a matter of trying to find the "answers" through other means. Again the question arises, "What is or what are the questions themselves?" And, since that becomes a personal matter for each individual then perhaps "method" becomes the prime objective.

Toward the end of this journal I visited with my advisor Marjorie Rosenbaum who presented me with what she feels are the goals and objectives of Connecticut education:

"A Brief Statement of Philosophy and Objectives

"Our aim in Connecticut is to provide in our schools an atmosphere in which we can help to develop complete human beings open, independent, informed who participate in the joy of learning so that they may function effectively in a world of rapid change and make a positive contribution to that world.

"In close partnership with parents and guardians, we must help our students to accept real responsibility for their own learning by their regular attendance and serious involvement in the daily work of the school.

"The education offered in our schools should enable their students to make wise decisions throughout their lives, as individuals, as members of a family, a community, the nation, and the world.

"In order that they may make such decisions, they must learn to think clearly and accurately, to draw valid conclusions from evidence, always appreciating, and building on an awareness and respect for themselves and others.

"Acknowledging that young people differ greatly in their capacities and rates of learning, and that the school must provide for those differences, we must still assist ALL students in the acquisition of necessary skills, knowledge, physical well-being, and self esteem toward the goal of a personally satisfying life."

Marjorie R.D. Rosenbaum

My questions for the teachers were going to revolve around discovering what methods they used to stimulate and provoke their students and to excite their imaginations. I realized that it would be necessary to look at education in both the public and the private sectors as well as alternative methods such as Upward Bound, Mentoring, Magnet Schools and other means of educating. I remember years ago hearing a study about Cuba which spoke of kids teaching younger kids how to read. At the time that sounded like a fine idea; where does it exist in our American culture?

Perhaps it's easy to motivate kids who come from responsive homes but how does one work with the damaged ones, those whose curiosity has been dulled by years of abuse both by parents, society and the schools themselves?

Troubleshooters are needed within the system itself (or maybe outside of it) to find the problems with individuals, locate the blockage and see what techniques might be needed to help the student move beyond them. I was doing exactly this with Jeremy and Max but I also realized how labor intensive this was all becoming. Both kids were now "calling" me daily wanting help with something or other.

I was becoming an important part of the lives of Jeremy and Max. All of the money I was being paid to work with Max was being plowed back into feeding and purchasing "craft" materials for both of them, but I was spending much more than the sum that came in. And one more thing; I liked these kids, what if I didn't? How strong would my motivation to help them be? Or should one not work with kids where there was not a common bond? I quickly realized that the most important factor in both of these kids lives was the support and love of their mothers. I would not be able to have any influence in their lives without that support both for the kids and for my work with them.

Of course I realized that the more questions I asked the more questions were going to be add to my list.

Methods then: What methods does one use to stimulate the imagination? Perhaps the "trick" is to find a common denominator, something that connects the individual to a personal interest.

Straight F's: that's their record. How do you turn that around? How do you capture the interest of two 13 year olds, in 7th grade, failing, wise guys, too "cool" to see themselves for what they are, failures, then now, and always? How to capture their imaginations, that's the question?

Hiking along the falls at Westfield

I began then with Max, assigned to me by "The Connection" to involve him in an after school program, his interest supposedly audio visual. Then Max's friend Jeremy joined us and  we tried several different things including hiking and climbing. Jeremy became interested in the kinetic sculptures I was making and the studio and his interest sparked Max who then wanted to build a sculpture too. Before I knew it there were sculptures here and there around the studio. They wanted to build more but I said that it was time to go home and they could continue the next time.

I left them with the thought: "Take back your education. You own it.  It's yours take it back."

With Jeremy's drive to know and delve into computers I knew I could use that as a prime motivator to bring him out of the "cull de sac" he was headed down. And since Max was following in his footsteps both of them could be helped in this manner. I worked with Jeremy to get his computer back on line and then to show him how he could use it to generate academic reports for school. He was interested and made an effort to put together a report based on a report that the three of us did together. I thought giving them a model was important and that was true. Yet, the motivation to concentrate on the academic subjects didn't change much.

We did another report together on Egypt (went to the Russell Library and took out some books) and I tried to show them the connection between the use of natural, local materials as building blocks in both Egypt and Middletown and both boys helped by taking pictures with the digital camera and putting them into a report. That was okay but still no motivation to do anything on their own.

I knew that I needed to "go deeper" into the technology of computers with Jeremy to break through that barrier that had been set up by years of neglect and "abuse."  I talked with the boys about what we/they had learned from getting Jeremy's computer repaired by a supposed dealer in Middletown, the shoddy work done and the fact that we'd done this without exploring the "credentials" of the vendor. They agreed. "Now," I said, "We're going to try another route. I know a technician who does good work; he works as a designer for my friend Val.

Two days later when Max called me and I drove over to pick them up I said, "Tell your moms that we're going to New Haven." Both boys went inside and got permission and we headed south. I'd called Barry to see if a visit was in order and he told him what I had in mind which was the construction, for me, of a computer to do my sculpture show in the coming spring. I told him that I wanted the two boys, Max and Jeremy, involved in the construction of the unit and every phase of its operation. Barry agreed.

On the way down to East Haven, on impulse, I took a short detour to the home of my friend Jerry, of "Jerry's Pizza" a farm where he kept Emu's, Ostriches, llamas  and other farm animals. The boys were excited to see the animals and wanted, like boys, to chase the llamas.  I warned them against scaring the creatures and the boys obeyed my words. But when we got to the rabbits a change came over both boys and they wanted nothing but to pet the big fuzzy creatures. "I want a rabbit, like I once had," said Jeremy. "Me too, I want one too," added Max. When we went into the main store area where there were supplies and other material the boys were fascinated by the birds.  We stayed for perhaps half an hour and then went on our way.

When we got there, one block from the sea, I stopped at the beach "Cozy Beach" to let the boys savor the sea breeze and the panorama, which to me was life itself. Then we went over to the "shop" which was a combined apartment shop, kitchen, computer center, etc. . . . What a mess.

Barry began to show us what they had there and what they could do and both Max and Jeremy were mesmerized by his words. I told Barry and his partner Robert what I had in mind  for a computer but that the project was contingent upon Max and Jeremy being involved in every phase of the effort and that was agreed upon.

Jeremy told them about his problems with his own computer and then went out to the car to get some spec. sheets he had for computer programming. The two factions had connected. Later, after the arrangement to build the computer had been agreed upon Robert and I talked while Barry showed the boys a new computer game that was a culture simulation, involving as much thought as chess. The kids were fascinated.

We stayed perhaps an hour, then it was time to leave, to stop for supper and let Barry and Robert have their meal too. We stopped at Colonel Sanders for chicken dinners and the kids talked about their visit while I nodded, trying to leave the experience as their own.

As we left the "shop" Jeremy said, "I like those guys. Maybe I could do that kind of work in a couple of years, when I grow up."

After dinner, on the drive back to Middletown from New Haven Jeremy and Max bantered about various kids and teachers at school. I listened but since I didn't know any of the people involved their conversation was almost meaningless to me. Then Max said, "You know, I'm going to do a report on the gods of Rome and Egypt."

"Good idea," I replied, "Some of the gods with animal heads are interesting." Max continued talking but I decided not to push the issue, just to leave it alone and see if he actually did do the report.

Later, out of the blue, Jeremy said, "I think I'll do my homework tonight."

"Good," I said, and left that alone.

Mostly on that drive I kept quiet, not trying to reinforce the visit or to make it into a lecture or anything. The trip spoke for itself and didn't need amplifying from me. But, I was beginning to see some progress . . .

I realized that my work here with these two was important from several standpoints; first was the welfare of the kids themselves; they were caught up in family situations which led only to dead ends; now, if they tried, they might open up some new possibilities for their lives. For my "research" this was an open laboratory where my success or failure would be dramatic. For the sake of the kids I hoped that it would be a beginning for each of them to sort out some of the problems of their lives but mostly it was a time for each of them to gain confidence in areas which they already had some expertise.

I am in the process of finishing up my first semester of teaching at Central Ct. State Univ. and have been asked to teach two additional courses next semester for which I have already agreed. I've asked Jeremy if he'd like to help me develop one of the courses on Web Page design and he's excited about the idea. I don't know if it would be possible to get him out of his school class for a couple of hours a week so that he could spend some time in the classroom at Central but it certainly is a possibility.

Much of my work with these two kids has been involved in rebuilding their images of themselves as valuable people.  So far I've made sure that they know that they have become technicians, artists and teachers.  Convincing them that they are scholars too is a bit more difficult but I'm working on it. In reality the kids haven't quite accepted any of the roles completely but I can see where they're trying the identities on to see if they fit. In the words of an old song, "If you get an outfit you can be a cowboy too . . . "

On Wednesday, after school, I took Jeremy and Max to the Russell Library to do some minor repair work on both boys' sculptures, then we went to Wesleyan to look at artifacts both African and Egyptian for school reports. We took pictures of Jeremy and Max against the wall-sized world pictures of each boy pointing at his section of interest. Then Jim Gutman opened the museum area and we looked for artifacts from Egypt and Africa, finding a few of them and each kid took pictures of the other with the artifact in the background.

Yet, as I was congratulating myself on my small successes with the boys the situation itself was unraveling. I was invited to lunch by the social worker who had assigned me to work with Max. During the meal Tom explained to me that the "contract" with Max was being terminated because he and Jeremy and several other boys had gotten into trouble by breaking the window of a shed in their neighborhood. Now, since the boys had been involved with the courts they were to be dropped, as policy, by The Connection.

"That's ridiculous," I argued. "Now that they're in trouble you want to drop them. Are you asking me to stop working with the kids, to just drop them."

Tom looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I could see that he was embarrassed. "Yes," he said, "Perhaps you could do it over a period of time, but that's our policy."

"It's a lousy policy," I said.

"Well, maybe it is," said Tom, "but that is the policy. I only carry out the mandate."

"Look, I've invested a lot of time, money and effort into these kids and I'm not going to throw them out just because of some administrative policy."

"What else can you do?" asked Tom, "the funding has been stopped as of now."

"Then I'll find other funding, even if it comes from my own pocket. The LeBlancWorks may have to become a social agency as well as a sculpture studio."

"That's probably not a good idea. What about liability?"

"Do you have any other solutions."

"I don't know," replied Tom, "We could look around and try to find another program, maybe the local Mentoring program; that's a possibility."

"Fine, you look," I said, "In the meantime I'll continue to work with the kids."

We finished our meal, shook hands and went our separate ways. On saturday of that week I took the two boys down to Chrystems Computing Inc. in East Haven to spend the entire afternoon and evening working on computers. We returned home late that night and the boys were tired but well versed in the basic construction and installation of computer modules. Now both of them could put a computer together from basic modules.

If I thought that the boys would be eternally grateful for the "gift" of knowledge I was in for a disappointment. The next time that I met with them, one was quite listless and the other was quite hyper and out of sorts. They asked that instead of instruction at the studio that we have an evening of "fun." I thought that perhaps over a pool table I could get them back into gear but unfortunately the pool room that I knew of was now an exercise room.

So I returned the boys back home early that night. What I did discover from casual conversation with them that evening was that they were both on behavior modification medications, not Ridlin but other substances, both boys on different drugs. That was a surprise and I realized at that point that there were many more levels to this business of educating children than I knew.

I took Max and Jeremy with me to the supermarket and had them purchase the makings of our lunch, determining the amounts for the number of people to be fed, the cost, and then had them pay for the food, take it back to the studio and prepare lunch.  I hoped that by doing practical things they would learn something of budgeting and management and some math.

On a Sunday afternoon with friend Mel and his children we had breakfast at the Polish/American club where I began an attempt to show Jeremy what his Polish roots were, what his Polish name meant in English. Jeremy had no idea that he or his name were Polish and so it was a revelation to him, but he didn't seem to want to pursue the subject any further and so I left that aspect alone and we just had breakfast. But the seed was planted and I hoped that someday he'd pursue the idea and find how he was connected in time and space much as I'd done years earlier.

If I thought in my naivety that I had "saved" Jeremy and Max from the "vicious system" then I was wrong. They were still children, and children from shattered homes with anger and frustration as part of their beings, and the thoughtlessness that can be part of childhood. With two other boys they threw rocks at a garage and broke some windows, were caught and put on probation. Jeremy because of his continued absences from school was put onto a lower, highly supervised, special group and his image of himself faltered even more. He can't imagine being promoted out of the seventh grade at this point and feels that no matter what he does in school  he will be kept back.

I met with "The Connection's" representative and they told me that because of this infraction with the law they would be terminating Max's "contract" with them and that I should begin to reduce my contact with the boys and eventually terminate it.

I argued that this was the time when the "kids" needed support the most and that I wouldn't consider "dropping" them but would work harder to help them find their way back into the good graces of the system even if The Connection wouldn't support them or pay me for my services. The representative apologized for having to terminate the boys and agreed to help me find another way to work "legitimately" with the children, possibly with the mentoring program in town. .

Yet it seems that the more I struggle to help Jeremy and Max, the more they resist my efforts and seem almost doomed to settle into the mire of mediocrity. From a conversation between the two boys I learned that they are both on behavior modification drugs, not Ridlin, but other medications that I will have to research. Jeremy says that taking his medication dulls his appetite for food and so he skips the drug most of the time.

I've been with Jeremy in one of his "moods" and he is on "the edge." It is no wonder that in the company of other kids he can be easily led to acts of destruction. But at the same time this boy has a wonderful capacity for working with computers and is a wizard at programming. He looks forward to his computer classes at school and he is changing daily, growing, maturing, though he is still very much a little boy.

Max, on the other hand, is further along emotionally and has a girl friend and is trying hard for the first time in his life to get good grades and find his place in life. So it was a blow to him to be "forbidden" to attend a weekend dance at the school with his girlfriend, even though his attendance has improved and his attitude is on the upswing. .

For my part I I have gained a perspective on  just how complex this process of education and socialization are, and that there are no easy solutions to the problems of obtaining and giving an education to students within the public schooling  system today. Though I don't have any specific answers to the problems in education the journal has provided me with a focus, imagination and its treatment in both the classroom and in alternate education settings.

My mother continues to decline in health, spiraling toward the inevitable, my classes at Central have come to a conclusion and the student reviews of the class were good, I have worked out an arrangement with a small computer company to work with Jeremy, tutoring him in the field of microprocessor construction and programming, Max now has a computer too and will also be tutored along with Jeremy. I will be teaching two courses at Central next semester and need to prepare for them and my agent has arranged for a showing of my sculptures in Harlem in the spring.

Life goes on: Some random thoughts:

Jeremy, who claims he can't read,  is working on a screenplay that he wants to videotape. I watched the boy scan his computer screen and his reading rate was faster than mine. At the present time he's writing a script on the computer. Something is "missing" here. Max has been asked to draw the story board.

Both boys spent a weekend building their computer "store" in the basement of the LeBlanc Studios.

I'm trying to work out a storytelling project that can be used with local groups.

The individual still gets lost in our system of education as the resources necessary to track individuals and to work out their problems both personal and academic are too few to cope with individuals.

I wasn't sure just how to include the realization that both Jeremy and Max are now adolescent boys with the inherent changes in their physical selves and the underlying sexual drives that are coming to bear on their lives.

My experience with Max and Jeremy has been an education in itself. The boys might start out excited by an idea and then get started on it. If the "project" got finished at that time it was fine, but if it carried over they seemed to generally lose interest in the idea. I realized that they had a very short span of concentration. So, many projects were started but not finished. If I pulled them back to any of these projects it was usually done under their objections and their work on it was quite lackluster. Though I'm finding that they will eventually come back to ideas and projects we've discussed on their own if left to their own devices.

I could see how an instructor might easily be frustrated in trying to teach them anything in class and that the more time spent on a given subject the less efficient it would be. Now it became clear to me how a child could go to school for years and not learn how to read even with the instructors most ambitious intentions. I spoke with a local elementary school teacher, asking his advice on how much I should "interfere" with schoolwork. He suggested that I was following the right route by leading them into new territories but said that I should probably leave the actual school subjects to their teachers.

I think I needed to do this journal at this time as a reflection on life, looking back to see that over half a century has passed since my childhood and that the world has changed considerably in that period. There have been cultural, social, psychological and family values in the culture that have shifted which I have not been overly in touch with.

The world as I knew it is but a memory and now we live even beyond the fantasy of  Orwell's "1984." As a 12 year old I rode the "New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad" by myself into New York City, to spend the day exploring subways, automats, planetariums and museums and the streets by myself, without fear of predators. In the city I rode on the El, searched for Coney Island, met artists in Greenwich Village at the fountain where I sat and listened to guitar players. I visited the Hayden Planetarium a lot and my love for astronomy, not the science, but the romance of the stars grew.

My reading habits moved from childhood "fairy stories" to the worlds of H.G. Wells, then Asimov and Clark, and Ian Rand, then Hemingway and my bookshelf grew from "Little Golden Books" to hundreds of volumes including Joseph Campbell, Gunter Grass, and many others.

The movies continued to be a "love" and an escape but now the works of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, the Italian neorealists, and films like Bertolucci's "1900, " Volker Schlondorf's  "The Tin Drum," and movies such as "The Horses Mouth," and "The King of Hearts," occupied the places once held by Lugosi's "Dracula" and Karloff's "Frankenstein."

I went back to New York armed with a camera and photographed the streets, the subways, found interesting textures in run down factories in the SoHo and listened to new poets in the village, then explored the galleries of the city in search of inspiration for my own work.

Even after after all of these experiences I realized that there was still much to learn, yet I found many inconsistencies in my perception of the world. One of these perceptions concerned the field of "education" and the feeling that I'd gained much of my "being" from absorption in the culture of the world. This misconception became visible as I looked at our system of schooling in this country and condemned it as being ineffective and wasteful of time. It's true that our system is far from perfect, yet it is not all that Gatto claims it to be. Gatto, of course, reinforced my original thoughts as to the inadequacies of American schooling and I fell easily into that trap.

I had chosen my advisor wisely and she was there to say, "Stop! Look at what Gatto's saying but also at what he's not saying." And so I rethought the man's ideas, but at the same time revisited my own education and came to the realization that I was the sum total of that education plus my life experiences. That schooling gave me the "tools" to analyze and to explore those other worlds.

I'll probably never forgive Mister R. for making fun of me or my book report in 8th grade but in truth he and a few others were the exceptions to that education. Most of the teachers, including Mister R., (for the most part) provided a firm guideline in the basics of my life, teaching me how to read and write, to do mathematics and to understand some of the mechanisms of the world, and yes, the universe.

I realize now just how complicated my original question was. "Why don't kids come out of school knowing how to read?" The factors are many and defy simple explanations. That Gatto saw part of the problem is true, but that he lost sight of the whole picture probably also true.

But asking my question and indeed going down a "false" trail, based on Gatto's book was also not a wasted effort. Indeed, by the question and the feedback from my advisor and subsequent reevaluation, I've been able to gain that perspective which I needed to move on with my own explorations. I now can also look back and thank the many teachers for their efforts and dedication to tasks, day in and day out,  which is often a thankless tasks.

When disaster strikes

"The Lord of the Rings" opened on a Wednesday afternoon and my friend Michaeleen and I had tickets for the opening show. I sat through the previews and the movie began to roll when my cell phone rang. It was the "Juvenile Matters" board about Jeremy. I spoke with Ms. Maria  Holzberg. supervisory assistant public defender, who told me that Jeremy was having his hearing at the juvenile court and she wanted to know how I was involved with the boy.

I told Ms. Holzberg. that I'd worked with both Jeremy and Max as their mentor through "The Connection" but that I'd been informed that my contract was no longer valid since the boys were now in the hands of the courts.  Ms. Holzberg told me that she would like me to talk with the boy's parole officer and his public defender and so I did. This woman, his defender, said that she was going to recommend that Jeremy be enrolled in an offender program with other boys to meet three times a week. All this for a broken window and missed school days.

My blood ran cold at the thought of this kid, 13,  (going on 10) being "incarcerated" with kids who were involved in more sinister, more worldly matters and I knew that by the end of this "training period" the boy would be harmed, possibly beyond redemption by kids who could teach him their "special" skills.  I'd worked with Jeremy now for several months and I'd gotten to know him quite well. I'd spent time alone with him and seen the "little boy" side of him and I was frightened for that little kid. I'd watched the other side of Jeremy, the computer whiz who lived and breathed computers, who took them apart and put them back together again, who studied C Plus Plus out of curiosity and I respected him as a "technician" in the field.

I sat through three hours of "Lord of the Rings," not enjoying a single moment of it, wishing it were over, and feeling a heaviness in my stomach for this boy, possibly condemned by the system. So when the movie was over I sighed with relief as we headed toward the parking lot. As we entered the lobby, my cell phone rang again and it was once more Ms. Holzberg. We talked and I gave her my thoughts on the problem, and that I didn't think that the suggested program was right for Jeremy and that he was doing reasonably well at the present time. She told me he'd been absent two times during the last ten days and I knew that he'd been sick on one of them and had a court appearance on the other. So his absences, though suspicious in view of his many absences, were, in this case, genuine.

I was invited to come in to the juvenile center and meet with the probation officer and others to discuss the problem. I said I'd be there in ten minutes. I found the building, parked, and found Jeremy in the parking lot. That was a surprise as I didn't know he was going to be there. His mother and little sister were there too and together we went into the building, past a metal detector, with two armed policemen. The small waiting room was filled with adults and juveniles, apparently waiting for a hearing of some sort. (I didn't know, at the time, that a courtroom was behind one of those doors)

We talked with Ms. Holzberg. and I told her what was happening with Jeremy and Max and that I thought that Jeremy would be harmed by the program that was suggested. She asked me to talk with the judge at Jeremy's hearing and I agreed to that. So we had to wait for the hearing to begin. We waited outside in the car and I had a chance to meet with Jeremy's  public defender. She talked about the Juvenile Justice Center program that she was going to suggest, the three day program where Jeremy would be picked up at school and taken by bus to the program.

I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I visualized this gentle kid being put in with a bunch of thugs and the things he might learn over the next few months. And more too: Here was a kid who was a "free thinker." Certainly he was young and a bit on the wild side, but part of that was an unbridled spirit trying to free itself. He was more like a wild colt trying to run free in the wilds. He needed guidance, not controlling straps.

"No," I objected, "That's not a good idea. I don't think such a program is good for the boy at this time. "He's showing results with the program we're working on now and we have plans to involve him in more computer oriented programs. I think the program you suggest may be a good one, but I don't think it fits Jeremy. He's too intelligent and I don't think this kind of program is going to challenge him, only confine and anger him further."

The "officer" argued her point a while longer and then compromised. "What if we stipulated in the court order that Jeremy would not be put into the program unless he violates his parole or is delinquent at school?"

"I could see that," I replied. " I'd like to see his 20 hours of community service done as a Web page designer for the Buttonwood Tree." Jeremy was standing next to us and I mentioned to the woman and to Jeremy that I wondered if Jeremy wasn't trying to emulate his father who'd just gotten out of prison.

Later, inside, Ms. Holzberg asked me what would happen when I stopped working with the boys. I said that I was willing to continue my connection with them for at least the rest of the year and probably longer, perhaps the next two years, if necessary, but that I thought they'd outgrow me sooner than that. (What I hoped was that I'd keep in touch with them for many years to come)

Half an hour later we were called in for the hearing in judge B's chambers and I was invited to sit with the boy and his mother and little sister. It was sad listening to the judge refer to the defendant and to talk about this boy as if he were a hardened criminal and again my stomach tightened. The charges were read off, the breaking of the window by the boys, his absences from school, and all the legal terms used in conjunction with the offense. We were no longer talking about a boy or even a human being but an offender.

Since this was my first time in court I could only listen while the judge asked the boy if the offenses were valid and did he wave his right to a trial and his rights to this and that and every other thing. I felt as if I were trapped in a nightmare world of Kafka, in a room with no doors or windows and there was no way out.

Jeremy was asked a series of questions designed to make him realize that he was at the mercy of the court, having given up his right to a trial, and all rights for that matter. Jeremy answered these questions quietly, almost professionally, using the word "Yes sir," at the end of each sentence. Finally the judge read the verdict of the court with Jeremy's parole of six months and the conditions agreed upon. He was told that he would have to submit to drug testing periodically and submit a urine sample upon the request of his parole officer. Jeremy was sitting directly in front of me and I kept seeing him in relationship to this court and visions of "To Kill a Mockingbird" flashed through my thoughts.

The judge agreed to the terms including the hold off on Jeremy's commitment to the group program with the proviso that he not violate his parole and do his 20 hours of service with the Buttonwood tree. He was also ordered by the judge to continue regularly with his regimen of behavior modification medication which Jeremy had said to his defender causes him to lose his appetite-- a "catch 22" situation. Also, if Jeremy were to be absent or suspended from school he was to consider himself under "house arrest" and was not to leave his place of residence. Curfew set by parent.

There were numerous places along the way that I wanted to raise my hand to interrupt the proceedings and to question the entire process that was going on, but I was a stranger here, more an observer than a participant, or so I felt, and I didn't want to make any errors here, to damage Jeremy or his situation any further than it was already damaged.

We left the courtroom,  I with a lump in my stomach. I spoke with Ms. Holzberg. and asked if we could meet at another time to discuss things in general, meaning kids and the law.

We then went into an office with Jeremy's new parole officer, Rob,  where the terms of the boy's parole were then clarified and a form made out with the terms of parole on it.  I was given a copy of that form. At the end of the form there was a statement that read: "I have read and understand the above orders. If I fail to obey these orders, I can be placed in detention, convicted as delinquent and committed to the Department of Children and Families for out of home placement including Long Lane School."  I shuddered at the thought of this "baby" at Long Lane School . . .

Jeremy went home with his mother and sister. I returned to my studio and met with a friend who was doing some cleaning for me. Twenty minutes later Jeremy called and I agreed to meet him and have supper, then visit the Buttonwood Tree and set up the twenty hours of community service. We ate, then drove out to visit Jennifer of the Buttonwood Tree and her husband and two boys. We sat at their computer screen while the nature of the Web site project was discussed. Later, after Jeremy had agreed to do the site, we had milk and cupcakes that Jennifer had made and I drove Jeremy home.

Finally I was able to drive home, passing up the opportunity to drive to New Haven and visit my ailing mother in favor of a few  hours of quiet time at home before bedtime. I sat for a few moments in my living room chair and let my breathing get back to "normal" before making these few journal entries. I realized how important Ms. Holzberg had been in Jeremy's case. By calling me in to the hearing she had opened a window for Jeremy, giving him another, almost last chance, to be sure and I had a great deal of respect for this woman who was formerly our mayor.

So too the "new" parole officer, Rob, was a decent sort who I could see would be helpful in any problems that might come up regarding Jeremy. I was determined to contact him in the next few days to see how I might interface with the school and learn what was necessary for both boys to accomplish to pass into the next grade  . . .

At that point I closed my eyes and slept for a few hours. When I awoke just beyond midnight I came back to the keyboard to add a few more words to this document and to reflect on the revulsion I felt for the way children are treated in this culture. It was all part of the material I needed to understand the culture, the confusion of the times, the lack of a sense of compassion. Yet I could see something of Mister Gatto's arguments about education in effect here. I had had the opportunity to look into the center of the courts, the lawyers, the vast, complex and expensive "machinery" that provided a living to many and was a basic cornerstone of this civilization.

I'd had my first foray into a new landscape, much like the fantasy of "The Lord of the Rings," and it had frightened me. Fortunately my nerve had held up and I think we'd managed to salvage Jeremy's skin, even though this whole adventure had created another, for