From the Archives: Arlington schools need history bridge (1996)

This article appeared in The Washington Times on December 4, 1996, under the headline "Arlington schools need history bridge." At the time, I was serving on the Social Studies Advisory Committee for the Arlington County Public Schools. The committee monitored and made recommendations about the teaching of history, government, economics, sociology, and other social sciences in elementary, middle, and high schools.

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In his 1978 essay, "Teaching History Backwards," Ernest Lefever noted that "most high school seniors probably know more about ancient Greece and Rome and the voyages of Columbus than about the recent events that have shaped the outlook of their parents."

Mr. Lefever went on to say that learning history "is vital for any people. It is especially so for the United States, which is a democracy, a superpower, and the leader of the free world. The exercise of U.S. power and influence or the failure to exercise it has global reverberations. A responsible American citizen must understand this and must also be aware of the external dangers that threaten our freedom or that of our allies."

Rick Sincere and Ernest Lefever

The global scene has changed tremendously in the past 20 years - symbolized vividly by the fall of the Berlin Wall - but this perspective is still valid today.

To address the problem of how the recent past affects our present more saliently than the distant past, even while schools often fail to teach about recent events, Mr. Lefever suggested "teaching history backwards," starting with the past 30 years, then moving on to more distant developments that have affected the United States and world affairs.

For the past several years, the Social Studies Advisory Committee has recommended that the Arlington Public Schools add a fourth year of social studies to the required high school curriculum.

Specifically, we have recommended that a second year of world history be offered in grade 10, largely to compensate for the phenomenon that many of us have experienced - one year of world history is simply too short to cover all of the developments in the 20th century. We commonly experience this as "not getting past World War II" in a typical history course.

Arlington schools now face an additional problem: The new state Standards of Learning require an assessment at grade 11, which may become a barrier to graduation, just like the "literacy passport." We felt that something should be done to prepare our students for that test in a way that also would fulfill our long-held desire for a fourth required course in social studies.

In response, the curriculum development staff has recommended a new 10th-grade course called "The World Since `The War to End All Wars.'" This staff proposal, which has been forwarded to the School Board for final approval by Superintendent Arthur Gosling, meets the criteria set by the Social Studies Advisory Committee. The course is precisely what our committee members had in mind when we made our repeated recommendations for a fourth year of social studies. As envisioned, it combines history, geography and political science and brings students up to date in regard to the important events and trends of our own era.

A course like this builds a conceptual bridge to the 21st century and helps students find a common language to communicate with their parents and grandparents, who lived through these events and trends.

Some parents and students object to this change in the curriculum - which would begin in the 1998-1999 school year - because it reduces elective opportunities for students, particularly art or music courses. True, the number of electives available during 10th grade would fall from three to two, but the negative impact - if there is any at all - would fall on students taking social studies electives, primarily psychology (359 students), sociology (173), advanced placement European history (143) and economics (25). Out of 1,100 10th-grade students, only a few dozen - if any at all - would have to forgo art or music classes.

One reason the School Board is considering this curriculum change now is precisely to give fair warning to parents and middle school students that in two years they will have to meet this new requirement, and that they should plot out their course of electives with this in mind. Those desiring to take art, music or advanced placement European history can plan on taking them in later grades, or can use one of the other two 10th-grade elective slots for these courses.

If the Virginia Board of Education makes the 11th-grade social studies assessment a barrier to graduation, but the School Board fails to make this curriculum change, we could face major problems down the road. Should any Arlington students fail the test because no preparation was available in 10th grade, our whole school system will be poorer for it.

In designing this new course and considering all other options, the staff aimed for minimal disruption to the current curriculum, as well as the lowest cost to taxpayers.

The new 20th century history course is being added to the high school program of studies with almost surgical precision, designed to meet both state-mandated requirements and the desire of Arlingtonians to prepare our students from the classes of 2001 and beyond to be better, more informed citizens.

* The writer is co-chairman of the Social Studies Advisory Committee for Arlington Public Schools.

From the Archives - 'Teaching Geography: A Valuable Enterprise' (1997)

I first wrote about this topic in the late 1980s. This article appeared in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot on April 7, 1997, under the headline "Teaching Geography: A Valuable Enterprise."

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Lord Chesterfield, the 18th century English statesman, once remarked: "The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveller.''

Healy Tower, Georgetown University

When I was a child in elementary school, my teachers insisted that my classmates and I draw maps of all the major countries and regions of the world. Being all thumbs when it comes to handling a crayon or pencil, my grades were always low, mostly Cs. Nonetheless, I learned geography: I learned where things are and the relationship of one thing to another.

Today's students are apparently not being taught where things are. The serious teaching of geography in the schools seems to have disappeared. This is distressing.

For example, a few years ago at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University - America's premier institution for the teaching of international affairs, alma mater of President Bill Clinton - almost a third of the brightest and most competitive freshmen in the school's history failed a basic geography test, even after taking a one-credit course in the subject. Earlier, of the 225 students who tried to test out of the course, only 23 passed, and of those, 16 were not U.S. citizens.

The questions on this exam were not difficult, but basic: What is the capital of China? Where is the Persian Gulf? Who are the two main ethnic groups of Cyprus? Through what countries does the Danube River flow?

Other, similar tests and surveys show similarly disturbing results. Many high school students tested a couple of years ago could not find the United States on a world map, a good fraction pointed to Brazil as the answer.

The consequences of this ignorance are grave. As Georgetown Dean Charles E. Pirtle put it, "How can we expect our students to understand news reports out of the Persian Gulf when they don't know where it is, much less where Kuwait, Bahrain and the Straits of Hormuz are?''

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick notes that "many of our most bitter foreign-policy disputes are a direct consequence of the fact that Americans decided sometime not to study geography anymore. It is impossible to think sensibly about foreign affairs without knowing what is where.''

Jeane Kirkpatrick photo by Rick Sincere

Ambassador Kirkpatrick explains: "In foreign policy, geography is destiny. What gives the U.S. a vastly different stake in Nicaragua than in, say, Burundi? Burundi is my example of a very remote place. I have been there, and I can testify that it is a very remote place. I do not think we should be indifferent to the hardships of its people, but I do believe that Burundi is less important to us than Nicaragua. The difference is rooted in geography.''

Knowledge about the static facts of geography - as real estate brokers say, "location, location, location'' - is important because other social factors can be so fluid and dynamic. When Ambassador Kirkpatrick commented on the differences between Nicaragua and Burundi, a Marxist regime in Nicaragua was threatening the security of the United States and its allies in the Western Hemisphere. Today, Nicaragua is free (if still troubled) while Burundi is amidst a maelstrom of conflict and pestilence that includes refugee flows, civil war in neighboring Zaire and Rwanda and endemic ethnic violence. Yet without knowing the facts about these countries - territorial size, population, economic products and neighbors - we cannot wisely judge the importance of recent changes and coming trends. As citizens, we cannot make well-grounded decisions about U.S. policy toward these places.

The new standards of learning and standards of accreditation for Virginia schools include a renewed emphasis on geography (among the other social sciences). The new standards suggest strongly that geography be taught in grade 10, although the Arlington public schools have a nationally recognized, model program that requires geography in grade 8. The Arlington sequence is more logical than the state's version, because teaching geography in eighth grade girds students with the conceptual tools and facts they need to learn world history, economics and other high school subjects. Every Arlington student I have encountered remembers the geography course fondly, and all agree that it definitely prepared them for future studies.

The task of other Virginia schools is clear: Reintroduce geography teaching as a separate discipline with an emphasis on facts. Children should be able to name the state capitals at an early age, the capitals of foreign countries soon afterward, and by high school should be able to fill in the blanks on a world map, naming oceans and rivers, mountain ranges and islands, cities and nations. Should we expect less?

Memo: Richard Sincere is co-chair of the Social Studies Advisory Committee for Arlington Public Schools.

From the Archives: Beloit College identifies political touchstones for 2012’s college freshmen

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 21, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Beloit College identifies political touchstones for 2012’s college freshmen

Beloit College – not far from presumptive GOP vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville – has released its latest “Mindset List” of cultural touchstones that are lost on the incoming college class this year, whose members intend to graduate in 2016.

The list includes pop-culture references – for instance, number 10, “On TV and in films, the ditzy dumb blonde female generally has been replaced by a couple of Dumb and Dumber males” – and sports references, such as number 19, “The Green Bay Packers have always celebrated with the Lambeau Leap.”

Daily life

The list also features items and activities from daily life that have changed since 1994, the year most freshman college students of 2012 were born.

Take number 9: “They have never seen an airplane ‘ticket.’” Or number 30: “There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones.”

The 2012 Mindset List also contains several political notes that demonstrate how things have changed – or not – in the past 18 years.

Statesmen and -women

There’s number 8: “Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge.”

Or number 12: “For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department.”

Some references might seem obscure, like number 24: “White House security has never felt it necessary to wear rubber gloves when gay groups have visited.”

In the category of “the more things change, the more they remain the same,” Beloit College offers number 32: “Newt Gingrich has always been a key figure in politics, trying to change the way America thinks about everything.”

And, a thought that may be shared among many of there elders, there is number 66: “They have no recollection of when Arianna Huffington was a conservative.”

The introduction to this year’s list notes that “each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The creation of Beloit’s former Public Affairs Director Ron Nief and Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride, authors of The Mindset Lists of American History: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think Is Normal (John Wiley and Sons), it was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references. It quickly became an internationally monitored catalog of the changing worldview of each new college generation.”

From the Archives: 'Don't Let the Feds Be Thought Police'

This article was originally published in the Roanoke Times & World News on April 9, 1991, under the all-caps headline "DON'T LET THE FEDS BE THOUGHT POLICE." It was written in response to legislation that had been introduced by long-time Congressman Henry Hyde, who died in 2007 after 32 years representing Illinois's sixth congressional district.

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I AM AS close to a free-speech absolutist as anyone can imagine. I believe that the survival of a liberal, democratic society depends on broad application of First Amendment protections for speech, assembly, religion and the press.

But I disagree with a bill introduced by Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois, the Collegiate Speech Protection Act of 1991. The act would prohibit any private college or university that accepts federal money from making or enforcing "any rule subjecting any student to disciplinary action solely on the basis of speech or other communication" that the First Amendment normally protects from government restrictions.

One impetus for Hyde's bill was Brown University's expulsion of a student for shouting anti-Semitic, anti-gay and anti-black epithets in a college courtyard in the middle of the night. This incident has been widely misinterpreted as punishment for the student's speech or ideas, rather than his rude and uncivil behavior. On other campuses, sanctions have been used against students and faculty for the expression of "politically incorrect" ideas.

Hyde relates his bill to the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, which says the federal government can regulate any and all aspects of a college's operations if it accepts federal funds directly (in the form of research grants, for instance) or indirectly (by accepting tuition payments from students receiving federal scholarship aid).

Under these criteria, only Grove City College in Pennsylvania and Hillsdale College in Michigan would be exempt from the new law; they alone refuse, as a matter of principle, to take financial aid from the U.S. government.

The First Amendment does not prohibit private individuals or entities -- parents, corporations, churches, fraternal associations, colleges or newspaper publishers -- from restricting speech or expression of those in their employ or under their contol. It only applies to government.

Speech-suppression codes, now all the rage on U.S. campuses, are generally a bad idea. They are broadly and vaguely written, poorly administered, and serve to undermine the very cause they seek to advance -- deterring speech and behavior offensive to minorities defined by race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Moreover, the codes inhibit robust discussion of controversial and discomforting thoughts in the environment best suited for free-wheeling discourse.

Far worse than well-intentioned but nebulous standards of "political correctness," however, is the idea of extending the reach of the federal government to regulate the content of speech at private educational institutions.

Non-public colleges and universities are private, voluntary associations that should be able to set their own standards of civility and demarcate their own boundaries of acceptable behavior. Their members -- students, faculty and staff -- are free to leave if they disagree with those standards.

A "religious exemption" in Hyde's bill for denominational colleges acknowledges this, but too narrowly. Why should a church-related college be allowed, say, to prohibit a public lecture on the theory of evolution while a non-sectarian institution, no doubt animated by an integrated educational philosophy all its own, be barred by law from prohibiting a lecture on creationism?

We should not expand the realm of government interference in the private lives of citizens and their freely formed associations. The only thing more fearsome than self-anointed campus leaders taking on the raiments of thought police is federal bureaucrats doing the same.

AUTHOR NOTE: Richard E. Sincere Jr. is an Arlington writer and member of the Libertarian Party of Virginia.

PVCC's 2011 Commencement Exercises at UVA's JPJ

After a fast-moving thunderstorm drenched the afterparty of last year's outdoor commencement ceremonies at Piedmont Virginia Community College, a new, indoor venue was sought and found.

It turns out, however, that the first choice -- University Hall -- became unavailable two weeks before the scheduled May 13 (that's Friday the 13th,, by the way) and a back-up plan became necessary.  Fortunately, the John Paul Jones Arena had no bookings that night, and PVCC officials worked quickly to adapt their seating and platform arrangements to the JPJ space.

Strategically placed black curtains set off most of the JPJ, permitting PVCC's 38th annual commencement exercises to be held indoors but without getting lost in the cavernous basketball arena's vastness.

About 400 students were awarded degrees of certificates, cheered on by family, friends, and teachers.  They heard speeches from Fifth District Congressman Robert Hurt (R-Chatham) and from graduating student Shagun Adhikari, who came here from Nepal to earn two degrees, one in computer science and the other in engineering, with plans to continue his studies at the University of Virginia.

PVCC president Frank Friedman, board chair Suzanne Morse Moomaw, and vice presidents John Donnelly and William Jackameit also offered brief remarks, as did Sasha Gong, a member of the State Board for Community Colleges.  Voice student James Tubbs sang the national anthem, as he did last year, and the Charlottesville Municipal Band offered a musical prelude and accompaniment to the processional and recessional.  (Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" for the former, naturally.)

After the ceremony, I was able to interview Congressman Hurt for Examiner.com.  His answers to my questions resulted in two articles, "U.S. Representative Robert Hurt discusses eminent domain and redistricting" and "Robert Hurt answers questions on pending legislation and the Constitution."

After I finished, Hurt faced the cameras from Jessica Jaglois of the Newsplex and Derick Waller of NBC29.

The Daily Progress also has a report on the commencement ceremony.

Here are video highlights of the occasion, in four parts.

Part I features the procession of faculty and graduates, plus the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Part II has PVCC President Frank Friedman's welcome and demographic topology of the graduating class, and Sasha Gong's brief words.

In Part III, Congressman Robert Hurt delivers his commencement address, after an introduction by Suzanne Morse Moomaw.

Part IV starts with vice president for instruction and student services John Donnelly's introduction of student speaker Shagun Adhikari, followed by closing comments by vice president for finance and administrative services William Jackameit, and a final benediction done call-and-repeat style by Mr. Adhikari.

Note:  After last year's ceremony, I interviewed Virginia Secretary of Education Gerard Robinson and Delegate Rob Bell.

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Celebrating Donn B. Murphy's Career in Video

Last October, Georgetown theatre alumni from across the decades gathered on the Hilltop to celebrate the more-than-half-century-long career of Dr. Donn B. Murphy, who celebrated his 80th birthday earlier this year and is now retiring after some 35 years as president of the National Theatre in Washington.

Dr. Murphy not only taught theatre at Georgetown beginning in 1955, he was theatre at Georgetown.

When I arrived at Georgetown as a freshman in 1977, Dr. Murphy was no longer artistic director and faculty advisor to Mask & Bauble, but his influence was felt strongly in Poulton Hall and wherever Georgetown students decided to mount a performance.  Having heard all the terrific stories told about him as a teacher, I now regret not taking a theatre class as an undergraduate.

What sparked this blog post today was an article about Dr. Murphy in Wednesday's Washington Post by Jane Horwitz, which begins:

Donn B. Murphy is a man of the theater in every sense. As the National Theatre's president and executive director since the early 1980s, he has hobnobbed with such stars as Helen Hayes and Cherry Jones. Katharine Hepburn offered to paint the National's ceiling, he says.

Murphy also taught theater to five decades of Georgetown University students before retiring in 1999. Two alumni, director Jack Hofsiss and playwright John Guare, went on to win Tony Awards. At the end of the month, Murphy, who turned 80 in July, will step down from his posts at the National, though he'll remain on the theater's board.

Horwitz goes on to note:

Former students celebrated his birthday with a weekend of tributes at Georgetown in October, including panel discussions looking back his teaching career.

The tributes, viewable on YouTube, show a common thread: Murphy encouraged students to try the impossible. "Astonish me," he would say when they worried that they'd taken on too big a challenge. How to create a battering ram for a play at the last minute? Just hold three students up horizontally, and make them the battering ram.

Her mention of the videos on YouTube made me realize that, although I was behind the camera that day and posted the videos on a dedicated YouTube channel ("DBMat80video") a few weeks later, I hadn't written anything about the weekend here, nor had I posted a link to the videos or embedded them in an easy-to-find place.

Now I will.

There were three panel discussions during the afternoon of October 23. Those are currently on YouTube in several segments. That evening saw an entertaining series of tributes to Dr. Murphy, which included musical selections from various "Calliopes" -- the original, student-written musicals -- from over the years (including Senior Prom, discussed in Horwitz's article in the Post). The videos from the evening remain to be edited (my fault entirely) and will be posted on YouTube soon.

The panel discussions, which are about three hours long altogether, are very much an oral history of theatre at Georgetown since 1955.  

The first panel features several Georgetown alumni who have made a career in the performing arts: Louis Scheeder of New York University's Tisch School for the Arts moderated the panel, which included director Joe Banno; New York-based actress Victoria Bundonis; scenic designer Tony Cisek, Chicago-based director/producer Chris D'Amico; Tony Award-winning director Jack Hofsiss; Gus Kaikkonen, artistic director of the Peterborough Players; and Robert McNamara, cofounder of the Scena Theatre in Washington. This panel has four segments.

Panel I, Part 1:


Panel I, Part 2:


Panel I, Part 3:


Panel I, Part 4:

The second panel, also divided into four segments, features several Georgetown alumni who have become playwrights and writers, or who have participated in the Donn B. Murphy One-Acts Festival. It is moderated by Karen Berman and Susan Lynskey.

Participants are: Gus Kaikkonen, artistic director of the Peterborough Players; journalist and non-fiction author Robert Sabbag; children's and young adult novelist Rachel Vail; playwright Paul Notice; Georgetown senior and playwright Miranda Rose Hall; and playwright Jerry Mayer.

Panel II, Part 1:


Panel II, Part 2:


Panel II, Part 3:



Panel II, Part 4:

The third panel ran a little longer than the others and consequently is divided into six segments.

It focuses on Calliope, for the better part of two decades Georgetown's tradition of creating and producing original musical theatre. Introduced by Lynne McKay, it is moderated by Donn B. Murphy and Donna Scheeder.

Participants are alumni Bill Bremer, Tim Fischer, John Gore, Jack Hofsiss, and Bryan Williams, and current student Meghan McCormick, as well as members of the audience who shared their own reminiscences, anecdotes, and recollections.

Panel III, Part 1:


Panel III, Part 2:


Panel III, Part 3:


Panel III, Part 4:



Panel III, Part 5:


Panel III, Part 6 (Conclusion):

Watch for more videos from the DBM@80 celebration to be posted here -- soon, I hope!

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Graduation Day at PVCC

Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) held its 37th annual commencement exercises on Friday, May 14.  Nearly 500 students became alumni at a hilltop ceremony that ended just in time for a harsh thunderstorm to blow across the Charlottesville area; the first raindrops fell within minutes of the end of the recessional and the beginning of the punch-and-pinwheel reception under tents near the college's main academic building.

Virginia's new secretary of education, Gerard Robinson, was the featured graduation speaker.  Robinson is himself an alumnus of a community college (El Camino Community College in California) and he also has a bachelor's degree from Howard University and a master's degree in education from Harvard.  Before taking on his responsibilities as a member of Governor Bob McDonnell's cabinet, Robinson was president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), a national organization advocating family choice in education.

The student speaker at the ceremony was Joshua Robert Mlcoch of Lovingston in Nelson County, who earned two degrees from PVCC -- one in liberal arts, the other in computer science.  Acknowledging the threatening weather, Mlcoch began his remarks by saying, "I come with thunder and lightning."

The commencement ceremony began with the national anthem, sung by PVCC student James A. Tubbs:

Secretary Robinson was introduced by J. Walter Levering, chair o the Piedmont Virginia Community College Board. Robinson was an ideal graduation speaker, as his remarks lasted only about 8 minutes.

Joshua Mlcoch was introduced by Dr. John R. Donnelly, PVCC's vice president for instruction and student services. Donnelly noted how impressed he was by Mlcoch's ubiquity on the PVCC campus and remarked upon similarities between himself and the student speaker. Mlcoch also kept his speech short, a model for such addresses, regardless of whether the weather is threatening or not:

NBC29 has a short report on the PVCC commencement here. Saturday's Daily Progress report is here, and the Newsplex report, including video, is here.

UPDATE, June 2:  My interview with Virginia Secretary of Education Gerard Robinson is now available for reading on Examiner.com.




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'Ave, Greenwald': MUHS Latin Teacher Retires

Thanks to Google Alerts, I learned today that Mr. James Greenwald, who has taught Latin at Marquette University High School (my alma mater) since 1968, is retiring as of the end of this academic year.

Jim Stingl writes on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel web site today:

Greenwald is retiring from Marquette High after 41 years. He was 25 years old when he arrived at the school in 1968.

"When I started there, every freshman had to take Latin. But that was the last year of that. Then it stabilized at about two classes of Latin I, two classes of Latin II, and one or two advanced," he said.

Many schools have dropped Latin over the years, favoring instead foreign languages such as Spanish and German that you're likely to encounter around here. Milwaukee has just one public school, Rufus King, that still teaches it; it's more common in the suburbs.

I asked this hometown Mr. Chips to make his best case that Latin matters.

"I would say it's no longer the argument that you learn Latin grammar, you learn English grammar, although that's true to a degree. I think it's more a matter of learning the ancient world, mythology, history, derivation of words - that's something I've worked very, very hard at," he said as we spoke in his kitchen last week.

Although I never had the pleasure of being taught Latin by Mr. Greenwald, I had the nearly unique experience of playing him on stage.

In the November 1976 production of Blazing Seniors, the Class of '77's Senior Follies, a musical revue whose conceit was that each scene was a different period of the school day, from homeroom to dismissal, I played Mr. Greenwald as both Latin teacher and Astronomy Club faculty advisor. Note from the two nearby photographs how we dressed alike. (I'm the one in the color photo, with space aliens.)

In our scene, Mr. Greenwald lamented to his class that he had seen a UFO but nobody believed him. (His/my song: "Hey, Has Anybody Seen My Neat UFO?", a parody of the Tony Orlando pop ditty, "Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose?")

It was for this show -- the one that caused me to fall in love with the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd -- that I memorized what Monty Python's Flying Circus had identified as the world's most lethal joke, in Latin:

Erant duo homines.
Primus vir dixit, "Meus canis habet nullam nasem."
Alius vir rogavit, "Quomodo olfacit?"
Primus vir respondit, "Atrociter!"

(If you need a translation, you should have taken Latin in high school!)

In his profile article, the Journal-Sentinel's Stingl quotes one of my classmates at Marquette High:

George M. Schimmel, now a lawyer in Milwaukee, a profession still relying on Latin phrases, graduated from Marquette High in 1977 with four years of Latin under his belt.

He remembers Greenwald as a fair and helpful teacher, and said that back then his folks used to invite Greenwald to their home every Thanksgiving for dinner....

Greenwald said he has spotted a rather arrogant T-shirt out there that says, in Latin, "If you can read this, you're too smart."

It seems odd to say about a language one would study, but "you didn't have to speak it. That's one of the good things. I remember translating 'Winnie the Pooh' from Latin," Schimmel said.

Even Greenwald himself does not converse in Latin except haltingly on rare occasions.

Schimmel said Greenwald also turned him on to astronomy. "Because of him I own three telescopes," he said.

Greenwald will ponder the stars in his retirement. And he wants to study Greek.

Marquette plans to fill his spot. Think there aren't many Latin teachers out there anymore?

"They had 40 applicants," Greenwald said.

That's good news. There's still a place for classics in the 21st century.



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On the Columbine Anniversary

The past decade has seen many events that have overtaken most of our memories about the shocking massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999, precisely ten years ago. USA Today has a report on the commemorations taking place:

Tributes began Sunday evening with a candlelight vigil at the native Colorado stone monument in neighboring Clement Park, where the community left impromptu memorials in the days after the shooting. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter ordered flags to fly at half-staff Monday. A formal commemoration begins at 5 p.m.Monday at the Clement Park Amphitheater.

"We cannot allow the lessons of this tragedy to fade with the passage of time," Ritter said in the statement.

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings at Columbine, I wrote an article for The Metro Herald, which appeared in its edition of April 30, 1999. In retrospect, I might have written something different, and I would not have had just this same reaction if these events happened last year or last month or last week.

We have learned more about Columbine itself, and we have experienced similar school shootings -- such as the one two years ago at Virginia Tech -- that have provided still more questions and more material for study, and thus for learning better techniques for prevention and response. Police tactics are different today because of Columbine, for instance.

Those caveats aside, much of the piece holds up after ten years, so I am republishing it here and welcome comments.

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON RANDOM VIOLENCE
Richard E. Sincere, Jr.
Special to The Metro Herald

Crime stories in the news seldom merit my attention. Yet the story of the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20 has kept me transfixed in front of my TV for days. The drama has been preternaturally compelling. The shattering news from Littleton has evoked hours upon hours, page upon page of reporting, analysis, speculation, and bewilderment. A book would be necessary to reply to all of the commentary on the shooting and its aftermath. (No doubt not just one book, but several, will be on sale soon, with movies and TV shows to follow.)

It is difficult to keep silent in the face of such tragedy. Although my preference would be to provide a comprehensive, coherent essay—and may still do so—what follows are some random thoughts about random violence.

We have heard that the mayhem at Columbine High School demonstrates that our culture is corrupt and depraved. This is simply not so. Precisely the opposite is true. What happened in Littleton was the work of two individuals (perhaps with accomplices), not that of our culture or our society. Two facts are important here. First, events like that of April 20 are exceedingly rare in the United States. There are more than 40 million children in school, and less than 10 percent of them will ever be affected by or observe violent acts of any sort in their schools. Rarity makes us take notice. Second, we have almost universally reacted to the Littleton killings with horror, disgust, and grief. The abnormality of the event, plus our proper reaction to it, provide irrefutable evidence that our culture is strong, that our society and we as individuals still possess a profound sense of right and wrong.

We have heard that school killings like this do not happen "anywhere else," that America is almost unique in experiencing such things. Sadly, this is not true, either. In other countries, such occurrences are all too frequent. In Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, events like this have taken place regularly and with more vicious cruelty. The difference from America, of course, is that there the massacres are carried out by governments or by those who want to control the government. The only comparable acts by the U.S. government since the end of the Indian Wars in the nineteenth century were the destruction of the home of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, in 1993, and of the MOVE rowhouses in Philadelphia a few years before.

We have heard that the Littleton massacre shows the need for more stringent gun control. Once again, a tragedy is being used by those who want to see the state extend its control over the lives of individual citizens. This is misguided, wrongheaded, and exploitative. It is easy to say that we must do it "for the children," but how do those children benefit if their rights as adults are circumscribed and violated by the time they grow up? Previous generations have spent their childhoods in a climate in which guns were pervasive. The difference was that children in those days were taught both to respect their weapons and to respect other people.

A retired police chief noted in a letter published in the Wall Street Journal that the problem at Columbine was that "only the bad guys had guns." Columnist Vin Suprynowicz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal points out that "in Israel, teachers and parents who serve as school aides go armed at all times on school grounds, with semi-automatic weapons. Since this policy was put into effect, terrorist attacks in Israeli schools have dropped to zero. The only recent exception was the tragic case of a group of schoolchildren who were murdered by an Arab gunman as they visited the 'Zone of Peace' on the Jordanian border. The Jordanians specifically requested that the Israeli teachers and chaperones leave their weapons behind—which they did. American schools are, on the other hand, 'gun free zones,'" by law.

We have heard that the tragedy at Columbine High School shows the need for more active intervention into the personal lives of students and parents, to prevent future such events. No amount of intervention is likely to help, and it will more probably result in unconscionable intrusion by government in the form of school authorities. The suspected gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, had had no disciplinary problems in school. In their one brush with the law, they were released from a community-service program with favorable recommendations. By all accounts, they came from good families, their older siblings had no problems, and they were not "loners" as initial reports indicated—they had friends, girlfriends, and even belonged to a "clique" of their own, the now-notorious Trench Coat Mafia.

Alienation and a sense of loneliness are typical of adolescence. Each of us felt it at some time during our high school years, but for the vast majority of us, it did not lead to crime or violence. The check lists we see about youth "at risk" for disturbing behavior sound like a list of answers to the question, Is your child between the ages of 13 and 19? The "warning signs" include things like: spending a lot of time alone in his room listening to music; rebelling against authority; disdaining being seen in public with his parents; acting "different" from a few years before.

The fact is, we can seldom know when such acts of violence are or have been prevented. An exception was last November in Burlington, Wisconsin, where local authorities received an anonymous tip that an attack on the local high school was scheduled to take place. A quick response led to the arrest of the students involved. In most cases, however, prevention will take place early and unknowingly, through the kindness of teachers and administrators, respect paid by parents or fellow students, by turning potential killers onto the right path of normal behavior. And we cannot know which of them might have been seduced by the dark side. Americans do not like to feel out of control. Randomness itself terrifies us. Random violence compounds the terror. But randomness is part of the price we pay to live in a free society. Only a dystopian sort of totalitarianism could eliminate risks completely, and none of us is willing to live under that kind of dictatorship.

Finally, a question: Why has no one pointed out that the school killings of the past few years—in Bethel, Alaska; Pearl, Mississippi; West Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Springfield, Oregon; and now Littleton, Colorado—have all taken place at government-run schools? Not a single incident like this has occurred at a private or religious school. That, perhaps, tells us more than anything else. It may tell us more than we want to know.

The next few weeks will bring us more solid knowledge about what happened on April 20. But the questions will linger for many years to come, as will the sadness and the pain. Fortunately for those who suffered, the first Sunday following the Columbine tragedy was "Good Shepherd Sunday" in the calendars of the liturgical churches. Across the country and in Littleton itself, congregations were comforted by the words of the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want . . . Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . . Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever" (KJV).

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Life Imitating Art

Anybody who has seen The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee(on Broadway or on tour) will be familiar with this plot element, brought to life last week in Arkansas and reported by the Canadian Press:

Sixth-grader Morgan Sims knew how to spell "debacle," but she got an unfortunate lesson on its meaning when her northern Arkansas school district forgot a spelling bee entry fee.

Morgan correctly spelled "debacle" - meaning failure, in an often ludicrous way - to win the Craighead County Spelling Bee on Friday, taking home the first-place trophy and a $200 savings bond.

But her school forgot to pay a $100 per-building entry fee to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, said Craighead County School District co-ordinator Sandra Taylor.

The upfront fee is optional for the county bee but is required to advance to the state competition.

A rule is a rule, whether it's "i before e except after c" or it's requiring an entry fee to participate in competition.

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Jesuit Heritage Week at Georgetown

The news arrived too late for me to participate in the various events on offer, but it's still noteworthy that students and faculty at my alma mater, Georgetown University, are celebrating Jesuit Heritage Week through Sunday evening. (The celebration began on Monday, February 2.)

A brief history lesson: Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States, founded in 1789 (the same year that the U.S. Constitution was ratified and George Washington became the first president). The founder was Archbishop John Carroll (see photo, left), himself a former Jesuit, and the University has been operated by members of the Society of Jesus since the end of the Jesuit Suppression in 1805. It received the first federal university charter from the U.S. Congress in 1815. Given the historical nature of the recent U.S. presidential election, it is noteworthy that Georgetown was led by an African-American president, the Reverend Patrick Healy, S.J., from 1873 through 1882. The most prominent structure on Georgetown's campus, Healy Hall with its Flemish Romanesque towers, is named for him.

Jesuit Heritage Week has become a tradition over the past eight years:

Stephen Feiler (C’02) helped organize the first Heritage Week in 2001. He had overheard some students trying to downplay Georgetown’s Jesuit roots and wanted to change the perception that being Catholic was somehow a negative. He says the idea for Heritage Week stemmed from a similar event at the Catholic high school he attended in New York. “We had an Ignatian Awareness Day at my high school,” he says. He hoped to create something similar in order to “foster a greater understanding and appreciation of the university’s distinctive religious character.”

Eight years later, that mission continues. Feiler says the event has gotten better each year because of the creativity of the student leaders. “Each group has put their own twist on the week, to keep it relevant and fresh,” he says. “I certainly never imagined I’d see ‘Spike a Jesuit!’” he adds, referring to the now-annual volleyball match between Jesuits and students.

Boroughs says that the match is an example of how the events of Jesuit Heritage Week are not only reflective and stimulating, but also fun. “It should be noted,” he points out, “that for the past six years the Jesuits have beaten the student team.”

Gregory, searching for an answer to the string of victories by the Jesuits, does not credit divine intervention. “They all play together all the time,” he says. “They know their group dynamic. The students just show up and get schooled.”

The events of Jesuit Heritage Week are an eclectic mix, to say the least.

In addition to the student-Jesuit volleyball match, mentioned above, there are two Protestant worship services with Jesuit preachers scheduled for this coming Sunday (as well as a Mass to mark the end of the week); a lecture entitled "Avoiding Religion or Confessing It: Research and Study in a Post-Secular Academy"; several sessions on Jesuit spirituality; a tour of the Georgetown campus with an emphasis on finding Jesuit iconography; a Jesuit Shabbat this evening cosponsored by the Jewish Student Association; a discussion on the "Jesuit Commitment to Interreligious Dialogue"; and "Theology on Tap!," with (naturally) drinks as well as conversation.

There are some Jesuit-oriented items available at my Cafe Press store under the heading "Saints & Sinners."

Cato Awards Friedman Prize to Venezuelan Student

The Cato Institute has announced that this year's winner of the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty is a 23-year-old student activist from Venezuela, Yon Goicoechea.

Cato's news release follows, in English and in Spanish.

Venezuelan Student Movement Leader Awarded
$500,000 Milton Friedman Liberty Prize

Washington, D.C. –The Cato Institute has announced that Yon Goicoechea, leader of the pro-democracy student movement in Venezuela that successfully prevented President Hugo Chávez’s regime from seizing broad dictatorial powers in December 2007, has been awarded the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.

A 23-year-old law student, Mr. Goicoechea plays a pivotal role in organizing and voicing opposition to the erosion of human and civil rights in his country. In his commitment to a modern Venezuela, Goicoechea emphasizes tolerance and the human right to seek prosperity.

Venezuela’s student movement emerged in May of 2007 in response to a government-ordered shutdown of the nation’s oldest private television station, RCTV. In the face of ongoing death threats and continual intimidation due to his prominent and vocal leadership, Mr. Goicoechea has been indispensible in organizing massive, peaceful student protest marches that have captured the world’s attention.

By December of 2007, the student movement was credited with defeating a proposed constitutional reform that would have concentrated unprecedented political and economic power in the hands of the government.

“Yon Goicoechea is making an extraordinary contribution to liberty,” said Edward Crane, President of the Cato Institute. “We hope the Friedman Prize will help further his non-violent advocacy for basic freedoms in an increasingly militaristic and anti-democratic Venezuela.”

Renowned Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa remarked, “Freedom and complacency are incompatible and this is what we are seeing now in countries like Venezuela where freedom is disappearing little by little, and this has produced a very healthy and idealistic reaction among young people. I think Yon Goicoechea is a symbol of this democratic reaction when freedom is threatened.”

Established in 2002 and presented every two years, the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty is the leading international award for significant contributions to advancing individual liberty. The Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman passed away in November of 2006.

The Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty's Biennial Dinner and award presentation will be held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City on May 15, 2008.

Yon Goicoechea is a fifth year law student at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. He was chosen to receive the award from a public, worldwide nomination process. The members of the 2008 International Selection Committee are:

• Kakha Bendukidze – Head of the Chancellery, Republic of Georgia
• Edward H. Crane – President, Cato Institute
• Francisco Gil Díaz – Former Minister of Finance, Mexico
• Rose D. Friedman – Co-Founder, Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for School Choice
• Karen Horn – Director, Berlin Office, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (Germany)
• Charles G. Koch – Chairman and CEO, Koch Industries Inc.
• Andrew Mwenda – Research Fellow, Advocates Coalition for Development (Uganda)
• Mary Anastasia O’Grady – Member, Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal
• Fareed Zakaria – Editor, Newsweek International

24 de abril de 2008
Líder estudiantil venezolano recibe Premio Milton Friedman por la Libertad

Yon Goicoechea gana premio de $500.000 en efectivo

Washington, DC — El Cato Institute ha anunciado que Yon Goicoechea, líder del movimiento estudiantil venezolano que derrotó la reforma constitucional que le habría otorgado al presidente Hugo Chávez amplios poderes dictatoriales, es el ganador del Premio Milton Friedman por la Libertad 2008.

Goicoechea, un estudiante de 23 años, juega un papel decisivo en la oposición a la erosión de los derechos humanos y civiles en su país. En su compromiso por una Venezuela moderna, Goicoechea enfatiza la tolerancia y el derecho de las personas a aspirar a la prosperidad.

El Movimiento Estudiantil de Venezuela nació en mayo del 2007 en respuesta a la clausura gubernamental de la estación de televisión privada más antigua del país, RCTV. Enfrentando amenazas de muerte e intimidación continua por su destacado liderazgo, Goicochea jugó un papel decisivo en la organización de marchas pacíficas de protesta que capturaron la atención mundial.

En diciembre del 2007, el Movimiento Estudiantil es reconocido por la derrota de una propuesta de reforma constitucional que habría concentrado en las manos del gobierno un poder político y económico sin precedentes.

“Yon Goicoechea realiza una contribución extraordinaria por la libertad,” dice Edward Crane, presidente del Cato Institute. “Esperamos que el Premio Friedman le ayude a continuar su campaña no violenta por las libertades básicas en una Venezuela cada vez más militarista y menos democrática”.

El célebre novelista peruano Mario Vargas Llosa declaró: “La libertad y la indiferencia son incompatibles y eso es lo que estamos viendo en países como Venezuela donde la libertad está desapareciendo poco a poco, y eso ha producido una reacción idealista muy sana entre la gente joven. Pienso que Yon Goicoechea es un símbolo de esta reacción democrática cuando la libertad está siendo amenazada”.

Establecido en el 2002 y otorgado cada dos años, el Premio Milton Friedman por la Libertad es el premio internacional más destacado por contribuciones significativas al avance de la libertad individual. Milton Friedman, premio Nóbel en economía, falleció en noviembre del 2006.

La cena bienal del Premio Milton Friedman por la Libertad y la presentación del premio se realizará en el Hotel Waldorf-Astoria de la Ciudad de Nueva York el 15 de mayo del 2008.

Yon Goicoechea es un estudiante de Derecho en la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. Fue escogido para recibir el premio a través de un proceso mundial de nominación. Los miembros del Comité de Selección Internacional son los siguientes:

• Kakha Bendukidze – Jefe de Gabinete, República de Georgia
• Edward H. Crane – Presidente, Cato Institute
• Francisco Gil Díaz – Ex Ministro de Hacienda, México
• Rose D. Friedman – Cofundadora, Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for School Choice
• Karen Horn – Directora, Oficina Berlín, Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (Alemania)
• Charles G. Koch – Presidente y CEO, Koch Industries, Inc.
• Andrew Mwenda – Académico de Investigación, Advocates Coalition for Development (Uganda)
• Mary Anastasia O’Grady – Miembro del Consejo Editorial, The Wall Street Journal
• Fareed Zakaria – Editor, Newsweek International

Acerca del Cato Institute

El Cato Institute fue fundado en 1977 como una fundación sin fines de lucro para la investigación de políticas públicas, y su sede se encuentra en Washington, D.C. El Instituto busca ampliar los parámetros de la discusión de políticas públicas para promover alrededor del mundo alternativas que sean consistentes con los principios de libertad individual, gobierno limitado, mercados libres y paz.