Music Teacher Jailed

RUSSIAN MUSIC TEACHER JAILED FOR NINE YEARS

SET UP

By Stephen Wilson

 

Music teacher Konstantin Chavdarov sits in prison
for a crime his victim said he never did.

           An awarding winning music teacher of the year Konstantin Eduardovich Chavdarov is currently serving a nine year sentence in a strict prison regime. He was convicted of sexually abusing one of his pupils. However, the basis of this conviction is highly dubious. It rests on the misleading and mistaken testimony which was later retracted by the parents and daughter who 'made it.' In fact, the parents who went to the police and made a testimony against them are now calling for his release and admit they had made a mistake! But the legal authorities have ignored their plea.  Despite irrefutable and expert evidence pointing to his innocence, the court has refused to release him. A campaign by concerned parents and sympathetic people has been launched calling for the teacher's release. Veronica Nazarova has stated in an open letter that, 'No teacher, doctor or coach is safe if all it takes is the word of one angry parent to make a testimony while the important evidence such as witnesses, evidence by experts and the case for the defense is blatantly disregarded. It means all teachers are in danger and under threat of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. To prove your innocence has become almost impossible as the courts don't accept other evidence ... With weak evidence, the Judge simply gave a sentence and destroyed a life and put a cross on his profession', stated Nazarova.'

 

A WITCH HUNT

 

The arrest of Konstantin Chavdarov comes against the background of an anti-pedophile campaign which has created an atmosphere of pervasive and widespread fear. As one proverb states, 'Fear has big eyes'. It can often magnify a threat out of proportion to the reality. You can have a situation where worried parents see every teacher as a potential abuser. I met a number of school students who told me how scared they were of potential pedophiles and how some of them even carried knives for self-defense. On further questioning I learnt they had been listening to a lot of news reports and social networks which seemed to foster such a tense atmosphere of fear. Of course, pedophiles will always be a problem, but we should be careful and very attentive of  any allegations people make. For instance, some allegations have been made against teachers by angry and resentful pupils who have later admitted to making them up. An investigation into an accusation can't rely on words, hearsay or the whim of an angry student or parent. We also have to understand that Russia has a history where dissidents have been falsely accused of being pedophiles in order to either blacken their reputations or imprison them. The most prominent recent case has been the imprisonment of the historian Yuri Dmitriev of Karelia. He was convicted on the trumped up charges of abusing his daughter. But the terrible atmosphere which teachers have to work in is hardly confined to Russia. It also extends to Scotland and America. A Scottish storyteller Maria Menzies told me that, "Teachers are afraid of even the slightest physical contact with their pupils because they don't want to face any accusations of misconduct. They keep a big distance from their pupils. But I, as a storyteller, have to get the parents to sign an agreement where they will let me handle them without complaints before handling their kids." 

In America, Joe Biden's running mate preceded over a case where a man's stepdaughter was found to have falsely accused him of sexual abuse. Despite the fact that her mother claims her daughter is 'a compulsive liar,' he is still doing a 70 year sentence. The reason he has not been released? Biden's running mate implacably refuses to admit she is wrong. This is who the media regards as 'a progressive lawyer'!

 

WHO IS KONSTANTIN  CHAVDAROV?

 

Konstantin Chavdarov is a highly talented music teacher. By all accounts, it is no exaggeration to claim that he is a genius in the field of teaching. He has taught as many as 200 pupils to play the piano and assisted children with special needs who other people would often write off. He could even teach pupils which other teachers would regard as being 'difficult'. He won the award 'Teacher of the Year' in 2017.The doctor and Muscovite Veronica Nazarova has three children, one of them who is nine and suffers from autism. She stated, "When in 2015 I sent my son to the music school by the name of S.E. Taneeva, Fedor was five years old, and he didn't even understand speech. But we were fortunate that Konstantin Eduardovich Chadarov worked in this school. He did not just decide to take this difficult pupil, but found an individual way of helping him, and gave many extra lessons to him at home for free! And a miracle happened! My son did not simply learn to play well on instruments, but his inner development was given an impetus in general. We now have received hope that he can pursue a future career in music."  And many other parents of his pupils also greatly praise the efforts of this teacher.  

 

WHAT HAPPENED?

 

Konstantin Chadarov was arrested and charged under article 132, part 4 p,'b', of the Legal Codex of the Russian Federation for sexual abuse of a minor. This is a very grave accusation where the accused can be sentenced from 12 to 20 years imprisonment in a strict regime. The main claim against Konstantin arose after he had been asked to prepare one ten year old pupil for a music competition. This girl came to Konstantin 7 times. Konstantin regularly made a video film of his student's performance. He prepared this student for a special performance. In this competition, a strict dress code is observed. When the pupil arrived wearing an inappropriate sports suit, Konstantin asked her to change and left the room. This fact is confirmed by the pupil herself. When Konstantin returned to the room he directed the pupil's arms and positioned her so she could play well. But when the camera was switched on and she was asked to play she could not play to the end. Konstantin asked his pupil to concentrate and play well. But the pupil did not do so well in the competition. Ten days after this competition, without even consulting the teacher, the parents and this pupil went to the police and wrote a testimony. The statement against the teacher claimed he had touched the pupil's sexual organs. And that he had done this during the recorded performance! But as Veronica Nazarova has pointed out, this would be physically impossible to do if you know anything about the spatial distance between a pupil who plays her piano and the position of the teacher. Practical common sense would render such a claim absurd.

A second reason for supporting Konstantin's innocence is that all the expertise of psychologists and psychiatrists who investigated this case confirmed Konstantin was not in any way a pedophile.

All the other parents of pupils whom Konstantin taught claimed that they had not witnessed any wrongdoing from him. On the contrary, they were full of praise for the extraordinary efforts of this teacher. They were astounded by the accusations. Many are even indignant of what they see as a false accusation against the teacher.

 

Thirdly, the people who had made the originally testimony to the police suddenly retracted their statement. They claimed the statement was all a mistake. They even called for the release of Konstantin. But it was all too late. The judge refused to consider all the overwhelming evidence that pointed to Konstantin's innocence.

It now seems evident that the police forced the ten-year-old girl to write what was practically a dictated testimony to an afraid and anxious girl. In other words, this testimony had been tampered with by the police.

 

WHY DID THE PARENTS GO TO THE POLICE?

 

The questions as to why the parents went to the police station with those allegations against the teacher remains unclear. We can only speculate. Perhaps because the pupil and parents were dissatisfied with the results of the music competition, or that they wondered why their daughter seemed so upset. Maybe the daughter claimed to have played not so well because she had changed into uncomfortable clothes. Perhaps the parents were very angry or they really did believe the teacher had been abusing the pupil. We don't know the real motives behind their exact claim other than they later recognized their testimony had been wrong and that they retracted this.

 

What this case demonstrates is the low level of the police, prosecution and the judge. Any professional judge will take into account all the available evidence and use their independent reason. They will ask the question, "What actually happened?" instead of "How can I find the accused guilty irrespective of the evidence?"

  

A campaign has been launched for the release of Konstantin Chavdarov as well as an open letter addressed to the President of the Russian Federation asking for his release. As many as 10,000 people have signed the petition and there have been many letters of support from abroad. However, this campaign still needs much more support to be really effective. Securing the teacher's release won't be easy. Konstantin has already spent 11 months behind bars and maintains his innocence. He appreciates any support!

 

I would like to acknowledge the help of Zhanna Golubitskaya of Moskovskaya Komsomol and Veronica Nazarova who is at the forefront of leading the campaign for the release of Konstantin Chavdarov.

Rhetoric

RESTORE THE REAL ART OF RHETORIC!

For an alternative pedagogy of liberation

By Stephen Wilson

 

            "It is so boring"! "You just have to write a text on an author without a single error in  an essay on a writer", "You just give them what they want, " and "You can't express a view on a writer which varies from your teacher." Such are the litany of complaints you might hear when you make inquiries about how students experience some lessons in Russian literature and Russian. The same complaints can also be heard in relation to learning English as a Foreign Language. You can be forgiven for believing that learning a language has been reduced to simply learning the rules of grammar alone and nothing else. A manager from the Russian publisher 'Manager ' even told me that their textbooks on grammar sell more than anything else. Perhaps customers are simply responding to the old demands of the Russian Educational System.But not only are students deprived of joy but so are many teachers who are dissatisfied with the existing educational programs in many schools and institutions of Further Education.  How might teachers make their jobs more bearable for themselves as well as students ? Why not try to restore the lost art of rhetoric in teaching languages ? It might make learning a language less stifling !

 

Of course, we might meet several objections. The English language itself is full of sayings and proverbs cynical about rhetoric. Again and again you hear people say 'It's just rhetoric', 'It is empty rhetoric' and 'Action is louder than words'. It is as if the reputation of rhetoric has hit rock bottom.It has been abused by so many politicians,lawyers and bloggers that it is almost seen as synonymous with deception, lying and manipulation. Just witness demagogues such as President Trump attempting to arouse the most negative emotions in people. And Sir Winston Churchill, one of the greatest masters of rhetoric used his speeches in an attempt to bolster the British Empire itself. Surely the last thing a teacher must do is to teach people how to lie, manipulate and abuse people ! The abuse of rhetoric is hardly unprecedented. Just read the dialogues of Plato and you hear of charlatans charging excessive fees for learning the art of rhetoric with over the top claims that you could get rich quick by mastering the art. Aristotle may have partly written his work on Rhetoric to precisely restore the art. He was implacable in arguing that the art of rhetoric must  have good intentions. He warned that lawyers must not try to 'bend the rod before using it as a measure.'

 

However, it is imperative to radically redefine the art of rhetoric in a clear and concise way.Firstly, although rhetoric is often just narrowly defined as 'the art of persuasion' it is in fact much, much more. It is the art of using words well.{ars bene Loquendi} as opposed to the art of speaking correctly{ars recte loquendi}. This subtle distinction is important. The medieval curriculum makes the distinction between speaking well and correctly in the sense the latter suggests observing the rules of grammar. This is because language can't be reduced to grammar and there exists a huge discrepancy between the written word that observes all the rules and colloquial speech. In Russia you often hear the joke "A person knows all the rules of English grammar but can't speak it ". A Swedish student Christina ,who did a course of Russian at the university told me "It was the homeless who taught me how to speak Russian. At the university they just taught me grammar. "  

 

What do we mean by speaking words well? We don't just mean how to persuade people or doing market research! Such an impoverished definition of rhetoric represents an insult to human intelligence. On the contrary the art of rhetoric encompasses many wide skills such as how to recite a poem well, tell a story well, write a poem, make a speech and how to perform in a play. That was the very definition of rhetoric which existed in Elizabethan England of the 16th century. It was how rhetoric was defined and taught in that period where as many as 160 grammar schools were founded. Rhetoric also taught students to argue from both sides of a question and to listen attentively to your opponent. But it was based on right and not reckless reason.Emotional intelligence was implicit in this art. One had to learn to master rather than lose control of your emotions. So losing an argument might actually be a blessing in disguise as it helps you become more enlightened. A person you argued with was not an 'enemy' but a partner. Peter Ackroyd, in his biography of Shakespeare states 'What we called creative writing ,the Elizabethans called rhetoric. In the school room, Shakespeare was obliged to learn the elementary laws and rules of this now arcane subject. He read a smattering of Cicero and Quintilian. He learned the importance of inventio, and dispositio, elocutio and memoria, pronunciatio or action and delivery; he remembered the principles for the rest of his life. ......He also learned how to avoid hyperbole and false rhetoric; in his plays he gave them to his comic characters.' The latter point is significant because demagogues can count as belonging to those comic characters. Pupils at those grammar schools were taught to pronounce everything audibly, leisurely,distinctly and naturally; sounding out especially the last syllable, that each word may be understood'. They were also encouraged to perform a play every month or even a comedy scene each week. This form of rhetoric is excellent training for potential actors not to mention budding authors. Some historians argue that it is no accident that the great playwrights such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe received their education from those schools. There might well be a connection between the teaching of rhetoric in the Grammar schools and the flowering of the English renaissance.

 

Rhetoric also includes the ability to tell a story. However, the research of many development psychologists found that a lot of school students, when they become older, become poorer storytellers. Many even don't enjoy telling stories any longer. Susan Engel in her work 'The Stories Children Tell, ' speculated that the  educational system encourages pupils to tell a story which is wholly logical, and observes all the rules of speech. Stories have to be more sequential, logical and accurate. Children become good at telling a true testimony but poorer storytellers. They stop becoming adventurous with words. They learn to play safe when writing stories of events.

 

Teaching of rhetoric can only flourish where school students enjoy full academic freedom.That is there should not be just one acceptable interpretation of  a work of literature. When a student Maria told me that she got a poorer mark because a Russian teacher strongly disagreed with her view of one character in the Master and Margarita because it was in conflict with her Russian teacher's religious views then this is just authoritarian and absurd.

 

There are some people who argue that we should abandon the teaching of the Classics in Russia because pupils are not mature enough to appreciate the lessons. For instance, some have never experienced the life problems of people in Dostoyevsky's ' Crime and Punishment' because they have never been poor. The teacher of English Oksana Chebotareva disagrees saying "I have met many children who are interested and want to understand those life problems. May be they don't have experience but they do have imagination so I think they can understand some of those problems".

 

How might rhetoric be taught in relation to some of the Classics ? Well you could look at the short tale 'Wool over Eyes' by Andrei Platonov .The story is about a soldier who after being discharged , can tell stories in such a way that people believe the stories are actually  happening before them. So the soldier, by using magic, persuades an inn-keeper he is a bear and a tsar that he is a fish. While one person is deeply offended by the stories ,another man is overjoyed to hear a story as 'it is food for thought and joy to the soul'. You could not only ask students to brainstorm the different goals  of stories but explore the dark side of rhetoric. For instance, the soldier tricks an inn-keeper out of his wares.

 

The teaching of rhetoric must be issue related. One way of making literature more relevant and realistic to students is to ask them to define what is meant by love and how some characters love or fail to love their partners so well. You could take the Story 'The Return' about a soldier who fought in the Great Patriotic War and returns to a family which is now alien. On his way home he has a light affair with a fellow female soldier also returning home. When he gets home he finds that his 12 year old son Petya is wise and practical beyond his years and has become the head of the family. He also discovers his wife has had an affair with a woman and becomes angry. Petya tells him he is wrong to get hysterical because another soldier called Uncle Khariton also had a wife who saw another man but reacted in a different way. Instead of leaving, Uncle Khariton invents a cock and bull story about him seeing 4 different women. "He jokes "But I deceived my Anyuta - I hadn't had anyone . No Glashka, no Nyushka, no Aproska, and no Magdalinka into the bargain.A soldier's the son of the fatherland, he's got no time to fool around,his heart is levelled against the enemy. I just made that all up to give Anyuta a scare ". So the soldier Ivanov has to decide whether he should leave his wife and children and go to another woman, or stay behind. Students should be asked what they think Ivanov should do . Should he be like Uncle Khariton or not ? Or should he expect his wife to be as pure as the woman waiting in Konstantin Simonov's poem 'Wait for me' ? Why do they think Platonov's story 'The Return' was banned by Stalin in contrast to Simonov's poem 'Wait for me '? A study of literature should be relevant to  the actual life problems which students have faced or might face. By the way, when I told this story by PLatonov to a student Olga Stefanova she told me "I met a boy just like Petya while I was staying at a student hostel in Moscow. Although the boy was only 17 he had taken over the role of the father and was very self-sufficient and caring. His father had been killed in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.Despite the fact his sister was only a year younger he acted as if he was her father."

 

So rhetoric as taught in literature has to be brave . It must be relevant and issue -related. An example of an alternative way of teaching rhetoric in literacy is the rhetoric of Paulo Freire. His works are rhetoric in the best sense of the word because he encourages real dialogue between the students and teachers. Both teachers and students learn from each other.They learn to wholly respect and listen attentively to each other!  

Homeless Newspaper

LET'S FOUND A NEWSPAPER OF A DIFFERENT KIND!

Support the homeless!

 

EMPOWER THE POOR!

By Stephen Wilson

 

Streetwise is not a newspaper that takes on issues critical to homelessness. It is merely a creature of the millionaire class who have no desire to change this corrupt system.

          "I swear I saw you selling a copy of the Big Issue {A paper the homeless sell to earn a living} in 1995. You were wearing a hat and quite short. I was tempted to go up to you and shout "Go and get a real job" but decided not to," stated a friend from Scotland. I retorted that it was impossible because at that time I was living in Moscow. But my dear friend was spot on about one thing. I was homeless in Moscow living a nomadic existence where I moved from student hostels, a homeless shelter and a Moscow soup kitchen. But, yes, maybe there was a guy who bore a striking resemblance to me selling such a newspaper on the streets of Glasgow. They say everyone has their double. All I can say is that my double has my sympathy. And who knows? May be I also have a double somewhere in America. Perhaps my friend might just be endowed with the sixth sense and saw me in the future. For should I be forced to return to Scotland I will in deed have a go at selling the Big Issue. It seems a very feasible and attractive idea! My friend from Scotland sent me a copy of the first issue of the Big Issue following the end of the lock down caused by the  Covid 19 crisis. The front page carried a photo of a famous cat who helped a poor man called Bob with the headline: 'A Street Cat Bob, A Tribute.' By the way, this newspaper, unlike the American version, at least writes articles about the predicament of the homeless and the poor. The Big Issue does not feel embarrassed or ashamed about raising such controversial issues.

 

But it is high time that a new and authentic paper which fights for the interests of the homeless and empowers them be founded in Chicago. Although this may seem a pipe dream and a highly problematic feat, we should give it a go. Now is the ripe time. It is doable! Chicago has the journalists, the know how, some experience and potentially much moral if not financial support. But the founders have to be crystal clear about exactly what this newspaper would be about. Therefore, I think the following points are worth listing. Although this hardly exhausts them all.

 

1. The aim of the newspaper is to help the homeless and poor to buy the paper for a fee but sell it for double keeping the difference. {In Britain sellers buy the paper or magazine for one pound and fifty pence and sell it for three pounds keeping the difference.} This is not a handout and the vendors who sell the paper often strike up a great friendship with readers. The homeless often offer real friendship and pleasant conversation with their customers. This is important in an age where shop assistants are being replaced by robots which serve you in Scotland. Last week my brother Peter was shocked to find the friendly and warm shop assistants were no longer serving him. They had been made redundant. Instead, a Dalek (The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who) was barking loudly about special discounts and gifts. So homeless vendors play a profound role in creating a warm and friendly atmosphere around them. They should never feel ashamed to sell the paper despite the odd malicious remark, "To go and get a real job".

 

2. The newspaper has to have a distinct identity of its own. Now, it seems that practically every newspaper you come across looks the same. They are all written in the same bland way expressing identical predictable prejudices. It is as if journalists have to toe the same line laid down by corporate interests. They support the vested interests of the rich and powerful. This is because they are owned by the rich. We need a newspaper with a distinct journalism of a different kind where each article should strive to be a work of art. Journalists should be fearlessly outspoken against every injustice they confront. They should not be over concerned about their image or worried about offending the government. We don't need another trendy or respectable newspaper. That means this newspaper not only writes about the homeless, but empowers them by giving them a voice.

 

3.  A crucial problem is how to fund a newspaper without relying on sponsors who can attempt to call the shots and tame the newspaper into being just another newspaper like any other that refuses to call out the 1 percent who run the city. Perhaps it would be better to obtain sponsors not from some business man who sets his own agenda to boost his own image, but on like-minded people who wholly agree with the radical aims of the newspaper. It is better to rely on ten genuinely sympathetic sponsors than one self-interested sponsor who is on an ego trip or seeks to boost his prestige. There are cases in Britain where bookshops and pubs facing closure were saved by the well concerted and combined efforts of their customers who came up with funds to save them. The newspaper The Guardian does not receive funding from any rich magnates, but relies on free donations from all their readers. They have managed to avoid closure. So novel ways of fund raising have to be fully explored even though it remains one of the biggest stressful headaches.

 

A new alternative homeless newspaper may seem a tall order. But I think it is doable and I believe Jim Vail and Thomas Hansen as well as other Americans have the know how, experience and the audacity! We must dare to use our own reason. So let's say, "Go for it"!

Volunteer to Help

HELPER GROUPS WHO ASSIST THE HOMELESS

By Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.

There is something like an informal, loosely organized (but sometimes very formal) network of volunteers, social workers, college students, and everyday citizens out there on the street trying to help homeless people.  For want of a better term, I have been using the term “helper group” because it is clear enough and also general enough it can cover people coming from social service agencies, college departments, churches, and other sources to help people. 

There are many types of helper groups out there, and there is no directory of all of them—at least not yet.  Instead, there are listings by type and—like many of the services for the homeless—most information for newly homeless persons is communicated through word-of-mouth networks. 

Getting to know some of the members of the helper groups is a very interesting endeavor and very rewarding also.  The members represent a wide variety of ages, races, backgrounds, and personality types.  Not all helper group members want to be interviewed—some groups have avoided being interviewed for some time now—and still others love to talk and want to give so much information they will be contacted for future articles about not just homeless needs but also community building and political information pieces to be written in the future.  

Simply, people who are out on the street a lot to help others see and hear a great deal more than persons who are “not out there” observing Chicagoland persons and their interactions.  So are the helper group members who we meet out on the street always there or simply once in a while?          

Some helper groups send people out to assist the homeless on a regular basis.  A well-known example of this is the Night Ministry in Chicago—famous for taking much-needed food, coffee, hot chili or soup, information about healthcare and other resources, and strong moral support.  This is an example of a formal network meant specifically for helping homeless and poor persons out in the community.  They maintain a fixed schedule of trips out into the streets such that on a given night, persons in need will know where to be to get clean socks, a hot meal, snacks, and many other items and much good advice (https://www.thenightministry.org/).    

Less formal helper groups consist of persons traveling on behalf of their church congregations.  There are many of these groups, and there are also a myriad of on-site helpers.

A more formal helper group on the north side is Saint Ita Catholic Church in Chicago.  It is an on-site operation.  They deliver a variety of services, including a soup kitchen and a food pantry.  They provide hygiene products, such as toilet paper, paper towels, lotion, razors, shaving cream, deodorant, tampons, and laundry detergent.  They also distribute foods such as canned ravioli, tuna, instant coffee, sugar and creamer (https://www.saintita.org/).

There is a huge network of these on-site agencies, churches, and offices available in the Chicago area and there is a website with listings of soup kitchens, food pantries, and helper groups providing clothing also.  The Greater Chicago Food Depository maintains the listings of all such organizations (https://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/).   

  

Speaking to dozens of helpers to the homeless (and to others in need) I am privy to a great deal of information about the kinds of help available to people, the kinds of help not available to people, and the sorts of personalities of helpers out there on the street.  Some of these people like to be interviewed, some are afraid to be interviewed, and some are just too darn busy to be interviewed about how and why they try to help. 

So who are these helpers?  One of the most resourceful persons I know is Dave, whose group travels up and down Clark Street and the surrounding area on Monday (sometimes Tuesday instead) to deliver burgers and other sandwiches, good will, and snacks.  Dave and his friends met with me several times so that I could talk to them about different sorts of helper groups, where they are located, and how people find out about them. 

“Word of mouth is the number one way people find out about us,” said Sheila, Dave’s partner.  She said about herself, “I am his partner in crime and I am the one who organizes things and keeps everybody moving.”  Dave laughed and admitted she is the one in the helper group who holds things together and does all the planning.  “All I do is ride my bike and hand out food,” he said.  While this is not the case—they joke all the time and say their sense of humor has maintained them for 10 years—they obviously enjoy the work and meeting the new homeless people, especially.

“I like to get my hands on new homeless people and get information to them right away before they hear a bunch of the nonsense out there,” she stated.  She added, “I love to encourage people, give examples of persons who have come back to the real world and made it.”    

There is another group on the north side traveling to pray with homeless and other persons in need.  There are often social work students from the universities who seek homeless persons to complete surveys on needed items and on concerns of persons living on the street.  Most of the MSW students in Chicago have internships, apparently, and they sometimes take part in helper groups both formally because of school requirements and because they get interested in assisting the individuals they meet when out there doing class projects.  Although the class projects end, the students seem to be drawn naturally to the role of helper.  

Yet another helper group delivers sandwiches up and down North Broadway Street, bringing burritos, bottled water, and other items to persons in need.  Some new members have recently signed onto this helper group.  Like many helper groups, none of their members have been interviewed. 

There are many other informal groups traveling—sporadically—around with smaller items like sewing kits, snacks, vitamins, and bottled water—so essential lately in the terrible temperatures.  One does not always catch all of the names in a group, and the helpers know that.  They are not necessarily there to become famous.  Instead, they are just trying to get resources to people who need them.  Not all of them want to be known, and not all of them want to reveal any sort of personal information about themselves.

Readers should understand that many, many helpers (with various roles) often construct a sort of “firewall” when working with the homeless and other disadvantaged populations in which there may be many persons with addiction, violence, depression, and confusion issues.  

Typical examples of firewall devices are: not giving homeless persons one’s cellphone number; not letting a homeless person use that phone to call anyone, even if there is an emergency; not giving homeless persons one’s home address; not sharing personal information—such as whether the helper has a wife or children or is gay or is a full-time employee as opposed to a volunteer; not committing to any political opinion—such as ignoring and avoiding comments about the mayor or the president; not providing the homeless person with their correct name or the name of their employer or college or major or significant other’s name or even the next destination of the helper on a given evening.  

Other ways to hold back and secure the firewall are: never giving cash to the person in need; not allowing the person in need any item they need the most (e.g., aspirin, coffee) as a way to establish limits and show authority; not maintaining a consistent schedule of help offered out of fear this could make the homeless person too dependent.  Other helpers avoid discussion of their motivation for helping, avoid talking about religion, and avoid telling people “in the real world” about their volunteering.

The “firewalls” are a known phenomenon.  An expert on homeless persons in the Northeast, David Wagner talks about the reluctance of some helpers to provide too much information (No Longer Homeless: How the Ex-Homeless Get and Stay Off the Streets, 2018).  Wagner also talks about how some homeless people do not want to “look homeless” and how they shun others who do somehow.  Homeless people see themselves in those other individuals, according to Wagner.

I asked my friend Dave why these firewalls are important, and I got the answer I dreaded.  “Stalking is a major problem,” he confided.  I’ve had people camped out in front of my apartment building before …and my landlord went ballistic.”  Dave also said, “It’s one of the first rules they make you agree to when you sign on to help.”  

He explained how in the case of his helper group, the leaders tell new people to share NO information whatsoever, no real names, no addresses, no phone numbers, no nationalities or neighborhoods or alma mater.  If the people being helped don’t like this, they are referred to the leaders of the helper group.

The helper groups are not necessarily all well-oiled organizations with rigorous schedules.  Not all of the helpers are forthcoming with personal information.  Not all of the helpers are personable, and not all of them are interested in being interviewed.               

Helper groups.  Some of them are very secretive, and some of them are well organized.  Some of them are sporadic in their service to the homeless, and some of them are more spiritual in how they assist persons in need.  However, all of them share the goal of providing homeless persons and others with some relief from the hard life of living with no home.    

CTU Political Spending

Chicago Teachers Union & Political Spending

By Jim Vail

CORE founder Jackson Potter, who now teaches after serving
as the CTU chief of staff, shaped the CTU's political strategy to align itself
closely to the Democratic Party & the machine.

        The Chicago Teacher Union and its Political Action Committee (PAC) are spending a ton of money on political candidates, the latest being Nidia Carranza, a bilingual preschool teacher who ran for state representative in the last election and lost despite getting $57,800 from the CTU Local 1 PAC.

Ever since CORE was elected to the union leadership in 2010, the focus has been to develop strong political ties to the Democratic Party. The CTU has donated over $50,000 to House Speaker Mike Madigan, who may have to eventually step down due to a corruption scandal. The media are reporting that he received jobs and other perks from ComEd in order to help get legislation passed.

Some teacher delegates are questioning the transparency behind how decisions are made to fund which candidates and the amount that they spend.

In the case of Carranza, the CTU donated $57,800 to her campaign after she lost in the democratic primary March 17, 2020. They also gave her $92,803 on April 24th via the CTU-PAC fund, and the United Working Families (CTU affiliated) gave $65,639. The CTU PAC and IFT gave her campaign another $48,800 in four installments between December, 2019 and March 3. She lost to State Rep Eva-Dina Delgado, who was backed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, with about 48 percent of the vote. 

That's a hell of a lot of money to invest in a race that was lost!

"What is interesting is that these candidates seem to be completely supported by CTU - and their affiliates of course," one teacher told Second City Teachers. "This is undemocratic to me personally in that local candidates can no longer raise money and have a chance against these big political machines." 

The unions work together, as CTU got the AFT & SEIU to kick lots of money into the campaign, while CTU backed legislators State Reps Delia Ramirez and Will Guzzardi and Alderwoman Rosanna Rodriguez also kicked in money (making it appear CTU support is conditional on factors such as fundraising for other union-backed candidates).

Some teachers have asked me if delegates could start a conversation about placing limits on support monies when the CTU votes to endorse.  Much of the money given to Nidia was at the very end of the campaign/election day.  It appears that the CTU was just paying off bills for her, the source said.  

"What a wonderful world if candidates do not have to spend hours and hours on the phone fundraising or hiring fundraisers," said one teacher delegate. "This is the point, buying an election. When nothing is really at stake. It is not as if we are running people against Mitch McConnell."

The CTU has been focused on electing candidates of color, thus their significant financial support to Carranza, Ald. Jeanette Taylor, State Rep Delia Ramirez, Ald. Andre Vazquez, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and Ald. Maria Hadden. 

But the deal cutting with Speaker Madigan and his minions is clearly a sign that CTU is still tied to a corrupt machine - a machine that has been under attack recently. The CTU plays a very calculated political game that favors the status quo. They have never really backed anyone against Madigan nor did they embrace campaigns against other machine aldermen who were close to Mayors Richard Daley and Rahm Emanuel.

  

Is the Chicago Teachers Union union the same machine that the people have been fighting against all these years?

 

The leadership has taken plays from the machine playbook.  They are wielding the same power and using a lot of money to insure their peeps win elections by outspending.  They say that we cannot have social justice and equity because people who represent our communities in office can't raise money - therefore we must eliminate that obstacle. So the CTU is basically buying elections like any powerful player.  

The CTU as a machine needs to have complete obedience and allegiance. If you fund politicians who protect teachers' pensions, prevent the closing of public schools and stop charter schools, then why not. But how much money is enough to play this rather gross & corrupt political game? 

In all fairness, what Madigan is doing is what they are all doing. Springfield, Chicago, etc. are all corrupt as hell, where money talks. But transparency is essential in order to prevent corruption.

Madigan is a typical politician who serves money. He used to wear an UNO Charter school hat after he helped the corrupt charter operator get $200 million from the state. But his power is limited by those with more means. While he valiantly fought off former Gov. Bruce Rauner's attacks on the unions to make this a right-to-work state, he refused to enact a progressive income tax that is being led today by billionaire Gov. J.B. Pritzker to tax the rich and fund education.

Every group with power has to be watched. Unions can be very corrupt and sell out their members. Look no further than the Laborer's International Union. Their corrupt leadership agreed to a two-tier pay system that cut salaries for the trade jobs like electricians, while the leadership was paid off with lucrative perks. This was done under Mayor Richard Daley, who privatized a lot of Chicago.

The teachers for the most part love their union that is fighting hard for them. But that doesn't mean we have to turn a blind eye when the corrupting influence of money can do more damage in the long run.

 

Protests

NINETEEN EIGHTY- NINE

The year of Revolutions and lost hopes

By Stephen Wilson

 

You could never forget the horrific scene. It still haunts me. A formidable troop of police horsemen recklessly charged into a crowd of student protesters. One young female student was trampled by the horses being hurled into the air. She lay on the ground motionless. She did not die but spent the remainder of her life on a wheel chair. When the police horsemen got into the crowd they started to fiercely pound the demonstrators with their batons as if they were raving lunatics. Our photographers managed to capture those scenes and they were subsequently published in the college student union journal. In the aftermath of those scenes some people argued that it was a small group of angry and aggressive  rioters who had provoked this scene. But if so a lot of peaceful demonstrators were injured by those charges and it was not an unprecedented incident. The riot police had been using such tactics against the miners when they went on strike during 1984-1985. Those policemen would thump their batons on their shields and trade insults with the protesters. One judge even called the events of the 1980's 'a civil war without guns'. That line perhaps sums up my experience as a student in 1980's Britain. The ruthless attempt to impose an austerity program with only 40% of  the population supporting this government had deeply polarized Britain leading to strikes, and riots in as many as 30 cities in Britain. The bitterness still runs deep to this day!  

 

During that day instead of going to London, I with a small group of union activists decided to occupy the Conservative H.Q. in Glasgow. We were to take over the office and hang out protest banners on the balcony 'Grants not Loans'. Funnily enough, taking over the offices turned out to be quite easy. We just barged our way in and only an elderly woman physically lounged on such students. We opened a window and got to the balcony where television journalists filmed the scene. When I saw myself on screen shouting slogans, it was uncanny. Only one student was arrested for 'disturbance of the peace' because of the way he had entered the headquarters. I wondered why we were also not charged! Perhaps it is because the police in Scotland are asked to use discretion when it comes to pressing charges. If the police deem that such a move is detrimental to the public interest in the sense it might  be counter-productive {I.e. leading to more unrest rather than less}, then they should use their practical common sense. This usually applies to not serious offences. On a later occasion in 2004 on a visit to Glasgow I noticed that police who found people at a festival drinking wine in the streets did not arrest them. Strictly speaking they could. But instead they simply politely warned the drinkers not to do it again and poured the contents of the bottle down the drain. I think if the police in England had been less belligerent as this Scottish policewoman there would have been less animosity and aggression from both sides.

 

Getting students to attend those protest rallies was not easy. Each representative had to go round to lectures to give a brief appeal to students to come out. We had to give a 5 minute talk in a lecture hall about ten times at least. I lost count of how many times I spoke either in the college canteen or classrooms. It was always the same message. "The Government intends to introduce student loans and replace grants. If they get away with it this will mean less access to the poorest students. Unless we strongly protest they will be  able to impose those unpopular changes. And students won't be able to pay back those loans." Most teachers allowed us to speak. But not all teachers. There was one academic who told me, "You'll have to wait until the end of my lecture". I just went ahead anyway. This lecturer told the other students, "This Stephen is nothing but a troublemaker." Some students told me, "It is a waste of time protesting and occupying offices. What difference will it make? The government is hardly going to change course just because of an occupation." This was because we were struggling against a very intransigent government led by Margaret Thatcher who declared, 'The Lady is not for Turning'. Will the lady did turn or her colleagues certainly turned when it came to Scotland. At present, in Scotland, access to further education remains free in contrast to England. So we did win this fight and were vindicated. Our struggle was not entirely in vain as some cynical students sneered. And the situation in England where students struggle to pay loans is a nightmare. It is so bad that many stuidents think they are better off pursuing a more practical profession or skill such as becoming a plumber. At least such work is in great demand and you don't have to spend years attempting to pay back a loan. That is if you can! Many students just can't pay back the loans. How a student in England can be expected to pay back nearly 60,000 pounds in debt remains a mystery. What can they do it? Just pray for a miracle? We have a situation where students are dependent on food charities and can't afford to rent accommodations. Many students are forced to remain with their parents beyond the age of thirty. And those students stay with their parents not because they are 'parasites' or 'infantile adult Peter Pans' who refuse to grow up, but because rents are too high and wages too low. Wages have decreased by one third in real value since 2008.  It is worth noting that England has one of the most expensive systems of university tuition in the World.

 

Why did Scotland manage to avoid the loans system being imposed? It could be that the Scottish have a long tradition of defending the legacy of a free education. Such a philosophy has deep roots in Scotland. It goes back to the Reformation when John Knox declared that school education should be made free to every school child so they could read the Bible. This custom was supported by numerous Scottish philosophers like Edward Caird and George Davies. There is even a notion that the Scottish tradition is at odds with England because it stresses a wholly free and accessible education system open to all in contrast to England. The term is called 'Democratic intellect'. The notion of a free education in Scotland is viewed by many as a sacred cow. Woe to any government in the south which attempts to challenge and stop it. The reason why the government did not impose loans in Scotland is because they would have risked the break up of the Union. The Scots would have lost patience and declared independence. And it seems that the Scots, who have their own parliament which is headed by a prime-minister who is a Scottish nationalist, are on a collision course. Now the prospect of Scottish independence does not seem so remote as in 1989.

 

However, Scots can also express sympathy and solid support to impoverished students in England. Our hearts go out to them. We hope that a new government in England will reverse student loans and a more improved and caring education system will emerge. As always, it remains axiomatic that you can't achieve this without tireless struggle.

George Schmidt

Substance News & Education Reform

Substance News founder George Schmidt 

It's hard to think that next month will mark the second year anniversary of the death of Chicago Public Schools historian and Substance News founder George Schmidt. His remarkable reporting, teaching and mentoring and all around knowledge of the history of Chicago public schools made him a giant without the mourning that John Lewis has received. But George was no less fearless battling the education reform monster and corrupt union politics. Now that I am into books - reading, writing and documenting so many extraordinary ones that have been written by teachers, historians, journalists and others, I lament not picking up a book and reading the memoirs of George Schmidt. I ran across this little insight into the history of ed reform people in Chicago when Martin Koldyke started the AUSL schools. I noticed that his son was greenlighting corrupt public-private deals between the Chicago Park District and the private Latin School when he sat on the park district. This tells a lot about what George knew and what people need to know. The ruling class control the public education narrative by publishing the Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune which ultimately promotes union busting and corporate ed reform. Reading Substance was a paper of the public school teachers and students. Something I have hoped to continue with my humble news blog Second City Teachers. Enjoy! - Jim Vail, editor

 

By George Schmidt 

As I’ve posted before at various points and on substancenews.net, Koldyke is one of the main leaders of corporate school reform in Chicago. His original smokescreen was the Golden Apple Foundation. The Foundation began awarding the “Golden Apple” academy awards for “excellence in teaching” in the 1980s, by the way. Chicago’s public television station, WTTW, was part of the Golden Apple hype by 1990. Every year, they aired a ceremony which was basically like the Academy Awards. Some teachers ate it up. It turned out there was a lot of phony stuff about the program.

(Disclosure: I was a semi-finalist one year; I was told by one of the judges that I didn’t make the final cut because they were afraid I would “pull a Jane Fonda” at the TV show. At that time, I had pioneered the “Macintosh Computer Classroom” at Amundsen High School and among other things was featured in a four-page Apple promotional on using the Macs in classrooms…).

Within a few years, the Golden Apples had evolved into as much hype as anything else. One friend of mine who won one told me she did everything but audition for the “show,” changing her wardrobe, practicing a certain kind of telegenic lesson, and even losing some weight while her kids (at one of Chicago’s “better” high schools) worked overtime on their nominating letters.

By the early 1990s, Koldyke, in partnership with then mayor Richard M. Daley, had become the Chicago “School Reform Authority” chairman. As such, he was overseeing the mandated “reform” programs in Chicago, using powers that still lingered from the old “Chicago School Finance Authority.” Koldyke was a right wing ideologue the entire time. The “Reform” authority paid a quarter million dollars a year for an expert “consultant” to evaluate Chicago’s “reform” initiatives. The consultant: Chester Finn, then a professor at Vanderbilt.

As Koldyke became more powerful through the corporate “school reform” leaderships in the 1990s, he also began pushing each successive flavor-of-the-year “reform” thingy. For several years, that was “small schools.” At one point, I was union delegate and on the leadership team at Bowen High School, one of the most challenging urban high schools in the United States. (Example: we had seven present or former students murdered during one school year, 1997 – 1998; I was at that time “gang security coordinator” at the school and knew each of those students; one I watched die with a bullet through his heard just outside the building a week before Christmas 1997).

Against those realities, Koldyke was demanding that all large urban high schools be broken up into “small schools.”

It finally came to a confrontation in the Bowen High School social room, where Koldyke had demanded that he get to meet with the school’s leadership. That was about nine of us. My job was basically to be bad cop, since a lot of people had to protect the school from Koldyke’s predatory whims.

So…

At a certain point I just said that if “small schools” was such a sure fire way to improve American public high schools, why didn’t Kodyke go to his own community on the North Shore (he lived in the New Trier High School District, Wilmette and Winnetka) and bring the gospel of “small schools” to the rich white suburbs — I listed several huge high schools from the most affluent Chicago suburbs — and then, five years from now, return to Chicago and tell us how it went at New Trier, Glenbard West, etc. Because, I said, it seemed that “small schools” was only a prescription for schools like Bowen that served black and brown children of the poor…

Koldyke went ballistic. “I will not be called a racist by someone like you!” he bellowed. He talked about how his son was coaching baseball at DuSable (another inner city high school) and how much he and his family had done for people in the inner city. He never, of course, answered my question, which was centered on the class diferentiations and demanded to know why we just weren’t provided with the same resources that they had at places like New Trier, Glenbard West, etc.

During those years, I was also a regular on WTTW TV shows like “Chicago Tonight” as the voice of Chicago’s rank and file teachers (who were not part of the union leadership). I had run for president of the union in 1988 and 1994, getting about 40 percent of the vote despite all the vote stealing and other Chicago-style issues.

One night I was on the show with Koldyke. As usual, he was pontificating as only a multi-millionaire who is used to having his ass kissed can. I spoke and pointed out that most of what he had just said was based on not knowing what he was talking about — abstractions that had nothing to do with the real world of Chicago high schools, our classrooms, and our kids.

Koldyke was furious, and the show’s moderator, Elizabeth Brackett, stopped letting me speak. The camera crew caught on and when I watched the video later, they kept zooming on my shaking my head as Koldyke spouted another stupid pontification. I was never invited to any of those shows again, and within a year my name was blacklisted from all Chicago corporate media. We joke about it — I am the Voldemort for the Sun-Times, Tribune, “public” radio and TV, etc.

I covered the press conference when the Party Line of the Plutocracy was changed from “small schools” to “turnaround.” Without batting an eye, Koldyke stood with Mayor Daley and people from the Gates Foundation and announced that “small schools” was over and that “turnaround” was the next sure thing. I asked a question to Daley, who had been the “principal for a day” at Orr High School during the small schools years. “Are you going to apologize to the Orr teachers you’ve met when they are all fired when turnaround starts in June?…”

George Schmidt

At that point, Daley’s press secretary announced that the press conference was over.

In June, all those loyal Orr High School teachers who had dutifully done “small schools” were dumped so that Koldyke’s AUSL could begin the next experiment — “turnaround.” Part of that was to utilize the extra dollars that CPS gives each turnaround ($300,000 in “start up” funds even though nothing is really starting up, plus $420 per pupil for five years) to bribe a few parents for a year or two. As a result, every year, when AUSL is challenged, a couple of sad people get up and give the same speech at the Board of Education — “I was against turnaround, but now I see how it really was the best thing!” Some of them are put on the payroll (like a local preacher who had stormed against turnaround until AUSL gave him a job for a couple of years at Orr “School of Excellence”). Others are just given a couple of crumbs.

But their salvation narrative is always ALWAYS the same. Turnaround is the bright light that they didn’t at first see, etc., etc.

Anyone who wants to take the time can watch a few of those testimonials from the May 28, 2014 meeting of the Chicago Board of Education, or read our coverage of them at substancenews.net. They have been the same since ten years ago, when the scam was first used at Dodge “School of Excellence” (the school Barack Obama chose to use for his photo ops when he announced that Arne Duncan was going to be U.S. Secretary of Education in December 2009). It’s been used ever since. And always they get away with it because we are among the only people to point out that these “parents” are reading from a script provided by AUSL. Later, like those before this year’s crop, they will be dumped.

Last night at the Chicago Teachers Union meeting I was talking with one of the organizers from the West Side. I said we should do a satiric video of one of these AUSL turnaround testimoniais:

My child was raped and murdered at that old school, but once AUSL arrived with turnaround he was brought back to life and is now reading a book a day…

Etc.

Thanks for asking. Martin Koldyke may not be as prominent nationally in the corporate “reform” world as Gates, Broad and the Waltons, but his version of reality may be even more important. After all, AUSL is the national “turnaround model” promoted by Arne Duncan and the Ed Dept.