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Reader's Note: My first entry was on June 6, 2007, which you will find at the bottom of the page. Then you can move upward to the latest entry at the top, following the stories as they unfold.

Random Jottings: Archive 

August 20, 2007

I'm back, and if you get the chance, watch the board meeting on channel 16 tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. We'll be setting the tax rate, always an exciting moment, and it will give you something to think about, I hope.

Stay tuned.

July 24, 2007

Back late from the weekend and preparing to travel for a couple of weeks with lots of work to clear off my desk before I go. Thanks for the e-mails and calls, and I'll try to get back to everyone before I leave. But for a while now, ever since reading The Demon Under the Microscope by Thomas Hager, a terrific book about the discovery of the first antibiotic, I've been meaning to write about it, and now seems as good a time as any. The story of the search for sulfa is fascinating but what I’ve been thinking about was the section on childbed fever, because it highlighted some things about resistance to change.

Childbed fever dates to ancient Greece, but it wasn't until the 17th century, when more women started giving birth in hospitals, that the disease began its alarming spread. The symptoms of puerperal fever, the technical name, would appear 24 to 48 hours after a baby was born. Initially, the mother would develop symptoms similar to a bad stomach flu, and things would rapidly go downhill. By the late 18th century, childbed fever was raging in the cities of Europe and the United States, and at one point, 20 percent of all new mothers died from it. Doctors closed down maternity wards, burned all the bedding, opened up the windows or filled the rooms with smoke, in a futile attempt to dispel the "bad air" that some considered the cause of the disease.

In 1843, a young Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., the father of the future Supreme Court Justice, was a physician and writer teaching at Harvard. That year, Dr. Holmes published the "Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever," an essay critical of doctors for not seeing the obvious: that the disease was carried by physicians as they attended new mothers in the hospital. He suggested that doctors wash their hands between examining patients. His essay was not, shall we say, well received. One leading obstetrician, "who believed that childbed fever was spread according to the mysteries of God's providence," was morally outraged at the notion that he or his colleagues might be transporting the disease and rebutted Holmes’s premise with the statement that "Doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen's hands are clean."

Far be it from me to suggest that if childbed fever had been a male affliction than the hand-washing suggestion might have fallen on more sympathetic ears.

Nearly two decades after the essay appeared, a balding, 43-year-old doctor, Ignaz Semmelweis, who worked at Vienna's great lying-in hospital and who had watched childbed fever take away countless mothers from their babies, published the results of a study, concluding the disease was "caused by conveyance to the pregnant women of putrid particles derived from living organisms, through the agency of the examining fingers. Consequently, must I make my confession that God only knows the number of women who I have consigned prematurely to the grave."

In this painting, Semmelweis is standing in back, talking to a group of doctors, while in the foreground two other doctors are washing their hands, a practice that Semmelweis suggested, and one that reduced the incidence of childbed fever.

Still, it was years before the medical establishment accepted Semmelweis's findings, and it wasn't until the 1930s, when Dr. Leonard Colebrook identified a more effective antiseptic to kill the bacteria responsible for the fever, and later on with the discovery of sulfa, that the fear of childbed fever no longer haunted the mothers of newborns.

Two things struck me about this slice of history. First, that the all-too-human response to a suggestion of change, even change based on scientific exploration, is not a list of measured questions designed to investigate the proposals. Instead, you get full-blown moral outrage and an earful of the bizarre: Doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen's hands are clean. Secondly, for me at least, the story serves as an object lesson: Whenever I feel the pull to retreat to the past, I remind myself that no matter how comforting it is to travel a well-worn road, this, too, can come with a terribly high price, and thus the wisest course is to head straight into the future.

Not a bad thing to remember in this blink-of-an-eye world.

Don’t know if I’ll have a chance to post while I’m away, but I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, and I look forward to being back here soon.

July 19, 2007

For some time I have been thinking about what I hope children will take away from their K-12 years. My answer, at the moment, is that I hope they are able to read with comprehension and to think clearly (and this includes an understanding of mathematics, science, history, literature and the arts) and to express their thoughts in a well-ordered, cleanly written form, with proper spelling and grammar. A common complaint you hear from students as they stare at a blank computer screen (and from professional writers for that matter,) is that "I don't know what to write."

My answer to this complaint is always the same and rooted in a lifetime of wrestling with the craft: "That's because you don't know what you think."

Yet if you can't begin to organize your thoughts, if you are a sloppy writer, then you will be a sloppy thinker, and your options will be sorely limited. Writing is nothing more than thinking in printed form.

More than anything this experience informs what I hope children will take away from their education, because with this skill young men and women will be prepared to go out and seek their fortune in any direction they choose.

All of this begins with small steps, but the smallest is instilling in children the habits of excellence. I heard this stated well in an interview with basketball great, Bill Walton. He was recalling something he had learned from a man who would have to stand as among our country's greatest teachers, former UCLA coach, John Wooden, seen below with his former pupil.

Walton told the story of how when he started practice on the UCLA varsity, and all of the players were eager to get going on the court, Wooden looked over what was arguably the finest college team on the planet and told them that the first lesson they would have to learn was how to put on their socks and lace up their sneakers.

Now, Wooden and his UCLA teams were already legendary, as were a number of his players, and we can assume that they at least possessed a rudimentary knowledge of footwear. Yet every player did as they were told, and the impact on Walton must have been enormous because he was telling this story over 30 years after the fact.

Walton understood what John Wooden was teaching him--that even the greatest enterprises start with strict attention to basics, to discipline and to excellence--and I can think of no greater single lesson that our children can learn.

July 17, 2007

I once had a conversation with an English teacher, a profoundly gifted woman whose students were--and I don't say this lightly--blessed to be in her class. As we spoke the teacher commented that she often wondered if her students, moving on to success in the adult world of journalism or academia or entertainment, would recall how hard she had tried to instill in them respect for the written word. I told her that I had never forgotten the high-school teacher who had helped me along that path: I still had a note he had written me 35 years ago on one of my early efforts. She accepted my response as a small measure of proof, but she seemed wistful.

A couple of years later, while I was writing a magazine profile of the playwright and screenwriter, Richard Wesley, I thought of her because Wesley not only remembered the teachers who had helped him more than 40 years ago, he told me that two of them had clearly changed his life, transforming him from a young man full of wishes and dreams into a working playwright. Wesley spoke about more teachers than I had space to fit in the profile: actually, he was so moved by what his teachers had done for him he eventually wound up in the classroom himself and became the head of the writing program at NYU.

Thinking back to my conversation with the English teacher, I wish I'd been able to tell her about Richard Wesley. And so I've told her now.

July 16, 2007

Fascinating story in the New York Post about a 13-year-old boy who was promoted to 8th grade against his mother's wishes. It seems that the young man hardly did any school work and frequently cut class, but did manage to pass a couple of standardized tests and so on he goes. His mother is pleading with Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to keep her son back. The story demonstrates the need for genuine standards of excellence. We'll see how this one plays out.

Also, I've been receiving more phone calls regarding the Times Union article on Boardside. It appears that a number of Capital Region residents are pleased to have a running take on the doings of a school board. I appreciate their support, and I'm glad they're listening because this should be an interesting year.

July 14, 2007

Last night, on our way to pick up our son from the camp where he is working for a month, my wife and I saw a bumper stick that said:

Change is Inevitable: Struggle is an Option

This has always been one of the great human themes, I suppose, but today, where reality is often measured in nanoseconds, the speed of our lives complicates this struggle, giving it more force than it deserves and pushing us to cling tighter to the past. It can be destructive to hold onto yesterday with such tenacity, and I have written about this impulse in a piece entitled, Culture Change.

Still, this desire to hide in the past is an understandable reaction. People gaze into the mists of the unknown and see monsters. Soon, their fear sours into anger, and so they lash out at those who are willing to take a second look, to accept that beyond the mist there is no monster at all, but a doorway to new accomplishments. Since I have been spending so much time reading and writing about the Cold War I feel as though I have one foot planted in the early 1960s and the other in 2007, a double bind that is both the pleasure and affliction of writing history. Thus, I find myself recalling the First Family of my childhood memory, seen here on summer vacation on Cape Cod.

I think about all of the optimism of that long-gone moment, and all of the sadness that awaited this family in the future, a series of shocks the country shared by watching them on TV. No question, the father in this photograph knew something of sadness: he was chronically ill as a child and adult; his brother and brother-in-law had been killed in action during World War II, and he himself had come close in the South Pacific; one sister had died in a plane crash, and another had been placed in an institution.

Yet JFK still possessed the courage to become the first Irish Catholic President, ignoring those who attacked him for both his heritage and religion. During his thousand days in office, he had the courage to promise that his nation would land a man on the moon; he had the courage to renounce the petty distractions of politics and to side with the angels in the battle for Civil Rights legislation; and he had the courage, always, to believe in the promises of tomorrow, saying, "Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

It is his unshakeable faith in tomorrow, his optimism, his refusal to quit, that I believe continues to endear JFK to the country he left behind, the reason he is still quoted and discussed. He understood something basic about the modern world as it unfolded before him--that it was a door opening, not closing--and his courage enabled him to see opportunity where others only saw the reflection of their own fear in the shimmering  dawn.

July 13, 2007

Thanks to a suggestion from a member of Boardside's informal editorial board I am reconfiguring my Random Jottings. The latest entry will be at the top and if you want to follow the history of the blog you can start at the bottom, which I would recommend for new visitors. There is plenty of new mail that is worth a look.

Have a great weekend.

July 11, 2007

The power was working, and the Board meeting went on as scheduled. Heard the Facilities Committee Final Report and saw a Power Point presentation on it, and you can find a copy of them by clicking on the above links. The committee did a good job putting it all together. They are recommending a project of $26,971,500. It includes: $17,380,900 for renovations at Westmere, Guilderland, Lynnwood, Pine Bush and Altamont Elementary Schools; $5,710,600 for technology infrastructure and program improvements and safety and security upgrades; $3,880,000 for the relocation of the district administrative offices to the high school and the construction of additional classroom space there to maximize state aid. NYS will give us approximately $18 million; the District will borrow about $8 million and pay it off over 15 years. Once the Board accepts it, the community will vote on it in the fall.

We also appointed a tech supervisor and staff developer, and we will be looking at the staff-development budget during the coming year. At the end of the meeting, a board member raised a concern about Boardside. I won't take up meeting time discussing this site--only the issues raised here--so I didn't respond. I'll do so now.

The concern raised was that I identified Don Csaposs, posted his picture, mentioned that he worked for the town and linked to his contact information on the town Web page. The board member suggested that these things would prevent people from appearing before the Board.

I'm not exactly sure why that would be so since people are identified by name when they appear at public comment, and they are on TV and the meeting is repeated on cable between our meetings. In fact, as you'll notice, the picture of Don was culled from our meeting.

In identifying Don Csaposs I was only following, and will continue to follow, standard, print journalism convention. For instance, when the Enterprise published the "Silence is not Golden" story, they wrote about Don's criticism of my site and said: "Csaposs, who works as development director for the town and is a long-time member of the school district's budget advisory committee." In addition, in the Times Union piece, when Don spoke to the reporter he was IDed as "Guilderland's director of development." The link to his site is to provide his contact information, a common practice on the Web. I also provided links to the experts who spoke to the Times Union, and many other people (and publications) mentioned on Boardside. This is not out of some imagined spite, but as a way to provide more information and give folks the chance to get in touch and perhaps, at a later date, continue the conversation.

One final observation, for what it's worth. If someone wants to remain anonymous, it's probably not a great idea to go on TV and give interviews to reporters.

On a more amusing note: I received a call yesterday from a resident of the Roslyn School District, who had seen the Times Union article. Roslyn is where former Superintendent Frank Tassone, now in jail, and some cronies stole millions from the school (and thus gave birth to Audit Committees in every NYS school district, which come complete with plenty of tax-funded overhead, money that is not spent on children.) According to this rather unhappy resident, this new Roslyn Board is not exactly a dream come true, and he is considering printing up "anti-Dronoidal" T-shirts. He said he'll keep me posted.

July 10, 2007

Board meeting was held mostly in the dark last night because of an electrical storm. No one showed up to comment on Boardside, so perhaps, for the moment, the personal attacks have stopped. Even in the dark we got some work done, and the young people working the TV cameras, an intrepid pair to say the least, did the best they could. The board is meeting again tonight at 7 to finish our business. Tune in on Channel 16 if you get the chance.

Just before I left for the meeting last evening I received an e-mail from Glenn Neuschwender, a Board of Ed member in East Moriches out on Long Island. He had read about Boardside in the e-mail from the NYS School Board Association. Glenn has had a Web site dedicated to his work on the board for over a year. You will find it at www.glenn4em.com. His site is different from Boardside, but the purpose is the same. Take a look. It's an interesting place to visit.

July 9, 2007 (Update)

I posted an interesting e-mail that touched on the role of the teachers union. I'm glad it showed up because it gave me the opportunity to address this sort of concern.

Work calls. Gotta go. And try to tune in tonight at 7:30 on Channel 16 for our meeting.

P.S. Every weekday, the NYS School Board Association e-mails education stories around our state. Now I'm starting to hear from people who received the TU story via the association. I've posted one of those e-mails in Letters.

July 9, 2007

Plenty of e-mail and calls about The Times Union article on Boardside. I've posted some of the mail in the letters section. There was an interesting e-mail on Dronoid, which gave me a chance to clear up some aspects of the definition. I would like to hear from the critics, but so far they don't seem to want to discuss issues here. Oh, well. And there is a rainy Monday morning outside. Now it's back to work. Later, if I have the time, I'll post some more of the e-mails.

July 8, 2007

The Times Union article on Boardside appeared today, and the reporter, Scott Waldman, did a nice job laying out the issues and the range of responses both pro and con. Don Csaposs showed up, calling me unethical, yadda, yadda, yadda, the kind of personal attack that has been declared logically worthless since the days of Aristotle. Don did make a comment to the reporter that is worth repeating. He claimed that Boardside "is not a good advertisement for the notion of collaborative behavior."

Ah. Now we're at the heart of the matter: How "collaborative" should school-board members be with each other and school administrators? For instance, if one board member supports more money for sports and another board member wants more money for art, do they get together and say I'll support you if you support me? Suppose an administrator wants to create two new jobs, and the board wants to hang onto an existing job that would be lost, do they "collaborate" and now have three jobs for the taxpayers to fund? This is known as "horse trading" and anyone familiar with the U.S. Congress is aware of the game. How does it work out? Go check the federal deficit.

In my view, school boards and administrators across our state have been far too "collaborative." There needs to be more distance between them if governance is to get done--governance being the reason that school boards exist. This is not to say I believe administrators are bad people: Quite the opposite, many of them are wonderful and care deeply about education, and it is easy for board members, many of whom also care about education, to feel as though they are all working together in "collaboration." If they are, they shouldn't be. In the long run, I'm convinced that the breakdown of this process will lead to ruinous property taxes, the continued flight of businesses from our state, school programs stripped to the bone, and children who will be deprived of that most valuable American commodity: an excellent public education.

I wish Don Csaposs much luck in his day job, bringing new business to the Town of Guilderland, since if he is successful the tax burden will be eased on the community, and there will be more funding for the children in our schools, two outcomes that I'm sure all of us would welcome.

One aspect of reading the newspaper I always enjoy is that, in a sense, it is an opportunity to meet new people, and in the Boardside piece we meet Sally Klingel, a senior extension associate with Cornell University's Industrial and Labor Relations School. Ms. Klingel had some sound advice regarding school-board members and blogs. According to the Times Union, Klingel observed that bloggers "must not reveal private information," but added that blogs "could be valuable if they encourage more discussion." We also meet, New York State School Boards Association spokeswoman Barbara Bradley. She said that "school board members have a right to speak as individuals [and a blog] is another vehicle for them." Then Ms. Bradley sounded what I considered an incredibly hopeful note. Although she was unaware of other sites like Boardside, she expected that "Golden's unusual site will be joined by many more."

I'm glad that two observers, with no stake in the issues before our board, see blogging as a valuable addition to the discussion of education. And I hope Barbara Bradley is correct. Nothing would be more helpful to school-board members across New York than to hear from each other by reading posts online. It would be a new community--debating, discussing, sharing their hopes and concerns--and I believe it could only benefit all the people of New York, whether inside or outside the schools, and ultimately add immeasurable value to the education of our children.

Outside my office window, I just saw the sun peeking through the clouds, so I wish everyone the perfect summer Sunday. For those in our town, remember, our board meeting is tomorrow night at 7:30 instead of on Tuesday. Please tune in if you get the chance.

July 4, 2007 (UPDATE Continued)

Returned home from a soggy outing, and there were a couple of messages from people who wanted to know exactly who is Don Csaposs. My understanding is that Don is a business-development director for the Town of Guilderland. He also seems to be involved in local Democratic politics and serves on the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee, a group of volunteers that meet in March to give their opinion of a draft of the school budget. On occasion, Don also addresses the School Board at public comment. Here Don is at our last meeting on June 19.

On the surface, at least, it appears Don stopped by to comment on our civility level and, in a roundabout way, on Boardside, suggesting that it was part of a commercial venture, etc. etc. etc. Part of the whole Yours Truly Is Unethical nonsense. But I have no idea what he told the Times Union, so we'll have to wait until the article appears, and thus, in the words of the great Edward R. Murrow, "Good night and good luck."

July 4, 2007 (UPDATE)

The Albany Times Union is doing a story on Boardside. It seems a reporter, Scott Waldman, read the "Silence is Not Golden" piece in the Enterprise and decided to do a story of his own. I've been told that Don Csaposs, who works over at Town Hall, had some "colorful" criticism of Boardside, and I look forward to reading it. When the TU story appears I'll post the link here, and of course, provide some commentary.

Stay tuned.

July 4, 2007

Many of our Founders were deeply flawed individuals, and certainly some of their beliefs and behavior would fall short of modern standards of fairness and decency.

And yet. . . we owe them everything, don't we?  At the risk of their own lives they pursued this grand experiment in democracy and managed, with much moral compromise, to give birth to a republic that continues to struggle toward a "more perfect" realization of freedom and equality. 

One aspect of the Founders' vision that fascinates me is the connection they saw between democracy and public education. Whether it was Thomas Jefferson writing his bills for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge and the Establishment of a System of Public Education; or James Madison commenting that "No feature. . . of our Country is more gratifying, than the increase and variety of Institutions for educating the several ages and classes of the rising generation."; or Benjamin Franklin observing that "Genius without education is like silver in the mine," and then starting the first public library in America.

In the main, the Founders viewed education as the bedrock of democracy, for an informed public would be better able to understand the issues of the day and vote for its leaders. For some time, though, I have come to see public education as serving another, equally important function: It protects us from envy by providing the opportunity for all people, regardless of the economic class of their birth, to achieve success. One flaw of the majority of Founders was their elitism: when they spoke about the public, there were whole sections of the population that they didn't include, and my grandparents and parents would have been among them. (Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration, was one notable exception: he pressed for a network of public schools open to all.) Sometimes I imagine how tragic it would be for millions and millions of children, including me, who where not to the manor born, to be deprived of a chance to climb up the ladder. How would they pass their days? The answer is almost too horrible to imagine.

So today, between the gatherings with friends and family, or watching parades and offering our gratitude to our fellow citizens in harm's way around the globe, perhaps we can all save a moment to whisper a thank-you to the Founders for their unswerving  faith in the power of education to move us forward into a brighter future.

I wish everyone a wonderful 4th. And thank you so much for stopping in these last few weeks to browse through Boardside.

June 29, 2007

Every week, on Thursday morning, The Altamont Enterprise & Albany County Post is published. For local news, particularly the doings of  school boards, The Enterprise is the closest thing we have to an objective voice, thanks in large part to its editor, Melissa Hale-Spencer, whom I have discussed elsewhere.

This week Hale-Spencer wrote a piece on Boardside, headlined, "Silence is not Golden: Website riles school board," and so a few comments, both great and small, are in order.

Open up the paper and you'll see a picture of me from the summer of 2000 shaking hands with then-presidential candidate George W. Bush. On my site there are also pictures of me interviewing Mikhail Gorbachev, which didn't make it into the article. Under normal circumstances these facts wouldn't warrant a comment, but in some educational circles the hated No Child Left Behind act is viewed as a Republican plot/right-wing conspiracy, though this paranoia doesn't factor in that NCLB is ardently supported by Sen. Ted Kennedy and the editorial page of the NY Times. Thus, for the record, let me state that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Republican or Communist.

One comment Hale-Spencer pointed to, and I'm glad she did, was an observation I had made in an early draft of Broadside regarding the teaching of grammar and punctuation. The observation has not been on the site for some time, thanks to the comments of the community members who have served as an informal editorial board. In its original inception the observation seemed to call attention to a lack of ability in today's students. I regret that misinterpretation and apologize for it. Nor did I intend to suggest that teachers are somehow responsible. My point was, and continues to be, that there are no shortcuts to the habits of excellence--that you cannot offload the fine points to a computer. Educational leaders should take note and make the necessary arrangements for children to receive appropriate instruction.

I also feel the same way about the teaching of critical thinking, as if this  skill could be taught divorced from facts. I'm hardly alone here. The American Educator, a publication of the American Federation of Teachers, has reached a similar conclusion in its latest cover story. Again, no shortcuts and lots of hard work. In our district we spend approximately $1 million a year on curriculum and training. Surely some of that money could be reallocated to hire more teachers to inculcate the habits of writing excellence in students. This is no criticism of our current program: it is, however, the recognition of the inescapable reality that large amounts of classroom time are required to meet these goals.

I will be speaking out on this subject during the coming year, because I'm afraid that some believe, mistakenly, that technology holds all the answers. This summer I've had the opportunity to observe two online courses being taught. Since many educators and business leaders are convinced that written online communication will be even more important to the economy of the future, I think it is safe to say that being unable to express complex ideas in well-written sentences with proper spelling and punctuation will one day soon be akin to showing up for work with your shoes on your ears.

One thing that struck me in the Enterprise story was the use of the word "promote" to describe the reason for my Web site. It's funny: I've never gotten any work through my site, and the only time I felt it helped in an undertaking was when I ran for the school board. I put the Web address on my campaign literature because I was under the impression that some members of our community might think it was a good idea to have a writer, historian and biographer on the board. People mentioned it to me while I was campaigning, so I guess it was helpful. What has made me happiest over the years is that some teachers and scholars have used my recorded interviews with political leaders in their classrooms and their work. But, as I noted in earlier blog, if you hear people talking about my Web site as a commercial venture, take note of what they are not talking about--good governance.

Finally, as I read the recap of our meeting in the Enterprise, I found the ludicrous charge of my being "unethical" quite sad. Not the charge itself, which I suspect was made because our Policy Committee has not yet approved the throwing of rocks at board members with whom you don't agree, but because it seems that some believe that board members shouldn't engage in vigorous debate that sharpens their differences. Of course, this is utterly ridiculous, and I could cite numerous reasons in history and law for why it is so. Suffice it to say that every year board members compete for seats in an election, which is indeed all about these differences.

No, what made it so sad in my view is that to attack the idea of debate is to attack the roots of our educational system and to cheapen the mission of every educator and school-board member in our country: It was none other than Thomas Jefferson who saw education as the foundation of democracy, because as Jefferson observed, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free. . . it expects what never was and never will be."

I couldn't agree more.

June 26, 2007 (Update)

Wonderful column by Tom Friedman in the NY Times about the ways in which the blogosphere is changing our landscape for the better. Friedman writes about a new book on the subject, How, by Dov Seidman. The upshot is that transparency puts pressure on people and institutions to behave in a more acceptable manner, since “how you live your life and how you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it."

No wonder that those dedicated to operating in the dark and to vicious verbal assaults out of earshot and to passing off naked self-interest as effective management and to disguising every cut corner as a shrewd practicality and to placing the demands of their own ego above everything else, wish that the blogosphere had never been invented.

Blogging can help mitigate a whole gamut of behavior that gives us the moral dry heaves, because, as Friedman writes, those who "get their hows wrong won’t be able to just hire a P.R. firm to clean up the mess by a taking a couple of reporters to lunch--not when everyone is a reporter and can talk back and be heard globally."

Interesting stuff. I hope there's room for How on my summer-reading list.

June 26, 2007

Back from Washington, a long and interesting trip for business and pleasure. Between appointments I had a chance to get out to the FDR memorial, which is quite different than the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. It is much less intent on creating a sense of awe in the visitor--on exclaiming, "Behold the man!" Instead, the memorial tells a story in sculpture. You see the Depression-era images of people waiting in bread lines, listening to the radio, and waiting to leave their farms. Finally, in back, you come to FDR sitting in his wheelchair with his Scottish terrier, Fala, for company. Engraved on the wall is the following:

those who seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers  call this a new order. it is not new and it is not order

I started talking with my son about FDR and how today we remember him as magnificent, but while he was in the White House he was among the most vilified Presidents in history. FDR had been demonized for so long that in September of 1944 he gave a humorous speech on the subject, discussing the reaction of his dog, Fala. (To listen click here. If you need RealPlayer, click here.) I said that whether you're involved in issues of historic importance or simply sitting on a school board, if you try to change anything people will become frightened and angry, and start flinging accusations ("You're unethical!") or calling you names ("Micromanager!") or claiming that you want to take away their medical insurance, a charge I still hear on occasion even though the changes were approved by the employee health committee and saved money for both our employees and the community. It is the downside of public service, but it shouldn't deter you from doing what you think is right.

My son told me that he understood what I was saying, but added that it didn't start when I put up Boardside on the Web. He said that months ago a student had approached him in school and said some rather unkind things about me as a board member. I asked him what he did, and my son said, "I told him that I was happy he felt so free to express his opinion, but I didn't agree with it. Then I walked away."

This was one of those moments when a father believes that he and his wife actually did something right along the way, that you both had taught something crucial to your child, and somehow, through parental alchemy or God's grace, it managed to stick. I told my son that I was proud of him, and yet, at the same time, I hurt for the child who had approached him, a child whom, for whatever reason, felt impelled to bring this ugliness to school. Now that Boardside is up, I hope that in the future students, or their parents, would feel free to e-mail me their opinions directly.

Some time later, as we were returning from Washington, a discussion started about how one avoids the distractions of personal attacks and continues in a single-minded pursuit of the common good--in this case, the governance that the law requires of school boards. I had no answers for that question, just some guidelines I learned as a child in Little League:

Keep your eye on the ball and never, ever swing at a pitch in the dirt.

June 21, 2007