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| Dawn Breaks on the Marsh |
In the late 1950s, I worked in Miss Heathcote's gift shop. One of my jobs was to prepare for Christmas - in August. This effort involved many hours in the stock room with the big bow making machine. It was green cast iron, with a wooden hand crank and long sinister cutter lever. The Rube Goldbergian charm of the gizmo wore off after about the ten millionth bow.
Another of my duties was to go through huge piles of Hallmark cartons and check them against the orders, then count each card and each envelope, because Miss Heathcote was certain she'd be shortchanged. In my years working there, counting more cards than there are stars in the galaxy, Hallmark never shorted a single item. The job was worth 90 cents an hour minus withholding, paid Friday afternoons in cash. I'd shove the little brown pay envelope in my pocket and catch the next bus to New York, returning late Sunday night. I was 14.
Thinking about Miss Heathcote brings me to the subject of child labor.
That rascal Newt has come up with the best book promotion scheme ever: pretend to run for President of the US. I might not be unique as one who finds almost everything about that man repulsive, but you have to hand it to him for marketing savvy. He's made headlines as an advocate of child labor, a position one would have thought was rendered unfashionable in the first part of the 20th Century when Frances Perkins and American labor unions were busy banning it.
For Newt, his preposterous position that small children in public schools should also be their janitors is an unserious reactionary politician's trifecta: he gets to bash unions, blame the victims/poor people, and obliquely pander to the subsurface racism that's rampant in Republican politics nowadays for pretty obvious reasons. Since ol' Newt has not the slightest intention of actually being President of the United States of America - the job is way too much work for a guy like Newt even if he were qualified - he can just fling out random positions and sell more books, give more speeches for pay, and land those fabulous consulting contracts. What a guy.
As with much demagoguery, there is a tiny kernel of worth inside Newt's position. Two in fact.
First, kids are trained from an early age to be consumers of education, part of their overall training to be American Consumers of Chinese Made Goods. Many teachers and some school systems work against this "you're an empty vessel, I'll fill you up" kind of education, denounced 100 years ago by Vermonter John Dewey. I think all aspects of public education - leaving content out for a moment - would be enhanced by the kids feeling some ownership of their educational situation. Don't fire the janitors, instead make them teachers of environmental stewardship. The kids should be sweeping and dusting and mowing every day. Not just for pay, Newt - for learning.
Once again this is hardly a novel concept, Doctor Montessori's ideas along these lines came to the USA a century ago, as Dewey's theories were unfolding.
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| Geese on the Morning Marsh, High Tide |
What the kids learn by working in their schools is that members of communities are interdependent, there is joy in being important to everyone, and that people can find deep satisfaction experiencing the concrete results of their work. I'm not talking about kids becoming bread winners, and it's ridiculous to fire the janitors - who are well qualified to maintain the schools while teaching responsibility and good work habits.
Second, work for pay is also a good thing, even for children. I worked for food in the school cafeteria starting in junior high, and then for Miss Heathcote and others in high school - to fund independence. Not iTunes or $150 sneakers - freedom and autonomy. How can we do this without displacing grownups in low-wage jobs, including people here from other countries who may be supporting half a village on what they earn clipping our hedges?
OK here it comes, one more excursion into the past: let's look to John Maynard Keynes, who died nine months after I was born. And the many people who made his ideas manifest in the world, again like our friend Frances Perkins and her pal Roosevelt. This means government as the employer of last resort, government as the bulwark against wild economic fluctuations, government as the ultimate supporter of those who pay for it, and government as protection from the greedy and powerful companies in banking, finance and investment. Nowadays, the fiscal conservatives who run our country, ranging from President Obama to our buddy Newt, reject just about all of these ideas, except for pathetic vestiges like TARP.
These people, to put it simply, prefer letting unregulated corporations run things, instead of governments we vote for. Me? I want the WPA. That's a serviceable framework for restoring independence and dignity to millions of out-of-work people in our unhappy country. I favor jobs provided to benefit the public through the provision of honorable work, as well as the goods and services thus created. In this context, we can put kids to work: as part of an inclusive labor policy that protects adult work, prevents exploitation of children, and allows kids to learn how to work.
I'm kind of impatient with people who cite bad experiences with government as a reason to do away with it. If something doesn't work, fix it - don't toss it out. Why do the people who tolerate Shell Oil and Walmart and Goldman Sachs want to scrap the government they pay for and vote for? It doesn't make sense to advocate abolishing the very entity that protects you from corporate excess - unless you're the handmaiden of those very corporations, who want to run amuck unfettered.
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| Norby is Not An Advocate of More Work |
And that brings us full circle to ol' Newt.
