I hate Richard Louv

May his conservative, manipulative ass roast in hell. I just ranted about him for 8 pages in my journal for class, so I don't feel particularly inclined to rant about him any more, but I needed one final shout of rage. Hmmm... or maybe I could just put my log up on my blog. It's in table format. I wonder if blogger can handle that. Well I'll give it a try.

Ok, I can't get a table, but it's mostly readable. It's only two columns: the first one is the author's important ideas which is usually a quote followed by a page number in parentheses and the second column is me ranting my ass off.

Here is me ranting my ass off about Last Child in the Woods, a book about how children need more time playing out in nature. To give you a little background, I'm not opposed to the idea. I spent a lot of my childhood roaming around outdoors freely and I think I turned out ok. But then I also enjoy video games and don't think they're damaging our children. So this is my log that I'm turning in to my teacher tomorrow word for word except there were a few more paragraphs in my original table (they didn't copy and damned if I'm going through this whole thing pressing enter every time I think it's needed).

Enjoy.


First impression (1) I suppose the first question I have to ask (and hope will be addressed) is what about people who don’t have the money to be near nature?

Anecdote about son (1) A personal anecdote seems to be the inspiration for this book. I wonder if this is a common experience shared by many people. I, myself, explored a lot as a kid, but I also really enjoyed video games and other indoor activities. Perhaps only the author’s son feels this way about outdoor activities. I would like more evidence.

Summer camp stories (2) The change in summer activities could be interpreted as a move from outdoor to indoor activities, but it could also be interpreted as a move from play to work (camp is much more an expression of play than weight loss camp). Both I think are valid interpretations that lead to a similar conclusion.

Nature (4) I know it’s a pretty commonly accepted term, but I think the use of nature is itself ambiguous. Technically, everything on Earth is natural. Humans evolved the way they did naturally, so all human creations must be natural. I have to wonder at what point man became unnatural.

“On its face, New York City may not appear natural, but it does contain all manner of hidden, self-organizing wild places” (8) I’m pleased to see this point here. It addresses the concern I had earlier about not being able to afford being near nature.

“when I use the word ‘nature’ in a general way, I mean natural wilderness: biodiversity, abundance – related loose parts in a backyard or a rugged mountain ridge” (8-9) Almost as soon as he addresses my concerns, he un-addresses them. Not everyone can live near a rugged mountain ridge or have their own backyard. Though I do appreciate a specific definition of nature.

“The woods were my Ritalin” (10) I have some issues with this. I can be patient and wait for the book to later substantiate its claim about lack of nature causing ADD, but the truth of the matter is, I don’t really believe in ADD. There may be some cases of it, but in general, I think it’s just kids acting their age. Their age just happens to have a lot of energy. If lack of nature really causes ADD, then there should be a lot of people with ADD, but I don’t think there really are.

“ ‘I like to play indoors better, ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are’” (10) I have to wonder where child preference comes into play in this book. Can you or should you force a child to play outdoors if that’s not what they want to do?

“But for many others, playing in nature seemed so… Unproductive. Off-limits. Alien. Cute. Dangerous. Televised” (10) I can just hear the disdain in his voice, after spending several paragraphs on the majesty of nature to refer to it with this string of irreverent adjectives. He certainly chooses his words well to arouse that same sense of disdain in the reader.

“Though several [parents] lived on the same block, this was the first time that some of these parents had met each other” (11) This book is lined with sentences like this, and I think it’s worthwhile to stop and analyze one of them in depth. The whole structure of the sentence seems to imply that people should know their neighbors as that is the assumed, natural way of things. Then it points to the fact that even though these parents are in a situation where they should know their neighbors, some of them have never met. It offers this sentence like some strange, lamentable fact, but this “fact” contains many tacit assumptions and premises that are inaccurate. It’s as though the author hopes to convince us of his point by bombarding us with manufactured truisms about the changing face of the new society. Let’s question his assumptions. Should we know our neighbors? I don’t see any reason why we should. Perhaps to build a better community, though the whole idea sounds a little forced to me. You can’t really choose your neighbors. Now is this a new state of affairs? My parents don’t know their neighbors. My grandparents didn’t know theirs. Perhaps I’m anomalous, but I doubt I’m that out of the ordinary. Over and over again in this book, the reader is offered tidbits of the good way things used to be contrasted with the sad and pitiable way that things are now. The framing of the facts is impeccable, but I notice it (this is partly because of all the cognitive linguistics classes I’ve taken where we take texts like this and analyze word by word all the metaphors and assumptions inherent in each sentence) and it makes me very resistant to what the author is saying. I feel like he’s trying to manipulate me. Why can’t he just lay down the facts without manipulative language? Is he too worried that people will reject his opinion if he lets the facts speak for themselves? I suppose this is the point where I just stopped trusting what the author was trying to say. I have a biased text, and even if nature may be helpful to people, I just don’t want to hear it at this point. If his tone changes, I might change my mind, but from here on out, I feel like I’m going to be trudging through something that tries to change my mind illegitimately. I’m honestly a little sick that I have to keep reading and giving this author more chances to infect me with his bias.

“Beard epitomizes a time when a young person’s experience of nature was inseparable from the romantic view of the American frontier” (15) After the quote on page 11 when I sat down and really thought about what was going on, I was really trying to gloss over the text and give it less of a chance to piss me off, but this sentence stood out so much I could help but go off on a tirade. Before I thought the book was classist. Now I thin it’s racist too. How can you call the American frontier romantic? The only people who can say that are white. The race of the author is painfully apparent. He paints this ideal, suburban 50s society where everyone gets to know their new neighbor by bringing them a jello mold as soon as they move in to the neighborhood where, of course, everyone is white. It is extremely obvious to me that this book is targeted directly at white people. I just can’t imagine these words coming out of the mouth of anyone else. He sits here and talks about his love of nature, but that love of nature comes at a price. He says on page 14 that we have a mixed message about valuing nature and then tearing it down and gives a precious little picture of a would-be poet girl whose inspiration was destroyed when her favorite forest was torn down. Awwww. Just makes you weep. What he doesn’t mention is what was put in place of that forest. I’m going to take a wild guess and say it was housing. There’s always new housing going up. It’s immensely profitable. Everyone wants to live the American dream and have a house in the suburbs, especially since the suburbs bring us closer to nature, which is obviously so good for our children, according to this book. Then they can play in our quaint backyard next to the rocky ridge! Oh the ridge was torn down? What a shame. Let’s make a jello mold! There isn’t enough space, money, or equity to give everyone the dream this author is selling. This book is destroying nature by its very existence! He may criticize suburbs for not being natury enough, but that’s not the take home message here. The take home message is “have a nice little backyard and force your children to play in it.” And here he romanticizes the American frontier (and later goes on to say all the good that came of it and how it improved our psyche and made us hearty and better than every other country in the world) which was one long history of injustice and removal of people (primarily Indians) from nature. There was the great dividing and partitioning of the land, folklore about how many trees Paul Bunyan can cut down, importing Chinese laborers to do the work you don’t want to do (building a railroad) that allows even more people to come to the west and mess with the land even more. He talks about a mixed message and doesn’t even realize what he’s doing!

“ ‘the existence of an area of free land…’ explained the development of the American nation, history and character” (17) He takes this big bucket of American patriotism and justifies our arrogance by the existence of a frontier and our relation to (conquering of) nature. So that’s why we’re so much better than all those other countries that never had that experience.

“an increased intellectual understanding of our relationship with other animals” (19) and “more young people may be vegetarians or consume foods from the health food store, but fewer are likely to raise their own food – especially if the food is an animal” (21) He uses the qualifier “intellectual” so that it’s clear we don’t really understand nature and animals. He looks down on vegetarians as not really knowing what they’re doing. It’s like he’s saying “sure it sounds like they’re doing the right thing, but since they have no idea what an animal is, it’s for all the wrong reasons.” Grrrr… I hate this author. There are constant, subtle jibes at so many things that don’t deserve it.

“even the definition of life itself is up for grabs” (21) He keeps talking about how the world is changing and all the awful new things he sees in it, but most of this stuff isn’t even new. Roe v Wade was big milestone in the debate on life, and that’s not terribly new (it’s from his venerable generation that knew the value of nature, after all). I’m sure there are many other examples as well.

“For baby boomers, such news is fascinating, strange, disturbing” (23) Every word and scenario is described in such a way as to make it seem disturbing (what exactly does he have against genetic, anyway? I’m guessing he dislikes making progress toward curing genetic diseases). He is clearly disturbed by the news and expects us to be too. And again we see him emphasizing the irreconcilable difference between our generations: there’s the righteous older generation who knows that this newfangled stuff is wrong and there’s the new generation, robbed of its morals by lack of a communion with nature. At this point, I almost just put the book down and stopped reading. I did have to stop for a while, but I really didn’t want to pick it back up. Every few sentences something was making me angry. I didn’t see the point in continuing. It didn’t serve any purpose. I really wanted it to get better and start offering some substance to its claims (I had yet to see any convincing evidence), but I had given up hope of it actually doing so. Just giving me some news blurbs with his particular, negative spin on it was not exactly convincing. And I still had another 15 pages of this conservative trash to read. I trudged on and tried to skim, but every time I glossed over something without picking it apart and getting irate, I worried that his words would sink in, so I found myself stopping almost as much as I had. This is hardly even a science text. This is rhetorical garbage (though I will admit it is insidiously well done). Sigh.

“the march of the nanorobots or the advance of the chimera” (26) Nanorobots (or nanomachines to be more accurate) don’t march. So why use the word “march”? The only things that march are armies or some other type of threatening military force. The nanorobots (machines don’t march, but unfeeling, unthinking robots do, so perhaps there’s a reason to his misnaming and mislabeling) and the chimera (genetics is not used to create mythical Greek monsters like the chimera, but why not phrase it that way and offer one example that might fit the phrasing so you can use a word with the appropriately monstrous connotations) are advancing, but who are they advancing on? Us of course. The whole writing style is designed to create a sense of fear through a few well placed, well chosen words. Disgusting.

“verboten” “constricted” “growing obsession with order” (28) “Verboten” has the special connotation that not only is something forbidden (the English translation), but it is unnecessarily so, or perhaps that the restriction is excessive and unreasonable. And “constriction” sounds like children are suffocating painfully under the regime. “Growing obsession with order” speaks for itself. He chooses his words so carefully. It’s sick.

Community associations are “private government” (28) There’s an unfair, rigid, group of draconian disciplinarians who are running their own anti-democratic private government and worst of all, they’re presiding over your own front yard! The manipulation has just gotten rampant at this point. It was bad before, but now it can barely contain itself.

“the criminalization of natural play is more suggestive than read” (29) So if you try to look for laws that actually support what he’s saying, you’re not going to find them, but trust him – they’re “suggestive.”

Touching story about a grandfather who can no longer fly his kite with his grandson after generations of kit flying (29) The kite flying scares away an endangered bird (probably endangered because it’s been scared away by kite flyers for generations). It has consequences. And just because kite flying has happened for so long and seems so harmless, he’s trying to suggest that that’s justification for continuing. We can’t right the wrongs of the past, but if we notice that something is damaging the environment, we have a duty to stop it. Unfortunately, our friend of nature here does not feel the same way.

“decapitated hills” “artificial landscaping” “yards the size of gravesites” (30) Are you kidding me? How can this guy even write with a straight face? This goes beyond being “poetic;” this is simply manipulative.

“how could something so timeless change in such a short time?” (32) I hardly know where to begin with this one. Timeless? Timeless how? Justify what you mean instead of throwing around sappy, loaded words to pull on our heartstrings. Timeless as in, since America’s founding? Timeless as in, from Europe in medieval times (since your ancestors were clearly European)? Timeless as in ancient Greeks? Timeless as in the dawn of man? I don’t know how universal this communion with nature is supposed to be, but I can’t believe it’s as eternal and universal as he’s pretending it is. And on another note, look how perfectly this phrase appeals to conservatives. It suggests how our way of life is being fenced out and systematically destroyed within the blink of an eye and how we have to fight to stop it. The only person I’ll fight is this scummy author.

“indoor, sedentary lifestyle linked to mental health problems” (32) This quote is from a study done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Finally some actual evidence instead of a stream of manipulative rhetoric. Well it had to happen eventually. I have to give credit where credit is due. I’m curious to know what these mental health problems are though.

“For almost two decades, the well known Japanese photographer Keiki Haganoya photographed children’s play in the cities of Japan. In recent years, “children have disappeared so rapidly from his viewfinder that he has had to bring that chapter of his work to an end,” Moore [a professor of landscape architecture at North Carolina State] reports” (33) And we all know what problems with ADHD Japanese kids have. I noticed how crazy they were in that TIMMS study. I guess he’s finally convinced me that lack of nature and ADHD are related. As long as he has evidence of some sort, there’s no need to follow up with a critical eye, right? I’m sorry, I’m rarely this sarcastic, but it’s hard to contain myself with this guy.

There’s no money in natural play (I forget the page number) Is that really true? A video game console with a few games costs $500. A house costs anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands depending on what part of the country you’re in. The type of living he’s describing does not come cheap. Yes, he speaks poorly of suburban housing (some of the most expensive natural environment), but only because of its restrictions on natural play. This book makes a tacit assumption about free time and money that shows how restrictive and limited it is in its audience.

Fragile

Kids are so delicate. It's really sad sometimes. Today in class one of the students, Laron, was misbehaving a little. Actually I couldn't even see what he was doing from the back of the room, and honestly I can see almost everything. I think he was either joking quietly with the person next to him or simply not paying attention. Whatever it was wasn't a big deal from my point of view. It must have been upsetting to Jake (my master teacher) though. He had to flip his card all the way to orange (it starts out green, then yellow is a warning, then orange is a call home. It almost never gets to red, but 4 reds equals a suspension). Then after getting an orange card, Jake had to send him to the back of the room near the end of the period. They had a quiz at around the same time and I didn't see Jake give him a quiz. I asked if that was intentional, and Jake said Laron wasn't really in the mood to work because he was so angry, but he gave me the quiz and a copy for myself and let me try to get him to work. I sat next to him at the back of the room and tried. He wouldn't talk to me, but I'm pretty sure he was listening to me talk to him. And Jake may have thought he wasn't working because he was angry, but that wasn't really the reason. He was angry, but he was mostly angry because of how hurt he was. He wouldn't talk to me because he was crying and really didn't want me to know. He turned away and pulled is hood around his head as tightly as it would go, but I could hear him sniffling (as quietly as he could) and see him occasionally wiping his eyes. I told him he should really think about starting his quiz because he didn't want to get a zero, but that felt like a really harsh thing to say to someone crying. I felt like trying to comfort him wouldn't be too helpful since he really didn't want me to know how sad he was. After a minute or two, he picked up his quiz and looked at it. I saw this as a pretty good sign, but he also picked up a pair of scissors that I saw had been left on the tables in the back of the room. I should have picked them up earlier in the day when I first noticed them. I noticed them in his hand and cringed a little when I saw him go for his test, but I he just ran the scissors along the back of it, coming close to cutting it, but not actually cutting it. I'm pretty sure that wasn't for my benefit. He knew he'd get in trouble for cutting up the test, but he felt so angry and hurt that he wanted to lash out at something. He was just running the scissors along the middle behind it so that he could pretend he was actually cutting it, getting a little of the relief of actually cutting it but without getting into any trouble. I thought about trying to stop him or trying to get the scissors away from him, but I understood exactly how he was feeling. He was humiliated and frustrated and needed to take it out on something. I was worried that he was actually going to cut it up, which wouldn't have offended me, but could have been considered a serious act of rebellion that might have even gotten him a red card. Then he started to cut of the tops of the corners of the paper. That was a relief since it helped to relieve some pressure as well, but I knew if left to his own devices he'd eventually get bolder and bolder and cut up the rest of it, or at least cut enough that what he was doing became noticeable. I really didn't want Jake to find out about that. It's fine to let out your frustrations on some inanimate object, but it wasn't exactly the safest space to do so. Jake is a good teacher, but I think he's got a lot of frustrations and burdens and they've gotten in the way of his appreciation of the students. He's more into getting them to behave than he is enjoying their company. Of course, I guess it's his job to get them to behave so he can teach the class. But anyway, back to Laron. After he'd cut each of the corners once in a small way, I spoke to him again for the first time in minutes. I told him that cutting up his test wasn't really going to help him. I told him that if it made him feel better he could keep doing it, but he'd still be in the same situation with the same problems and I didn't really think it would make him feel better. He wiped his eyes a few times and turned back to his desk, put down the scissors, and started working.

Kids are so good! Can you believe that? The teacher was really mean to him (from his point of view at least) and he really didn't want to cooperate, but he still tried to work through his tears. I told him how impressive that was to work when he felt so bad. He stopped and cried momentarily when I told him that. I think he was ashamed and being told he was hurting when he was trying his best to ignore his pain probably just reminded him of what he was trying to forget. I don't regret praising him though. He was amazing. He worked really hard. He got a problem wrong, but I didn't have the heart to correct him. He was in a fragile enough state of mind as it was. When the bell rang, I told him that he did a great job and did great work. He may have goofed off for the majority of the period, but he worked harder than someone working for the full hour and half for those five minutes at the end. He didn't speak to me the entire time except for once immediately after I sat down with him where he said, "I hate him." Poor Laron. I think speaking made him cry more. That's how it is with me too. I know communicating is better than keeping quiet when you're obviously upset, but for whatever reason, voicing your problems refreshes all the injustice of them and makes you start crying. Sometimes when I'm sad I'll just stop talking entirely because anything I say will make me cry and I really don't want to cry. After I left, I saw Jake trying to talk to him. He kept asking why Laron was so mad. I knew it was futile. Laron was mad at him (and perhaps for good reason) and wasn't about to let Jake see him cry. Jake didn't realize he'd hurt Laron. He still just thought Laron was angry and pouty. I could have told Jake that he'd hurt Laron, but Laron would have heard and that would have hurt his pride. I know Laron would have rather been viewed as angry and rebellious than as a weakling who got hurt by the teacher sending him to the back of the room. The last person he would want to know was Jake. It might have gotten him into more trouble in the end since he looked like he was being belligerent and aggressive instead of just hurt.

*pause for a moment while I send Jake and email telling him to go easy on Laron*

I hope that was a good idea. Laron doesn't have to know about that. I just don't want Jake to make a bad situation worse by calling his mom and telling her that her son is being disruptive. Perhaps he is, but that's the last thing Laron needs to hear.

It seems like Jake is hurting his kids' feelings a lot lately. Most of them aren't as susceptible as Laron, but I can tell when he's doing something he should be, when he's taking excessive measures that make the students want to behave even worse. Sometimes, just letting a kid be for a few moments does a lot more than forcing them to do what you want. For instance, I could have told Laron to take away the scissors or get another card flipped and forced him to put down the thing that he was releasing some frustration on, but by just letting him cut his paper a little and set down the scissors on his own, I think it was a lot more productive. I don't think he would have started working at the end otherwise. I'll admit I was really proud of myself for the way I handled that, but even more so I was proud of Laron. I don't know that I would have had the strength to try again after that, or at least not try the day of the incident. He's a really good kid. Honestly, they all are. I felt so bad when he was crying. This is the reason I want to become a teacher, or at least one of the reasons anyway. I want things to be better for kids. I had enough teachers who didn't understand me. I had enough teachers who glorified the Rosalie's of the class (she works hard and always is on task and does what she's told, but she's really not as intelligent as some of the people who are doing worse because they are so intelligent and question orders- she's a good kid, but she shouldn't be glorified). The misbehavers are really some of the more endearing students. I like them so much. I hope Laron is ok. He'll have a whole weekend to cool down a little. I hope things go better for him on Monday.