BEWARE ‘THE SCIENCE OF READING’

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

“The Science of Reading” is a real thing, so real that it’s required by law in schools in 40 states and the District of Columbia.  They have been ordered by politicians to adopt what is known as the “Science of Reading,” which mandates ‘evidence-based’ reading instruction, often in the hopes that test scores will improve. (The three states I have lived in in recent years–Massachusetts, New York, and California–have resisted the pressure to jump on this bandwagon, I’m happy to say.)

While this bandwagon has been picking up steam, something unfortunate has been happening: Our kids are reading for pleasure less and less.  For example, only 17 percent of 13-year-olds say they read almost daily for fun, compared to 27 percent in 2012 and 35 percent in 1984. That’s a huge dropoff. 

While we know that correlation is not necessarily causation, could those two developments be connected?  

Let’s start with ‘The Science of Reading.”  Here’s how the newspaper Education Week explains it (with my emphasis added to some words I want you to pay special attention to):  “In a science of reading framework, teachers start by teaching beginning readers the foundations of language in a structured progression—like how individual letters represent sounds, and how those sounds combine to make words. 

That’s Phonics, sounding out words.  In other words, schools and teachers are required by law to teach kids that letters make sounds and, by implication, that they can trust those sounds….

Makes sense, if reading is in fact a science…..

Hold on for a minute, please!  Very often we cannot trust the sounds,  because our language, English, is about as unreliable and unpredictable as possible.  It breaks its own rules willy-nilly.  

My personal favorite example is these three words, which I ask you to say out loud:  Anger, Danger, Hanger.  By the rules of Phonics and the ‘science of reading,’ those three words should rhyme……

Here’s another demonstration of our English language’s weirdness and irregularity, based on a comic routine I found on YouTube a few days ago.

Say this word aloud: EAR

By the rules of Phonics, this word, BEAR, should rhyme with EAR….but it doesn’t

Now that you have learned to pronounce BEAR, it stands to reason that adding a D, making BEARD, will produce a word that is pronounced BARED.  But it’s not; it’s pronounced BEERD.

Back to the rules: EAR and HEAR rhyme, as they should, but HEARD isn’t pronounced HERE-D; instead, it’s pronounced HERD.

And if we add a T to HEAR to make HEART, we don’t get HERE-T.  No, it’s HART.

Back to hard core phonics:  By its rules,  DEAR, FEAR, HEAR, GEAR, and PEAR should rhyme….and they do, with one important exception. Let’s talk about the exception.  What if we add an L to PEAR, to make PEARL.  It should be pronounced PAIR-L, but of course it’s not.  It’s PURR-L.

I wrote about two competing approaches to teaching reading, Phonics and Whole Language (which includes teaching students to recognize some words, not just sound them out), back in January.  You can find that piece here, but below you will find my description of  how one first grade teacher gets her students interested in reading:  

That First Grade teacher often takes pages out of the Whole Language playbook to talk about words that don’t follow the rules of Phonics.  

One day she writes these sentences on the blackboard: COME HERE!  WHERE ARE THE MACHINES?

“OK, kids. On your toes now, because only one of these words follows the rules.”

She asks them to pronounce each word according to the rules they have learned. They do, pronouncing COME with a long O, WHERE with a long E, ARE with a long A, and MACHINES with a long I.  Then she pronounces them correctly, cracking up the children.

“I told you English was tricky and sneaky, but we won’t let it beat us!”

To finish the lesson, she writes HERE on the blackboard and asks the children to sound it out, which they do with ease.  Then she puts a W in front of HERE and challenges them to sound it out.  They rhyme it with HERE.  She replaces the W with T, making THERE, and again asks her students to sound it out.  WHERE and THERE, she explains, break the rules. They will have to learn to recognize them. 

My point then–and now–is that ‘The Science of Reading’ is wildly over-hyped and arguably even dangerous when reading is reduced to drilling in Phonics.  

Never forget these two truths: 1) Every child wants to be able to read because reading gives them both pleasure and power over their environment, and 2) The teaching of reading is both an ART and a SCIENCE.  That is, Phonics is necessary but not sufficient!

I worry that the fervent acolytes for “The Science of Reading” may be taking the joy out of reading, and I know that hucksters are asking school boards to buy their expensive ‘evidence-based’ blah blah blah reading programs. I fear that the focus on “The Science of Reading” may, inadvertently, be producing children who can read but do not and will not, because what they endured to achieve the status of “reader” (by passing state tests) was painful.

“Necessary But Not Sufficient”

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Many schools, both public and private, are banning cellphones. Is this a good idea? Let me present three connected points and a (seemingly) logical conclusion:

  1. Nearly all teenagers–95%–are on social media like TikTok, WhatsApp and their counterparts.  One-third of teens admit to using social media “almost constantly.” 
  1. Social media is damaging our kids, according to the U.S. Surgeon General: “The types of use and content children and adolescents are exposed to pose mental health concerns. Children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. This is concerning as a recent survey showed that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media. And when asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse.”  A ‘national mental health emergency’ for children and adolescents was declared by the American Academy of Pediatrics back in 2021. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that “In 2021 and 2022, 21% of adolescents reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety in the past two weeks and 17% reported experiencing symptoms of depression.”  Undoubtedly, matters have only gotten worse, as teens’ use of social media has increased.

How does it hurt our kids? Let me count the ways:

  • Social media exposes young people to “extreme, inappropriate content.” 
  • Social media makes them–especially adolescent girls–feel bad about their bodies.  
  • Social media is a haven for predators. Nearly 6 in 10 girls say they’ve been contacted by strangers online “in ways that make them feel uncomfortable.”
  • Social media can overstimulate the brains in ways similar to addiction, leading to problems sleeping and difficulty paying attention.
  • Time on social media is time that is NOT spent with peers, developing relationships, learning about life’s give-and-take, what Erik Erikson calls ‘identity formation.’
  1. Teenagers access social media on their cellphones, and 95% of teenagers have their own cellphone.  These ubiquitous devices are their portal, their entry point, their lifeline to social media.  Without cellphones, teenagers have extremely limited access to social media.   Cellphones, which are ubiquitous, are the lifeline and portal to social media.

(It’s not just teens, of course.  According to the National Institutes of Health, “Mobile phone adoption in the United States is starting in late childhood and early adolescence; currently, 53% of children have a smartphone by age 11.”)

Ergo: Without cellphones, teenagers won’t be on social media, so cellphones should be banned. Without cellphones, teenagers won’t be taking 100 or more selfies to get the ‘perfect’ photo to post. They won’t be making 10-second videos for TikTok or spending hours watching cats being cute.  If they aren’t on social media, the thinking goes, they will be more social. If they aren’t communicating with a machine, they will engage in genuine personal communication.  

In fact, a growing number of public school districts and private schools have come to that conclusion. They have banned cellphones or developed policies designed to severely limit their use. 

The Washington Post reported in depth on this issue in late August, just as schools were opening.  According to the Post, at least seven of the nation’s 20 largest school districts have banned or severely restricted cell phone use. It’s not just large districts, of course.  The school district on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where I live, requires students to put their phones into pouches when they enter the school building, and they can retrieve them at day’s end.  

Banning phones may be necessary (I think it is), but it is not sufficient, not even close.  What are adults offering in exchange? What’s the rest of this bargain?  Without some other steps, some quid pro quo, this will be perceived by most teens as heavy-handed and punitive, something being done to them against their will, something that makes school even less appealing.

Of course many kids see the ban as punitive, and why wouldn’t they?  When adults try to reassure them by saying, “Trust us. This is for your own good,” that only confirms their suspicions.  This is being done to them–and so they are going to devote a lot of energy to beating the ban.

Unfortunately, schools and the adults who run them are too often reactive, when thoughtful proactive behavior is called for. Instead of simply banning phones, the adults ought to be trying to get young people to want to come to school regularly, not simply ‘to attend school.’  To do that, schools (with or without cellphones) need to be interesting, challenging, and safe. 

Let me suggest four specific steps that should, I believe, accompany the cellphone ban:  

1) Restore the full range of extra-curricular opportunities–because most kids come to school so they can do interesting stuff with their friends!  

2) Homeroom should become an extended period, not just a quick five minutes when attendance is taken. Make daily homeroom a pressure-free time when students–without phones to distract them–can catch up with friends, forge new relationships, finish homework, or even take naps.  “Home” is the operative word here.  For most high school and middle school students, “Homeroom” is the equivalent of the starting blocks in a track meet. They touch base, listen to (or maybe ignore) morning announcements, and, when the bell sounds, dash off to class. In truth, “Homeroom” matters to school administrators only because it gives them a head count, but it’s a meaningless perfunctory exercise for kids.  For them, “Homeroom” is just a room, about as far from actually being a home as one can imagine.

That could change. America’s teenagers desperately need more “Home” in their lives, more opportunities to connect with others, more moments that tell them they matter. The rigidity of today’s high-pressure school schedules makes matters worse, not better. 

The simple—not easy, but simple–fix is to make “Homeroom” more of a HOME, not just another room.  Some teachers will have to be convinced that this new time period is an opportunity for them to expand their own professional repertoire of skills to include their students’ social and emotional growth. The challenge may be to train teachers to listen and not react, in order to allow young people to identify and share their feelings. NewsWeek magazine reports that Tacoma, Washington, schools are doing this, training not only teachers but also parents and school bus drivers.

In each of these new extended Homerooms,  teachers and their students will have to work together to figure out how they want to use this time. Some students may want to finish homework, or sleep, but the teacher could steer the conversation in the direction of “team building.”  

Perhaps one day a week could be set aside for discussion of some interesting questions (“If you could meet one figure from history, who would it be, and why?”), even trivial ones (“What questions would you like to ask Taylor Swift?”). 

Ideally “Homeroom” will turn into a safe space where students can learn to share and will agree that what’s shared there stays there. No bullying allowed.  

3) Expand course offerings to include some college classes and vocational training opportunities. Meet kids where they are, not where you think they should be.  

4) Work harder to make schools safe in three vital ways: physically, emotionally, and intellectually.  Emotional safety means that bullying and cyber-bullying are not tolerated.  Intellectually safe schools celebrate curiosity.  In these schools, adults encourage students to admit when they do not understand or are confused, often by modeling that behavior. Intellectually safe schools don’t treat kids as numbers but as growing and changing individuals.  (And young people who are treated with respect are unlikely to bring their dad’s AK-47 to school.)

Without cellphones as a crutch and given a more stimulating environment, most young people will be inclined to engage with each other. With adult guidance, they can explore new ideas, share curiosities, make plans, and so forth.  They can learn that there is life without cellphones.  

Removing cellphones creates new opportunities and challenges, but that won’t happen if adults simply enforce the ban. That is, banning cellphone in school is NECESSARY but not SUFFICIENT.

It’s time for the grownups to grow up and step up!

Education and the November Election

John Merrow Uncategorized

If Kamala Harris wins the Presidency, public education isn’t likely to be shaken up as much as it needs to be. If Donald Trump is elected and has his way, public education will be turned upside down. But no matter who wins, American higher education is in big trouble….although, as you will see, every crisis is also an opportunity.

If Trump wins in November, the world of education faces rough seas.  His “Project 2025” pledges to abolish the federal Department of Education, without specifying what agencies would be responsible for what the Department now does, such as enforcing civil rights laws in education.  “Project 2025” pledges to abolish Head Start, the preschool program that now serves about 833,000 low income children, send Title One money directly to states (while phasing it out over a 10-year period), and turn over Pell Grant administration to the Treasury Department.   While many in education want the Pell Grant cap of $7,395 per year to be raised (given the cost of a college education), “Project 2025” does not address this.

President Biden has made forgiving student debt a goal, but most of his efforts have been stymied by the courts. “Project 2025” would end the practice completely.

Trump and his team promise to advance “education freedom” by vigorously promoting “school choice.”  In practice, this would provide parents with cash vouchers that can be spent at private and religious schools, as well as federal tax credits for money spent on private school tuition. In simplest terms, Trump and his team want as much of the money that now goes to public schools to go to parents instead, and they want it to be tax-deductible, as it now is in Arizona. 

“Project 2025” calls for restricting free breakfast and lunch to low income students. Doing that would probably bring back separate lines and separate entrances for those paying and those eating ‘for free.’  That practice led some poor kids to skip meals entirely, to avoid humiliation, which is why many school districts have opted to feed all kids. (There’s some evidence that feeding everyone is actually cheaper, because it eliminates the need for special passes, separate accounting, and so forth. Ask Tim Walz about it.)

A significant change that I experienced as a reporter was the treatment of children with handicapping conditions.  Prior to 1975, many of those children were institutionalized or kept at home. “The Education of All Handicapped Children Act” (PL 94-142) moved the revolution that had begun in Massachusetts and Minnesota to the national level. While it’s not perfect today, the federal government contributes more than $14 Billion to pay for services for those youngsters.  “Project 2025” would distribute the money to states directly with few if any strings attached and would ask Congress to rewrite the law so that some money could go directly to parents. That doesn’t seem to me to be a step in the right direction.

All of these provisos and directives seem likely to do major damage to public education, as well as to the life chances of low income students.

Charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run schools, seem unlikely to fare well no matter who wins. They aren’t private enough for most Republicans, and they are too private for most Democrats.

What lies in store for education if Harris wins in November?  The Biden-Harris Administration promised far more than it delivered, particularly in higher education, and its Secretary of Education has been largely missing in action, as far as I could tell. The party’s platform calls for free pre-school, free public college for families earning under $125,000 per year, making college tuition tax-deductible, smaller classes, and more ‘character education,’ whatever that is.

My own wish list would be for an energetic Secretary of Education who would encourage and lead conversations about the purposes of education, and the roles that schools play.  Too often today public schools are merely rubber-stamping the status children arrive with; but schools are supposed to be ladders of opportunity, there to be climbed by anyone and everyone with ambition.

The federal government cannot change how schools operate, but its leadership could and should shine a bright light on what schools could be….and how they could get there.

If I am allowed one wish, it’s that President Harris and Vice President Walz propose National Service, a 2-year commitment for all, in return for two years of tuition/training.  It’s long past time to put the ‘me-me-me’ self-absorption of the Ronald Reagan era in our rear view mirror. Our young people need to be reminded that they live in a great country and ought to show their appreciation by serving it in some capacity.

Whoever wins, Harris or Trump, American higher education’s rough years will continue, because a growing number of young people are questioning the value of, and necessity for, a college education.  This is a genuine crisis, and American higher education is in the fight of its life: Last year nearly 100 colleges shut down, roughly two per week.  While we still have more than 4,000 higher education institutions, many of those may not make it to 2030.  The rising cost of college defies common sense, the rise of Artificial Intelligence threatens some professions that now require a college degree, and many young people seem inclined to opt out of the high-speed, high stakes chase for a credential.  How many of the 31,000,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 will continue to enroll in college this year and next is an open question.  

Of course, colleges aren’t standing pat. For example,  Community Colleges are reaching down into high schools to keep their enrollment up; about one-fifth of all current Community College students are also enrolled in high school. Those institutions also enroll lots of older students–the average age of a Community College student is 28.

Four-year colleges and universities are fighting to enroll the 40,000,000 Americans who have some college credits but not enough for a degree.  They are also doing their best to attract on-line learners of all ages, and the most ambitious institutions are working hard to enroll (full paying) students from all over the world.  

If Trump wins, his immigration policies might shut the door on foreign students, a cash cow for a large number of institutions.  If Harris wins, federal aid probably won’t be slashed, but that won’t stop the questioning.

Questioning is long overdue. For too long elitists in the Democratic and Republican parties have looked down their noses at those not going to college, ignoring the wisdom of the great John Gardner:  “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

Every crisis is also an opportunity: Some of those shuttered college campuses might be repurposed for housing for senior citizens, or veterans.  Some of those facilities could become Head Start centers, hubs for small businesses, community hospitals, and so forth. I’d like to see a Harris-Walz Administration embrace the possiblities, with energy and imagination.

So please pay attention. Vote intelligently, and urge your friends and neighbors to vote.

The First Day of School

John Merrow Uncategorized

(It’s my hope that my grandchildren’s teachers, and lots of other teachers as well, will say something like this on the first day of school.)

“Good morning, everyone.  Welcome back to school.  I hope every one of us will have the best year yet.  And I want this classroom to be a warm and welcoming space for everyone.  

During the year I will occasionally ask you “How are you feeling today?”  And, while I do care about your answers, let me tell you now, on Day One, that I’m going to ask only one vitally important question about each of you.  

But before I ask my question, let’s think about how schools operate.  Basically, today’s schools want to know one thing about every one of their students. About every one of you!  Directly and indirectly, they look at you and ask How Smart Are You?  Then they make you take all sorts of tests. When the machine sends back the results, the system relies heavily on those test scores for their answer.  They rank you.  In short, you’re a number. 

But never forget that a test score is just a number, and you are much more than a number. That number reveals how you did on that test on that particular day, but not much more. That number doesn’t make allowances for headaches or hunger pains, or for difficulties at home, or for the argument you might have that morning with a best friend or a girl or boy friend. 

The question that I am going to ask you changes the order of the words, just slightly but in a way that makes a world of difference.  My question is not ‘How Smart Are You?’ but HOW ARE YOU SMART?  Not ‘whether’ you are smart, because you are.  I want to know–and it’s even more important that you know–the different ways that you are smart.  

Because each and every one of you is smart in different ways.  ‘How are you smart?’ can be phrased differently: 

What are you curious about?  

What do you wish you were better at?  

What do you think about becoming?

What’s the fire inside you that is waiting to be ignited?

Perhaps you’re interested in fashion, marine biology, or farming.  Maybe you’d like to know more about how houses are designed and built. Or how your own body works. Or what different religions have in common, or the history of your family and community.  

Or all of those things!

I’d like you to spend some time thinking about what you dream about knowing, or becoming. What you would like to explore.  There’s no right or wrong answer here, just pathways to wander down.  You might want to keep a journal about your own explorations, something you can look back on as the year progresses and as you change.  

And, of course, you are free to change your mind. In fact, I hope you will.

My job, and the challenge for all of your teachers, is to make sure that you become competent writers, that you can work with numbers and with other people, and that your curiosity increases as we fan the flames of your desire to know.  You’re still going to read good books and study algebra and geography and all the other stuff, but, as much as possible,  through the lens of the ideas and subjects that turn you on.

If you’re interested in airplanes or auto mechanics or veterinary medicine, let’s figure out why mathematics matters.  And why writing and speaking clearly matter. Because they do….

This isn’t that dreaded “extra homework.” It’s my way of reminding you that you are unique, not a number in somebody’s ranking.  

What you are actually  doing in school, although we never say this, is ‘Building a Self,” and the self that you build will be your constant companion–for the rest of your life.  And whatever you learn, whatever you put into your head, that’s who you are. No one can take that away from you.

Any questions?

A Modest Proposal (that shouldn’t be read aloud around children)

John Merrow Uncategorized

Juliet’s question to Romeo, “What’s in a name?” is intended to be rhetorical because, as she notes, “That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”

But what does the name Republican convey ?  What on earth does “Republican” even mean in the time of Trump?  Perhaps “Trump Republican” is an oxymoron, given that he and his party are both rife with contradictions and also very far removed from the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower. Republicans once supported free trade; under Trump, they’re pro-tariff. Republicans once were fiercely anti-communist; under Trump, they’re good buddies with Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-un. And so on….

I suggest it’s time to rename Republican politicians like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jim Jordan, Marsha Blackburn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Josh Hawley.  They are no longer Republicans. Instead think of them as “Formerly Known as Republican, or “FKRs.” 

Other FKRs include Mitch McConnell, Lauren Boebert, Mike Johnson, and–of course–the shape-shifting JD Vance.  

I almost forgot Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and Representative Matt Gaetz, both FKRs of the first order.

You can make your own list of FKRs.

Former President Donald J. Trump is in a special category.  He is certainly a FKR, but because he was once Formerly Known as a Democrat, he’s FKD. And because he also is ‘The Felon Known as Donald,’ also FKD,  one could conclude that the FKR is double-FKD.  

Or that he’s the mother of all FKRs.

A reminder: please don’t read this aloud in the presence of children.

(This piece may remind you of the joke about the Swedish war hero who shot down dozens of Nazi planes during WWII. In a talk to the ladies of the Garden Society of Greenwich, he was telling the audience about shooting down “one fokker after another.”  The hostess interrupted to assure the shocked ladies that Fokker was the name of a German airplane.  To which he responded, “No, ma’am, those fokkers were Messerschmitts.”)

Dear Mr. President

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

July 11, 2024

Dear President Biden,

You have been the most consequential and effective American president since FDR, and I believe that you will eventually be ranked among the three or four greatest US Presidents ever.

However, I also believe that your continuing to seek re-election this fall not only threatens your legacy but also virtually guarantees a Trump victory.  Given the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Presidential immunity, an unfettered Trump will put the USA on a downward path into fascism. Should we also lose the House and Senate, Project 2025 will be put in place, probably ending the American experiment for all time.

Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg provides a cautionary tale. If she had stepped aside gracefully and allowed the Obama/Biden Administration to choose her replacement, her reputation and legacy would be unblemished, and she would be ranked among the most consequential Justices in our history.  However, she stubbornly hung on and, when she died, was replaced by a right-wing Justice, Amy Coney Barrett.  Despite RBG’s accomplishments, she will be remembered as “the Justice whose refusal to accept reality gave us an activist hard-right Supreme Court”

Age is not just a number, and I know whereof I speak. I recently turned 83, and, although I have managed to ‘bike my age’ on my birthday for the past 14 years, this year’s 83-mile ride took much longer and also required about two days of recovery time.   Next year will be even more difficult, but I can take my time.  As President, however, you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, 24/7.  Although you’ve surrounded yourself with extremely competent people and clearly have the support of a loving family, that is not sufficient reason for many Americans (including me) to pull the lever for you in November.  We want and need strong, vigorous, effective leadership, the kind you have provided for years.  

If you choose to step aside, you won’t be ‘quitting.’  Instead, you will be putting the United States of America ahead of your own strong desires to stay in office and  ‘finish the job.’  

I, my wife, and dozens of  our friends hope you will recognize the reality of aging and step aside gracefully so that Vice President Harris (or some other Democrat) can ‘finish the job’ that you have provided a blueprint for. 

With great admiration, gratitude, and respect,

John Merrow

Edgartown, Massachusetts 

(SENT ELECTRONICALLY AND BY U.S. MAIL TO THE WHITE HOUSE JULY 11TH)

“Learn to Lie”

John Merrow Uncategorized

That’s not some stupid come-on. “Learn to Lie” is my new business venture, about which more later, but first I want to review the goings-on on my blog, TheMerrowReport.com, over the past few weeks.  

There was a history lesson about the slaveholder/abolitionist who wrote our National Anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ with its two questions, one of which the verse leaves unanswered.  That’s here.  America is a land of contradictions….

I also tried my hand at satire, taking a whack at CNN and its willingness to agree not to fact-check the recent debate between President Biden and former President Trump.  That’s here.

I also blogged about ‘biking my age’ for the 14th year in a row.  You may remember that I asked readers to contribute $83 (or more) to the Island Housing Trust.  While many of you made tax-deductible gifts, we are still 19 contributors (and more than a few dollars) shy of our goal.   It’s easy to donate to IHTMV.org.  Click here to make your tax-deductible gift.  (Please mention my name or refer to ‘the old guy on the bike’ when you give.)

What’s more, if you donate to IHTMV, you will receive a free lifetime membership to “Learn to Lie,” once I get it up and running.  In addition to the instruction book and video, membership includes bumper stickers:  “I Learned to Lie from John Merrow” and “I Lie with John Merrow. You Can Too!”

But wait–There’s More!! 

Before “Learn to Lie” gets underway, I need to become what my friend Kim Kardashian calls ‘an influencer’ on the web.  To achieve that status, I need at least 10,000 subscribers, known in the field as a ‘GI’ (which some say stands for ‘gullible individual’).

Become a GI by clicking the ‘subscribe’ link at the top of this page, TheMerrowReport.com.  I need 10,000 subscribers to become an ‘influencer,’ which means I’m only 9,299 shy. 

“Learn to Lie” is not what you may have been thinking. It’s actually an exercise program, the key to a long and healthy life. “Learn to Lie” is the reason I’ve been able to bike my age ever since I turned 70. I have come to the conclusion that it’s my moral duty to share with the world what I have learned.  What I can teach you will–I guarantee it–make your life more satisfying because it will make growing old/being old much easier.   Think how proud you will be to announce to the world, “I Learned to Lie fromJohn Merrow.”

Membership in “Learn to Lie” will be expensive, but if you donate to IHT now, you will receive a free lifetime membership in “Learn to Lie.”   

And when enough of you Subscribe to TheMerrowReport.com, I will become ‘an influencer.’  A subscription to my blog is free and certainly worth it.  

Thanks

No Fact-Checking Needed

John Merrow Uncategorized

I spent nearly 75 years reporting for PBS, NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Pravda. During that time I received three Pulitzer Prizes, 12 George Foster Peabody Awards, 17 Emmy nominations (but only nine Emmys, to my great disappointment), and three George Polk Awards.  

(My editor and I have agreed that fact-checking this column wasn’t necessary.)

In 2016 I had the unprecedented honor of being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II AND receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama.  These awards were somewhat controversial because of my quite public romances over the years with Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Farah Fawcett, Cindy Crawford, and Beyonce.

(The internet has made fact-checking irrelevant.)

But there’s no truth to the rumor that Mother Teresa and I were romantically involved.  We were very good friends, that’s all. 

(Fact-checking is soooo yesterday!)

In 1996 at the age of 55, I fulfilled a childhood dream: I temporarily gave up reporting and signed with The New York Yankees.  That season was a dream–I batted .307, stole 36 bases, and won a Gold Glove for my defensive play in left field. Many feel that I should have won the Rookie of the Year award, but my teammate and good friend Derek Jeter was certainly a deserving winner.

(Why would anyone want to fact-check me? Don’t you trust me?)

During my time as a war correspondent when I was embedded with the Special Forces in Iraq, I saved the lives of seven Americans when I picked up and threw an unexploded IED into a ditch. It subsequently exploded, and observers said we all would have been killed but for my instinctive action.  For this, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the only civilian to ever have received this recognition.

(Are you thinking about fact-checking this? Maybe you should!)

OK, subtlety isn’t my strong suit, and you’ve probably figured out that I’m really writing about the absence of fact-checking during the televised debate between President Biden and former President Trump, for which both political parties and CNN agreed that there would be no live fact-checking.   The result, which many of you saw, was a lie-filled 90 minutes during which Trump lied 28 or 29 times–and was never challenged!

Why am I upset?  Because CNN should never have agreed to that condition.  And once CNN did agree, the two reporters that CNN assigned to serve as moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, should have flat-out refused to participate. But they went ahead, giving candidate Trump license to say whatever he wanted, without fear of being challenged.  

(Wouldn’t you like to ask Tapper and Bash what was going through their minds when Trump lied blatantly for the fifth or sixth time? I have to think that those two seasoned reporters knew that they had made a serious mistake. Don’t you wonder whether either thought seriously about challenging him?)

The result damaged Biden, as we all know. But for me, the process also did serious damage to CNN and to the reputations of Tapper and Bash. When I tried to make that point recently with Marty Baron, the former editor of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, he dismissed the idea, and I imagine that many others in my (former) line of work agree with him, but I strongly believe that no reporter anywhere should ever agree to that condition.   

For every journalist, fact-checking is not a choice but an obligation!

(Editor’s note: Fact-checking reveals that Merrow told at least 16 lies in the preceding paragraphs. We apologize for our failure to fact-check and will be certain to keep a closer watch on him in the future. To do so, we have subscribed to his blog, which YOU may also do by clicking the ‘subscribe’ button at the top of the page.)

WAVING THE FLAG

John Merrow Uncategorized , , , ,

Before all thoughts of the recent celebration of our nation’s independence fade away, it’s worth recalling that our National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” poses two questions but answers only the first, leaving the second for each generation to wrestle with.

You may be surprised to learn about the questions, because the song is never sung in a questioning, challenging way; instead, it’s broadly nationalistic, even jingoistic.  (And you may be surprised to learn that the man who sang the praises of  ‘the land of the free’ was a slave owner.  More about that later.)

I’ve seen data that two-thirds of Americans do know the words to our National Anthem, but perhaps you remember the first four lines, the ones that pose the first question: 

O, say can you see by the dawn’s early light 

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming, 

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight 

O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming? 

In other words, the song’s writer, Francis Scott Key, is asking whether our flag survived the night-long bombardment of Fort McHenry in what is known as the Battle of Baltimore in September, 1814, toward the end of the War of 1812. 

Key, a well-known 34-year-old Washington, D.C., lawyer and poet, actually witnessed the battle from a British ship.  “The British had captured Washington and taken William Beanes, a physician, prisoner. They were holding him aboard a ship in their fleet off the Baltimore shore. Friends of Beanes persuaded Key to negotiate his release. Key went out to the British fleet and succeeded in gaining Beanes’ release but, because the British planned to attack Baltimore at that time, both were detained. During the night of Sept. 13-14, Key watched the bombardment of Baltimore from the deck of a British ship. Although rain obscured the fort during the night, at daybreak he could see the American flag still flying from Fort McHenry. The fort still stood after the British had fired some 1,800 bombs, rockets and shells at it, about 400 of them landing inside. Four defenders were killed and 24 wounded. Key drafted the words of a poem on an envelope. The American detainees were sent ashore, the British fleet withdrew, and Key finished the poem and made a good copy of it in a Baltimore hotel the next day.” 

It was still flying, Key’s next couplet assures us:

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

However, Key then poses a second question–critical then and perhaps even more so today–in the last two lines of the first stanza:

O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Most of us do not think of it as a question, probably because the performers who lead us in song never present it as a matter of doubt. We sing it, loudly and proudly, telling the world that we are the land of the free and the home of the brave. But Key wrote it as a question, not an exclamation. So let’s ask Key’s question–but about the America we live in now.

Is it accurate to describe America as ‘the land of the free’ when 27.3% of Black, non-Hispanic children, 22.4% of Hispanic children, and 8.8% of white children are growing up in poverty? Is everyone free in ‘the land of the free’ when the top 10% of households hold 67% of wealth, while the bottom 50% possess only 3%? Are we all free when white families have six times the average wealth of Black families and Hispanic families?

How free are we when politicians in dozens of states have maneuvered to keep groups of people from voting, when millions of college graduates are in debt, and when millions more leave college without a diploma but with a heavy debt burden?

Are we truly ‘the land of the free’ when millions of Americans are in thrall to political leaders who celebrate the January 6th, 2021, attack on the Capitol?  Those duplicitous men and women seem ignorant of the fact that the January 6th insurrection was only the second such attack in our nation’s entire history, the British having captured Washington during the War of 1812. 

Can we call America ‘the land of the brave’ when we no longer call on our young people to serve but rely instead on a professional military–the brave men and women whom our leaders send, over and over and over, to serve tours of duty in hostile environments but then fail to provide for when they return home–while most of the rest of us happily ‘thank them for their service’ by singing our National Anthem?

I suggest we think about how we seem to be losing what we prize. Is the America envisioned in ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ slipping away because we lack the lift of a driving dream?  Because we ask almost nothing of our young people…and very little of ourselves?

Could it be time to revive the idea of national service and reinstate the military draft?  What if all young people–men and women–were obligated to give two years of their lives in service to our country? Serving in the military should be just one of a menu of options. In return, we taxpayers would commit to paying for two years of post-secondary education or training for young people after they serve.  National service would be a great leveler, because no one could avoid dealing with people different from themselves.

Let’s also encourage the study of ‘The Star–Spangled Banner’ in high school, because it is, after all, an important primary document of our nation. What does it mean that Key was an abolitionist who owned slaves, a man who professed to hate slavery but did nothing of consequence to end it?  The man who extolled ‘the land of the free’ owned eight slaves when he died in 1843, but throughout his life he fought in court to free other slaves, and at one point did free six or seven of his own slaves.  Inquiring into the intent of “The Star-Spangled Banner” could lead to fascinating discussions about how we have chosen to interpret our nation’s principles (not to mention how a mark of punctuation can make a significant difference in meaning, as in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.) 

Living in the land of the free should not be a free ride, nor should patriotism be an empty word.  We would do well to heed JFK’s important advice: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

_______________________________________________________

It’s worth noting that Key wrote three more stanzas, none of which ends with a question. One is ambiguous, the others proudly patriotic.  Here’s the end of the fourth and final stanza:

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 

And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,” 

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Results of the 2024 “Biking My Age” Challenge

John Merrow Uncategorized

Here’s the news, which I hope won’t be TMI, but, regarding my “Bike My Age” annual challenge, I made it, but not by much.  It’s the 14th year in a row that I’ve managed it, and, believe me, it’s getting more difficult.  If you haven’t donated to our Island Housing Trust, please do so. IHT is building affordable/attainable homes and apartments for the men and women (and their children) who keep the community together.  Any amount will help.  Thanks

I actually turn 83 on Friday the 14th of June, but Wednesday the 12th was a perfect day for a long bike ride–low temperature, very little wind, and some cloud cover–and so I was on the road at 5:45 AM, cycled 30 miles, and came home for a lovely breakfast of  blueberry pancakes, coffee, and conversation.  After that long break, I went off again, mostly in the state forest near the Vineyard’s airport.  Joan met me at our favorite sandwich shop, 7A in West Tisbury, for a late lunch and–critical–a ride home for a shower and a good nap.  (My helmet isn’t visible in this photo, but I wore one. Trust me, I always do!)

Joan’s famous blueberry pancakes:

Now, of course, I have to file a notarized statement with ABBA (in Stockholm, Sweden), attesting to the fact that a) I completed the appropriate distance or longer; and b) I have not taken performance-enhancing drugs in the past 90 days; c) I did not take more than one 10-minute nap during the ride; and d) I did not have sex during the ride.  Then I will receive another glossy impressive certificate from ABBA, suitable for framing.

ABBA has asked me to run its American branch, and I am inclined to accept. I’ll write more about that later with information about how you can join..  

If donating to IHT isn’t your priority, then please consider the following valuable organizations:

World Central Kitchen

Feeding America

if you support public education: The Network for Public Education

If you value good reporting about education: 

The Hechinger Report

Chalkbeat

The Education Writers Association

Thanks,

John