FEST Writing Group

Note to everyone: I have bitten off way more than I can chew as I continue to observe and think about New Bedford, a poor city near to me that is trying to revive itself against multiple challenges. It has gotten me thinking about immigration, self rule, the role of the natural environment, the larger political/emotional environment – the state and even the nation – and the history in which it exists. It also has gotten me thinking about those larger themes in historical terms. I am open to suggestions for how I might narrow this down – significantly. I also am looking for suggestions for reading on the history of self rule and immigration. I would like to shape something to be published in a newspaper over the next year, a longer think piece for an op-ed section. But I also am thinking longer term about a long magazine article or even a book. I can’t get away from the idea that New Bedford has a lot to teach us. Thanks!

I am continuing my thinking about the decline and revival of a city, as I wrote about last time, and it has led me to unexpected places. My immediate focus has been on the efforts of a single person, the superintendent of schools, who has the job of bringing the New Bedford, Massachusetts, school district into state compliance.

The schools have been poorly managed – managed in the interest of the adults who work there, rather than of the children they educate – for decades. And the effort to turn that around faces multiple barriers.

I have been interested in the fact that there are segments of the New Bedford population that are suspicious of education. They made their living – and in some cases substantial fortunes – from the sea without finishing high school. They needed no education themselves and they encouraged their children to quit school and become fishermen. too.

This approach has certainly been challenged by the depletion in the fish stocks and resulting regulation. Over the past two years or so, it has become much harder, if not impossible, to make a living as an independent fisherman. Federal and state regulations, which impose strict quotas on fishing boats, have served to consolidate commercial fishing permits in the hands of a few owners of multiple boats.

Yet suspicion of education persists. It is seen as a kind of fancy encumbrance that is of no help in the real world. In fact, it can hinder one in the practical business of making a living – which is largely defined as doing something with your hands.

This attitude, while not universal, is pervasive and it affects the environment in which the superintendent is attempting to transform the schools. It shows up in everything from the response to budget increases to levels of parental involvement. The past mayor, himself a lawyer, proposed that New Bedford students be exempt from statewide testing standards because they are special based on their history.

This has gotten me thinking in a lot of directions. One is the emotional legacy that a population hands down over generations. I believe you can trace periods of great anxiety in the history of New Bedford as the natural resources it depended on diminished. Whales disappeared and whale boats had travel greater distances to hunt them, until the fleet found itself trapped and destroyed in the Arctic.

The succeeding industry, textiles, polluted the city’s harbor and surrounding waters with PCBs and the fish from those areas will be toxic for generations of humans in the future. And finally, as regulators pay attention to the depleting fish stocks, the livings of not only fishermen, but workers in boat repair, ice houses, fish processing plants and many other business, are now in jeopardy.

I also, at Ann Nicholson’s suggestion, have been thinking about how the larger community – in this case the state – contributes to the poor functioning of a city. Can a city be the object of projection in the same way an individual can be? The news media rarely pays attention to New Bedford unless there is a murder or other crime, which contributes to a perception that the city is  universally crime ridden and dangerous. Poor immigrants, legal and illegal, are directed to the city through a variety of channels because cheap housing is plentiful. They fill the jobs in the fish houses and other factories that non-immigrant workers do not want. And, yes, some of them are gang members who make the neighborhoods where immigrants live unsafe. As the small amount of basic manufacturing continues to shrink in New Bedford and as fishing goes away, employment for immigrants disappears, as well.  Also the distribution of state resources seems to be biased toward the Boston-area populations. It  is fascinating to see that while New Bedford has been trying to re-establish train service for two decades, Cape Cod – where Bostonians vacation – has received train service in  a train while tha

In the schools, a large percentage of students don’t speak English or come from homes where the parents don’t speak English. Because rates of drug addiction are high across the entire city population, children come from homes where parents are absent or functioning poorly. The superintendent, who has spent her career in inner city school districts, said she has never seen a population of school children so in need of services.

As I watch this effort to improve the schools unfold, I think about a few things that Dr. Bowen said. One was about the future of democracy, about which he was pessimistic. He foresaw a breakdown in self rule that would prompt a kind of monarch or dictator (hopefully benevolent) to emerge.

The tension between the self rule of a people and the dominance of a single individual or group of individuals seems to be inherently human. Or mammalian, as Laurie might suggest? Efforts toward democracy are not just an American experiment,  although we extended the franchise to a greater proportion of the population than ever before. The Greeks, the Romans and other ancient civilizations all established forms of self rule, which eventually broke down, even if it took 1,000 years, in the case of the Romans.

How would Bowen theory understand that?

I also am interested in the process of immigration, assimilation and a new population’s influence on the existing population. How does the functioning of a population change with new members. New Bedford has a hard working Guatemalan immigrant population that is poor and challenged, but overall I believe contributes to the city. What does that mean for the city’s future?

These processes have been going on for millennia and I believe that New Bedford offers a view to a tiny slice of that process, something I would like to understand more.

 

 

 

 

 

Note to everyone: I have bitten off way more than I can chew as I continue to observe and think about New Bedford, a poor city near to me that is trying to revive itself against multiple challenges. It has gotten me thinking about immigration, self rule, the role of the natural environment and the larger political/emotional environment – the state and even the nation – in which it exists. It also has gotten me thinking about those things in historical terms. I am open to suggestions for how I might narrow this down into manageable chunks. I also am looking for suggestions for reading on the history of self rule and immigrations. I would like to shape something to be published in a newspaper, but I am thinking longer term about a long magazine article or even a book. I can’t get away from the idea that New Bedford has a lot to teach us. Thanks!

 

I am continuing my thinking about the decline and revival of a city, as I wrote about last time, and it has led me to unexpected places. My immediate focus has been on the efforts of a single person, the superintendent of schools, who has the job of bringing the New Bedford, Massachusetts, school district into state compliance.

 

The schools have been poorly managed – managed in the interest of the adults who work there, rather than of the children they educate – for decades. And the effort to turn that around faces multiple barriers.

 

I have been interested in the fact that there are segments of the New Bedford population that are suspicious of education. They made their living – and in some cases substantial fortunes – from the sea without finishing high school. They needed no education themselves and they encouraged their children to quit school and become fishermen. too.

 

This approach has certainly been challenged by the depletion in the fish stocks and resulting regulation. Over the past two years or so, it has become much harder, if not impossible, to make a living as an independent fisherman. Federal and state regulations, which impose strict quotas on fishing boats, have served to consolidate commercial fishing permits in the hands of a few owners of multiple boats.

 

Yet suspicion of education persists. It is seen as a kind of fancy encumbrance that is of no help in the real world. In fact, it can hinder one in the practical business of making a living – which is largely defined as doing something with your hands.

 

This attitude, while not universal, is pervasive and it affects the environment in which the superintendent is attempting to transform the schools. It shows up in everything from the response to budget increases to levels of parental involvement. The past mayor, himself a lawyer, proposed that New Bedford students be exempt from statewide testing standards because they are special based on their history.

 

This has gotten me thinking in a lot of directions. One is the emotional legacy that a population hands down over generations. I believe you can trace periods of great anxiety in the history of New Bedford as the natural resources it depended on diminished. Whales disappeared and whale boats had travel greater distances to hunt them, until the fleet found itself trapped and destroyed in the Arctic.

 

The succeeding industry, textiles, polluted the city’s harbor and surrounding waters with PCBs and the fish from those areas will be toxic for generations of humans in the future. And finally, as regulators pay attention to the depleting fish stocks, the livings of not only fishermen, but workers in boat repair, ice houses, fish processing plants and many other business, are now in jeopardy.

 

I also, at Ann Nicholson’s suggestion, have been thinking about how the larger community – in this case the state – contributes to the poor functioning of a city. Can a city be the object of projection in the same way an individual can be? The news media rarely pays attention to New Bedford unless there is a murder or other crime, which contributes to a perception that the city is  universally crime ridden and dangerous. Poor immigrants, legal and illegal, are directed to the city through a variety of channels because cheap housing is plentiful. They fill the jobs in the fish houses and other factories that non-immigrant workers do not want. And, yes, some of them are gang members who make the neighborhoods where immigrants live unsafe. As the small amount of basic manufacturing continues to shrink in New Bedford and as fishing goes away, employment for immigrants disappears, as well.

 

In the schools, a large percentage of students don’t speak English or come from homes where the parents don’t speak English. Because rates of drug addiction are high across the entire city population, children come from homes where parents are absent or functioning poorly. The superintendent, who has spent her career in inner city school districts, said she has never seen a population of school children so in need of services.

 

As I watch this effort to improve the schools unfold, I think about a few things that Dr. Bowen said. One was about the future of democracy, about which he was pessimistic. He foresaw a breakdown in self rule that would prompt a kind of monarch or dictator (hopefully benevolent) to emerge.

 

The tension between the self rule of a people and the dominance of a single individual or group of individuals seems to be inherently human. Or mammalian, as Laurie might suggest? Efforts toward democracy are not just an American experiment,  although we extended the franchise to a greater proportion of the population than ever before. The Greeks, the Romans and other ancient civilizations all established forms of self rule, which eventually broke down, even if it took 1,000 years, in the case of the Romans.

 

How would Bowen theory understand that?

 

I also am interested in the process of immigration, assimilation and a new population’s influence on the existing population. How does the functioning of a population change with new members. New Bedford has a hard working Guatemalan immigrant population that is poor and challenged, but overall I believe contributes to the city. What does that mean for the city’s future?

 

These processes have been going on for millennia and I believe that New Bedford offers a view to a tiny slice of that process, something I would like to understand more.