From the Editor
Fred Barton, Editor, SLATE Newsletter, and Region 4 Representative to the NCTE/SLATE Steering Committee

Gentle Readers:

You’ll notice a distinctly rural flavor to this issue of the newsletter. You might think it is due to the season, the clouds wandering lonely in the sky, the merry larks, those ploughmen’s clocks, “the sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn.”

You’d be wrong. That’s just the way it turned out. Happily, though, because it gives me a chance to share with you some of the concerns teachers away from the cities face. Urban schools get a lot of the press and rightfully so, but the challenges rural teachers face are unique and just as serious. Recently the Department of Education realized that fact by becoming flexible on some of the “Highly Qualified Teacher” requirements for rural schools. It seems one size does not fit all. Who knew?

Actually Nebraska knew, and in the article by Christopher Gallagher we find out that even in a “backward” state, there are lessons for all of us to learn. Dr. Gallagher is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he teaches courses in writing, rhetoric, literacy and teaching. His book Radical Departures: Composition and Progressive Pedagogy was published in 2002 by NCTE press. His work has appeared in “Composition Studies,” “Phi Delta Kappan” (where this article was first published) and “Writing On The Edge” among others.

Next we visit a small rural elementary school in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where Angela Kirby will introduce us to a family that exemplifies the struggles of those who live with rural poverty. Moving between poignant snap shots and national data, Angela weaves a story that is at once maddening, and hopeful. Ms. Kirby is a former rural Elementary Principal, and Special Education and Title One Director.  She is currently a 2nd year Ph.D. Research Fellow in K-12 Educational Administration at Michigan State University, a Field Instructor in Teacher Education and a two-time recipient of the Keith Goldhammer Endowed Scholarship.

From the UP we head east to Gorham, Maine, a town of a little over 14,000. Here we’ll meet David Hochheiser and two of his students. In the course of teaching his Honors American Literature course David and his class stumbled across something that is becoming increasingly rare in test bound classrooms today: an authentic question. In an attempt to help his students answer that question, he ran afoul of the censors. With a little help from NCTE and Charles Suhor (who also helped to get David’s story to me, thanks Charlie) he was able to provide his students with a valuable lesson in the nature of free speech, and a student’s right to learn.

And speaking of Charles Suhor, he is back from the front lines of the censorship wars with his dispatch. There is some good news to report. While certainly the war is far from over, Charles reports that administrators “respond with anxiety when anti-censorship alarms are sounded by courageous teachers, indignant parents, students, university advocates, the media, unions, national organizations and their local chapters, and attorneys.” The lesson? When we stand up to the forces that would limit what we can teach, and more importantly, what children can learn, we often carry the day.

Hey, what about this: instead of clicking your way through this issue, print the articles out, walk outside and sit under a tree. Read a little bit and listen to the birds a little bit. Hold you face to the wind. What is that? The first hint of lilac? Read a little more. Watch the cloud shadows glide over the deepening green of a meadow. Ok? Now. Walt Whitman has some questions for you: “Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? Have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?”

Fred