Barnacle philosophy

I found the largest barnacle I have ever seen while meandering along the bay's edge yesterday.

The barnacle has not been dead long--the sweet decay of death announces its presence. It still has enough spirit left to talk to me. And it does.

I was alive yesterday, I am not alive today.

My neighbor died last week. A friend of mine's father is very ill this week.
All living things die. All.

I forget this.
Half of my clan has died, and still I forget this.
The monitor lets me believe I am immortal.

***

Darwin studied barnacles, thousands and thousands of them. I have barely studied one, and a not-so-alive one. (I did spend a lot of time when I was younger watching barnacles sweep their feathers in the water, mesmerized by their rhythm.)

In one day I have learned about the life history of acorn barnacles, that it can see in its early stages, that at its cyprid larval stage it sniffs out adult barnacles, then touches them, then attaches its small body next to adults. It flips upside down, then forms the walls around itself, the walls so familiar to anyone who has scraped the bottom of a boat. I learned this all on the internet.

My barnacle friend sits on this desk, next to this monitor. I sniff it again. My nose teaches me what my eyes cannot.

My nose knows death.

***

And why do barnacles need to live so close each other? Why do young barnacles smell and feel other barnacles before settling down for their lifetime on a rock in Cape May?

Barnacles are intimate with each other. Unlike clams and oysters and striped bass and so many other creatures ecstatically tossing gametes into the sea, barnacles, um, have relations.

With each other.

Yes, their anatomy reflects this--take a peek below if you're insatiably curious.

***

My barnacle lived a good life--I found him on a plastic pipe that had been tossed on the beach by a recent tide. He had company, and I suspect they had relations. Empty wine glasses, burned candle stumps. I knocked off his carcass with my foot, and he will likely stay in my home until someone cremates me.

He will sit on the windowsill with the shells of oysters and clams and urchins and horseshoe crabs and whelks and mussels. I hope that someday they all get tossed back into the sea. I hope I get tossed back into the sea with them.

***

Dancing only makes sense if you're going to die. Dancing costs energy. We do it anyway.

I sniff my barnacle again. I smell the organic molecules breaking down, food for bacteria, energy caught but never used by the barnacle.

In our cultural drive to be more productive, more efficient, more more, the barnacle's rhythmic dance on the rocks reminds me that my children are not their test scores, and that what I teach matters, even the stuff not on the tests.

Darwin suffered losses while he studied the barnacles. He was plagued by illness, and lost his favorite child Annie. Somehow he got through it, and wrote The Origin of Species, an epic work that summed up a life.

I'd like to think the barnacles helped him get through the darkness.

If you want to see a wonderful video of barnacles in action (and beware, men, you may develop penis envy), click here.

Shucking is a shellfish act

Oysters don't make a lot of decisions, but they do make some. While still larvae the oysters can walk, and do. They can see (well, tell dark from light, anyway). A baby oyster ("spat") finds a spot it likes, ideally snuggled on top of another oyster, then stakes its claim.

Still not impressed?

If the spat doesn't like its new home, it can change its mind, at least for a few days. It detaches and moves.

Soon after it finds its home, the spat loses its foot and its eye, and life becomes much less complicated. Either open the shell and feed, or clam up.

A few years ago, some spats settled on our local jetty. Saturday I gathered a couple dozen grown-up oysters (and a few crabs and mussels as well), shucked them, and ate them. (A tiny, assertive crab no larger than my thumbnail was returned alive to the sea by Leslie.)

My left hand is a bit chewed up from the sharp shells. I bled a bit on the jetty, and a little bit more when shucking them. A couple of the tiny lacerations are slightly inflamed--my white cells will take care of the invaders.

The more I learn about oysters, the harder they are to eat, and the more delicious they become. We have both evolved from common ancestors. We both need oxygen. We both need to eat in order to live.

This oyster connection gets complicated, too complicated to understand. We both are here (well, were here) together. I will join the critters that were in less than a lifetime.

This morning I returned the shells to the bay--a few still held remnants of the sweet (though now rotting) flesh of my meal. That flesh has already been consumed, maybe by a crab, maybe by a lethargic striper just off the beach.

No way to know the particulars. 14 billion years ago something happened. It's still happening.

I don't know why I am part of it, and science won't (can't) tell me. Still, I'm happy to be part of it.

Slurping down live creatures is an abomination in a civilized world, but it makes me feel more alive.

My hope as a science teacher is to get a child as passionate about anything alive as I am about oysters, alive but not human. We think we are special, and we are.

But so is the oyster.

Photo by Leslie, who sees things I can't.

Blue oyster cultch

Organizations love mottoes and mission statements and other sorts of committee-speak that expend lots of time and energy that might actually be used for, say, teaching.

Committees drink lots of coffee, committees fill appointment calendars, committees eventually compromise on some pablum. I never expect committees to spew anything resembling wisdom.

I teach at Bloomfield High. I live in Bloomfield. I grow vegetables in Bloomfield. I scan its skies through the urban glow to see miracles above me. We don't have a ton of money, but we have stoops and more than a few stay at home parents. Many of our children here will work in the family business whatever that may be--painting, masonry, landscaping, plumbing.

While the glorified among us search for bodies to fill the elite skilled positions in life, towns like Bloomfield continue to provide a sturdy class of citizens ready to roll up their sleeves, lend a hand, make a community work. We've got real bakeries, real pizza, real craftsmen (and craftswomen) and real stoops.

The motto for our school district reflects committee-speak:

Educating the Leaders of Tomorrow

Few folks buy it. While Bloomfield has produced a few leaders, even our town's namesake, General Joseph Bloomfield, did not actually live here.

Still, we're not a town of followers either. Connie Francis lived here, Tony Soprano died here, and Sarah Vaughn is buried here. We're Norman Rockwellville with an edge. It's a great place to rear edgy children.

The town supports its schools.

Let me say that again. Bloomfield, a decent but not particularly wealthy town, supports its schools. We pay taxes. We go to the school plays, the games, the art shows. Most of our local taxes go to support our schools, and most adults in town do not have kids in school.

We are not unique that way.

Our high school, however, has its own motto. I'm not sure it's the official town creed, but it's how we live.

So, Mr. Arne Duncan, let me toss my high school's motto your way, a motto painted boldly on a wall next to our arts atrium on the second floor, a wall painted by students on a weekend.

In three words it captures our town, and I think most of the nation not warped by the Wall Street madness that infects so much of our public life today.

Learn to live!

It's right up there, big as day. It's not "Learn to work!" or "Learn to follow!" or "Learn to do Algebra 2! or "Learn to kick India's ass!"

Learn to live.

***

Next week is the HSPA testing. This week the state (again) changed its mind on the curriculum. I can't really blame them--they're trying to train students for corporate jobs that don't yet exist.

When I left school today, a few dozen students were going through our musical's dress rehearsal. A dozen more young women played basketball in front of a hundred or so locals watching our kids in our gymnasium, paid for by us.

A dozen more kids were selling pretzels and candy for the Key Club, money ultimately donated to several local causes involving local people.

Here's a list of companies and foundations not giving us money:

Gates Foundation.

Walton Foundation.

Bruhn-Morris Family Foundation.

Capital One

Cartier

City First Bank

Comcast Cable

Donatelli & Klein

Graham Fund

Hattie M. Strong Foundation

Marpat Foundation

National Geographic

National Home Library Foundation

Payless ShoeSource Foundation

Radio One

The Sallie Mae Fund

Susan W. Agger Family Fund of The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region

Target Stores

The Washington Post Educational Foundation

Learn to live.

***

If I wasn't under the NCLB gun to get my kids through the HSPA, here's a lesson I might teach my lambs--the history of oystering in the United States.

We all have property rights independent of whatever patch of land the few of us might be lucky enough to own.

We all own a piece of public land, the commons. We all have a stake in the "public trust doctrine"--we, as citizens, have rights allowing us to gain access to water and land that we do not individually own.

I can gather oysters on the Delaware Bay without interference (beyond applying for a license and spitting out $12). Without the public trust doctrine, I am nothing more than a pirate (which would be way cool, of course).

I have this right because a few folks braver than me fought on the Mullica River back in 1907. Two hundred or so oystermen fought against the few who were among the privileged.

You won't read about this in any high school history textbook. You won't read much about the coal wars fought by miners, or Tom the Tinkerer (Whiskey Rebellion). Kids learn about the Boston Tea Party without grasping its anti-corporate thrust.

A child can go through school in Jersey without learning a thing about how to get an oyster just a few miles away from her classroom while being forced to learn the quadratic equation if she wants to earn a diploma.

Oystering melds biology and history and craftsmanship and industrial arts and nutrition and, perhaps most important, citizenship. The story reminds us how we, as American citizens, serve as the foundation of the Great Experiment.

HSPA won't test this. It's not in the biology curriculum. It's not in the history curriculum. It's not in the industrial arts curriculum.

Still, it matters. And I teach in a town that still recognizes this.

***

Oysters live on oyster beds. They cannot live on bare sand or mud--they'd suffocate.

When I pull a few oysters off a bed, I just about always pull a few off that are too small too eat. Oysters wrap themselves around each other, and pulling one involves pulling several.

When I get a handful of oysters, I break off the small ones and toss them back to the bed. Oysters pile on top of oysters which pile on top of oysters.

The cultch is the pile of shells and debris that allow oysters to continue to reproduce. Oysters need hard surfaces, oysters need calcium. When I toss my tiny oysters back, I am helping the community to survive.

I cannot oyster on Sundays, but I usually return to the beds anyway, to toss back the shells of the oysters I ate the day before.

I could throw them in the garbage. A truck comes by every week to pick up most anything I want to throw away.

My oysters were alive Friday. I killed them Saturday. On Sunday, I return the shells to the bed. The flesh of the oysters is a true gift, unearned.

I was born in America yesterday. I reap the benefits today. I hope to give back to the children what I have enjoyed. Living in America, our America, is a true gift, unearned.

The least I can do is prepare the bed for future generations.

My bias is, obviously, oysters. The American story can be told by weavers, by farmers, by miners, by carpenters, told by soldiers.

Our story is local.
Our story is real.
Our story matters.

I do not recognize the American Diploma Project as citizens, despite the name; I do not recognize multinational corporations as American; I do not believe that CEOs of multinationals have my town's interests at heart.

I cannot think globally. No one can. It's a lie. I can imagine a village here, a city there, but imagining a global village is like imagining a million deaths--both become abstract piles of numbers . I can imagine, however, a single child dying. We all can. We're human.

Get your butt outside, get to know your neighbors. Get involved with your school district's curriculum.

I'll take care of the oyster cultch. You take care of what matters in your neighborhood.

And if you think your neighbor is worthy of teaching your children your local history, get involved in education.

ATT isn't going to take care of you when you're old or ill, but your neighbor will.

Photo by Leslie.

Shucking oysters, mucking words

Saturday I gathered oysters with my nephew.

We had to plan around the tides and the sunset. (Got to grab them before sunset, but low tide was not until sixish.) He carefully measured each one before throwing it into bucket, and he decided when we had enough to eat.

Yesterday, I shucked them, rolled them in cornmeal, flour, a little salt and a handful of spices, and the two of us ate them. They were good, and tasted even better knowing he had harvested them.

Last night we reviewed his vocabulary words. He is required to memorize them for his weekly quiz.

According to someone in his school district, the antonym for "enclose" is "omit" and the synonym for "prison" is "cell." The synonym for "jagged" is "rugged." While I can see the path taken to get to these words, none are quite right.

One particularly troubling pair was "uneasy" for "worry"--different parts of speech.

So we sat around the table firing words at the boy, everyone (including him) knowing that we were memorizing not-quite-correct language for the sake of passing a quiz. Someone joked that he was being prepared for life in a cubicle.

Maybe he was.

I hope when he tells tales of Uncle Muncle to his grandkids, he remembers the oysters and not the mind-numbing idiocy of memorizing carelessly put together vocabulary lists.

We are teachers. We must do a better job.


Oysters on a Cape May jetty taken by Leslie. It was a Sunday, so we didn't eat take any.

21st century oyster

I'm old enough to know better. I have (through a combination of stars and planets and my inability to shut up) bought myself 4 observations tomorrow by two different people. Immediately after school I am speaking at a memorial service for a remarkable woman Dr. Elena Scambio who created the program that allowed me to slide from medicine to public education. I have a letter of recommendation promised to a student yesterday.

Tonight I am trying to make models of meiosis out of newspaper bags (the Star-Ledger is yellow, the New York Times blue) while building 5 accelerometers out of empty soda bottles and saved corks. I am drinking the last needed bottle now.

None of this matters to most folks reading this, and it's not the point anyway.

35 years ago, when I was in high school, we didn't have the internet. We didn't have personal computers.We didn't have texting. We didn't have individual phones. We didn't have 452 channels on the television. We didn't have digital cameras. We didn't have a clue.

So what am I doing when I should be prepping and praying for tomorrow? I'm playing on the computer, listening to American Idiot loud enough to make my ears bleed, thinking about people I never saw in natural light.

I've caught the disease. And it's not healthy.

Yesterday I held a live wild oyster in my hand, about 4 or 5 years old. It had broken off the jetty, and was sitting on the rippled sand flat. Over the next few tides, it will sink further into the sand, and when the water warms up in spring, it will starve.

It is doomed, and does not know it.

We still don't have a clue. The danger is thinking that we do.

Dr. Scambio's picture is from Bloomfield College; the oyster bed is from the South Carolina Dep't of Natural Resources.