Dear Reader,
I’m riding high today. Last week’s newsletter, “On Leaving Education,” matched the highest email open rate - 61% - of my initial announcement email on January 1. In addition, the three previous posts - “FOMO,” “Sharky,” and “Don’t Not Care” - all came in at the mid-50% range, the highest percentage for three consecutive posts to date.
In other words, over the past month, over half of you have consistently opened Second Drafts, which is fun to think about (especially when I pretend that every open equals a read)!
A few other figures: the total number of subscribers for Second Drafts is 330, but because of social media and a few readers’ retweets (Twitter) and shares (Facebook), this past Friday’s post had 801 total views. That’s over twice as many readers that you helped reach.
My goal from the beginning has always been an 80% open rate, so there’s still a ways to go. But for now, thanks for making my day with your participation and promotion. It means a lot.
In other news (and as mentioned in the newsletter two weeks ago), the Bozeman Daily Chronicle printed the letter to the editor that Megan and I wrote to call out the inappropriate behavior of three City Commissioners for race-baiting during a public Zoom hearing.
The reason I mention this is that, since October 21, the Chronicle sat on our letter, then 14 days later - on the day after the election - printed it after their picks had won.
Having watched the Chronicle publish two full weeks of political letters to the editor praising their endorsed candidates, there’s really only one explanation for why they didn’t print ours: it didn’t support their preferred candidates, so they suppressed its publishing. (On the bright side, at least they didn’t redact portions of it like they did on the last one we wrote.)
Media censorship is real, folks, and it’s happening in varying degrees across the country and at all levels of society. I’m grateful for this platform and for your readership, and encourage you to make the most of your First Amendment rights. Never take them for granted!
Enjoy this week’s Second Drafts. Thanks for reading.
Craig
P.S.: As a reminder, you’re welcome and encouraged to email me directly with feedback, ideas, links, etc. at cmdunham [at] gmail [dot] com. Just know that, unless you specifically tell me not to, I may quote you here (though it will always be anonymously).
Hot Takes
A quick look at the news this week:
“Carville Blames 'Stupid Wokeness' for Democratic Losses” - I doubt that James Carville and I share much in common in terms of political theory, but I like to think we’d get along on the topic of shooting straight:
“Democratic political strategist James Carville blamed his party's recent losses and weak performance in state elections on ‘stupid wokeness’ on Wednesday…‘What went wrong is just stupid wokeness. Don't just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, look at Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Wash. I mean, this 'defund the police' lunacy, this take Abraham Lincoln's name off of schools. I mean that — people see that," Carville said.”
Carville went on to say that,
“Some of these people need to go to a 'woke' detox center or something,’ he added. ‘They're expressing a language that people just don't use, and there's backlash and a frustration at that…Wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it. It’s hard to talk to anybody today — and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party — who doesn’t say this. But they don’t want to say it out loud,’ said Carville.”
Here’s an offer for Democrat readers: if you’ve got something to say about the cancer that “wokeness” has become, I’m glad to provide space for you to write about it. The only prerequisite is you have to be as honest as Carville is here.
Left: Democrat strategist James Carville. Upper right: Virginia Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin. Lower right: Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.
“Non-Trump Republican Surge” - This may be the best news I’ve heard all week:
“Lost in the public obsession with former President Trump’s loss, grievances and threats to run again: Non-Trump Republicans have had a strong, yearlong run nationally beneath and around him. Democrats control Washington and hold sway in most colleges and corporate suites, plus much of the mainstream media. But Republicans are thriving despite Trump's tactics and antics.”
Of course, it’s important to qualify that “Republican” no longer equates to “Conservative” anymore than “Democrat” equals “Progressive” these days; we’re talking (at least) four different groups, the gaps between each widening.
But, the fact that former President Trump may not be influencing any of them as much as he or Trumpers want gives me hope that right-of-center conservatism (as opposed to only far-right) has a chance apart from Trump, not only in 2024, but also a year from now in 2022 in the national mid-terms.
We’ll see in three years, I guess. A lot can happen between now and then.
Virginia shifts right in 2020.
“Newsmax Pulls Reporter Who Tweeted Vaccine Conspiracy Theory Off Air” - Kudos to the conservative television network, for putting the kibosh on conspiracy theories:
“On Monday, Emerald Robinson, a White House correspondent for the outlet, sent out a tweet that erroneously claimed that vaccines ‘contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked.’ Twitter took Robinson's post down for violating the platform's rules, the social media company said, and Newsmax issued a rare rebuke of one of its leading on-air talents.”
Now do 2020 election fraud.
Stick to the facts, ma’am.
Getting Beyond Grades
On the heels of school starting some nine weeks ago, Megan, Katie, Millie, and I were eating dinner together at the kitchen table when the topic of college grade point averages came up. With three of four daughters in college, the discussion is perhaps understandable, but since GPAs have never been metrics we’ve spent a lot of time on as a family, I think we were all a little surprised we were discussing them.
The girls were interested in what their parents’ cumulative college GPAs had been, so I went first. An esteemed graduate of the University of Missouri, I majored in Geography and minored in History, graduating with a very average 2.75 GPA.
Perhaps somewhat surprised by the answer, Millie asked a question for clarification.
“Was that on a 3.0 scale, Dad?”
“Ha,” I laughed. “No. It was on a 4.0 scale. But thanks.” She smiled, possibly a little embarrassed…for me.
With that, Megan got up from the table, walked over to our filing cabinet, and pulled out a manila folder from her time at (then Big 12 sister school), Oklahoma State University, from which she graduated with a degree in Early Childhood Education. After flipping some pages (including her State of Oklahoma teaching license, which expired in 1997), she found a copy of her transcript with her cumulative GPA: 3.6.
“Whoa, Mom,” the girls said in unison, oohing and aahing a little to themselves.
Megan smiled, blushed a little, and put the folder back in the filing cabinet.
A proud husband, I smiled as well. She may have had the higher GPA, but she wasn’t smart enough to walk away from marrying me. Who seems the smarter one now?
Flipping Over the Altar of Fear
Maybe because I’m an alum (and/or because they got her name from a standardized test mailing list), my college alma mater has figured out I have a daughter who is a senior and will graduate in June. As a lot of kids do their senior year, Millie (as did her sisters) receives physical mail everyday, but the emails are as or more frequent because (lest we forget) higher education is a business and more students mean more money.
But this email from Mizzou a month ago just seemed a little too desperate:
“Dear Millie,
You could attend another institution. Let’s say you don’t decide to take that next step and apply to Mizzou.
You’ll be missing out on quite a bit, really. The University of Missouri is one of six public universities with law, medicine, and veterinary medicine on one campus. With 300+ degree programs, the only problem you'll have is narrowing down your major. Don't forget about the 7,500 job recruiters that come to campus looking for Mizzou students.
You could very well waste time and money earning credits elsewhere. Consider all the missed connections from not starting at Mizzou your freshman year. Plus the missed opportunities that might result in missed internships.
Of course we don’t wish any of this for you. We want you to grow and excel in your field while forming lifelong friendships and learning through the Missouri Method.
Ready to get your college career off on the right foot? Apply today!”
FOMO, anyone? And people wonder why Generation Z struggles with anxiety. Geez.
For too many students afraid of the future, good grades become idols of success, often evolving into full-blown gods that require regular sacrifices of fear and trembling from their weary worshippers. Worse, parents too often serve as the priests.
A Declaration for Recitation
I share all this as a very extended preamble to a simple declaration I would love parents to recite with their children at every stage of their education. There’s no particular magic to its brilliance or brevity, but when reinforced, it may keep your kid(s) from collapsing into a pool of anxiety-ridden guilt (or worse). The declaration:
“I am not my grades. I am not behind.”
That’s it. Pretty simple, really, but very effective, particularly when backed up with non-explosive responses to a failed test, disappointing paper, or bombed project.
Let’s try it again, only switch the order:
“I am not behind. I am not my grades.”
Seriously, this declaration could change the world…or if not the world, then perhaps the world of that elementary, middle, or high school student living under your roof. I even made a meme to help us remember and repeat:
George Lucas would be proud.
Reasonable Expectations
Many parents and teachers have just had or are preparing to have parent/teacher conferences to discuss student “progress.” Please! Broaden the conversation beyond student grades and proficiencies to also include discussion of parent expectations and reasonability concerning them. Teachers can offer good counsel on how to adjust unrealistic parent expectations that may put a kid in therapy before he or she is eight years old.
To be sure, when it comes to kids and schools, parents and teachers, any talk about expectations will be most beneficial if done in the spirit of Isaiah 1:18a - “Come, let us reason together.”
With all this in mind, and for any parents interested in checking your expectations concerning your kids - from elementary school to college age - here are two book recommendations I’d pass along for your use and edification:
Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Children by Anthony Esolen
The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
One more time (and with feeling): “I am not my grades. I am not behind.”
Post(erity): “Keeping Track of Our Kids”
Each week, I choose a post from the past that seems apropos of something (of course, you’re always welcome to search the archives yourself whenever you like).
This week’s Posterity post - “Keeping Track of Our Kids” - is from almost exactly nine years ago, November 4, 2012. An excerpt:
“Do you know where your kids are? I'm not talking about which part of the house they're in or who they're staying overnight with this weekend. I'm also not asking about where they should be or what they should be able to do at this stage in their development (nothing diminishes our kids' humanity more than speaking of them in terms of ‘percentiles’).
Honestly, I wonder if someone giving espresso and a free puppy to our kids would be enough of a wake-up call to ask the question. How long until we noticed the smell and the barking?”
Peaches’ Picks
Peaches and I picked this one up as part of our ongoing study on memoir, and it was a real find. Tightly written and very readable, Writing About Your Life is journalist William Zinsser’s attempt to illustrate from his own story the principles and practices of memoir writing. A quick read that might inspire you to finally get started on that life story you’ve always wanted to write, this book should be on every memoirist’s bookshelf, even as you ponder the possibilities.
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