21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Nic Barton

Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

In the second to last manifesto from the term, Nic Barton asserts that art and artist are bound by and to the form of expression they meet within, includes digital technology. As such, the old expectations of the audience persist: art must transcend time.

To be an artist is to be the art.

There is no separation between the painter and the canvas / between the writer and the language / between the author and the paper / between the dancer and the movements / between the sculptor and the marble—substitute whatever you like, and the sentiment remains. 

When one chooses to be an artist, whether it is a passion or a fallback, they sign their soul away to the Muses. They mold your flesh into communion with your creation. Imago dei—you are the god of your little work. There is no escaping the universe you have made.

There is no separation between artist and art. If you agree to the Muses’ contract, you are bound to your creation forever. 

If you choose to create technological work, you do not become technology. You are still, however, bound to the work. 

A computer is another form of a pen. We have seen our writing and drawing utensils shift in centuries: fingers scratching in the dirt, chalk and charcoal, feather quills and ink. Just because a technology of creation has become a computer does not mean that it is any less of a utensil. 

When the computer writes, it is merely a reflection of its code. When a computer codes, it is merely a reflection of its coder. In the same way that a writer is an artist, a coder is an artist.

Just because an art form is not “traditional” in the dimensional sense, does not mean that it is any less artistic. 

A computer is not an artist. Until it develops sentience, it will always be a tool and never a creator.

There is no separation between the art and the artist. Your work is a direct representation of you, and you are a direct representation of your work. What you choose to portray is entirely your choice, but you need to be accountable to the choices that may be seen negatively. 

That being said, your art must be able to stand on its own. Though you may create art as political and biased as you desire, it cannot be the only draw to your creation. One should be able to take away every bias in an artwork, and have it still stand as a unique creation. 

To quote Oscar Wilde, art should also exist for its own sake. As a reflection of the world and its people, the only responsibility of art is to reflect. Even the creation of something is ultimately a reflection. 

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Heather Buck

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

In the next installment in this series, Heather Buck explores the old question: can the creation create or merely recreate? And what becomes of the creator in either case?

Cyborg as Art

Writing exists to accomplish one task, the transferring of information. There are several ways to communicate your intentions and desires, body language, small sounds, gestures. Animals use these as well. But to communicate complex and abstract thought we need more than rudimentary implications. This is where language comes in. We began by just speaking it, but as our thoughts became more complex we needed a tool that would keep up with us, the written word. And now, in the twenty-first century, new tools of communication are developing to keep up with our complexities. 

I began with the claim that writing's main purpose is to transfer information, but I must elaborate. Writing was invented for the purpose of communicating, but that is not as narrow of a scope as it may appear. Humans are notorious for complicating things and communicating is no exception. The thoughts that one individual desires to impart to another can range from simple facts to deep hypothetical and philosophical wonderings. It is in this second category that most of what we know of as literature falls into. 

These writings expand on deep thought and aim to use a limited faculty to explain the furthest reaches of our minds. They desire not only to leave us with the emotion of something but also understanding. That requires a mastery of the language and an ability to use it artistically and analytically in tandem. This is what makes writing and communication literature, the ability to express complex ideas with skill and artistry.

Modern technology does not remove this vitally important form of communication, rather it enhances it. New technologies simply allow for more complex communication. In situations where simply word alone isn’t impactful enough, we now have the option to interchange mediums. Tools that may have been closed to you before because all you could access was paper and ink are now wide open and ready to use.

No matter how far technology advances, the artist will still be needed. There may be certain tasks that artists will no longer need to perform, like searching thesauruses, or finding minor stylistic mistakes in their work, rather, AI and other software can take on those tasks. But what this does is create more of an opportunity for an artist to hone their craft and create work that they are proud of. These technologies may attempt to replace the author, but they will never be able to analyze the deep theoretical questions humans encounter. A human– no, an artist is needed for this.

Technology being able to replicate the formation of language and basic stories should not scare us. These “new” ideas being made by these programs are not in fact new, rather they are a cumulation of all ideas related to that topic that already exist. Computers are not capable of new thought, though they may be convincing. Only the artist is capable of new postulations. We may be doing something similar to the software, taking all of our previous knowledge and experience and compiling it into something else, but we are capable of giving it meaning and a purpose, of infusing it with an underlying purpose. Computers take no pride in what they have made, nor do they recognize purpose. They simply register if they have completed the task they were asked to or not. Artists are different. They create with an intent and desire to create something with meaning, regardless of how trivial it is.

Technology should not scare us. Rather it should push us to do things that cannot be surveyed and replicated. The artist is no longer concerned with the trivial, rather they can use the technologies available to them to increase their complexity of communication. Use technology as a vehicle for your art, not as a replacement.

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Nathan Foster

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

The seventh entry in this collection of manifestos comes from Nathan Foster and seeks to untangle art from content and human from machine, at least in conceptual terms. And art, it would seem, requires this disentangling.

Art in the 21st Century Manifesto

This is the day we’ve been waiting for, the age which we’ve feared: obsoletion.

Man has made machines so powerful and efficient that it has rendered its creator obsolete.

Except it hasn’t. 

We are not machines. We are not machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. 

We are artists.

Manmade art has not become obsolete, nor will it ever be. Even as laborious jobs from factory working to farming fall by the wayside to let machines do them in a cheaper manner, art is thriving in the digital world.

Technology does not replace art. It empowers it. 

Before the 21st century, literature was limited by the confines of paper and the shipping industry. It was indebted to trees being felled and booksellers making massive purchase orders to meet customer’s needs. Consumers had to wait days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years to get their hands on books they so desperately desired. Plebeians—the lot of them. Not because they were destitute. Indeed, many of them paid quite the pretty penny for a hardcover bound piece of literature that had to cross the world before they could lay eyes on what lay within. But they were rendered servants to the time it took for books to get to them and stores that may never carry the titles they were longing for.

No longer.

The digital age has empowered people to get their hands on literature instantaneously, with the tap of a button. Anyone can read any book they desire at any time on any screen they so choose. The power technology has given literature and the artists that create it is limitless. 

But as Peter Parker’s uncle infamously said before getting shot, “With great power comes great responsibility.” This begs the question—what is the responsibility of the artist in the digital age?

This answer is quite simple, yet complicated at the same time: artists are responsible for creating art that cuts through the noise, that stands out in a world full of mediocre content, and that will be remembered and have an impact on the reader long after they’re done reading. In short, we must create art that causes people to pay attention.

While technology has been the great empowerer of our generation’s literary artists, it has also been their biggest enemy. Because literature is so easily accessible, there is a superabundance of it never seen before by mankind. The internet is not limited by the physical confines of a bookstore and self publishing has cut out the necessary refinement of editors. This distinct lack of boundaries has enabled people to push out crap in the form of content.

Content is not art. 

Content is capitalism. 

Every company is begging for your eyes on their ads or their sponsored influencers to get you to spend your hard earned dollars on their products. The average American sees nearly 10,000 advertisements a day. We are literally inundated with content that tells us our lives would be improved in some marginal way. Because of this, people have become numb to all the things set before them, even art.

With streaming services pumping billions of dollars into thousands of shows that nobody can possibly keep up with, people have become more resistant than ever to devote the time and energy it takes to appreciate a great piece of art. They want to shut their minds off by turning content on. They have forgotten how to pay attention.

We must remind them. 

We must create art that disrupts—literature that spits in the face of content and causes people to remember how to slow down and appreciate the story in front of them. Art is not conveyed in fifteen second clips. Art is slow in its nature.

We must take advantage of the kinds of technologies that encourage slowness. These technologies do exist. Ereaders encourage it. They do nothing more than present a screen to read on, a screen behind which endless pieces of great art can exist. If we create great literature that encourages slow reading, thoughtful attention, some people will stop to take it in.

We can’t expect every person in the world to take the time required to read great literature. That is a fool’s errand.

But we can create great art and make it widely available so that those few who do have the wherewithal and disposition to pay attention have a reason to do so. We must devote our time on earth to creating these kinds of stories that enrapture the soul, like Kafka said, the kind that “wound and stab us like a disaster, the kind that grieve us like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves.”

We cannot expect our art to make people happy. That is content’s job. Our art must sting, causing the pain that in turn causes people to give us the greatest gift they could ever give—their attention. 

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Saundri Luippold

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

Starting Week Two of manifestos, Saundri Luippold posits the need for a return to Romanticism in our moment.  

New Romanticism Manifesto

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Vincent Arellanes

Photo by Clever Visuals on Unsplash

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

To close out the first week of manifestos, Vincent Arellanes ponders what we are stewarding when we set out to create art and what that may mean in our current context.

As a young writer I have measured my own abilities based on the role that I play when it comes to the installment of literary literature. In order to be a “writer” I needed to create and be recognized because of this creation. Throughout my life I have written many pieces of literature, but because I lack the recognition of this art does that make me only half of a writer? Are authors who have been published the only artists allowed to be called writers? At what point will I be given the social card that labels me “writer?” Many questions, such as these, formulate within my mind making me less and less hopeful that I will be worthy enough to obtain this type of status. Unfortunately, this is exactly what society does. They make you think that you are appraised based on contribution. In reality literature has more of a role for us than we have for it. “Literature helps us better understand our lives, ourselves, and the world around us. Encounters with literature develop the concepts of identification, imagination, and empathy” (Gustavus).

Throughout the ages these concepts stay stagnant in order to help writers through literature. The advancement of technology has raised many questions about literature's usefulness to writers and how technology may shift the artist's conception of these concepts. Literature is accessible everywhere, at an instant, allowing audiences to read and watch art within seconds. How does this affect motivation, authenticity, or even the way of art reaching people? I may not have a firm answer to this question, but I do see the possible benefits that technology or AI can have for writers. Brainstorming has never been easier for a writer, and motivation has never been more available. Technology should be used as an aid/resource for writers, nothing more. The more power we implement within AI the more temptation writers will have to abuse this power. Technology is always going to be a tool, and we are the users who determine if this tool is used properly.  

Art, especially within literature, changes all the time but we, the creators of this art, need to make sure that it doesn’t lose its beauty. Pain, happiness, fear, and excitement are the feelings that make the process of writing so wonderful. Once we take that away and substitute it with something that is inauthentic, then we are given art without substance. The relief found within the hardships of creating literature are the milestones that make art worthwhile. This cannot be found within a system that regurgitates the work put into it.

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Allan McBride

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

The fourth entry in the series comes from Allan McBride, who ponders the notion of identity in a post-human world and the role of art in making who we are.  

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Mia Strand

Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

The third manifesto in the series is a bit of a humanistic epistolary take on the questions we should be asking as artists from Mia Strand.

Dear Writer

Our art is a uniquely human experience, reflecting the inner workings of the soul as closely as we can humanly comprehend it. As a vehicle for self-discovery, for emotional awareness, towards an Intelligent Designer, towards purpose, art has been tethered to our search for understanding beyond what is merely seen. It is a byproduct of what is noticed amidst the humdrum. And it never ends if we pay close attention. 

Artists reflect an instinctual desire to unravel what sits within, what churns behind the eyes when life’s day-to-day chatter subsides. But seeking what lies within shouldn’t be forced out. To prematurely advance a creative work of any kind is a disservice to the artist, their audience, and the art itself. And this is happening increasingly so. 

A.I. programs and technology as a whole are allowing new and faster ways of making life’s endeavors convenient, but at what cost? Growth is essential to the artistic process, but when we avoid the turmoil ingrained within it, we suppress any personal transformation. Writing in particular, especially creatively, follows inefficient processes that differ from artist-to-artist. Some still write with a pen and paper, some spend years or even decades of their life writing a book, some will scrap a portion of their rough draft that they’ve spent years on. And so, writing should demonstrate the writer’s sacrifice of time and convenience for the sake of uncovering what stirs their being. They share their human experience to provoke a reaction that derives from their own emotion. Therefore, good art cannot be efficient. Good art cannot be convenient; “Good” as in “wholeheartedly expressing the human experience” type of good. And yet, technology seeks to make it so. Because A.I. programs scan large databases to gather information and then regurgitate the work of other artists, art that is A.I. assisted is only partially human, distancing the gap between what is perceived by the human conscience and the art piece. And yet, technology can still be used to create good art. 

Word processing softwares make writing and fixing mistakes faster and easier, maintaining the substance of art while using technology. But programmers are creating softwares that use A.I. to generate content. For example, the A.I. writing program Sudowrite gives writer's options to fork their narrative, to add conflict points, dialogue options, etc. Programs meant to aid creatives are beginning to strip the process of creating art. Artists skip workshopping, the frustration, and produce a collage of people’s art as their own and this is what A.I. is enabling. Said artists are robbing themselves of the joy of working to accomplish something difficult and of having true ownership over their art. Good art should always be fulfilling for the artist. 

So to all artists, we have a job to maintain the joy of creating. Although the arguments trying to answer “What is art?” or “Can A.I. make art?” may not ever be definitely answered, “What makes good art?” can. Encoded within us is this innate desire to find purpose and meaning  in what we experience, but we must devote ourselves to our craft knowing that it will not be easy. Reminisce on your first experience with art that moved you and hold it close. As you sit down to create something, let your coffee get cold as you wrestle out the kinks. You will get tired, but the most admirable works of art are those that people have to sacrifice for. We sacrifice for what we love, so love your art, love the process even when you hate it. That is what makes good art. You cannot cheat the writing process in the same way you cannot fake the act of loving another—and if you do, someone is bound to find out eventually. 

A.I. is tempting to many creators in the 21st century, but the rewards of our work are much greater otherwise. For accountability, find a community that values art in the same ways you do and stick to the process. Avoid A.I. for creating creative content and learn about how A.I. functions on a fundamental level. But above all, love what you do and let human thoughts fuel the content of your creative work.   

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Audrey Swanson

Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

The second manifesto in this series comes from Audrey Swanson and leans into the tradition of Orwell and Didion exploring why they choose to write in the first place. This question is even more present and personal in the age of “storytelling” machines, as Audrey’s piece indicates.

I HATE WRITING: A MANIFESTO 

I hate writing. I quit once a week. Why do I write? 

It’s tempting to say I write because I must. That I write because it comes to me like breathing, because the only way I have ever engaged with the world is through language, and thus I must process it in that manner. This is tempting because it sounds romantic and exciting, the sort of thing a real writer might feel. It is also not at all true. Writing is about as enjoyable to me as bending my fingernails backwards. It is excruciating and it makes me feel utterly inadequate. Maybe I write because I’m a fucking masochist. 

So then, why do I write? I may as well not. I am not unique in my talent or in my work ethic. Perhaps language comes to me easily, because I have been engaging with the world in that way since I was very young, but this does not mean I must write. There is nothing in the world that requires me to write. 

So why do I write? 

Anne Lamott wrote that she writes because she wants to. I suppose this is also why I write. I write because I want to. I write because the world is achingly beautiful and horrible and ordinary and magical and it requires a response. This is, of course, a ridiculous reason to write. The world will keep singing without my piddly sentences and quaking descriptions. But it is also true. That is the thing which makes art so revolutionary. It is not productive. It gives without expecting anything back. Of course, that’s all well and good for everyone else. I still hate it. 

Of course, I do not think all good art exists in the form of literature. That would be narrow-minded and ridiculous. There is wonderful art in digital spaces, and the field of digital literature and storytelling is ever-expanding. Still, though, I think the written word holds a special place in our existence that will not be displaced by these other forms of art. Literature requires that the reader give it space. It requires a separation from the cycle of breakneck consumerism that grips the American public. To write literature involves situating oneself in the world beyond the passive cycle of production and consumption. It is easy to find oneself caught in the great, churning wheel of working and buying and working and buying. This is the life we are sold: to be fulfilled is to work forty hours a week so that, on your days off, you can fill your leisure with products. Creative writing, in the traditional sense, rebels against this cycle because, really, it is not the shiniest thing on the market. There is a reason it is so difficult to sell a novel. The intention and attention required by literature is not easy to muster, particularly in a world in which there is so much screaming for our attention. 

The world spins more quickly with each passing second, and the strobing computer lights threaten to give me a headache. Still, the world will keep advancing, my grouchy complaints be damned. If art is a response to the world in which we live, perhaps the digital is a more apt medium through which to reflect our world. And yet, the machine itself does not see. In fact, it can be blinding. At least for me, the realm of digital storytelling feels more exhausting than stimulating. My experience of the digital landscape has numbed me to the world, rather than making me more sensitive to it. In the right hands, digital narrative can be beautiful, but in order to do so, it must not fall victim to the capitalist idea that the best art is that which is easiest to consume. Good art does not lull its audience to sleep. It does not lure one into a bottomless pit of consumption. It jolts one awake. It beckons one to go out into the world and live. 

All that be damned. I still hate writing. I can’t quit. There’s too many things I want to write about.   

21st Century Creative Writing Manifesto: Nina Fillari

As part of a split advanced creative writing workshop and graduate seminar I taught this spring on A.I. and creative writing, I posed my students a challenge in the form of a question: What would a manifesto of creative writing look like in the 21st century?

The class itself centered around some foundational explorations. What does it mean to make art in the age of machines attempting to do the same? Is art inherently a human pursuit and domain? How is the digital exploration of creativity recasting the work of art as it has been perceived? And what might we learn as artists if we engage the strengths and limitations of machine art?  

From these angles, we dug into a number of conversations surround the intersection of art, human consciousness, and machine learning/expression. These manifestos, then, are my students’ expression of what art and artists should do in our context. We referred to older examples of the form (Dadaist, Surrealist, Feminist, Fluxus, and Oulipian among others). But I left the final form up to them, knowing that I would be making them public via my blog. The following series are the of what they came up with. I encourage you to sit with their ideas over the next couple weeks.

 First up is an interactive take from Nina Fillari that invites artists and the reader to try on a number of different paths in their thinking. Seemed like the right one of the ten to begin with given each takes a different approach to calling artists to action.

Striking Out

Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

For more than a year, the teachers in my wife’s school district have been locked in unmoving negotiations with their administration. Tomorrow, it appears likely they’ll go on strike simply to maintain their level of health care benefits and receive a raise that still leaves them behind the curve of inflation.

The experience, from where I sit, has been a bit like watching a massive ship steam inexorably toward the dock while its captain blames landfall for the impending collision.

It’s going to be messy. It will impact hundreds of teachers’ families and thousands of students’ lives at a time when that’s the last thing they need. And it will present the community a crucial question: how much do we really care about teachers?

But the worst part for me is what’s it’s doing to my wife. She’s a teacher’s teacher. The best I know. A safe space on campus for students. A source of counsel administrators seek out regularly. The kind of teacher students actively stay in contact with years after they graduate.

I’m worried that this will sour her on the job she’s done so well for decades. That students will lose her because of the selfishness of a small group of people gaslighting her and her peers by implying they are the self-interested ones. That the damage this is doing might become irreparable.

I can hear the question here: If this is so simple, why hasn’t the district simply found a way to meet teacher’s needs? I have some thoughts.

In opening of her book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, education historian Diane Ravitch discusses how she went from being part of the federal move to impose No Child Left Behind on American students to repudiating that same body of policy as harmful.

What is most relevant to the situation in my wife’s district is how Ravitch ended up supporting NCLB in the first place. Working as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, she describes being pulled into what she describes as “thinking like a state.” In short form, this view of education from 30,000 feet turned educators and students into numbers and those numbers became ledger items to be addressed in the most broadly efficient ways.

But efficiency and humanity are rarely congruent aims when people are simply numbers, especially when learning is the goal. Further, thinking like this encourages decision-makers to ignore the real, human impact of their choices in favor of serving the bottom line. It also creates the need to contort the message around those choices as being focused on “student success.”

This is a recipe for the kind of impasse happening in Covina. The district administration and school board have intentionally chosen to treat teachers and students as simply budget items. And, as they have proven with many other budgetary decisions, they have made poor financial decisions they are now looking to blame on others.

Frankly, the disrespect this has caused is both breathtaking and, sadly, a banal form of reality replaying in communities around the country.

The superintendent and her cabinet have made specific spending errors over the past few years that, handled differently, would have rendered this fight unnecessary and then passed the bill for those choices on to teachers and green-lit misrepresentations about the costs of the core issues they are being asking to address.

There’s a reason well over 90% of the teachers in the district voted no-confidence in the superintendent’s leadership. Taking the long view, she should never have had the interim label removed from her title, let alone been given a contract extension in the middle of stalled negotiations by a board who literally refused to look teachers, students, and community members in the eye as they begged them for more than a year to come to an agreement that honors the work of teachers.

Honestly, this strike is a referendum on her failure as a leader, but she’s pulling people aside to say she believes teachers will fold quickly because they have bills to pay while she uses district funds to foot the heavy costs being charged by legal representation and crisis communication consultation the district only needs because of its leadership’s intractable desire to get everything about this situation wrong.

• Collect teachers’ keys at the end of school every day weeks before a strike was officially called? Check.

• Add locks to school gates those keys wouldn’t work in anyway, just to make a statement? Check.

• Imply they’ll charge teachers with theft if they don’t turn in their computers before they go in strike? Check.

• Threaten to cancel sports for students and then walk that threat back? Check.

• Offer THREE TIMES the typical amount of daily sub pay to induce scabs to cross the picket line while claiming there’s no money to address the issues teachers have raised? Check.

• Pen press releases about how much the district truly “respects” teachers while ignoring the independent review of their proposed contract that concluded teachers deserve more than they’d even asked for? Check.

• Blowing off parent inquiries in support of teachers? Check.

• Promising to meet student needs like special education accommodations and instruction appropriate to their long-term professionally despite the fact they functionally can’t be without permanent faculty in the classroom? Check.

It’s abundantly clear the district administration is much more concerned with getting their way than with serving their students.

Otherwise, they’d be breaking their backs to avoid another serious educational disruption for students already reeling from the impact of the pandemic-driven shut down.

Otherwise, they’d be determined to honor the work of the teachers who carried the heaviest burden of that shut down.

Otherwise, they’d have the moral fortitude to own their mistakes, humble themselves, and return to the table with a fair offer for a group that is already underpaid and simply asking not to have their benefits cut to cover expenses they didn’t incur.  

My wife is a phenomenal teacher. Being that requires sacrifices every single day, sacrifices that carry no pay, garner little attention outside of the people she makes them for, and sometimes cost her dearly because she cares so much.

Her absence and that of her colleagues will be felt. I just hope it will be effective, because I’m not convinced the people in control of the district purse strings care.

I am convinced that regardless of the outcome, the entire administrative cabinet in Covina Valley should step down or lose their jobs, if for no other reason than they made this mess whether or not they want to cop to that.

Their lack of empathy and creativity has done harm to the teachers they supposedly respect and represent, and that should cost them.