Intellectual Biography

I would call myself a “career career-transitioner,” that is, one whose restless trajectory through the working universe is a determined and deliberate pursuit in search of one’s true place in it. There are naturally contrarians that would see the helter-skelter of my C.V. in less soaring terms, but they do not know the whole story.

After a seriously misspent youth in New York and New Jersey, I left the east coast for golden California in search of something elusive, though it clearly involved fame and fortune. I had a vague notion that, because I starred in my high school play, it logically followed that I would become a celebrated actor and make my way around Los Angeles in a limousine like everyone else there.

When I arrived, at 17, I discovered there were a few hurdles I’d first have to get over to achieve stardom. As I was contemplating the fast track to Hollywood nirvana, it occurred to me that it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a college class or two in preparation for the extremely unlikely possibility that I wouldn’t have my own prime-time sit-com in due course. I was more than a little apprehensive about returning to school. I did not possess an especially solid academic foundation for higher education inasmuch as I left high school prematurely (dropping out, some call it), and to this day I understand I hold the dubious record for least number of classes attended in school history (it’s good to be the best at something, right?).

In spite of this inauspicious scholarly beginning, I somehow found my way to UCLA, where I received a political science degree and graduated with honors. This came as quite a shock to my friends and family, but not nearly as much as it did to me. Thus, after becoming the first person in my family to graduate from college, I decided to push my luck and collect a law degree while I was on a roll. As if that wasn’t enough parchment for wall-hanging, I also began an MFA program in film production at UCLA, though that process was cut short when I left the country for an affair of the heart in Sydney, Australia. One marriage, one son, and, characteristically, many jobs later, I returned to Los Angeles.

I worked here and in Australia in the entertainment industry in something called “business affairs,” and for a few years dabbled directly in film production. In addition to my executive support work on a variety of film and television projects, I also produced a couple of undistinguished films, had a brief co-production partnership with my teen idol, David Bowie, and accrued a box full of press clippings. All of this amounted to a big ‘so what’ for me. I spent nearly two decades feeling completely disconnected from my work, and though it would be dishonest if I did not admit that many aspects of working in media were satisfying, at a deeper and soulful level I was totally alienated from the process.

That changed when the most improbable thing that ever happened to me, happened to me. I became a schoolteacher. This unpredictable and ahistorical turn of events left me with the distinct feeling that there really must be something to the concept of ‘teacher-as-calling,’ that the profession chooses us. Ten years on, teaching has become more of an avocation than a job. It’s certainly an adventure. As any teacher will attest, the occasion for calling one’s ‘calling’ into question arises frequently in education; it ain’t easy. Yet whenever crisis or reflection seems certain to dim (or doom) my enthusiasm for the work, something inevitably happens to validate my choice and confirm that it was a very good decision.

All of that said, a large part of me is still very much anchored in, and hankers to be more directly involved in media. Documentary and narrative film under girds my teaching. I am a voracious student and consumer of media. I have continued to remain connected to that community in a variety of ways, including by way of old relationships, memberships in professional associations such as the International Documentary Association, attendance at festivals, markets and trade shows, and my own personal writing, development and production activities. I also teach film and direct theater occasionally. I never really left my old world entirely behind.

Still, my previous working experiences in media left me disillusioned, and I could not readily identify a place for myself within it. And yet I seemed to always have a sense that I was destined to return to media in some manner.

Ultimately it has been teaching that revealed a new direction for me, and for once my potpourri of employment seemed to be working in my favor. I have had an unusually wide variety of teaching experiences – middle and high, urban and suburban, private and public, traditional and charter, diverse and homogeneous, large and small, single gender and co-ed, parochial and secular, and as an administrator and school developer.

From the outset of my career shift I saw my role as a teacher in terms of ‘mission,’ but it was only with the benefit of this big-picture view of education that my particular purpose began to come more clearly into focus. Over time I saw that no matter what the philosophy, size, locale, gender, political ideology, socio-economic status, or public/ private status of the school, one thing was consistently true: the mass ignorance of history and abject lack of interest in current events was surpassed only by the abysmal quality of their instruction.

This worried me. Deeply. I’m not the first person to observe that our national report card on American history intelligence is an embarrassment. And don’t get me started on world history. David McCullough, historian and Pulitzer-prize winning author of John Adams and Truman, has long recognized the dangers associated with our ignorance of history: "I don't think there is any question that students in our institutions of higher learning have less grasp, less understanding of, and less respect for American history than ever before. To our shame we're raising a generation of young Americans who are, to a very large degree, historically illiterate." Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, shares McCullough’s deep concern: "Americans of all ages have a dangerously poor understanding of American history.” But Cathy Gorn, University of Maryland professor and Executive Director of National History Day, puts her finger directly on the pulse of the problem by linking the crisis in history and civics education to flawed and outmoded instructional methodology: “There is a crisis in learning in American schools . . . History education gets little attention from reformers and policy makers . . . As a result, while no child may be left behind in math, history remains even farther behind. How can we ensure that students leave school historically literate? We must revise the way in which history is taught and thus learned in America's classrooms, so that teachers engage their students in a meaningful study of the past.”

Our collective national ignorance is staggering. A recent Zogby poll revealed that Americans are far more likely to know the planet that Superman is from than the name of the planet nearest to the sun, can name two of the Seven Dwarfs three times as accurately as they can two of the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, can identify the latest “American Idol” winner over the name of the latest Supreme Court appointment, 2 to 1. And while 42% of Americans can name the three branches of the U.S. government, twice as many know all the names of the Three Stooges.

I just couldn’t dismiss the implications of such widespread ignorance without considering the consequences. David McCullough again: “For a free, self-governing people, something more than a vague familiarity with history is essential if we are to hold onto and sustain our freedom.” But Thomas Jefferson said it best: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be.” And so, I had a personal epiphany. I could combine my love of teaching, background in film and television, and commitment to public service and social justice by creating a high school program dedicated to these objectives.

There is a critical need for a secondary school program aimed at nurturing a deeper awareness of our nation’s history and institutions, fostering an abiding and lifelong interest in contemporary issues and public service, and providing 21st century communication skills to facilitate effective participation. It struck me that the union of civics and media studies is a unique opportunity to stimulate students’ engagement in crucially important issues that concern them and provide them with the tools to do so meaningfully, so that they may intelligently and effectively engage in the public debate.

It now seems clear that my meandering journey has led me inexorably to The New School Media Studies program. My time here will provide the space and opportunity to more fully develop my ideas, to establish a much-needed theoretical and statistical foundation for the project, and ultimately to create a compelling formal proposal. We have but to look around the world today – we don’t need CNN to tell us – to see that such a program is desperately, urgently needed.