The Last Day of School

That relentless rhythm of the school year has finally wound itself round to summer...tomorrow is the last day of school. The students decided to largely forgo their classes to catch up on work, to fool around, swim in the creek, and plan for the next day's party.
It has been a long year filled with marvels. A transition year, really. Over the next few weeks I will lay out some of what we accomplished and some of what we plan for next year.

One of the odder things about the education biz is the question of how you evaluate what you are doing. Can we fairly judge a school on how a bunch of 18 year olds conduct themselves? I think not. For me, the test of our school will be these kids as they approach the age of 30...are they happy, learning new things, are they pushing themselves and taking chances?

What about the handful of kids who don't graduate or moved on to other schools? Many of them keep coming back to visit. Why?

We plant seeds, and seeds take time. Maybe what a student learns at TAS just isn't relevant to the conditions of her life until much later, then suddenly, here it is.

Sometimes a seed is dormant for a long, long time. Like this one. 2000 years old, and now it is sprouting. And I thought I was a late bloomer.

Evidence Based Practice

"Evidence-Based Medicine" is a popular term these days. But it has a dark side, doesn't it? If this is a new idea, what on earth were doctors basing their decisions on before? It reminds me of a Chris Rock routine (which I have only had related to me, I have never seen it) where a father responds to criticism about his drug use and petty crimes with "Well, I take care of my children!". To which Rock says: "Aren't you supposed to take care of your children?"

Finally, it seems the evidence-based approach is wending its way through psychological circles. Not to be too snarky about it, but why now and not 10 years ago?

I hope the answer is that the high water mark of "the chemical hypothesis" has passed. The idea that behavior and emotion is determined by linear chemical processes is silly. Yet a lot of people went to the bank on that one. I think that soon it will be quite clear that a straight line from flawed gene to screwy neurochemical to maladjusted thought to an unwanted behavior does not exist. It was at best simple-minded and at worst profoundly cynical and self-serving.

But people suffer, and suffer greatly. And there is a role for medication. But psychological problems are primarily social problems and require social solutions.

Here is very interesting, modest, and clear step in that direction: a manual for evidence-based practices in children's psychology.

Page nine has the criteria. Page 11 begins with "anxious and avoidant behaviors". Take a few minutes to read through it. It is a good place to start. This has some seeds of thought for adult treatment as well.

No longer any reason to wonder...

First, some data on the medicating of children:

Foster children are medicated at rates far higher than non-foster children. Much of this drug use is not justified by standard medical practice (scroll through this brief abstract, to the conclusion).

Pre-schoolers are now frequently being diagnosed with depression and bi-polar disorder.

Newer anti-depressants do not work better than the older ones (though they are far more profitable); the older ones don't work very well either. (See the second article for a good review of illegal and quasi-illegal practices Eli Lilly engaged in order to replace the profits Prozac generated for them).

Now this: Dan Carlat admits that his take on the growing scandal at Harvard Medical School was, to use a word, ingenuous. The three doctors at HMS apparently hid millions of dollars in payments from various drug companies and failed to report them as potential conflicts of interest. Carlat calls the CME (continuing medical education credits) system a huge money laundering scheme, a way of directing cash to doctors and researchers:

Rather than paying doctors directly to give accredited CME courses (which is illegal), drug companies pay third party companies to create the courses. The checks are actually written by the education company, but the ultimate source is clearly the sponsoring pharmaceutical company. The drug industry has gravitated to this form of marketing because they realize that doctors are more likely to believe information in CME courses than information from drug reps.

The Harvard scandal represents the perfect storm of this money laundering operation. It appears that the vast majority of the money eventually reported by the Harvard Trio, a combined $4.2 million over 7 years, was drug company money that was laundered and processed to seem like it wasn't drug company money. And this, I suspect, is why it was so easy for the doctors to rationalize not disclosing it.

This is a major public health issue. Does it go to far to say that, for parents at the very least, this calls into question the legitimacy of the entire system of psychopharmacological research?

In summary we have a huge boom in medicating children, a huge boom in drug company profits, a vast and invisible payment system for biasing doctors and gaming the research, and all the major medical journals absolutely dependent on advertising from drug companies. And now, the most famous medical school in the world has been found to be caught up in the whole racket.

Vic Rawlings, noise and music, and being free

What is the difference between noise and music? When I listen to a scratchy old 78 of a one of Beethoven's Rasamovsky Quartets what is it, noise or music? What if it is a really scratchy old 78? There is no clear line, of course. Instead, it is a question productive of thought, not answers.
In Zen, action is important. Action reflects a quality of mind, but not always. Intent is very important. Zen is arguably more like philosophy than religion in the sense that moral imperatives are unimportant, even discouraged. One can judge action, and judging is the closing of one's heart. One can never truly know another's intent; we can only know our own intent. Intent, then, is the quality of mind, and can only truly be known by oneself. This is a pretty fierce subjectivity, pretty cold eyed.

As a teenager, I lived and breathed the Rolling Stone Record Guide. I highlighted any five star record I dared call familiar. I avoided those one star and two star failures; I made knowing fun of Uriah Heap, as they rated as only "bullets" , a few sorry single stars, and their masterwork, whatever it was, which was granted two. Needless to say, as my opinions began to diverge, the book lost much of its authority. But it was a place to start, like Janson's History of Art, or Ezra Pound's "from Confucious to Cummings". Its breadth was its authority. And I aspired to some kind of breadth.

But what I lost, and what I struggled with throughout my years as a musician harassed by the fates and chased down by doubts, was the sense of my own style. It emerged anyways, a function of my severe limitations, but the chorus of critics, that long-ago internalized Record Guide, rarely gave approval.

But there were moments- while writing or performing- where I felt a unity of intent, ability, and action. The critics were silent, finally, if briefly.

So where is the music, the noise? Is there a meaningful difference when one is producing sound? The intent is important. A good ear- an experienced, open ear- can often tell if the intent is to communicate. But that does not matter, really. If the maker of sounds- music or noise- is experiencing a unity of intent and action, something good is happening. A fundamental experience. Coherence. And if others are playing as well, it is delicious. It may sound like an construction site- a deconstruction site- to some. Like heavy traffic, swinging cranes, and police radios. Be brave. Play on.

When Vic Rawlings comes to Tinicum he comes to play. In the Fall, he gives two full days of lessons, in the Spring, a day of lessons and full day of electric and electronic musicnoise/noisemusic. Picture a large circle, then 10 places on the circle. One place may have an old amplifier, a short wave radio, an old electronic camera flash. Here, the flash flashes its electromagnetic pulse to our eyes when a button is pushed, but a series of slowing, dropping frequencies are registered by us as sound via the shortwave shortly thereafter.

Another station: an enclosed, circular pan with two steel balls trapped, rolling within. The wire of a contact microphone dangles from it. This connects to an antiquated speaker.

Another: a table with several things that look like inside out guitar effects pedals, the kind people stamp on to get a wail or a crunch or a phasing effect- their guts are spilling out. On the circuit board inside are wire and bits of foil. Some steel wool. These cross up the circuits, and randomly produce all manner of noise. Here one experiments. Anybody I have ever seen at that station takes on a very systematic expression- a scientist at work, or a grocer at his scales. The attempt is to reproduce that funny sound. Rarely done, and most move on, but most return.

Another: a stand holds a rectangular, black, U-shaped piece of metal about a foot long and one fifth as high. Two cello bows can be drawn across it; this sound is routed through a wah-wah pedal and off to an amplifier.

Why? Noise. Music. Put the critics to rest, give them the morning off. It is, after all, playing music, right? This is the experience of "just doing it". Zen isn't all sitting in silence.

Vic's intent is not to provide an experience of challenging Zen practice. It is, inter alia, to produce an opening, an experience of freedom and conflict. Interestingly, it was the presence of a guitar and a bass guitar that caused difficulty. Young musicians can't seem to approach these icons without the rock script, playing familiar songs and producing familiar gestures. And once you are playing from a script, you are alone, listening to the critics, doing what you are supposed to do. The conflict comes with the new, the unknown, the trying to make some sound, some communication, however untutored. There is some freedom for you. Be brave and play.