13
Quiet Time at the Fletcher-Johnson School
The drive from one end of America to the other took me one hour and fifteen minutes in my rented Chevy Lumina. I started the journey in Potomac, Maryland, a serene and beautiful bedroom community north of Washington, D.C., where I spent the night at the home of a friend, and I reached my destination in southeast Washington, the hardcore, drug- and gang-infested world that is a $15-cab ride from the White House, but a million miles away from the American dream. America works for people in Potomac. Nothing much works for the people in southeast Washington.
It's January 14, 1998, 10:15 a.m., and I am driving up a hill and turning into the parking lot at the Fletcher-Johnson Learning Center, just off Benning Road at 46th street-an area whose back streets are so harsh, so destitute, so crime-ridden that it is considered one of the worst areas in the country. The Fletcher-Johnson Learning Center is a public school, grades K through 9. It is a huge, imposing concrete building; out of context, it almost looks like a castle without turrets-a fortress without windows-sitting at the top of this hill. I am 15 minutes late for an appointment with George Rutherford, Ph.D., the principal of the Fletcher-Johnson Learning Center. There are two security guards at the top of the stairs, where I sign in. But there is no metal detector. In fact, I had been told that Rutherford's school is the only public school out of 25 in Washington with no metal detectors.
I write my name and am escorted to Rutherford's office, where I wait for 20 minutes. Rutherford is out but will be back shortly. A young boy walks in and takes a seat one chair over from me. Within minutes we are old friends, telling each other secrets. Howard is seven and is waiting for someone to come take him home. He has ringworm. He shows me his spelling and arithmetic tests. Only one mistake on all of it. He is a Washington Redskins football fan, but likes Jerry Rice of the San Francisco Forty-Niners (my team, I tell him). An older child pushes open the door and talks to Howard. It is Keith, his 11-year-old brother, coming to look out for him. Keith leaves and we resume our conversation. I ask Howard about Dr. Rutherford. Do your friends like him? I ask. Big smile and a yes nod. "Yes. A lot! We all call him, Doc."
Howard tells me that he has three brothers and eight sisters. His oldest brother is in jail.
You're not going to go to jail when you grow up, are you? I ask. "No," he says, shaking his head firmly. "I'm gonna get a good job when I grow up. I'm gonna be a taxi driver and make lots of money and buy a big, fancy house."
A few more minutes of chitchat pass before Keith comes to gather up Howard and take him downstairs to his aunt who will take him home. Howard and I are pals. He sticks out his hand for a final shake and then he's off.
I sit there thinking about how Howard eagerly voiced his aspirations for his life, and it bothers me. But how naive I am to think he would want to be a doctor or a teacher or an investment banker. Who is his role model? I would hear later in the day that any child in the southeast who has a father who has a job has a hero in his life, and is the envy of his classmates. In fact, when many kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up, they often admit, "What difference does it make? I'll probably be dead." Or else, "I'm going to jail where you get two squares (meals) and TV."
I've got a Washington Post in my lap. Front page: Sixteen-year-old girl is shot and killed at a gas station. I look for the address. It's on Benning, just four blocks away. It seems that a 16-year-old boy, a classmate, was trying to make conversation. She ignored him. He pulled a pistol out from his belt and fired several shots into her chest. That was yesterday. Across the top of the Metro section is a story of the city manager from Austin, Texas, a white woman, who has been hired to manage the cash-strapped, no-morale District of Columbia. There is a big outcry over why a white woman from out of the District was chosen over a local black person. I make a mental note to ask Rutherford about that.
There's another article, a column by Courtland Malloy, an elegant and poignant writer, talking about how black males have a disproportionately high risk of getting prostate cancer, AIDs, high blood pressure-basically, of dying an early death.
Before I can find anything else to uplift me, George Rutherford pokes his head in the door, offers a big, open smile, and motions me out into the hallway. We shake hands, and say how good it is to see each other. I follow him through some double-doors and down concrete steps across a hall and into an anonymous, unmarked basement office. This must be where George Rutherford gets away from it all. A cellular phone that he carries in his hand at all times, and an walkie-talkie stuffed in his back pocket never stop ringing, never stop demanding his attention. It is here that we spend the next 90 minutes as he talks about education, race, stress, building a community, and developing consciousness.
George Rutherford stands about 6 foot, one inch, is fit and trim, with hair that is closely cropped and a hairline that is receding. He doesn't have a line of worry in his face. In fact, he has a seamless, almost boyish face, and looks 10 or 15 years younger than his 59 years.
Rutherford was born in Charles Town, West Virginia, and attended nearby Bluefield State College for one year. He transferred to Shepherd College, where he was the only black to play on the college's all-white basketball team. That was in the mid-50s, and it is clear in his retelling that he felt the cruel brunt of racism. After one year he transferred to Stillman College in Alabama where he graduated with a teaching credential. He and his wife, Sandra, moved back to the D.C. area, where he taught in the public schools for ten years. Then, in 1973, with four children to look out for, Rutherford and his wife agreed that he should go back to school, this time to University of Pittsburgh, and get a Ph.D. in counseling psychology. In 1978, the now Doctor George Rutherford took over as principal of the Fletcher-Johnson Learning Center.
Rutherford has turned Fletcher-Johnson into a safe haven for his 700 students-699 African-American and one white, ages four through sixteen. It's a refuge from the mean streets-from the drugs and filth and violence-and from the absence of discipline and love of many of their parents who are crack addicts or in jail. George Rutherford is deeply loved and admired by his teachers and staff-you can see that in the way they greet him as he walks through the halls. But more than that, he is adored by his students, both past and present. He is a real live "Stand By Me" movie. He can even walk up to gangs on the streets-shooters and druggers-and talk without fear.
Rutherford's suit coat is off and he's got on big yellow suspenders. He clasps his hands behind his head and waits for my first question. Before I can speak, he eyes the Post. He is annoyed at the people in his community who would divide the city over race. He points to the headline about the white city manager from Austin. "Racism cuts both ways," he says. "Here is a woman who seems to be very qualified, who could help the District, who wants to come here and make a difference-and we've got people here who bring up race. Will we not let her come because she's white? My only question is, is the woman qualified to do the job? It's so deep, this racism thing, and it's both ways. The only hope, the only solution is more-and better-education that changes people from the inside."
George Rutherford is a church-going Baptist. He is an intelligent, energetic, caring family man and an involved pillar of his community. He tells me the part of his life story that got me here. He was invited to hear John Hagelin speak in October 1992 at the Natural Law Party's national nominating convention at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington. Rutherford says he was "awestruck" by Hagelin-by his intelligence and how he articulated the issues, the problems and solutions. But more than that, Rutherford was struck by Hagelin's honesty. (This is from an educator who has weathered 35 years of turbulent political firestorms in D.C's public school system.)
"John Hagelin is an honest man, I could tell right away," Rutherford told me. "He cares about the common people, he is compassionate. If he wasn't so honest he might do better in politics-but only in the short term, not in the long run."
Rutherford read through the platform and saw research on the Transcendental Meditation program cited in the health section. Intrigued, he looked into the technique and he started as a way to help reduce the stress load on his heart. He couldn't believe the deep rest and peaceful repose the technique provided him, easily and at will. There was nothing foreign about the experience. It was all very familiar and very comfortable, a simple technique that he learned quite easily. He thought of his students, of his school, of the vise-grip tension that each child must cope with every day. It's a stress that can cripple, that can crush, that can demoralize a youngster's dreams and aspirations. It can make him crazy, make him unable to concentrate or focus in school, make him turn to drugs, to crime, to violence. You think of the suburbs and maybe you don't think stress is an issue that needs to be part of a political platform. But, Rutherford says, when you think of southeast Washington, you think, What could be more important?
Rutherford saw immediately the benefits of the technique in his own life, and he wanted to give the same to his students and teachers at Fletcher-Johnson. Why not, he thought, structure a "Quiet Time" into the school's daily routine, 20 minutes twice a day, once before class began at 8:50 in the morning and once before school was out at 3:10 in the afternoon? No talking, no goofing. Students could draw quietly, they could rest their heads on the desk, or they could practice TM. Basically, they could do whatever they wanted, but they had to do it quietly. Rutherford was serious about it. He decided that anyone who caused a problem during Quiet Time could be suspended.
Rutherford broached the idea to his teachers and he got a go. The consensus was, the stress is overwhelming, we have to do something. So four years ago they started Quiet Time.
"We get the students down first thing in the morning and again at the end of the day. They are calmer and, as a result, the whole school feels better. Otherwise, they come to school crazy-and stay that way all day," Rutherford says.
A non-profit organization in the D.C. community raised funds to pay a qualified TM teacher to teach any student, parent, or faculty member who wanted to learn the technique (students were required to bring a signed letter of permission from a parent or guardian) and to provide regular follow-up. Since Quiet Time began, several hundred students have learned TM. Nothing compulsory. It's just available to anyone who is interested. Rose Phillips is teaching TM to students who want to learn. She is a grandmother who was raised in Harlem, and, like Rutherford, is a Baptist. She has taught TM in the inner cities for decades. She says the most noticeable benefits from TM are that the kids are more eager to learn-they read better, they have less of an "attitude" or edge about them. They are more polite to their teachers and get along better with their classmates. They learn faster and remember things better.
And while the structure of the program has not been as ideal as Rutherford would have wanted-students at Fletcher-Johnson frequently get transferred to other schools, so the kids practicing TM who move are left without follow-up-the improvements in the meditating students both academically and socially have been so dramatic, so heartening, so real that George Rutherford "can see the light at the end of the tunnel" for schools in his community.1 In fact, he is planning to retire soon, and his dream is to open a charter school where TM would be at the core of an otherwise standard academic curriculum.
I ask Rutherford to show me around Fletcher-Johnson. The school is big. There used to be 1,450 students here just a few years ago, but a large housing project nearby was condemned, so the families and the students from there were relocated elsewhere. We walk along a hall that suddenly opens up into huge, open space, with clusters of desks-20 desks in this corner, 15 desks in that corner-filling up the void. These are classrooms. It's so odd, I tell Rutherford, because, basically, there are no classrooms. He shrugs and nods. He's been here for 20 years, is used to it, has no reason to complain, can't do anything about it anyway. But why the layout, I ask. Rutherford says that for some reason the architects figured that several big open spaces, almost like mini auditoriums, would be a better learning environment than closed-off rooms. So that's what he's got. Standing partitions with charts and maps and poster pictures do their best to separate one "class" from the next.
Noise can be combustible in a building like this, I think to myself, so I can see another reason for Quiet Time to start the day off right.
We are walking through yet another hall that is completely empty. It looks like it's Sunday, and no one is here, not even the janitors. I ask what's going on. Rutherford runs a very tight ship. If it is class time students had better be in class. We turn a corner and run across a few stragglers, and Rutherford is on their backsides fast: "JAMES! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF CLASS? WHERE SHOULD YOU BE?" James smiles and scurries down the hall, turns the corner, and slips through a door into his "classroom."
It's what they call "tough love." And Rutherford is nothing if not tough and loved at this school. As we walk through class areas, every student who sees him-and I am not exaggerating here-lights up, young and old, boys and girls alike. It is overwhelming, I've never seen anything like it: "Hi, Doc!" "Howya doin Doc!" "What's happening Doc?" Then, they see me trailing a few steps behind, just watching the whole thing unfold, and a fleeting, puzzled look crosses their faces, as in, "Who's that guy?" But then they are back looking at Rutherford, eager for his glance, his approval, his love. Rutherford is their father, their grandfather, their uncle, their big brother. He is as devoted to them as they are to him. In fact, he hires as many former students as he can to work at Fletcher Johnson after they finish school-as teachers or administrators if they graduate from college, or as maintenance staff if that is their qualification.
We're back from our walk. It's noon and Rutherford has more to say, but he has to excuse himself to help out the faculty with lunch duty. Fletcher-Johnson is cash-strapped. The stoves and ovens once used for home economics are cold because there was no money to hire someone to teach that course. There is not even money for substitute teachers. If a teacher is out, someone has to take the class, even if that someone is the already overworked George Rutherford.
He leaves me in the office, and I am left with my thoughts. I am surprised at how strong Rutherford is on the TM technique. Is he pushing for it too hard? But then I catch myself. What can I possibly know? In an hour I will leave here, drive back across the Anacostia River, past the White House, up Massachusetts Avenue, and head out to Potomac, Maryland. My stress will be coping with sluggish, rush-hour traffic. George Rutherford will stay right here in this awful, unrelenting pressure-cooker with the ever-present spectre of violence and death hanging over everyone. He is cloistered here with his 700 kids-and their parents and grandparents, and the thousands of other kids he has had as teacher and principal during the past 35 years who have never left. Rutherford's students and their families-whatever remains of them-thrive, not on money or material comforts that 99% of Americans take for granted, but on the love and support for each other that Rutherford tries to foster at his school. I decide that Rutherford isn't pushing too hard.
Rutherford bursts suddenly in the door, both phones ringing, followed by two men from custodial services. He signs some papers for them and then takes a call from his secretary. The pace is quickening, our window of leisurely chat is closing fast. On top of everything, in a few minutes Fletcher Johnson has a big basketball game and there's a lot he has to do before the first tip-off. He looks at his watch and says we've got a few more minutes.
I ask about his own children. They are grown with their own families, he says. Two of them are teachers in the D.C. school district, one is a biochemist, and one helps manage a Washington law firm.
I ask him about the state of the Union and about politics. I ask him if America's economic boom is reaching his community.
"None of it," he says.
I ask him about Republican and Democratic policies. Do they make an impact in his community.
"No, not really," he says.
What do you get from them? I ask.
"The same old stuff, warmed over," he says.
What's that? I ask.
"Welfare reform," he says dismissively. Rutherford says he's not interested in welfare reform. He wants his students-and his community-to be more creative, intelligent, dynamic, determined, and resilient. To have more self-esteem. To be more successful. He wants his kids to be as happy, healthy, and fulfilled as the kids in the suburbs. Why not? Why can't they be? He wants this from the depths of his soul, and it cuts him deeply that they're not.
Rutherford's not a finger-pointer, but he does say that the Democrats and Republicans share much of the blame "because they offer nothing new, and because they keep out anything that is new."
"The two-party control of the system is terrible. Blacks have been forced to choose between the Republicans and Democrats. And because there's nowhere else to go, they have to take what the Democratic Party offers them-which isn't much of anything."
He supports the Natural Law Party, is interested in how it's growing, wants to see it do well, wants to see Natural Law Party candidates at least win some congressional seats in the coming elections.
"The Natural Law Party offers a very real choice for black people. As the party gets better known, I predict it will get a lot of votes from a lot of people, including African Americans. African Americans survive on hope. That's what keeps us going. The Natural Law Party has a platform that gives us reason to hope."
Epilogue: On my way home I scan the radio dial. A commercial
catches my ear. A woman is asking listeners to support a child overseas who,
for just a few dollars a month, will get food, books, and a new chance at life.
The irony! I remember Rutherford telling me how Fletcher Johnson arranges Thanksgiving
and Christmas dinners for families who have no money for such festivities, even
housing for those who have none, or who live in squalor. I think, as the woman
gives out the address, Save your money, America. You can help youngsters in
desperate need right here in your nation's very own capital city.
F A C T S