Stephen Colbert makes it tough for the rest of us to be smug self-satisfied jerks. Those are qualities I’ve always cultivated in myself. But cheap thrills are getting more expensive.
When I picked three elementary school classes — two in Lake County and another for a friend in Anchorage, Alaska — to receive my modest donations to DonorsChoose.org for 2016, my “I’m-one-great-dude-o-meter” was perking along like an old Maxwell Coffee TV ad.
But then Colbert arrives and blows up my contentment.
Colbert fundamentally changed the landscape on Christmas Eve when he funded every South Carolina teacher request by himself — that’s 1,000 teachers, 350 schools and $800,000 through DonorsChoose.org, the crowdfunding non-profit for schools one classroom at a time.
Of course, as heir to “The Late Show” franchise, he’s made $13.5 million. When he shuffles through pockets looking for loose change, he finds more than lint.
But when one guy gives $800,000, what’s my excuse for not helping neighborhood kids? What’s yours?
Maybe you’d rather smirk about administrators wasting millions on perks. That’s easy. It’s even valid. But some would rather be victims of a problem than cure it. Inaction is an addictive delusion.
You’d be stunned at how very little money makes a difference in how efficiently a child learns.
As for my far-flung philanthropic empire, Anchorage is where Linda Campbell Hulen and husband David Hulen live and work. He’s the editor of the daily Dispatch News newspaper in Anchorage, and she’s an elementary teacher in a school that has more needs than resources. Poverty in Alaska cuts just as deeply as anywhere.
And besides, both are old friends, and I owe Linda Campbell for my past sins as an editor.
I hired her as a reporter (she was good, as was David) and then proceeded to scare her to death about her lax spelling skills. In hindsight, I don’t believe she was actually lax, but before I became this genteel, supportive man of letters, I employed the Manuel Noriega Panamanian Strongman Theory of Management.
Rhetorical executions at dawn.
However good I am at genteel, emotionally supportive mentoring now, I was better at being a tyrant jerk then. In fact, it’s not apparent that I had any other real skill. At one time, that’s what many newspaper editors thought they were supposed to be, and no one was close at hand to launch a coup.
Sometimes you can live long enough to ameliorate your sins. Sometimes you step off the curb, get whacked by a Greyhound, and then you must deal with eternal effluvium.
As to whether David or Linda is the more stunning life achiever, it’s a dead heat. He went to Alaska, won a Pulitzer Prize as a reporter and became the editor of the state’s most influential newspaper. She is a fabulous teacher of kids who need a fabulous teacher.
As she wrote to me last year:
“Hi Mr. Rutter, Merry Christmas!
“I have to tell you, Dave, that one of my first experiences as a reporter at the (Evansville) Courier, in which you are a major actor, is retold every year to my students during an early writing session. This story has to do with spelling (imagine that!), accepting constructive criticism (developing a thick skin), recognizing what we (as writers) need to work on, and learning to improve. Oh, and proofreading (three times, reading aloud) to catch the sloppy mistakes before asking someone else to read your first draft. (Do you have any idea how many incoming 5th graders think their first draft is their final draft? Getting students to actually revise for content is another issue.) But back to the point…You may not remember that conference we had standing up at a counter near your office, but I thought my job was surely in jeopardy because of my many spelling mistakes. You gave me an ultimatum…learn to spell or else (that’s my version) and I was in tears. Anyway, this story, in various forms depending on the purpose, gets a lot of mileage in my teaching! Thanks for the teaching you did, David Rutter.”
Luckily for the world, Linda Campbell discovered computer spellcheckers and remains who she always was — an exceptional, resilient intellect with a soulful affection for the world.
And luckily for me, DonorsChoose lets me rectify past sins. Try it. It’s always more fun to cure a problem.
Her kids needed iPads to reach their reading level. So I bought iPads.
They all wrote me to say thanks. They spelled all the words correctly. It was a good day.
