Clovers In The Atmosphere

so I was reading a huge NYT feel-good piece about a bunch of refugee kids playing soccer in georgia and thier inspiring female coach. It is a wicked-long piece and certainly makes you feel good about refugees and hate xenophobic georgians. as I was reading it, I realized that it encorporated at least two major themes from articles I had read elsewhere. There was a big piece in the new yorker in december about somalian refugees settling in Lewiston, ME and the issues surrounding that. so apparently there are lots of refugees in little towns with cheap housing who don't know what to make of these foreigners. this is interesting, but it sortof an exoticized, foreign correspondant view of small-town culture. The piece also brought up the idea of the "great teacher myth" which isn't terrible different from the "great man" theory of history. That it takes single people, usually non-black and from top-tier universities, giving over their lives and incomes to make the disenfranchised successful. (Magical Jordanian woman-coach went to Smith). This idea has been in the news recently with the painful-looking "freedom writers" and the woman whose autobiography the movie is based on. oddly enough, the myth of the great teacher breaks along partisan lines because it is huge issue of contention for the teacher's union and factors into the fight about NCLB. It also plays directly into the dreams of your friends who did TFA, and why they frequently met a lot of resistance from their peers. The NYT is usually pretty anti NCLB, so it is odd that they are propping up this notion in a purely anecdotal level in this piece. but it is fun. and who doesn't like to think about sudanese and bosnia boys playing soccer together in america? seriously.