Historical Misconceptions

Since I teach Art History, which like it sounds is Art AND History, I thought I should enlighten some people about some serious misconceptions. Right now in our esteemed institutions of higher learning, there are some folks that want us to believe that the civilization of Ancient Greece was a peaceful bucolic sort of existence. Having just taught that unit, I can assure you nothing is further from the truth. All those Greek tragedies, so loved by literary types, have their core stories based in the sad, tragic stuff of reality, not legend. In reality, the Greeks were a bloody band of loosely aligned city states that believed men were born for two purposes-to fight in battles and to compete in athletics. When you look at contemporary American society, and the worshipful way we approach all things athletic, can you really say we have advance much at all? While my class was looking at slides of the Parthenon, Erechthion and Knossos, they were puzzled at how we are creating our own iconography of our civilization. It seems that rather than gods and goddesses, we have athletes and celebrities. We honor them daily in our TV and movie viewing. We put their images on our computer screens and busses and billboards. I am sure we all like to think that civilization has advanced in over 3000 years, but except for a few technological aids, we are the same pagan, brutal, mindless folks that wandered and ravaged lands from Persia to China. There's a great deal we can learn from history. Unfortunately, ancient scholars often were faced with death for their deviation from the norm. Today we revel in deviation and scorn the norm. I wonder what sort of future that sets up for our society.

What's In A Name?

This is going to sound strange, but I honestly don't think Barack Obama has a chance of getting nominated. And it's not because of his politics, although it should be. Americans are notoriously shallow when it comes to their elected officials. We have this sterling image of what they can and cannot be. That is in large part why it's been difficult for minorities and women to break the barriers. If Barack had been named Joe Smith, there is no question he would be a shoe in, but when you put the title of President with Obama, it just simply doesn't fit. Any old time ad man would tell you that what works in a small ethnic neighborhood of any kind, often doesn't translate well nationally. That's why you don't hear about beignets in Minneapolis or bratwurst festivals on Oahu. Call me old-fashioned, but I think most people if and when they vote do consider what is the most comfortable. And quite often those choices have nothing to do with politics. A final example. A reknown university did a study a few years back. They took a group of kids and told the incoming teachers that they had names like Fred and Ethel and Myrtle. Then they took the same kids and told different teachers that the children were named Anne and Johnny and Tiffany. The first set of teachers saw the children as slow and difficult. The latter saw them as bright and willing. It was the same group of kids. People do this kind of subliminal judgement every day. If a girl named Melissa made third grade a living hell for you, there is no way you will name your own daughter that or that you will feel safe with anyone with that name. It is simply a characteristic of human behavior. And do you really think someone with a Middle Eastern name, no matter what their platform, is going to make many Americans feel safe?

Another and Different Inconvenient Truth

In "An Inconvenient Truth" Al Gore makes the claim that we are in the end days ecologically speaking. He speaks from the point of view of many scientists that do not actually do the research, but instead simply read and review the research of others. In the scientific arena, as in the political one, there are two or more points of view. No doubt, it would help the American economy to be more independent of international blackmail in the form of oil or energy pricing. There is also no doubt that we all could do more to help the environment. We should all be prudent with resources. We should all recycle and we should all use energy wisely and well. What the problem is that we are ignoring viable sources of cheap and domestically available energy to soothe the savage beast of the Environmental political action groups. They wail and whine every time the subject of using our natural national resources comes to a vote. They bemoan the fate of polar bears and whales and such with the "facts" loosely thrown about by alleged authorities. Facts are only as good as the research that brings them to light. Let me ask you, do you think global warming is a recent phenomenon? If so, they how do you explain the drought that brought about the Dust Bowl in the 1930's or the thirty year drought that resulted from the absorption of water into the polar ice caps in the 1200's? How do you explain that parts of England that grew grapes now cannot sustain that due to a colder climate? And how do you account for the fact that most geologists count us as being in the end of the most recent Ice Age? The simple fact is, we do not know for certain that any of the event perpetrated by humankind has any effect on the earth. We do no know whether the hole in the ozone layer are a recent or recurring event. We do not know even such basic data as temperatures further back than 150 years. In the millenia that the earth has experienced change and weather, we only know the smallest part of the history. And any scientist will tell you that if you only know a little, what you do not know will be what comes back to bite you. I recall in high school during the Carter years, the same groups were bemoaning the return of an Ice Age. Now they are doing a 180 and expecting the industrialized world to pay the price, via the Kyoto Accord, while China and India continue in some very nasty and unsophisticated pollution. You can't have it both ways. Either it is bad for everyone, or bad for no one. In the meantime, you may want to read this article. And next time someone wants you to sign a petition, you may want to ask them what they actually know beyond the name of the organization sponsoring the event.

Why SMU Should Have the Bush Library

I also posted this on a local blog in the DFW area. I think the blatant attempt to inject personal politics into something is and should be an honor is one of the most cynical and manipulative actions since the Amon preists removed the cartouches of Akhenaton. Talk about political assissination de facto. Anyway, here are my thoughts....

Most educated people understand that a presidential library is not just a monument to a person, but a research center and receptical for all documents of a president's tenure in office. As such presidential libraries are of enormous help to historians, policy makers, educators and others who don't accept statements at the whim of a newflash on CNN or a Geraldo Rivera diva turn. Presidential libraries aide their related institutions in terms of research through access, through grants for study and through federal funding for research. As such they are money magnets. While a few self-appointed snobs are trying to drive the opportunity away from SMU through misdirection and sheer vindictiveness, do you think that the Vietnam era alums of UT tried to deny LBJ, reviled for his handling of the Vietnam War, a foot in the door by building the LBJ Library on campus? Not hardly. The UT adminstration looked at the big picture and saw that down the road the facility would add new dimension to its history, government and public service programs. The Bush Library could do the same thing for SMU. And yet we have people so full of hate that they would send this chance away just to look good on paper. These libraries don't come around to universities that often. Forty three presidents in over two hundred years. So if SMU passes on this chance, I doubt another one will come along any time soon.

Is This Our Future?

We in Dallas are suffering through yet another demanding professional sports team's whining about facilities. So in response, rather than having the actual team, which is a BUSINESS, build their own facility, voters bought into a rather tenuous arguement that building a Temple to The Dallas Cowboys would bring wealth to their cities. Just prior to the election, a professor at a local university came out with studies proving that such facilities don't improve the local economy, but instead often depress is due to the burden of local taxes that must be used to pay off the building bonds. In looking at this, I considered what the impact would be when this facility opens. First of all, there are only a finite number of pro games, Super Bowls and college games that any facility can reasonably hold during the year. And you won't get a Super Bowl or ProBowl but about one time out of ten. Although the projections were that for a Super Bowl the amount of money that could be put in the local economy might range as high as $100,000, 000-that isn't all going to be heading to the town where the facility is located. Most of that money will stay in Dallas or Ft. Worth in the form of hotels/motels, car rentals and restaurants. There are also side issue which haven't yet been discussed. Unlike facilities in Chicago, Boston, New York or LA, the facility being built in Arlington for the Cowboys has no public transportation. That forces people to pay to park and further constricts an already tight traffic corridor. Unless the state or federal government come up with cash to wide and improve highways, trying to make it to the game will be a logisitic nightmare. Add to that the location of the stadium far away from the wealthiest fan bases. The Rangers have already experienced the lack of attendance during the week due to a combination of late starts and long travel times, and although the Cowboys play on Sunday usually, there will be traffic issues forced upon the local governments. All this comes down to money. And currently parking is $8, beer is $3, and a hotdog is $3 at the current facility. That is going to have to go up exponentially in order to cover the overhead. I personally consider going to most of the professional sports events as too costly, I can't even imagine how high prices will go. So I wonder, will we continue to have people who claim to have no money to pay for their kids education spending upwards of $200 a week to take the family to a sporting event? And as with the Romans in the linked article, will we start to see even more of the cultural tiering based on status? We already have the luxury boxes, is it too far away for Jerry Jones and his fellow owners to don the purple of empire and give a thumbs up or thumbs down? I'm just asking.........

Is Teaching a Genetic Flaw?

I ask this because of my three children, two are going to end up in the classroom. Luckily one of them is smart enough to also be a Coach and will be ensured of a job for life or as long as his teams are successful. I noticed that many of the teachers in my school have family members or children that also teach. I know that traditionally in the Middle Ages trades and professions were handed down from generation to generation, but that doesn't seem to be the norm in the past fifty years. So why then are so many teachers coming from families that are in education? Is it just a comfortable fit? Do they like working with kids? Do they see this as a means to get more free time? (An obvious mistake since there hasn't been a break, weekend or vacation that I haven't been grading something, planning something or attending a class) I wouls just be curious if it's a type of hero worship or just based on the modeling done by teacher parents that inspire teacher offspring. I am sure some geneticist could get in the works to design the perfect teacher. I would just wonder who is going to have input on the final model. I shudder to think of the difference between what parents would want, what administrators would want and what students would want. Parents would want someone exciting and forgiving and tireless in their work ethic. Adminstrators would want endurance, blind adherence to policy and unquestioning loyalty. Students would want Bozo the Clown or Pamela Anderson. (actually we have had a couple of the latter, and needless to say, in the end-they didn't work out...discretion permits only a few reference words-cheerleader, students, inappropriate behavior..you fill in the blanks.)
It's something that rather scares me in the long run.

Dumb Questions That Students Ask

I used to say there were no dumb questions. I would like to qualify that remark. There are dumb questions. And they usually come from the various slackers that fill the ranks of my elective class. First of all, there is the broadbased assumption that since my class is an elective, that means it doesn't count. This isn't helped by the fact that to shush parents, the school board devised a means of calculating GPA for student rankings using only core classes-math, science, English and history, along with foreign languages. This is largely because some parents are just a wee bit competitive on their student's behalves about where their kiddo is ranked. You can only imagine what panic ensues when I lower the boom on these kids and tell them that many competitive universities refigure GPA's. The result is that often highly competent and otherwise qualified students take my class to screw around. And by that I mean, I have some very intelligent students that take many advanced and challenging classes who choose to do as little as they can to pass the class and get the credit. It's not all of them, I also have kid who work like crazy, but then again, I think those particular students are the Truly Gifted, not the My Parents Complained Until I Got Into AP Classes Gifted. What continues to amaze me is that these otherwise much lauded and coddled advanced students can ask some of the most annoying and downright dumb questions. Below are just a few:
"Does this assignment count?" -No I had nothing better to do than assign work that I throw away.
"Do I have to do this?"-In reality, nobody HAS to do anything. I don't HAVE to give you a grade, I do it because of my undying respect for your intellect and popularity.
"Am I finished?"-Of course you are, you were finished before you started. In one time space realm you haven't even been born yet and in another you have never taken this class. Everything is relative....
"Is this test open book?"-Yes, in fact to save time I wrote the answer in the blanks for you...
"Can I use my notes?"-Surely-just fold them like this, and this, and this and you have a nifty hat, or a pterodactyl, or a brooch (apologies to the makers of "Airplane")
"Are you finished grading yet?" (this is usually accompanied by either the hip-cock/eye roll or the loud exhale/sneer and happens about one hour after the test, or after the late paper is turned in.)-[Blank stare.]
"Do I have to......."(fill in the blank-take this test, pass this test, do this assignment, finish this assignment, sit down)-Yes.

There are more. I think one of the most astounding ones was from the kid who turned in literally NOTHING for nine weeks, who asked me if there was anything he could do to bring up his grade.........I couldn't think of a thing to tell him......

Diversity and Mistrust

I was directed to this article from another blog. I read it and found it fascinating. And in looking at how modern society is evolving, I found it fairly accurate in its conclusions. Trust is something that occurs when two people have shared beliefs. This doesn't necessarily mean religious or political beliefs, but common ground or at least common aspects of the same culture. With the push for the American Salad approach to society over the Melting Pot, we have entire sectors of society that cannot even carry on a conversation with each other. That doesn't make a society and it surely doesn't inspire trust on any level. Is it any wonder that people are so resistant to the erosion of American core shared traits such as language, culture and social issues? Can we really feel assured of our safety when we have people in charge at large corporate and social institutions that seem intent on tearing apart families and neighborhoods in the name of diversity. Let me give you an example. Our first house was a smaller three bedroom in a blue collar suburban neighborhood. People planted trees and bushes, mowed their grass and maintained their homes. That was the wordless contract that neighbors shared. Four years after we bought the house, several neighboring house were bought by an absentee landlord. Repairs weren't made, painting wasn't done, lawns weren' t mowed and roves of unknown people drifted in an out of the houses leading to a series of police incidents. Our street was still pretty nice when we left. We had just painted the house, landscaped the yard and replaced all the indoor flooring and carpeting. It wasn't fancy, but it was a nice house. Five years later, I can't even drive by the house. Our former neighbors told us the nice Mexican American couple that bought the house almost immediately sold it for cash to their relatives, of who eight, four under twelve, live in the home. Cars are parked on the lawn. A porch covering was made of plywood and two by fours. The house is painted a different color on each side and the thirty foot live oak and landscape was pulled out . The carefully tended St. Augustine lawn is dirt. I won't drive by there because it makes me cry, but honestly, this house was a nice house and the lack of shared values destroyed it and is dragging down home values on all the houses around it. Sure, the neighbors can call the city and get them to cite them for flouting the laws, but in the previous situation, neighbors didn't have to do that because we shared the values of keeping our homes in order. Plus, the neighbors are older people who have been threatened by these folks. So what was a bucolic suburban retirement for our former neighbors has become a nightmare. Do they distrust their new neighbors? Of course, after seeing the neglect and the utter disregard for local customs, what do you expect? And that is the crux of the matter. If someone comes into your home and smokes without permission, you ask them to leave. Why then, when people come here and damage our local communities, AND they have no legal right to be here, can we not ask them to leave too?

Deregulation Pro and Con

This is actually a post I made on another local blog, but it bears a good number of ideas that I have been kicking around recently.

This is supposed to be a free market society. As such, the price of commodities is supposed to be driving by supply and demand. The lower the supplies, the higher the demand, the higher the price. The higher the supplies, the lower the demand, the lower the price. These concepts are important to our way of life because they affect many different important social and political events in our society.Illegal Immigration-The key phrase here is that employers claim that there aren't enough workers. Illegal workers come and work for pay under assumed identities OR for less off the books pay. This keeps the cost of goods low but erodes the need to increase the minimum wage because without the demand for workers the pressure to raise the wages weakens. In addition, with less workers paying into the tax system through property or income taxes, the pressure to raise taxes on the individuals to make up the difference in local expenditures for services increases. Supply and demand.College tuition-Without regulation, boards of regents seek to defer foundations and other means of income and instead pass the bulk of economic increase onto the undergrads. They do this in many ways other than just tuition-there are fees some of which go to support programs that the avaerage student never taps into such as athletic programs and higher level grants. If you look at the state universities, their tuitions without the guidance of a regulation has far outstripped economic growth. There are students currently enrolled in UT or A&M that will graduate with the economic equivelent of a house payment in loans. And since many of them will not be getting those juicy jobs that pay six figures, they will either defer moving out of family homes, marriage, childbearing or default on their loans entirely. Look at the number of young people declaring bankruptcy. And that number will only grow. The state has been naive to think that these institutions work in favor of any student. These schools are solely in business of sustaining themselves by whatever means possible. Since students have to go to college it means that loans are at a premium, classes are crowded and jobs hard to come by in college towns. Supply and demand in this case failed because there was no true access to ANY college and since college select the students, they are by and large captive payers into a corrupt and manipulative system.Electricity and Power and Water-I would say that this along with water should be regulated by a state board and that ALL communities should be equal partners in the creation and paying of facilities to serve communities. In this past year the drought pointed out some communities such as Plano, McKinney and Allen that overbuilt for their water supplies. Instead of building lakes and reservoirs, they spent their money in building roads and giving large employers tax subsidies. That is irresponsible planning and makes the futures of these communities suspect. Do you really think ANYONE will move into a $300K home if they can't legally fill their swimming pool or water their lawn? Water supplies and demands are linked and higher prices will be the result.Likewise, we have a group of people armed with incomplete information that have restricted nuclear and coal powered electric generation facilities no matter how many safety features are put in place. Never mind that gas and oil are becoming increasingly precious to obtain and that they are often subject to the whims of unbalanced dictators. We could have been far down the road to independence from oil through developemnt of a wide range of sources including wind and solar along with coal and nuclear, but there are well meaning but ignorant groups that want to believe every solution from the state is the Beginning of the End. And since there are only limited sources for electricity, and groups keep limiting options, power will become harder and more expensive to come by.There are downsides to every solution, but sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two evils in order to survive. Saying we will have options down the road will not help us right now. Start looking for supply and demand in the issues and think about how it applies to most situations on the news and you will have new insight as to how our nation can and should work.

But What About the Cheerleaders????

Alright, it was a cheesy lead in, but once again our glorious state has been subjected to some unflattering shades of limelight due to yet another in a series of Bad Afternoon Drama Cheerleading Incidents. I am frankly, as a Texan, a mother, a teacher and a person sick and tired of hearing about aimless cheerleaders getting themselves into trouble due to the misconception that they are infallible and immune to rules and /or laws. Yes, I know this may come as a shock, but cheerleaders, just like football players are HUMAN. And that means they have to honor every single law on the books including gravity. Let's review some of the more stellar moments in Texas Cheerleading History, some of which were publicized and others which I observed as a parent.
1. The Mom who tried to Kill a girl that beat her daughter out for a spot on the squad. (I think this may be a reality series of some sort now...)
2. The two PREGNANT cheerleaders that sued an East Texas school to be allowed on the team. (What were their parents thinking, I mean, REALLY THINKING? That around the third trimester their little darlings were going to defy gravity by doing aerial stunts while sporting a belly out to there???)
3. The Cheerleaders Who Drank While Performing at the Game. (This became a national story at the time. I was actually AT the game-it was my own kids' school. A JV cheerleader was selling programs in the stands and staggering up and down. A security guard saw her nearly fall and stopped her. When he stated "You're drunk." She replied "well the Varisty squad has vodka in their waterbottles." I want you to imagine and soak up the scene-full stadium, close game, the superintendent on the field watching since it was a district rivalry and cheerleaders being hauled off by police from the sidelines. Ah yes, memories......)
4. The McKinney "Fab Five" (Could anything be more pathetic. They run off five sponsors in three years and NOBODY THINKS THERE IS A PROBLEM??? The sponsor tries to get action and is stonewalled. She goes to the media. The girls post suggestive photos in uniform on MySpace site. And the parents STILL want them to be on the squad. I am sure there is more to the story, but I don't like soap operas.)
5. This is one I knew about-my daughter's junior year two cheerleaders, girls who had been catty and nasty and horrible to most of their peers, but managed through fear and loathing to remain at the top of the Food Chain, ambushed a girl who was dating one of their former boyfriends. The guy (who incidentally got off scot free) dropped the girl off at a house where they girls beat her with a baseball bat. She got a skull fracture and the girls should have been arrested, but one of them had an attorney for a father. Instead of the alterantive school and jail time punishment they deserved, their punishment was (drumroll......wait for it)to be kicked off the squad. Oh the humanity.....
6. One girl, who was in a class I had, was beautiful talented and had the most abrasive, self-centered attitude of any person I have yet to meet that wasn't in political office. She disrupted every class and due to the favors she blessed upon select elite jocks, was powered into Homecoming Queen in a very disputed race in which several suspicious ballots turned up. She's gone now and I am glad to not have to deal with her anymore. Her parents supported her nasty attitude. She's at OU now. I hope they enjoy her up there....

Finally-a comment
Not all cheerleaders are the sleazy models that the NFL, Maxim and news stories would have you believe. I have known some wonderful kids that were excellent gymnasts who took their position as cheerleader very seriously. The two things that influence a student organization are the parents and the sponsors. If you have parents who condone, support and provide spaces for bad behavior such as drinking and sex, then it is difficult to reel the kids back into normal behavior at school. Also, when you have a sponsor who is out of control or delusional, as we did one year at our school, the squad can get into a bad place very quickly. And finally, I think this generation of parents has been far too overprotective of their children in regard to failure. While I don't necessarily like the competition for such things as athletics, cheerleading or drill team, I also don't like the situations where "everybody wins." In real life, that just doesn't happen. Everybody doesn't win every time. Sometimes you lose. You lose due to lack of preparation, lack of skills, bias or any of a number of causes. This generation's parents want an insured "win" for every situation. So they argue for grades, for placement and for leniency. There comes a point when kids need to learn how to handle defeat gracefully. And when they learn how to do that, they will also be able to more aptly handle the perq's that come with success. Along with this obsessive overprotective attitude, there is also a strangely distant interest in how children are really doing on a daily basis. I have kids that show up in my class just to talk. Some of my children's friends do the same. These kids, these six foot tall children, are desperately lonesome. And without a family that gives a damn, they turn to sex or drugs or alcohol or gangs to fill the void. I don't think it's a far cry from a group of out of control cheerleaders to a gang? The mentality of invincibility and lack of respect is already in place. People always seem so shocked that cheerleaders would do something bad, but I am here to tell you that just because kids appear to be functioning socially and academically doesn't mean that the kids are alright.

Tuition Bites

I am currently a proud parent of two, nearly three, college students. All through their lives my husband and I have harped on the importance of a college education. We made sure that they had goals, made their grades and made plans. And we followed through by investing in our kids as much as we could reasonably afford through a state tuition plan. Imagine our dismay when as my daughter's senior year in college, the money simply ran out. The tuition that we thought we were paying for only lasted three years thanks to a system that seems to think everyone has access to amply financial aid. According to FAFSA, the governing body that assesses income for colleges, my husband and I are "rich". Not rich like The Donald, but rich in the same terms that Democrats talk about when they want to raise taxes.

I have looked at my kids' tuition bills. There are several curious entries. There is the per hour tuition of course, but then there are a plethora of tacked on fees that are added with little fanfare and less information. There's the "building use" fee. I know they use buildings. This isn't Plato's Republic with the balding elder sounding forth on the village square, but then again, it would seem that most colleges have used buildings to conduct classes for quite a long while. Shouldn't this charge be part of the tuition already? Then there's the student activity fee. This is a fee based on the assumption that students use all of the facilities, including all gyms, all programs and all perq's on campus. It also assumes that the student will attend all athletic events. In short, it's welfare for the already rich-the athletic programs. And please, spare me the arguements that "they pay their own way" and "they bring recognition and money to the school" because while that may occasionally happen, there are very few T. Boone Pickensian millionaires out there throwing money around. And then again, he only gave money for the stadium. How much good is that going to do a Chemistry major? Our state supposedly enacted a program where public schools had to offer transparent budgets that not only listed, but itemized their expenditures. While that kind of action can't be pressed on private colleges, as a taxpayer I certainly have the right to know what the heck they are doing in Austin or College Station or Lubbock or El Paso with the dollars that flood their way.

Since my daughter entered college in Fall 2003, tuition has gone up twice. Fees have been added and the money has little meaning because for the average student, the quality of campus life has not improved. She previously worked for her university in Housing as an RA. As such she was paid in room and board and for that they commanded 24/7 work hours. The excuse that the college has given is that they are paying higher wages, but the question I have is to whom? Students on work/study are certainly not making any more and programs such as job placement or assistance have been scaled back. Add to that advisors that don't know what they are doing when they sign off on kids enrollment forms and colleges that change their direction and eliminate entire programs without warning, and you have a frustrating recipe for failure. And it costs money, which doesn't matter if you are there on a free ride, but matters quite a bit if you personally have to write the check.

Personally here are some of the things that I have witnessed as a parent:
-Selection of students based on who they knew over students listed as eligible for work/study in jobs that were meant for work/study students only.
-Students having to fight to get their diploma after spending five years completing the requirements for a degree, only to have the program closed.(One girl completely dropped out and is working at Home Depot)
-Precipitous and unexplained degree plan changes, such as requiring Dance majors to take Calculus in order to get warm bodies in the seats to provide jobs for grad students.(Actually happened to my daughter, who has a 4.0 and is double majoring in Psychology)
-Student grants not appearing in accounts for days or weeks after they were issued. (When this circumstance was called to the President of the University's attention, they avoided their usual two week delay and emailed me that day.)

I could go on, but it's all just too depressing. The basic problem is that colleges have overloaded their curriculum with cutsey, unnecessary programs and classes that look good in the newspaper, but don't provide much for the average student. I know students at our Flagship University that as seniors are looking at payback for loans in the area of $100000. That's a house. And it's ridiculous that we are talking about bailing out a system that is so slanted towards political correctness that it often subsidizes grants for students that in previous days would have never been allowed in college due to their dismal high school perfomances. Sure, some of them will succeed, but in the meantime taxpayers are supporting kids who have no will and no intention of ever doing anything to get their degree. It's party time. And somehow it feels like they are dancing on my financial grave. I often wonder how things would have been different if my kids had been star athletes, or if we had been of the Minority Persuasion of the Week. And please, don't get me wrong, any kid of any color who makes high grades and hits 1600 on the SAT's deserves to be in school. What bothers me is this broad based assumption that everyone is ENTITLED to be in school. And that, although colleges won't admit it, it the problem. In their liberal mindset to change the world one kid at a time, the colleges will do whatever it takes to get a kid from a bad background and marginal academic skills into college. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see them look at the academic middle of the class kids who are evidently wanted by no one, and boost them up with support and classes and mentors? Instead this group flounders around on their own, with quite a few ending up on academic probation due to the need to work in order to stay in school.

And don't get me started on this idea that college is four years. It may have been in the past, although I took four and a half due to the cycle of classes not being offered when I was ready for them. My kid who is a junior has tried since last year to get into a foreign language class, which is required for his major. They only start the cycle in the fall. So if you miss fall of sophomore year AND fall of junior year getting into a class, then you end up hanging around for year another year waiting for a slot. And the irony of this is that underclassmen and freshmen who are seen as "at risk" for failure, are permitted to enroll first, taking up most of the spots in the class. So let's put our hands together and clap for the kids with all the support, because they may end up the only ones that will graduate under a system that is so slanted and so bureaucratic that getting a response from the registrar is like getting caviar in the Kremlin. In other words "all things are possible, but not for YOU."

New Year/New Ideas

I've always approached the New Year as a clean slate. It's a do over. No matter what the problem, you have a chance in this year to solve it. The past few years have been so personally overwhelming, with my father's death on Christmas three years ago and a rising tide of debt and disillusionment, that it was easier to dwell on the past than to approach the future. For whatever reason this year I find myself thinking ahead. At the age of 50, one would think I knew how to navigate this society, but instead I find myself standing back and making commentary. In reviewing this habit, I think that those of us who spend our days looking for flaws often fail to move on and live in the moment. I understand the whole grasshopper vs. ant lifestyle arguement, but at what most people would call Middle Age, there has to be some sort of action taken or your life stagnates and you end up as nothing more than a blip on the census. I want to take action, to live in the moment more. I want to take care of the problems that do occur rather than anticipating the problems that might occur. I want to resolve issues like messy, uncompleted home projects efficiently which doesn't always mean doing it ourselves. I want to use money wisely without hoarding it. I have observed that many older people are so obsessed with money that it becomes a litany. While I have been known to haunt a Big Lots or Dollar Store now and then, I don't want my life to boil down to a listing of every vitamin, toiletry or device that I bought on the cheap. I don't live an extravagant lifestyle, but I find myself wanting to live a more purposeful life. (With apologies to those who have read that book, I haven't and won't, but I don't think he's trademarked the phrase and I will use it where applicable.) I want to create, I want to change, I want to adapt and more than anything I want some time to be my own person. For so long I have been Mommy and Wife and Teacher and such. I want a chance to do all the things I denied myself during those busy years. I want to paint and to write. I want to take classes in Italian and visit famous places. I want to feel that I have the freedom to reclaim what little is left of my personality. I want to be able to sleep without waking up more tired than before I slept. I want to be able to afford dental work without complicated scheduling. I want ziploc bags that open as easily as they do on TV. For right now, I will start with the small stuff. So here's the list and let's see how well I do:
-Get dental work done ($$$$!)
-Get to sleep at a reasonable hour.
-NO GRADING AT HOME!!!
-Redo the bedrooms and jettison old stuff.
-Pack away daughter's high school stuff.
-Redo son's room
-Redo the bathroom
-Take an art history class
-Take a painting class
-Exercise
-Learn about fine dining and cooking
-Eat less but enjoy more
-Stop making lists......

Why It Shouldn't Matter About Christmas Trees

This is a copy of an article from Ben Stein. I admire him greatly for his thoughtful and wise observations on what the media tells us is our "culture". From my perspective, if you look to the likes of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan or even Miss America, there is more bacteria than art to our current state of affairs. I have found that kids and their parents are woefully ignorant of literature, art, music and theater that used to be part of our collective make-up. Instead we fill our lives with shallow diversions, meaningless endeavors and overpriced objects that the prevailing and popular stars of the limelight tell us we MUST have. But I have said too much and I don't want to spoil the punch of Mr. Stein's piece.

The following is Ben Stein's commentary on CBS Sunday News from December of last year. -------------------------------------------------------------- "Herewith a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's baby. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this is what it means to be no longer young? Hmm.. not so bad. Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crèche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away. I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in GOD are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship GOD as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to." --------------------------------------------------------------

Bad Day

This is a rant. If you don't enjoy rants, then I suggest you tune in to something even-toned and bucolic, like Michael Bolton or whalesongs. I want to be joyful. I want to be happy and enjoy The Season, as it is popularly called. But I can't. I can't because I am weighted down with the burden of dealing with all this STUFF. School stuff, home stuff, family stuff...stuff...stuff...stuff. And it's all on me. There's no backup, no substitute Mom and Teacher sitting in the wings with bated breath waiting to take my place. I have so much to do that I am imobilized. I can't think straight. I have "Christmas" stuff to do, a great deal of it begun and never finished by my husband who is out of town until Christmas Eve on a combination sales trip/visit. I wish I could see the generosity in his gesture to visit his father's friend, but where does the generosity to me and our kids start? It's like we are always supposed to do for everyone else, but it's never ever our turn to be on the recieving end. I hate sounding bitter and I hate feeling this way, but I do things for people all the time at work, at home...I am tired. And I need to think that someone gives a damn about me. But lately, it seems likes I am just the housekeeper with outside income. I am everyone's handywoman, everyone's source of solace and support, but nobody is there for me. I am really not trying to have a pity party, but I am exhausted and at the end of my rope. I nearly broke down in tears during class today. The kids were awful. They just don't care. They break stuff and throw stuff and you can call parents and send them out, but NOTHING CHANGES. And I need this job. I need it to help my kids get through college. And to pay off debts. But sometimes I fear that I will be one of those pathetic teachers that they find lying dead on the floor of the classroom. Today my heart was pounding so hard because I was so angry and disappointed with those kids that I honestly thought I might be having a heart attack. I had this horrible vision of dropping to the floor clutching my chest and having them laugh and dance around me like some bad permutation of Lord of the Flies. Scary. I wish I could be more upbeat, but this schedule and this long term are sucking any enthusiasm I ever had. I keep telling myself that I can endure anything for six hours a day. But I am beginning to think I could be wrong.

Blackberry Orphans

In this season of family and joy-or so the media and department stores would have us believe, there is a group that isn't being served by any charity or foundation. It's the Blackberry Orphans. They are the children of the self-absorbed generation that expected parenting to come in a box with instructions. These are the folks walking around with bluetooths in their ears looking for all the world like they are constantly talking to themselves. They would rather talk on a cell than talk to their own kids. They can find almost any number of things to do other than communication. It's sad. I heard this one 15 year old on the radio who makes good grades and doesn't get in trouble, but her mother spends all the school commute talking on her cell phone. I see these people all the time. I see them early EARLY in the morning. I wonder who in the world they are talking to. To my way of thinking anyone who calls me before seven in the morning or after eleven at night either better have won the lottery or be in dire straits. But these folks in their neediness to be connected are missing out on the biggest and best connection of all-children. Their own children. What is sadder still is that these kids WILL find someone to talk to them and if you leave that to a kid's own choice, you may end up with a kid who thinks it's cool to break into cars and smoke meth on the weekends. These aren't the needy kids in the classic sense of the word-but emotionally their parents are teaching them some sad lessons. Like family means nothing, relationships are based on what you can do for someone and worst of all, never trust anyone. I wonder down the road as these thirty and forty something narcissists become older and less independent if their children will hang around to help them out. After all, what goes around, comes around.

This Is Why I Teach

For every teacher that complains to their spouse, their boss, their coworkers there is a reason we are here. Among the gauntlet of testing and accountability, what we are supposed to be doing is filling young minds and giving them in incentive to test the waters, explore the horizons and move beyond the limits of conventional wisdom. Teaching is a hard job. It requires a backbone of steel and a skin of titanium. Now more than ever, teachers are regarded as mere workers by the public rather than professionals. Some of this is the result of the smudges of unionization and some of this is really more about PAC's organized using the money from teachers' organizations than the actual abilities of the classroom teachers themselves.

I have quit teaching once. I had been a teacher at a well respected high school. I had a student who was highly valued as an athlete and he never showed up for class. I gave him the lowest grade my district would allow. They never investigated my repeated claims that he was skipping class. Imagine my surprise when he came in THANKING ME FOR PASSING HIM. I was appalled and when I went to the counselors office to see where this glitch in the system occurred I was told that "it was a better reflection on the school and district if this student graduated and recieved a four year scholarship to 'Presitgious State School' than to fail him." I quit that summer. Looking back, I was young and idealistic. I still don't agree with the decision, but it did reinforce some ideas that I have about education and the Art of Teaching.

I must admit, I used a great deal of my teaching expertise as a stay at home mom. I think my kids' benefited down the line. They were often better prepared and much of the time they had a valid sounding board for their ideas. When I returned to the classroom, I had been a parent for 14 years. I think parenting gives you insight that a mere education class cannot achieve. That's not to say that you must be a parent to teach, but a parent who teaches brings with them experience and motivation that non-parents don't understand. One of the key teaching guidelines I have undertaken it that every teacher MUST teach the WHOLE CHILD. This means that you can't expect them to learn when they are hungry, scared or worried. And those issues can take up huge loads of situations.

Kids who are hungry simply cannot concentrate on anything other than their hunger. I often kept granola bars in my desk for just such a situation. And these kids aren't necessarily needy, just too rushed or too crammed with activities to stop and care for their own needs. They have to learn to do this, but often cannot due to inordinate pressures to succeed. And sometimes they aren't hungry for food, but for attention, for positive words, for kindness. A kind word can go a long way in helping a kid make it through the day, yet too often I see people who would rather drag kids down than build them up. Kids who are scared may be scared of gangs or bullies, or their parents, or the situation. I know of kids who panic in classes because of a personal history of failure. If you allow a child to fail enough they don't push themselves to succeed, but instead become the worst example. If that's the only way they can get attention, they can and they will resort to this type of negative behavior. Being an art teacher, I get alot of these kids. They come in expecting to disrupt. I tolerate enough, but draw the line at threats and violence. While I have had kids who were menacing, they were able to talk to me, because I didn't talk to the image-I talked to the person. I find we have a large number of kids who worry. They worry to the point of neurosis. The worry so much that they sometimes don't even try because they are fearful of failure.

What kind of backgrounds do these kids have that they are afraid to put their own emotions in writing, in drawing, in painting, in performance? Have we taught our children to stifle their opinions in the desire to fit in? Have we limited them by telling them to stick to the books and not look for the meanings behind the words? Have we cut them off from questioning, debating, or doubting in the name of political correctness, respect or other inane philosophical reasons? We, as teachers, must return to the true vocation of teaching. By that I mean, we must start teaching children where they are and bring them to where they can go on their own. We must stop trying to punch children into molds and cease expecting every child to hit the same mark. There must be room for kids who are potential Einsteins as well as those who are workers on the assembly line. And we must value them all the same because we aren't here to judge, we are here to teach.

TV and Me

I am a child of the Television Generation. I like TV. I am not one of those closet snobs who claims not to watch TV, then spikes the ratings of vapid non-entertainment such as "reality television" or any of the current soap opera in the guise of humor offerings. I like two types of TV-things that help me forget the boring, dull, frustrating path of my workday and shows that make me laugh. If you can do both, you are a winner in my little award show. Sadly, it seems that most of the Arbitron raters are either humor impaired or stupid because the shows that usually rank in the top ten aren't shows I would voluntarily watch. Let me add here, that while I said I like to laugh, I have never been really fond of adult shows masquerading as kids shows-so the Simpsons, Family Guy and the like give me that odd, queasy feeling-like when you were a teenager and discovered that your parents had have had sex to have you. Yuck.

I do like shows that have a message. I don't like shows shoved down my throat. And no, I don't like Ugly Betty or 30 Rock or any of those shows that all us hipsters are supposed to like. Sorry about that, I guess "hipsters" no longer means "with it" but instead refers to a type of underwear, but I digress. What I do like right now are show such as those listed below. Sorry if I offend you with my middle brow taste, but it's what I am and I like it. Just like Norman Rockwell and Jello Pudding.

NCIS
Law and Order-any of them
Heroes (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Lost (whenever they have it...."whining")
Medium
My Name is Earl (okay-but it DOES have a moral)
The Office (Please, if you don't love this then you don't work in a normal office.)
Scrubs (So underrated-the Wizard of Oz episode itself was award worthy.)

And to the critics-I HATE Two and a Half Men and most of the shows you like. So deal with it.

Holidazed

There are only so many days in a year. And it seems that lately every single one of them is a holiday, holy day, celebration day of some sort for some religious, ethnic or cultural group in my school. I don't mean to complain, but there has to be a limit. Right now a friend of mine who teaches elementary is looking at a Winter Holiday spectacle that has to offer paeans to the Three Major Religions AND seven or eight cultural variations. Nobody likes anyone else's music. Everyone hates the commercial stuff and what ends up happening is that some parent will get their knickers in a twist and file a formal complaint about how their child was "damaged" by not having every little essence of the holiday meal, show or celebration to their liking. Talk about people who know how to suck the joy out of everything...

I can understand that some religious issues are touchy. I get it that some Muslim kids wouldn't like singing "Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel" and some Jewish kids might balk at singing "Away in the Manger". But like it or not, we live in a society of pluralities. And contrary to what many think, that doesn't mean you get to cover your ears and mutter nahnahnah until the bad song or sight passes. It means you make the choice to GET ALONG. Let me repeat that for all the upstanding Baptists, observant Jews and active Muslims-it means that you deal with it by letting others do what they want and they in turn, will let YOU do what YOU want. That's what this whole Freedom Of Religion thing is all about. It's not me telling you what to do, it's not the ACLU telling me what NOT to do, it's not mayors shutting down nativity scenes or atheists picketing midnight Mass. It is about being grown-up enough to realize that everyone, even those who are in your own family, have slightly different perspectives on life and religion. Rather than focus on building walls, isn't it about time that we start concentrating on the values we share? I am personally tired to death of one religion poking at another one for some slight that happened so long ago that nobody remembers when or what or why it happened.

In the meantime, take a moment, and no matter what you believe or if you don't believe in a Higher Power at all, and consider how you can let go of your anger and prejudices and make your part of the world a better place.

BTW, contrary to popular views, I am a conservative.

Anxiety

I have always been a somewhat nervous person. I tend to dwell on details and rework them in my head. It's probably what makes me a good teacher and a borderline neurotic. One of the biggest hurdles I have to deal with is returning to the classroom after time off. It's not that I can't teach, or that I feel inadequate, it's simply that after time to decompress from the rushing and paperwork and stress of daily classroom life, I find myself seriously wondering if I want to return. What would happen if I didn't? Would it be the end of the world? I guess I am especially nervous because the day before Thanksgiving break, I was out of class at a teachers' convention. So I have this dread of returning to a classroom in shreds or to a class report that the sub didn't do what I wrote in the lesson plan and I will have to deal with this tidal wave aftermath of whining kids and angry parents. You see, there's this project due. We worked on it in class from the first day of the term. Students recieved a list of requirements and have been allotted time in class to work. But, as so often happens, they procrastinate, they argue, they goof around and do anything but work. The project is due on Wednesday. I have babysat them through the writing and the production of the piece, but HONESTLY, I weep for their incompetence when I see seniors in high school that don't know how to cite a resource or that can't format a page to specifications. It's like pulling teeth to get them to work. And since my class doesn't count toward the GPA, they only need the credit, they give me schlock and expect to pass. Then there are the parents who like to argue over every grade their kiddo doesn't ace. I have a kid who is making an A, but who gave me a half-baked assignment for which I gave him a generous 80. His dad calls me up with a rambling, rumbling monologue of "Why didn't he make an A? He always makes an A. He's playing international soccer. He's on a special accellerrated plan....blahblahblah"...and so on. I have 25-30% of my classes FAILING. I don't have time to argue over a 96 vs. a 97 average. Maybe that's why I dread returning. Yet I need this job. Next year I will have THREE kids in college. And as a nonethnically diverse, middle class, two parent family, the powers that be who give out scholarships and grants think we merit exactly NOTHING. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. I wish I could just pluck out this fear and push it under the bed where it belongs. I wonder how many other teachers go through the same thing the night before classes begin. Or am I the only one?

Change for the sake of Change

What we just witnessed in Tuesday's election was a perfect example of change for the sake of change. It's a phenomenon frequently seen in high schools before and after social events. New, straight ticket voters let the top of the ballot dictate their votes down the line. And some good people on the local level were voted out of office and replaced by people not qualified to hold the job. In one case a county court clerk couldn't read the accounting documents. Fun times in Dallas next time around! On one hand, there' s no question that some things needed to be changed. There were quasi-Republicans riding in on conservative coattails and doing a large amount of damage in the form of reckless spending and porkbarrel politics. That is not to say Democrats were blameless. There are countless taxes that will be reinstated should the Pelosi's Party have their way. And like it or not, we do have the highest homeownership, the lowest unemployment and the highest revenue in circulation in quite a while. So what happens now? The Dems have cried foul at every turn without offering any concrete idea as to how they would change the landscape. Many of them voted to go to Afghanistan and Iraq. You cannot simply wave your hands and remove the US military tomorrow and not expect the vacuum of power to lead to a bloodbath. And that is what was on the books for a plan from the Republicans. Are the Dems so lacking in support for our troops that they would rather pull out precipitously and leave them as targets rather than do things in a safe and measured manner? In short, the Dems have offered nothing but promises and rhetoric. That's all well and good during a campiagn, but now that they have power, their voters are going to expect things to change. I don't know that it will be that easy. In salesmanship you underpromise and overdeliver. When your pizza is promised in 45 minutes, but gets there in 25, you are happy. But if it's promised in 30 minutes and takes an hour, you are one very ticked off consumer. And that is the mood that the Democrats are going to have to deal with. And let's face it, these are folks who will turn on their own kind. Witness the way Lieberman was treated. People he had worked with and supported for nearly two decades betrayed him and spoke against him. The litmus tests are going to come fast and furious:abortion, stemcell research, gay marriage and so on. In the end all that will survive this beating will be the most raving loony liberals on the ticket. And I truly don't think most people will vote for them. Two years down the road, the Democrats will either have delivered their shiny new economy, health care, no war and so on, or they will have to answer to the straight ticket voters who thought that magic existed and that Nancy Pelosi could change the world with just one smile.