Mamacita says:  That’s a quotation; that’s not me saying “damn,” although I frequently occasionally do. I am, to my shame, greatly afflicted with “potty mouth,” and although I managed to control it somewhat while my children were tiny,  it’s back, in full force. Honestly? I need help.

But I digress. No two people are alike, but both of them are expected to progress at the same rate by our public schools.

Our children are expected to learn to read and write by a certain age lest they be labeled “special education” and given an IEP and pulled from the classroom to be tutored in the Reading Room. Most of them are little boys.

Old hippies like me sometimes have a hard time admitting that there really are gender differences that no amount of “environment” is going to change. One of those differences is this: a lot of little boys need a few more years than a lot of little girls need, to mature enough so that their bodies and brains can sit still, together, long enough to learn how to read and write. Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that while a lot of little girls are reading “Gone with the Wind,” the little boys sitting next to them are still struggling to recognize letter combinations. It is also a fact that some of these little boys who still can’t do it in the third grade, or the fourth, somehow have their own “epiphany” in the middle grades; something in their brain becomes aware of symbols and their meanings and how to translate them to Harry Potter. It wasn’t that these little boys didn’t TRY down in the lower grades; it was that their bodies and brains weren’t THERE yet.

I saw this miracle happen over and over again. With my own eyes I saw it. Sometimes, when I tried to tell other teachers, especially elementary teachers, about this awakening, they did not believe me. “I had that boy in third grade and I’m telling you, Jane, that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a reader, a good student. He just can’t do it.”

And I’m telling you, Madeline, that I don’t give a rat’s ass* what the child did in your class. I am trying to tell you that in my class, the boy can read. One week he couldn’t, and the next week, he could. And he’s ecstatic.

My point? Do I have to have one? I guess I could drag one in by the hind legs if you must have a point. How about this one:

Hold off on the IEP’s and the labeling until the kid is in middle school. Tutor, yes. Give special help, yes. Hang a label on his forehead and put it in his permanent record? Not so fast there, Teach. Don’t do it Not yet. Not just for reading. Save the labeling for the children who genuinely need the help; don’t fill up the room with little boys who just need a few more years to mature.

Same-sex classrooms in the lower grades? Why not? It might work. It would certainly be better for the little girls who, most of them, just naturally catch on to the reading faster; they could move on! It would be better for the little boys, too; they wouldn’t feel pressured and might get comfortable enough to relax and blossom, too.

Many of our most highly esteemed scientists, inventors, etc, were late bloomers. Edison wasn’t even allowed to continue at his school; he was so slow, he held the others back!

Let’s give our little boys a break, what say, people?

And by the way, taking away a child’s recess because he couldn’t finish his vocabulary words quickly is cruel and unusual punishment. I suppose the boy would then be punished because he was extra wiggly since his ‘outlet’ was taken from him? Energetic little children NEED to be let loose on the playground several times a day!!! Taking away recesses for punishment or to make more room for standardized test review is the action of a halfwit who knows nothing about either education OR children and probably hasn’t been in a classroom since 1972 teacher, politician, superintendent, or some other administrator who falls into the ‘nimrod’ category of typical la la land unawareness of real people and how we live. Probably people who do that don’t know how to access their email, either, or use a computer. But then, that’s what secretaries are for.

I put up with this for 26 years. No wonder I had a potty mouth.

And by the way, this guv’ment standard of requiring our tiny first and second graders to sit still for NINETY MINUTES and read without interruption is ignorance in action on the part of whoever thought that one up. Tell me, Mr. Standards: Can YOU sit absolutely still for ninety minutes and read without interruption? I thought not.

*Dammit **, there I go again.

** Crap.

Once upon a time, we were just sisters and wives and daughters when we got together, sharing a mom and having first names.  Now, we’re all Mom, Mommy, Grandma, Mamaw, Aunt, Great-aunt, mother-in-law . . . . I can remember days when I couldn’t remember the last time someone called me by my actual name.

I also remember, clear as a bell, the first time my child said my new name.  Mama.  That moment is etched on my heart, in beautiful calligraphy, and decorated with fresh flowers.  I still love to hear my children say “Mom.”  These women whose children refer to them by their first names, instead of some variation of mother?  I pity both woman and child.  Somethin’ WRONG wit dat.  Somebody gots her priorities all messed up.

Naturally, this doesn’t keep me from snickering at women who choose a synonym for “grandmother” that sounds like poo or a body part.

Contrary to popular belief, mothers are not omniscient;  we don’t have eyes in the backs of our heads, and we can’t read your mind.  The only exception to that would be MY mother.

And speaking of my mother. . . Mom, I have tried to emulate you in many ways, all of my life.  You read to us.  You sat down on the floor and played with us.  You used the power of Parenthood and created Special Days, all throughout the year.  Christmas is a holiday, sure, but it was YOU who created OUR Christmas.  I have tried to “do” holidays just as you did, all my married life.

I’m looking forward to Sunday, dear sisters and nieces and daughters and all of the other wonderful descriptions that come with all of you.  I might be the weirdo of the bunch – oh, it’s not like I don’t KNOW that!!!! -but I might also be the most sentimental of the bunch.

1.The phrase “working mother” is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

2. The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

3. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. ~Abraham Lincoln

4. A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

5. The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. ~Honoré de Balzac

6. He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men’s mothers. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

7. An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

8. My mom is a neverending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune. ~Graycie Harmon

9. Any mother could perform the jobs of several air traffic controllers with ease. ~Lisa Alther

10. Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing. ~Toni Morrison, Beloved

11. The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin

12. A mom forgives us all our faults, not to mention one or two we don’t even have. ~Robert Brault

13. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. ~George Herbert

14. Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

15. Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother. ~Moorish Proverb

16. All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. ~Abraham Lincoln

17. No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones. ~Harry Truman

18. God could not be everywhere, so He created mothers. ~Jewish Proverb

19. Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother. ~Oprah Winfrey

20. I regard no man as poor who has a godly mother. ~ Abraham Lincoln

21. The mother loves her child most divinely not when she surrounds him with comforts and anticipates his wants, but when she resolutely holds him to the highest standards and is content with nothing less than his best. ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

22. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. ~ William Ross Wallace

23. There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness… The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way. ~ Andrew Jackson

24. Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me? ~ Nancy Thayer

25. No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement. ~ Florida Scott-Maxwell

26. Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, ‘Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.’” ~ Lillian Carter

27. And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see — or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. ~ Alice Walker

28. Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering. ~ Elaine Heffner

29. If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much. ~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

30. I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it. ~ Rose Kennedy

31. A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary. ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher

32. She was the archetypal selfless mother: living only for her children, sheltering them from the consequences of their actions — and in the end doing them irreparable harm. ~ Marcia Muller

33. Spend at least one Mother’s Day with your respective mothers before you decide on marriage. If a man gives his mother a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him. ~ Erma Bombeck

34. No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there’s a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick. ~ Erma Bombeck

35. Becoming a mother makes you the mother of all children. From now on each wounded, abandoned, frightened child is yours. You live in the suffering mothers of every race and creed and weep with them. You long to comfort all who are desolate. ~ Charlotte Gray

36. Giving kids clothes and food is one of thing, but it’s much more important to teach them that other people besides themselves are important and that the best thing they can do with their lives is to use them in the service of other people. ~ Dolores Huerta

37. Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still. ~ Nancy Friday

38. I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up. ~ Pearl S. Buck

39. The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. ~ Father Theodore Hesburgh

40. When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. ~ Virginia Woolf

41. A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path. ~ Agatha Christie

42. You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. ~ Albert Einstein

43. If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers. ~ Edgar Watson Howe

44. What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

45. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. ~ Mark Twain

46. Over the years I have learned that motherhood is much like an austere religious order, the joining of which obligates one to relinquish all claims to personal possessions. ~ Nancy Stahl

47. There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

48. At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent. ~ Golda Meir

49. A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take. ~ Cardinal Mermilod

50. A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man. ~ George Eliot

51. There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you’re faced with somebody whose needs won’t be put off. ~ Angela Carter

52. Isidor Isaac Rabi’s mother used to ask him, upon his return from school each day, “Did you ask any good questions today, Isaac?” ~ Steve Chandler

53. Sometimes the poorest woman leaves her children the richest inheritance. ~ Ruth E. Renkel

54. Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. ~ Marion C. Garretty

55. A mother is never cocky or proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child has just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium. ~ Mary Kay Blakeley

56. It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge. ~ Phyllis Diller

57. Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn’t have anything to do with it. ~ Haim Ginott

58. If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. ~ Abigail Van Buren

59. Making a decision to have a child–it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~ Elizabeth Stone

60. If you want your child to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want your child to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales. ~ Albert Einstein

P.S.  What’s that she’s saying?  She needs to FIND HERSELF?  “Find herself” my Aunt Fanny.  Grow a pair, and be a parent to your child.  He’ll have pals his own age.  YOU can “find yourself” after your job is done.

P.P.S.  Does anybody else love it when, out in public, a child says “Mama?” and forty women instinctively turn their heads?

P.P.P.S. Grammar Queen that I am – terrifyingly so, in fact, so watch your step – I absolutely love this cartoon:

Mamacita says:  If you have seen the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” you are already familiar with W.H. Auden.  His haunting and heartbreaking “Funeral Blues” was recited by John Hannah in this film, and it was unforgettable.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks; cut off the telephone;
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin; let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbbling on the sky the message, “He Is Dead.”
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East, my West,
My working week and my Sunday rest.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever. I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

===

Oh, sure, ABAB, CDCD, etc, but honestly.  If that’s all you carry away from this poem, you’re deficient somehow, and I suspect the deficiency is in the heart, which, scientifically speaking, is actually in the brain.  Draw whatever conclusions you wish.

When I try to say this poem aloud, I break down.  I break down, not only because of the heartbreak, but because of the way Auden chose his words and word combinations carefully so we could  link the heartbreak to our own experiences and feel them as strongly as if they were happening again, fresh.

The first person pronouns in this poem make it as personal as if this broken human were standing before us all, baring his broken heart to the world.  Which is, of course, exactly what he is doing.

What good are stars if the one we love is no longer there to see them with us?  Without our beloved, the moon is nothing but a snare and lure for madmen.  Who cares about the sea or the forest if our lives are bereft of all that made them worth living?  Stop the music.  Muzzle the dogs.  And why would we need to know the time of day if we’re all alone and can conceive of nothing else but solitude for the rest of our lives?

And why isn’t t everyone and everything else  grieving, too?  How dare the policemen go about their business?  How dare a plane cross the sky?  How dare a bird fly and chirp; how dare music play on, as if the world had not spun amuck beneath them?

“I thought that love would last forever.  I was wrong.”

That’s the line that pierces my very soul, as sharply as a spear.

Did I mention that I love this poem?  Do I have to mention it?  Can’t you tell?  Because if you can’t tell if I love a poem or not, I’m not doing something right.

The fact is, hearts break like this daily.  Hourly.  Every second of every day, someone’s heart is broken.  And in spite of the fact that nothing on this earth will ever be the same again for these people, this earth just keeps on spinning as though nothing had happened at all.

Because, of course, nothing has.  Except for the one with the broken heart.

Bread and Music

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always;
They knew you once, oh beautiful and wise.

==

Mamacita says:  Once again, we have love, and grief, and memories.

Not just the memory of someone we loved, and love still, but the memories of that loved one’s touch on inanimate objects.

Have you ever noticed, and wondered about, the unique and lovely patina on old silverware? It’s not a special silver. That patina is made by being touched by human skin.

Your grandmother’s silverware looks like that because it’s been touched over and over again by the skin of people you loved.

New silver is just shiny. Old silver glows. Silver isn’t really beautiful until a lot of skin rubs up against it.

And even after people who touched and used these things daily are gone, the effects of their touch live on, and we add to it with our own skin.

When someone we love has gone, we look at “things” in new ways. We see, not a dish or spoon, but a dish or spoon being touched and used by the hands of our beloveds. We picture in our minds our loved one holding that book, using that comb, sitting in that chair, and these memories make those mundane things far more beautiful than they ever were when new and untouched.

Perhaps this is the difference between an antique and an old chair.

Post is written from Bitchie Lou’s own point of view, which everyone in the class came to know well because she ranted about it every Tuesday night that semester.  Seriously, every one of us knew her ways so well, we could have ordered for her in any restaurant, and while I do, on occasion, take my students to a restaurant, I didn’t dare for this group lest I one of us poison her food just to shut her up.

I swear, Bitchie Lou was some kind of agent for NCLB, because her philosophies sure sounded a lot like some of the babbling idiocrities philosophies that came regularly from my old public school administration.

Bitchie Lou is enshrined in my memory not merely because she was such a whining hag, but also because I was able to witness the greatest incident of peer pressure-to-the-rescue in my entire career.  Thanks again, “that class,” for rising to the occasion and letting Bitchie Lou know, in no uncertain and in many awesome terms, that you didn’t have any intention of putting up with her crap.  I still smile when I think about her expression when you all rose up and told her off.  Sometimes, when I think of it, I still laugh out loud.

Peer pressure:  it ain’t all bad.

=

Why Is There So Much Discussion In A College Classroom?

I did not come here for discussion.
I came here to be taught what the textbook has in it.

The opinions and input of other students can’t possibly be of any importance to me.
What could they know that I don’t already know?

I resent the time taken up by discussion.
I want facts.
Facts.

There won’t be 100% agreement in any discussion.
It’s a waste of my time.
I really don’t care what my classmates have to say.
I want facts.

What if we don’t finish the textbook?
What if all this discussion means we don’t have the time to finish the book?
I don’t think I can deal with that possibility.
I want facts. I want closure.

Every class, so far, has had far too much discussion.
I don’t like it.
It makes me nervous.
I feel as though we’re wasting time.
MY time.
My valuable, expensive time.

Learning to listen to what other people have to say is not important to me.
Only facts, and saving time and money, are important.
Aren’t they what makes the world go around?
Other people’s thoughts make me angry.

Sometimes, what somebody else says makes me question my own values.  
This must not happen!
I was taught that MY values are the important values.

College is for FACTS!

My classmates are trying to make me turn from my values!
The professor is wasting my time.
Sometimes, he joins in with his own opinions.
Why would he do this,
Unless it was to try to change me?

It’s almost as though the professor was trying to get people to talk ON PURPOSE!
I know, though, that he’s just wasting everybody’s time
With nonsense.

All my life, I’ve been made to listen to other people.
They talk about things I’m not interested in.
In a college classroom, shouldn’t there be some respite from that?

I don’t want to talk in here, either.
I just want to plow through the textbook and do worksheets.
Isn’t that what we’re all here for?

I don’t CARE what my classmates THINK about anything.
Sure, the textbooks at this level seem to point us toward discussion.
Sometimes, the topic almost BEGS discussion.
That doesn’t mean we should discuss it.
It’s just the way the examples and sentences are put together.
I do not believe this book really wants us to discuss points that are on almost every page.
They’re just trying to make a dull subject more interesting for us.
I’m interested in the subject matter, not discussion.
I paid for subject matter, not discussion.
I wish everyone would just shut up.
SHUT UP, classmates!
Let me plod through our book and learn from it.
You’re distracting me.
My already-made-up-mind resents your discussion.
I don’t like distractions.
I don’t like your opinions.
I don’t care about your thoughts.
I only care about myself, and MY opinions.

My opinion is
That all of you should be quiet
And let the professor guide us through our very expensive textbook
Without any discussion
Without any opinions
Without any talking

Because I, personally, don’t like it.
I DON’T LIKE IT.

It’s almost as though you all were trying to. . . .

Make me think.

And that’s just too hard.

I’d rather be led.

Bring it on. . . .

Mamacita says:  When it comes to education, I can be quite opinionated.  No, really.  I’ll debate with you about all things educational, and you might as well be prepared to back down at least a little bit because I probably won’t.  Not unless you’ve got a shiPload of experience to back yourself up.

Families that don’t value learning disgust puzzle me. How can people exist without curiosity, without continuous wondering about, well, everything? How can people NOT put two and two together every 1/4 of a second, every waking moment and a good deal of their dreaming moments? I don’t get it.And why should we have to get “four” every time we put two and two together?  Sometimes, the answer is going to be “22″ or even “babies.”  It all depends on – here it comes, students – the context.

Parents used to take pride in the fact that their children were aware of and had knowledge about topics the previous generation knew nothing about.  Now, it seems as though more parents get all upset and suspicious and offended when their kids come home spouting information that’s unfamiliar to the parents.

It’s called “knowledge, ” you ignorant attention-seeking small-minded overly-sensitive easily-offended frightened twits sad, pathetic things.

I wonder if perhaps one reason so many families view their children’s education with suspicion these days is that parents no longer sit down with the kids at dinner and ask questions about their day. Getting a child’s impression of a lesson while running frantically back and forth and trying to juggle schedules, and when the parent is dog-tired and unable to properly process information, can give a parent an impression that is completely inaccurate. Our society’s inclination to find offense in just about everything also comes into play, as do families with stringent belief systems that brook no questioning. (always a red flag for me; belief systems so fragile that they’ll crumble at a child’s honest question are suspect to the max, anyway.)

Perhaps if we took the time to actually listen to our children, we might discover that the world isn’t really out to get us, so we might as well chill a little and let our children learn things we didn’t already know.

I love this little piece of writing. Funny, how there is so much power in just a few words.

==

Papa the Teacher, by Leo Buscaglia

Papa had natural wisdom. He wasn’t educated in the formal sense. When he was growing up at the turn of the century in a very small village in rural northern Italy, education was for the rich. Papa was the son of a dirt-poor farmer. He used to tell us that he never remembered a single day of his life when he wasn’t working. The concept of doing nothing was never a part of his life. In fact, he couldn’t fathom it. How could one do nothing?

He was taken from school when he was in the fifth grade, over the protestations of his teacher and the village priest, both of whom saw him as a young person with great potential for formal learning. Papa went to work in a factory in a nearby village, the very same village where, years later, he met Mama.

For Papa, the world became his school. He was interested in everything. He read all the books, magazines, and newspapers he could lay his hands on. He loved to gather with people and listen to the town elders and learn about “the world beyond” this tiny, insular region that was home to generations of Buscaglias before him. Papa’s great respect for learning and his sense of wonder about the outside world were carried across the sea with him and later passed on to his family. He was determined that none of his children would be denied an education if he could help it.

Papa believed that the greatest sin of which we were capable was to go to bed at night as ignorant as we had been when we awakened that day. The credo was repeated so often that none of us could fail to be affected by it. “There is so much to learn,” he’d remind us. “Though we’re born stupid, only the stupid remain that way.” To ensure that none of his children ever fell into the trap of complacency, he insisted that we learn at least one new thing each day. He felt that there could be no fact too insignificant, that each bit of learning made us more of a person and insured us against boredom and stagnation.

So Papa devised a ritual. Since dinnertime was family time and everyone came to dinner unless they were dying of malaria, it seemed the perfect forum for sharing what new things we had learned that day. Of course, as children we thought this was perfectly crazy. There was no doubt, when we compared such paternal concerns with other children’s fathers, Papa was weird.

It would never have occurred to us to deny Papa a request. So when my brother and sisters and I congregated in the bathroom to clean up for dinner, the inevitable question was, “What did you learn today?” If the answer was “Nothing,” we didn’t dare sit at the table without first finding a fact in our much-used encyclopedia. “The population of Nepal is. . . ,” etc.

Now, thoroughly clean and armed with our fact for the day, we were ready for dinner. I can still see the table piled high with mountains of food. So large were the mounds of pasta that as a boy I was often unable to see my sister sitting across from me. (The pungent aromas were such that, over a half century later, even in memory, they cause me to salivate.)

Dinner was a noisy time of clattering dishes and endless activity. It was also a time to review the activities of the day. Our animated conversations were always conducted in Piedmontese dialect since Mama didn’t speak English. The events we recounted, no matter how insignificant, were never taken lightly. Mama and Papa always listened carefully and were ready with some comment, often profound and analytical, always right to the point.

“That was the smart thing to do.” “Stupido, how could you be so dumb?” “Cosi sia, you deserved it.” “E allora, no one is perfect.” “Testa dura (“hardhead”) you should have known better. Didn’t we teach you anything?” “Oh, that’s nice.” One dialogue ended and immediately another began. Silent moments were rare at our table.

Then came the grand finale to every meal, the moment we dreaded most – the time to share the day’s new learning. The mental imprint of those sessions still runs before me like a familiar film clip, vital and vivid.

Papa, at the head of the table, would push his chair back slightly, a gesture that signified the end of the eating and suggested that there would be a new activity. He would pour a small glass of red wine, light up a thin, potent Italian cigar, inhale deeply, exhale, then take stock of his family.

For some reason this always had a slightly unsettling effect on us as we stared back at Papa, waiting for him to say something. Every so often he would explain why he did this. He told us that if he didn’t take time to look at us, we would soon be grown and he would have missed us. So he’d stare at us, one after the other.

Finally, his attention would settle upon one of us. “Felice,” he would say to me, “tell me what you learned today.”

“I learned that the population of Nepal is. . . .”

Silence.

It always amazed me, and reinforced my belief that Papa was a little crazy, that nothing I ever said was considered too trivial for him. First, he’d think about what was said as if the salvation of the world depended upon it.

“The population of Nepal. Hmmmmm. Well.”

He would then look down the table at Mama, who would be ritualistically fixing her favorite fruit in a bit of leftover wine. “Mama, did you know that?”

Mama’s responses were always astonishing, and seemed to lighten the otherwise reverential atmosphere. “Nepal,” she’d say. “Nepal? Not only don’t I know the population of Nepal, I don’t know where in God’s world it is!” Of course, this was only playing into Papa’s hands.

“Felice,” he’d say. “Get the atlas so we can show Mama where Nepal is.” And the search began. The whole family went on a search for Nepal. This same experience was repeated until each family member had a turn. No dinner at our house ever ended without our having been enlightened by at least a half dozen such facts.

As children, we thought very little about these educational wonders, and even less about how we were being enriched. We coudln’t have cared less. We were too impatient to have dinner end so we could join our less-educated friends in a rip-roaring game of kick the can.

In retrospect, after years of studying how people learn, I realize what a dynamic educational technique Papa was offering us, reinforcing the value of continual learning. Without being aware of it, our family was growing together, sharing experiences, and participating in one another’s education. Papa was, without knowing it, giving us an education in the most real sense.

By looking at us, listening to us, respecting our opinions, affirming our value, giving us a sense of dignity, he was unquestionably our most influential teacher.

===

We need to stop assuming that everything our children learn at school is subversive. If we listen, really listen and look and THINK, and make our kids think, too, we might discover that our kids are really learning something cool. And if we continue to look closely and PAY ATTENTION, we might be able to detect it when the schools DO teach something dreadful.  As an additional reward for listening, WE will learn something, too.

The learning of, and comparison/contrast of, almost everything is wonderful. We know nothing if we only know one side. However, the deliberate indoctrination of almost everything is a dreadful disgraceful thing.

We will know the difference only if we actually pay attention. And before you go running to the school all outraged, make bloody sure you know what you’re talking about.

P.S. I totally agree with Buscaglia’s Papa. Nothing is too insignificant to learn, everything is connected, and the universe is the best teacher and schoolroom we could hope to find.

P.P.S.  The Education Buzz is up, over at Bellringers.

This isn’t funny; it’s unforgiveable.

The more words we know, the better able we are to communicate with others and to understand others.  Literate people have three vocabularies, as I tell my students each semester.  One is relatively small; one is medium-sized, and one is quite large.  Think “The Three Bears.”

Our smallest vocabulary is our speaking vocabulary.  The middle-sized vocabulary is our writing vocabulary.  Our largest vocabulary is – or at least, is supposed to be – our reading vocabulary.

That is, our reading vocabulary is large unless the dumbing-down PC police have stuck their white-out pens into other peoples’ business.

The only person who has the right to change a piece of writing is the writer.  Period.  If you are so over-sensitive and culturally illiterate that you are offended because back in a certain period of history, people spoke and acted in a particular way, and you don’t want anybody to know about it because it hurts your feelings even though it was quite ordinary for the times, and you’re unable, due to your low brain cell count, to create a valuable lesson with such facts, you’re batshit stupid.  I pity your poor children.  I hope you’re not a teacher.

And if you belong to the school of thought that still thinks that “soporific” is a word that small children can’t handle and you want it removed from Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” there are no words in any thesaurus to adequately describe your ignorance.

I despise you.

* As for the title, it’s absolutely true, and such people’s brains aren’t the only small body part they’re sporting.  This is, of course, an opinion, but I firmly believe that people who advocate censorship are considerably unendowed in every other area, as well.

Censorship comes in all kinds of guises, all of them disgusting.  Equally disgusting is our population’s growing lack of cultural literacy.

It started with my students asking me if I’d seen “Free Willy” and I said, “Yes, but I really wish they hadn’t let him leap out. Under the circumstances, he was better off contained.” That’s when I found out there’s a porn flick called “Free Willy.” I suppose my comment would be good for either of them.

After we read a series of essays about famous people, it was time to answer questions and make observations. And, most importantly, to make connections.

According to my students, Hitler was once Time’s Man of the Year (absolutely true), while Bono was Time’s Shared Person of the Year. Both deserved the honor, as Hitler was “. . . one bitchin’ evilmeister” and Bono is “. . . a guy who wears sunglasses and wails like a little girl.”

We read a short essay about Einstein and Edison. I asked my students if they saw any irony in the fact that both men are, today, considered to be revered and brilliant scientists. One young man said that he found it ironic that Einstein would be allowed to teach with that freaky hair. Another boy said that he thought it was ironic that Edison was looked up to when his eardrums had exploded and were leaking down his shirt. Plus, he was an arsonist and once blew up a moving train with a chemical mix that went wrong.

Clara Barton was Heidi’s crippled friend, who was taught to walk by goats. Florence Nightingale was one of the Pointer Sisters.

The Wright Brothers are a bluegrass band. (They are, actually, here in southern Indiana.) They built the first airplane out of old bicycles. They weren’t really brothers but lived together in a kind of sin, “sorta like the cowboys in ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ only not cute and not gay and without Anne Hathaway.” They flew their plane on the sand so it would be soft if they crashed.

Steven Jobs makes cool movies. His hobby is tinkering with old computers. He also invented Pixie Stix.

If the Red Cross didn’t persuade our soldiers to chain smoke between skirmishes, our casualty rate would be even higher because the men would be more nervous and jittery and inclined to shoot at random. Like in VietNam. And “Louse.” Men who were stationed in Louse came home with them in their hair. This is what the school nurse in “Billy Madison” was looking for.

Sandra Day O’Connor played Edith on “All in the Family.” Rob Reiner played Meatloaf on this same show, before he became a fat rock singer and directed chick movies like the orgasm scene in “Harry and Sally.”

Sally Ride used to dance with a big bubble to hide her facial expressions. It was the olden days and nobody was looking at her face anyway.  Also possibly because she was old.  Like, 30 or something.

Marie Curie died of cancer caused by radium on the numbers on her watch. But she wanted to see what time it was even in the dark, and since her husband was a hit and run victim, killing him mortally, she had to tell time somehow.

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, and he used the cash cow to help other inventors make cool stuff, not necessarily to blow up barns, but sometimes they did. The interest on dynamite has grown really big in the bank, so inventors get a big piece of that when their stuff works and has a buyer.

My students are not stupid. Don’t misunderstand me here. It’s mostly that they are NOT well-read or informed, and have been out of the system for a long time, or are freshly out of a system that did not do well by them. And yes, some of them are dumb as a box of rocks. But they are trying.

Mostly, though, they are cool people, really cool, hardworking people, who are trying desperately to make some ‘connections’ between things they’d heard, and the facts in our short essays. These are some of the results. Only some.  It gets better, and it gets worse.  However, there is always a connection, however odd it might be.  Straightening these things out is one of the things we do.

It just goes to show ya. Don’t believe everything you hear.

Surprisingly, no.

It’s a short story because it has only one main plotline and set of characters.

However, most short stories are pretty short.  One of my college professors told us that one should be able to begin and finish a really good short story while sitting on the toilet. I think I agree. Sometimes there’s a fine line between a novella and a few paragraphs, but the right length of a proper short story is somewhere in between: just the right length for a beginning, middle, and ending, giving you plenty of time to finish your business without getting hemorhoids from sitting too long. We keep a lot of our books in the big bathroom and many of them are collections of short stories.

I’m reminded of the scene in “The Big Chill” wherein Jeff Goldblum laments that most of his writing is read on the toilet, and when someone comments that one can read “War and Peace” on the toilet, Goldblum counters with “Yes, but you can’t finish it.”

But with a short story, you can.

Stop laughing. Where else, and when else, in our busy lives do we have a few minutes to ourselves?

Occasionally, I come across a short story that haunts me, makes me obsessed, changes me, affects me, and not always in a positive way. When I say, ‘not positive’ I don’t mean ‘negative.’ I really don’t know how to explain what I mean, either. That doesn’t mean I don’t know, it just means there are no words for it. I don’t count short stories that were poorly written or that I personally just simply disliked for whatever reason. I mean, a well-written short story that knocked me flat on the ground. Right flat, on my back gazing up at the ceiling with a look of dumbstruck amazement, or joy, or sadness, or whatever as long as it was well-thought-out and beautifully written.

Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Star” is one that knocked me flat and wouldn’t let me back up again for a long, long time.

How long? I’m still on the ground from it.

I first read it when I was in the fifth grade and it fascinated me, and frightened me, and made me ask questions that were not always appreciated by my elders, but isn’t that what a good story is supposed to do to us? I came to the conclusion back then, and I still hold to it, that elders who are suspicious of, and do not encourage, sincere questions about any subject, are themselves not secure in their beliefs and are, on some occasions, downright ignorant.

This story absolutely blew me away. I adore it. I am afraid of it. I always approach the ending with trepidation, hoping somehow that it has changed from the last time I read it. It never does.

It will make you think. It will make you question. It will make you glad to be alive. It will make you wonder about the future, and about the past.

Many pastors have forbidden their congregations to read it. It’s been removed from most textbooks for fear of offending someone. But it still exists. And since most bloggers are intelligent, open-minded, and not easily offended, please click on the link below and read this short story.  It’s the right time of year for wondering and pondering.

See what you think.

Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star.”

Mamacita says: Oh please, society, let us learn from the past, just a little bit?

“Francie thought it was the most beautiful church in Brooklyn. It was made of old gray stone and had twin spires that rose cleanly into the sky, high above the tallest tenements. Inside, the high vaulted ceilings, narrow deepset stained-glass windows and elaborately carved altars made it a miniature cathedral.”

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943) p 390.

This is Most Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. Betty Smith used it in her novel and had her heroine, Francie Nolan, in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, love to look at it, and love knowing that her grandfather had carved the altar as part of his tithe. He had no money, so he donated his considerable talent. Francie’s grandfather was a horrible abusive man, but he honored his commitment to God.

Francie’s grandmother and all but two of her daughters were illiterate, but revered literacy. The grandmother did not at first understand that education was free to all in America, so her two older daughters didn’t go to school. Her two younger daughters, however, were sent to school and kept there as long as possible, until family circumstances required them to go to work. Such was life, back then. Formal education was honored above most other things, but it was also one of the first things to go when times got harder.

Two of my favorite books are A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, and Everything But Money, by Sam Levinson. They are a great deal alike in that they are both about immigrant parents, the value of education, the great love of learning that is the source of pride to secure parents, and the sacrifices that good parents make so their children can have better lives.

Our immigrant ancestors came to this country pretty much knowing that there was no chance of them, personally, fulfilling very many of their own dreams and aspirations: all of their hopes and dreams and aspirations were for their children.

Our immigrant ancestors didn’t really move to this country for themselves; they were adults, and the time was long past for them to develop and use their talents in any official or professional capacity, especially in a new land that had customs and language that were both unfamiliar in every possible way . There were exceptions, of course, but the truth is, most of our immigrant ancestors put their own hopes and dreams and ambitions on the back burner so they could concentrate on the hopes and dreams and ambitions they held for their children.

Tenement houses were filled with mothers, grandmothers, maiden aunts, and shirttail relatives, singing in the kitchen that their children might some day sing in Carnegie Hall. Factories and stores were filled with fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and more shirttail relatives, singing at the assembly lines and behind the counters and down in the mines that their children might some day sing in synogogues and cathedrals. People with artistic talent displayed their art with beautiful pies, cakes that were a picture, carved altars in the church, rich embroidery on simple pillow slips, and tailoring that was a work of art. Ancestors who, today, might have organized businesses and found success on the stock market used their skills to make something out of nothing, that their children might have something to make something more out of when it was their turn.

Their children were being educated, and that was enough. Our ancestors looked ahead to the future; they had no time or energy or money to do much for themselves. It was all for the children, and for the future.

Parents too weary from sweatshops and never-ending domestic drudgery didn’t have much time to “play” any more. These parents loved their children far too much to stop and indulge themselves; every nap meant pennies not earned. Parents were there for discipline and meals and clothing and love that was demonstrated by the laying aside of their own desires to focus entirely on the future of their children. NOW was never as important as TOMORROW. This forced their children to be inventive, creative, organized, resourceful, problem-solving, appreciative of things that today’s kids throw away, and hungry enough every night to eat whatever Mother put on the table. A child who asked for something else would have been laughed at.

Adults gave each other blessings that relied on the behavior of the children. “May your children bring you happiness,” “May your children make you proud,” “May your find joy in your children,” etc. Children who misbehaved in school or in public or right there in the house brought shame to their parents and disgrace to the family name. His siblings recoiled from a misbehaving kid, and his mother cried. Families used “shame” to help shape a character that knew what it meant and therefore stayed as far away from it as possible.

Adults have changed. A large percentage of adults put their own desires and urges and feelings and wants before the needs and wants of their children. Kids today don’t care if they bring shame and disgrace to their parents. It’s never their fault anyway; it’s that heartless teacher who doesn’t understand Buddy or Muffy and doesn’t appreciate the cute way he stomps his foot when he’s mad or the adorable way she twists and chews her hair when she’s deciding who to invite to her latest party. Adults get home from work far earlier (usually) than their great-grandparents did, yet adults today are too tired to go to PTA meetings or choir concerts or spelling bees, things their ancestors viewed with such honor (they were not available to peasants in the old country) that they wept and trembled with emotion as they bathed and put on their best clothing in order to show respect to the school and the teacher, and to watch their children represent the family in a scholarly event. (Surprisingly, many adults are not too tired to go to an athletic event.)

Many immigrants came here in the first place so their children could take advantage of the free public education. Illiterate parents pointed with pride to the row of schoolbooks on the kitchen shelf, and boasted that their children could READ THEM! They weren’t worried about new ideas; they encouraged the learning of new things. They did not worry that the new ideas would usurp the old ideas; they just honored all learning and assumed their kids were wise enough to blend the old and the new together and come out with a new “new.” Sam Levinson writes most eloquently and beautifully about his father’s pride in his many sons’ books and accomplishments, even those the old man knew nothing about and knew he never would.

A poorly behaved child brought great sadness and shame to his parents; usually, the sight of his father and mother’s grief, brought on by the child’s poor choices, was enough to straighten the kid out. If not, our ancestors weren’t afraid to use other means to demonstrate to a child that certain behaviors brought certain consequences. Shockingly, this didn’t result in a child quivering with sadness and with no ego or esteem left in his system; it usually resulted in a child who knew better than to try THAT again, by golly.

Modern parents are often so worried about causing their children emotional pain that they ignore or neglect all kinds of opportunities to demonstrate to their children that nice people are a lot more welcome in society than people who feel they have a right to do their own thing regardless of where they are or what the mean old rules might be. A child who is taught in no uncertain terms that one sits quietly at the table, be it at home or elsewhere, eats whatever might be on his plate – or at least tries to eat it – without complaining, and who knows, because he was taught, that one does not get up from the table without permission, and that “please,” “thank you,” and “excuse me” really are magic words. . . well, let us be euphemistic, even though I loathe euphemisms, and just say that nice people of all ages are more welcome and appreciated than are people whose manners and whose tolerance for poor manners need some adjustment. Think of the mall. Think of restaurants.

Our ancestors would be appalled at some of the attitudes and behaviors of their descendants. I know I am.

In many households, the kids are running the show, and the parental helicopter is hovering even over universities and workplaces, lest some “right” is denied and a kid’s self esteem is dealt a blow, deserved or not.

Self esteem.  You really don’t want to get me started.

P.S. Self esteem must be EARNED. It’s not a given. Nobody has a RIGHT to it. We’re not born with it. It can’t be presented as a gift. And kids know the difference even if some adults don’t. We have to deserve it. Otherwise, it’s all just a big joke, and the joke’s on the adults.

P.P.S.  I guess I got started on it.