We’ve got children who not only wouldn’t know how to climb a tree to save themselves from a bear attack, they probably wouldn’t know any better than to assume the bear was a sweet thing that welcomed a Kodak moment.  We’ve got children who’ve never walked around their own block without at least one adult present.  We’ve got children who have never in their entire lives played in their own back yard without adult supervision.

Our kids have never organized their own games, made their own friends, walked to the neighborhood store, jumped rope, been outside after dark, put lightning bugs in a jar, or gotten dirty without a scolding.

Today’s kids get passing grades without really passing, sports trophies without really playing, and attendance awards even when they’ve missed six days for orthodontia appointments.  Bullies receive more sympathy and help than their victims.  Disruptive students are allowed to remain in our classrooms, destroying the learning opportunity for other kids.  (Disability or not, no child should be included IF that student presents a danger to other children, or in any way prevents other children from learning.  I’m not backing down on this one.)

These kids have no organizational skills because all their school supplies are in big bins that everyone helps himself/herself to – many of these students will go to college and expect their professors to provide the pencils and paper.  How do I know this?  I am a college professor, and every semester, at least one younger student wonders where the paper, pencils, paper clips, and staplers are kept.  When they are told to supply their own, these students are absolutely flabbergasted.

Many kids these days would not know what “flabbergasted” means.

Their playgrounds look like the toddler room in the church basement, not a single pair of jeans has had to be patched, they’re chastized if they get dirty, and they have never had a broken bone or stitches from just being a kid and playing in their lives.  Simple falls, slips, bumps, and bruises are Benadryl foddder.  They’re not allowed to climb because they might fall.  They can’t whirl and twirl because they might fall. They can’t run because they might fall – or make some child who can’t run as fast feel bad.  They can’t throw or kick baseballs or footballs or kickballs because someone might get hit, or get upset at witnessing another child’s skill.  Imaginative play is forbidden lest it include a pirate sword or a finger gun or some kind of sexist, non-PC labeling.

What’s next?  No walking, because they might fall?  It wouldn’t surprise me.

Many kids are not allowed to make their own friends because unless the parents can also be friends, it just ain’t happening.

Children are allowed to run wild in public places, eat and drink anywhere they want, talk during movies, and pretty much rule the roost in their own homes and anyone else’s, too.

Excuses, reasons, and rationalizations are made for all misbehavior.  It is never the child’s fault.  He can’t help it.

Many children eat what they want whenever they want it.  Parents are so afraid little Lulu and little Tubby will be hungry or their self-esteem will be eroded that they cater to these little monsters in every way.  If anyone objects or finds fault, that person must be a child-hating ogre who just doesn’t underSTAND how sensitive Lulu and Tubby are.

Teachers are too strict and require too much.  Theater patrons who glare have forgotten how it was to be a free-spirited child.  Restaurant servers and customers are just hateful selfish beasts who ought to appreciate children and not expect them to be sentient. Fast-food restaurants FORCE families to eat there every night, and that we are all fat isn’t our fault -it’s the restaurant’s fault for MAKING us go there.

Am I in a bad mood?  Not at all.  I am actually more amused, in a head-shaking, disgusted, sarcastic, snarky way, at so many young parents these days who are making it so difficult all the time when it really shouldn’t be.

When people allow children to be in charge, life is going to be hell.  Plus, these parents are also responsible for encouraging their children to grow into adults who must be ever entertained from without, who can’t sit still for thirty seconds, who have poor eating habits, shoddy entertainment preferences, and a sense of entitlement and blamelessness that should shame the nation.

P.S.  Parents who allow their children to be in charge DESERVE the hell they are nurturing.  Is that harsh?  Bite me.  The truth hurts.

Yes, I am aware that such things have been said about the younger generation for thousands of years.  That doesn’t make it any less true.

I love children too much to stay quiet.  We need to nurture them, love them, cherish them, and require them to genuinely grow up, and that means, to have the knowledge and skills to take care of themselves and of others.

Nobody has the right to be helpless unless he/she really is.

Mom and Dad interacted with us, just enough to make it special.

I do NOT, however, recall my parents being at my beck and call. I knew kids whose parents were at their beck and call, and we made fun of them – both kids and parents.  Even when we were really little, we knew such a relationship just wasn’t, well, RIGHT.

When my parents got down and played with me, it was a big deal, partly because it was such super extra fun, and partly because it was rare enough to be a genuine treat.

Mom was busy. I remember her ironing in front of the tv while the kids played all around her. Was she playing with them? No, she was busy. But it was all right, because we knew where she was and what she was doing, and we knew if we needed her she would drop everything and come.

We played outside in the yard. Our house was on a VERY busy corner, and the wide street was dangerous. We did not go near it because we had been told not to. Period. We played with each other and with the neighbor kids. If a parent had tried to play with us, we would have been frightened and we would have gone into the house. I mean, jeepers. All the parents in the neighborhood, however, watched over us and never hesitated to tattle if there was something they thought another parent would want to know.

I did not expect my parents to play with me constantly; why should they? The world is not supposed to be a 100% blend of adult-child things; there is an adult world and there is a child’s world. Frequently, they interact; mostly, they do not.

Nowadays, however, I guess I should phrase that last: mostly, they SHOULD not. Because in many households today, the children are in charge.

“Play wif me, watch Barney wif me, sit wif me, stack blocks wif me. . . .” And the parent drops everything and lets the child be the person in charge of the household, because to deny a child immediate pleasure is to be a bad, bad parent.

Children do NOT need a parent to play with them every minute of the day. Children need to be forced to acquire the inner resources to entertain themselves. Most kids own enough toys to stock a store; put the kid in there and tell him he’s on his own because you’ve got grown-up things you simply must do. Be sure you can keep a close eye on him, if he’s tiny, but make him do some exploring on his own, for crying out loud. And speaking of crying out loud, don’t fall for THAT one, either.

A child who doesn’t have the inner resources to entertain himself becomes an adult who requires outside stimulation (shut up) at all times because they don’t have what it takes to sit quietly and dream, or think, or draw, or read, or open the damn toy box and find something to play with. Requiring your children to learn to entertain themselves encourages them to become imaginative and creative. Being at your child’s beck and call discourages these things.

Far too many parents give up and turn on the tv for hours, every day.   That creates yet another generation of adults who can’t entertain themselves; it has to come from OUTSIDE themselves. How many adults do you know who MUST keep the tv on pretty much 24/7 because they CAN’T function without some sitcom or show on, always? I know several. Listening to background music isn’t the same thing at all, because there is no picture – often not child-friendly – for a kid to be captivated by.

Do not become your child’s on-call playmate. Make your child entertain himself. Whenever you can, sit down and play with him, but honestly? Your kid does not need a grownup play buddy. Your child needs to learn how to figure out how to play by himself.

Is your child more important than housework or yard work or home office work, etc? Absolutely. But your child also needs to learn that Mommy or Daddy is NOT at their beck and call, 24/7.

“Playpen” is a dirty word for many parents, but the fact is, with a playpen, you can put your tiny tiny toddler in there with some toys and get some work done. “But he cries when I put him in there!” So what? Let him cry a while, and eventually he’ll see he’s getting nowhere and he’ll start to play, by himself. This isn’t a sad pitiful thing, poor lonely child, etc; it’s a step towards independence and a step towards becoming a person who has what it takes to keep himself occupied and entertain himself, and become resourceful, so he won’t grow up to become a person so in need of outside stimulation and affirmation and so “entitled” to attention in all aspects of life that he talks out loud in the theater, bellows in a restaurant, talks on his cell phone in public, is at a loss if he finishes a test early and is told to just sit there and read for ten minutes, doesn’t have any homework and can’t handle the free time in study hall, etc.

Play with your kids whenever you can. But don’t let your kids rule your home, and don’t deny yourselves your share of the “adult” world you are so very much entitled to by reason of your ever-advancing age. And yes, those ARE grey hairs and yes, they appeared AFTER you had kids.

Seriously? There is something sad and creepy about a parent so involved with her kids and their activities that her feelings are hurt when the kids don’t invite her to play, too. It’s almost as creepy as the kids who have no conception of figuring anything out themselves because a parent is ALWAYS there to explain every. single. little.thing.

The children’s novel “Understood Betsy,” which is one of my favorites, has this to say:

“. . . Elizabeth Ann had always before thought it an essential part of railway journeys to be much kissed at the end and asked a great many times how you had ‘stood the trip.’

She st very still on the high lumber seat, feeling very forlorn and neglected. Her feet dangled high above the floor of the wagon. She felt herself to be in the most dangerous place she had ever dreamed of in her worst dreams. Oh, why wasn’t Aunt Frances there to take care of her! It was just like one of her bad dreams – yes, it was horrible! She would fall, she would roll under the wheels and be crushed to. . . She looked up at Uncle Henry with the wild eyes of nervous terror which always brought Aunt Frances to her in a rush to ‘hear all about it,’ to sympathize, to reassure.

Uncle Henry looked down at her soberly, his hard, weather-beaten old face unmoved. “Here, you drive, will you, for a piece?” he said briefly, putting the reins into her hands, hooking his spectacles over his ears, and drawing out a stubby pencil and a bit of paper. “I’ve got some figgering to do. You pull on the left-hand rein to make ‘em go to the left and t’other way for ‘other way, though ’tain’t likely we’ll meet any teams.”

Elizabeth Ann had been so near one of her wild screams of terror that now, in spite of her instant absorbed interest in the reins, she gave a queer little yelp. She was all ready with the explanations, her conversations with Aunt Frances having made her very fluent in explanations of her own emotions. She would tell Uncle Henry about how scared she had been, and how she had just been about to scream and couldn’t keep back that one little. . . But Uncle Henry seemed not to have heard her little howl, or, if he had, didn’t think it worth conversation, for he. . . oh, the horses were CERTAINLY going to one side! She hastily decided which was her right hand (she had never been forced to know it so quickly before) and pulled on that rein. The horses turned their hanging heads a little, and, miraculously, there they were in the middle of the road again.

Elizabeth Ann drew a long breath of relief and pride, and looked to Uncle Henry for praise. But he was busily setting down figures as though he were getting his ‘rithmetic lesson tor the next day and had not noticed. . . OH, there were were going to the left again! This time, in her flurry, she made a mistake about which hand was which and pulled wildly on the left line! The horses docilely walked off the road into a shallow ditch, the wagon tilted. . . help! Why didn’t Uncle Henry help! Uncle Henry continued intently figuring on the back of his envelope.

Elizabeth Ann, the perspiration starting out on her forehead, pulled on the other line. The horses turned back up the little slope, the wheel grated sickeningly against the wagon-box – she was SURE they would tip over! But there! Somehow there they were in the road, safe and sound, with Uncle Henry adding up a column of figures. If he only knew, thought the little girl, if he only KNEW the danger he had been in, and how he had been saved. . . ! But she must think of some way to remember, for sure, which her right hand was, and avoid that hideous mistake again.

And then suddenly something inside Elizabeth Ann’s head stirred and moved. It came to her, like a clap, that she needn’t know which was right or left. If she just pulled the way she wanted them to go – the horses would never know whether it was the right or the left rein!

It is possible that what stirred inside her head at that moment was her brain, waking up. She was nine years old, and she was in the third A grade at school, but that was the first time she had ever had a whole thought of her very own. At home, Aunt Frances had always known exactly what she was doing, and had helped her over the hard places before she even knew they were there; and at school her teachers had been carefully trained to think faster than the scholars. Somebody had always been explaining things to Elizabeth Ann so carefully that she had never found out a single thing for herself before. This was a very small discovery, but it was her own. Elizabeth Ann was as excited about it as a mother-bird over the first egg she hatches.

She forgot how afraid she was of Uncle Henry, and poured out to him her discovery. “It’s not right or left that matters! she ended triumphantly; “it’s which way you want to go!” Uncle Henry looked at her attentively as she talked, eyeing her sidewise over the top of one spectacle-glass. When she finished – “Well, now, that’s so,” he admitted, and returned to his arithmetic.

It was a short remark, shorter than any Elizabeth Ann had ever heard before. Aunt Frances and her teachers had always explained matters at length. But it had a weighty, satisfying ring to it. The little girl felt the importance of having her statement recognized. She turned back to her driving.”

If you’re not familiar with Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield, run out and get it immediately! It’s a charming story, full of delight.

Parents, you also don’t need to tiptoe around the house and speak in whispers when the baby naps. Let the baby learn to sleep through the natural noises of a busy household, and you’ll save yourselves and everyone who lives with you YEARS of tip-toeing and whispering. You’ll also end up with a child who has learned not to wake up every time a feather falls to the floor.

I remember when Mom was teaching my brother to stay in his own bed all night. That first night, his crying broke all of our hearts, and it lasted pretty much all night, too. The next night, he went right to sleep and stayed in his bed all night.  Today, he is a highly successful university professor.  I see no signs of own-bed-trauma in his life.

They test us. They test us constantly. As they get older, the tests get harder. During the first years, they cry a lot to try and break us. As they get older, we cry a lot because sometimes, they do. But we can’t let it show, or we’ve lost.

Oh, and that curse all mothers put on their kids, the one that goes “I hope, when you grow up and get married and have kids, that you have a kid who is JUST LIKE YOU.”

That curse works.

By the way, the biggest problem with childrearing advice is that the best advice often comes from someone who has learned these things the hard way and wants to spare young parents from the same battles. The second biggest problem with the best childrearing advice is that young parents don’t know what these old people could possibly know about raising children.

Times change. Babies don’t.

Unless, by “change,” you are referring to diapers, in which case, starting saving your money now. Oh, and if you’ve got a sensitivity to bad smells, buck up and get over it.

My point? Do I have to have one?

You are not obligated to play with your children every waking minute. You are an adult and you have things to do, too. Kids will learn if you give them no choice. Make sure they know you’re nearby and can hear them, but require them to learn to develop inner resources for themselves. We’ve already got more than enough adults who don’t have what it takes to keep themselves internally entertained; we certainly don’t need any more.

One of them usually sits by me on a plane.

P.S. I’m not talking about newborns here; heck, I used to wear my newborns,  although I also used to put them in the playpen to keep the cat off them when I went downstairs to do laundry.  I was glad to have that playpen when the big snake got into the house, I’m tellin’ ya.

(Rerun.  Yes.)

For some reason, it just hit me in a good place today.

==

Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School

Rule #2. The real world won’t care as much about your self-esteem as your school does. It’ll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it’s not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule #3. Sorry, you won’t make $50,000 a year right out of high school. And you won’t be a vice president or have a chauffeur, either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn’t have a Gap label.

Rule #4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait ’til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he is not going ask you how feel about it.

Rule #5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule #6. It’s not your parents’ fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of “It’s my life,” and “You’re not the boss of me,” and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it’s on your dime. Don’t whine about it or you’ll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule #7. Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents’ generation try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule #8. Life is not divided into semesters, and you don’t get summers off. Nor even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don’t get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on.

Rule #9. Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or as polite as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule #10. Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Rule #11. Enjoy this while you can. Sure, parents are a pain, school’s a bother, and life is depressing. Something or someone is always annoying you. But someday you’ll realize how wonderful it was to be kid. Maybe you should start now.

Rule #12. If your generation behaves itself better than your parents’ generation, maybe the example will inspire the next generation to behave itself altogether.

You’re welcome.

Fair warning: I have no sense of taste when it comes to clothing. My daughter and my sisters and even my son can attest to that. I have a horror of going out in public wearing old-lady clothing, but I don’t always know when I do it. My tastes somehow never graduated from Spencer Gifts and little boutiques and shops that carry only sizes so small they really should be selling Pampers alongside the hemp; you remember – well, some of you remember – those shops that sold the kind of dresses we could wad up in one hand and still have room for a cheeseburger. I can’t wear the clothes I still gravitate towards: for one thing, it would be ridiculous, and for another thing, they only come in size negative-ten. They’re still the clothes my mind likes best, though. In my day, we couldn’t wait to grow out of the “girls” sizes and into the junior sizes. Girls today brag that they “have” to shop at Baby Gap. Size zero, with Victoria’s Secret underneath.   A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair, indeed.

Me, I love hippie clothing; broomstick skirts and long low-necked tops, but fat women don’t look good in broomstick skirts; I think you have to be shaped like a broomstick to look good in a broomstick.

Hush now; I like broomstick skirts.

I am happiest in jeans and old t-shirts, but the t-shirts I like best – my Broadway shirts and a few select sarcastic comments about other people’s mentality – I can’t wear out in public. Why can’t I? Because I think people over a certain age really can’t wear “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” Tommy shirts without people wondering who would want to do that in the first place. If you’re 80 years old * and wearing a “Truckers do it in the road” shirt ** at Marsh, people will laugh. Well, I do. I have a drawer full of favorite t-shirts that I can only wear around the house for fear of my own critique. Fortunately for my fashion sense, and for the feng shui of the universe, I spend a lot of time around the house.

* Note:  I am not 80 years old.  But some day, I hope to be.

** Neither would I EVER own or wear a “Truckers do it in the road” shirt.  But I’ve seen my share of grandmotherly types wearing it. Out in public.  Without shame.  This scares me.

My children have promised to kill me and bury me in the back yard if I EVER become one of THOSE women.

I’m also way too large to wear what I like best in “dressy” mode. I used to wear dresses and skirts almost daily when I taught; now, I usually wear black slacks and, I dunno, some kind of top that looks teacherish.

That’s why I let Kohls guide my fashion sense much of the time. Heaven knows I need a guide.

I had a favorite dress once. It was green, pale-ish green, and was made of some soft fabric that was, at the time, quite unique. It might possibly have been a forerunner of those microfibers, but a little more silky and less like a blanket. It had three-quarter sleeves – still my sleeve of choice – and a rather low, narrow v-neck with those massive curvy 70′s “woman” lapels. I recognized the lapels as monstrosities even at the time, but as they were a part of this dress I embraced them, too.

The dress hit me between knee and ankle, and had a wide sash that tied in the back. I felt so good in this dress. That dress emphasized my small waist and hid my skinny chicken legs. It showed just enough cleavage that I could wear it to school and still feel sexy. I bought it with my first teacher paycheck and I wore it at least once a week.

I have no pictures of me in this dress, and I’m actually glad, because that frees me to picture myself looking so fine, feeling the dress swish around my legs as I walked around the shared teachers’ office space, knowing everybody else in there was well over forty while I was 23, and I am not even embarrassed to tell you all that when I wore this dress, I would occasionally spin around so I could feel the skirt breathe with me. . . . yes, my dress and I liked to twirl.

When I remember this dress, I can’t really picture the entire thing. I remember parts of it, but not the parts fitting together in any logical way. Possibly that’s because my brain is protecting me from seeing the dress as it really was: a 70′s horror, complete with extra-long attached sash and lapels that would make me gasp and back away if I saw them today, made of slightly ribbed light-weight blanket fabric and the color of green goth Big Lots nail polish.

That dress and I were both a size 5. I bought it at the Diana Shoppe, which burned down shortly thereafter, possibly sparing the world from similar dresses which I probably would have bought and worn and twirled in as well.

Perhaps some disasters were meant to save us from other disasters.

I do own a dress now but I can’t for the life of me remember what color it is.

Maybe I need to start getting out more.

The title? Gilda said it.

No picture of the dress, but I found a picture of 70′s lapels.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  The hip-hugging bell-bottoms came back; it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be wearing big rounded lapels, too.

Most of you are watching the Oscars as I type.  Keep your eyes open for lapels, if you can take your eyes off the rear cleavage that, this year, is rivaling the front cleavage.

My home ec teacher would have given most of these high-priced designer-name monstrosities a D+ at best.  Some of them look like the rec room busy-work from down at the nursing home.

Then again, what do I know?  I used to twirl, at work, in a green dress that was probably made by the Keebler elves out of leftover tablecloth fabric.

Mamacita says:  All my life I have loathed the expression, “Act your age.” Even as a child I wondered how a person could ‘act’ an age; the best I could ever do was to ‘be’ an age. “Act” always connoted phoniness to me.

I totally agree with the little girl in this joke. How can a child know how a certain age is supposed to act, when the child has never BEEN that age before? We need to be guided into each age, not tossed.

Remember in the movie “Hook” when Robin Williams turns on his young son in anger and tells him to stop acting like a kid? And the child’s response was, ‘But Dad, I AM a kid!”

Often in schools, teachers mark students down for being “immature.” This is indeed a deficiency after a certain point, say, sixth grade or so. But to mark down a small child for being ‘immature?’ If a child is not allowed to be immature when he’s seven years old, just when IS he allowed to be immature? Aren’t all small children immature? Doesn’t that go with the territory? Why do we expect small children to behave maturely, yet smile when grown men and women behave like small children? Why is one cute and endearing, and the other annoying? And which did you find annoying, may I ask?

BEING one’s age is something we should all strive to do. ACTING it won’t fool anybody.

And with the BEING comes the responsibility. Proper behavior should not be limited to certain ages; after only a few years, children know what’s proper and what’s not, unless they’ve been living in a vacuum, or unless they’ve been allowed to run the household. And none of us know anyone who lets THAT happen, right?

So. As parents and citizens of the universe, we owe it to our children and to each other and to ourselves to lighten up on some things AND tighten the screws on others, both at once, so our children will truly grow up, not just get bigger with the same poor impulse control and with the feeling that the galaxy revolves around them. And how do we do this? With whatever it takes, my friends. Some children evolve naturally into delightful mature adults, and others must be wrestled to the ground with every new concept.

Do not allow your child to walk out your door and become the neighborhood monster, the school bully, the local knock-up artist, and an incorrigible bum. At least, not without some serious battles and opposition on your part. (some things we just can’t control, not even with the best parental intentions, dedication, and arsenal known to mankind, sigh.) And if teachers, neighbors, friends, and total strangers try to tell you that your child’s behavior is in need of serious control, believe them. Don’t make excuses, because there ARE no excuses. Seek help and seek it till you get it. No matter what the problem might be, a person with no self control is a danger to the other people in this world, and that person must be stopped and forced to change, and if change is not possible, then that person must be corralled, lest innocent others be hurt if they get in the way of his baby tantrums ‘anger management problems’ and childish selfishness ‘poor impulse control problems.’ I’m sorry as I can be, but the safety and well-being of the majority should count for something, too.

So. Let your children BE their age. And make bloody sure they know what’s expected of them at that age, and give them time and opportunity to DO what’s expected of them, and make the expectations bigger and more complicated as their age increases. Make sure the consequences for NOT BEING their age are severe and memorable. Very memorable. Allowing a child to remain a child forever, with no responsibilities and with excuses for tantrums and selfishness and laziness and with no manners and no understanding of public behavior, is as much ‘abuse’ as is beating him with a stick. Maybe worse, because others will suffer because of this parental laziness as well.

As a teacher, I called CPS more times than I could ever count. But not as many times as I WISH I could have. Whiny spoiled lazy hormonal monsters with helpless babyish doting excuse-making parents are a bane to the existence of us all.

BEING one’s age often means behaving as a child behaves. BEING one’s age also means behaving as polite society requires all persons in public to behave. There are times and places for childish shouts and spontaneous delight, and there are times and places for silence and respect. People of all ages need to know which is which.

I feel ranty today.

And no, I am not referring to special needs people.

<——Not good, no.

My blog, my rules.

Here’s the post:

Is anyone else out there lucky enough to have a job that makes you so happy that all you have to do is walk into the building and you feel the positive vibes? My days seem so short now; most days I feel as though I’ve just begun, and bingo, it’s time to go to bed again.

I get tired, yes. I am exhausted, usually, by the end of the day. But even so, I love this teaching gig with a passion I didn’t even know I was still capable of after enduring the slings and arrows of outrageous public school dealings for so long.

I think that after so long in the school systems of our country, the teachers who stay evolve a mindset that is almost enslavement. We endure schedules and treatment that no other professional would dream of enduring. We allow ourselves to be used and misused and overworked, all in the name of love for our students. What other professionals have a clientele that pretty much expects to be supported, fed, dressed, taught, and catered to in every possible way, without showing the least bit of gratitude? What other profession works so hard and gets so little support?  What other job books a professional  so thoroughly during the course of the day that there isn’t even time to go to the bathroom or grab a sandwich?  Is there another profession so vulnerable that it is forced to endure all kinds of abuse without any recourse and often very little, if any, in-house support?

We get so used to it, we don’t even realize that there is another world out there, where people show each other respect.

We really do love the students, don’t get me wrong. But year after year in a public school kind of makes a teacher numb to any other possibility that might be out there for a person with these talents. Every year it gets worse and worse, even while we are thinking and saying things like “Next year it will be better.”

But it never is.

Next year, the classrooms are more overcrowded, there are fewer books, there are more dysfunctional families who seem to be in charge of the system, there are more duties, there are more responsibilities, there are more problems, there are more “incidents,” and there is less and less support. There is no respite. There is no discipline. The teacher’s union here stands idly by and allows a principal to schedule a teacher to the point that there isn’t even time in the course of the day to blow her nose. I am not exaggerating, either. The contract guarantees some prep time daily? We’ll count walking down the hall to fetch yet another class as break-time. We’ll count your driving time, from building to building, as your lunch. Ask any music teacher if I’m stretching the truth.

Yes, every year it’s worse. And a teacher doesn’t really know how bad it is, until that teacher walks out and tries something new.

Me, for instance.

And now, I teach every day in a building full of wonderful hardworking students and smiling administrators and friendly janitors and awesome bosses who TALK TO US AS THOUGH WE WERE EQUALS (instead of slaves) and the building resounds with humor and happiness and dedication.

Heck, even the restrooms here are superior. And there is ALWAYS toilet paper!!!!! The halls and classrooms are clean and well-maintained. Everyone behaves properly.

Always toilet paper.  This amazes me.

The sad and odd thing is, I did not know how bad it actually was until I left the public schools. While I was there, I was the most loyal and hardworking and dedicated person in the building. Sure, the days seems awfully long, and sometimes the despair and frustration were so thick one could cut it with a knife, but it was my obsession, to somehow be a positive force in this not-very-positive place. I came to school at 7:00; I got home around 6:00. I was determined to make a difference, a positive difference.

But, but, there was no appreciation. There was only the expectation that if I could do that, I should be doing even more.

I couldn’t keep on.

But now? I feel positive every day. I love coming to school. All I have to do is walk into this building and I am instantly wide-awake and happy.

Sure, there are some, um, “interesting” students here, but MOST of them are pure quality.  They are really students, and they mean business about learning.

I still work the long hours. But I am appreciated, and treated like the professional I’d forgotten I was, all those years.

And now, I truly believe I am helping to make a positive difference. I can see it. I can hear it.

I love my job.

The really ironic thing is that in spite of all the negative things about the public schools, I still believe that this nation’s schools are the hope of our future. There is such potential in every classroom, such stories to be told, such wondrous talent and creativity and sensitivity and music concealed behind the t-shirts and the grubby jeans and exposed underwear and defiant raising of the eyebrows and the punky hair and the chips-on-the-shoulders and the trendy slang and the stubborn glares. . . . there is poetry behind the obscenities, and magnificent scientific discoveries behind the unwillingness to conform.

It’s too bad teachers are no longer allowed to cultivate it.

Why can’t we be allowed to step back and bask in the glow of unbridled enthusiasm, and throw ourselves into helping students learn and discover and grow, grow, grow, both physically and mentally and socially and culturally and scientifically. . . . .

What happened to us as a people, as a culture, as a nation, that our idea of ‘school’ has sunk to the level of equating success with a number on a piece of paper?

I do tend to rant, don’t I. My apologies.  I’m just so sorry and sad that our genuine students have to put up with the distractions and disruptions and dangers caused by others who come to school because the law makes them and who have chosen not to put any effort whatsoever in bettering themselves or fitting themselves for any kind of work and seem obsessed with not permitting anybody else to do so, either.  And, that such students people are allowed to stay and continue to hinder learning and soaring in others. Sigh. So unfair.

Teachers and parents, please rise up in protest.  Our precious children, our STUDENTS, are too valuable to be wasted.  They have a right to be truly educated, to learn, to sing, to dance, to think,  to SOAR, unhampered, and a lot of other infinitives as well.   Our children’s teachers, likewise, are too valuable to be treated like indentured servants, or like anything but the educated and trained professionals that they are.

We desperately need to take back our public schools.

I miss what my former job might have been, in a perfect world.

P.S.  Thank you, current students, for being awesome and serious about learning.  I appreciate you more than you could ever realize.

Basic Elevator Etiquette for Dummies:

1. Push the appropriate button. If the button is already glowing, do not push it. If you repeatedly push an already-glowing button, everybody will know what you are.

2. Stand back. LEAVE ROOM FOR PEOPLE TO EMERGE FROM THE ELEVATOR.

3. When the door opens, WAIT UNTIL EVERYBODY IS OUT BEFORE YOU GO IN.

4. The people coming out of the elevator have the right-of-way over the people going into the elevator.

5. WHEN THE ELEVATOR IS COMPLETELY EMPTY, then and only then, calmly walk towards the open door. Do not push. Do not shove. The elevator is not going anywhere. It’s not like a subway, or a train, or an airport shuttle. Step inside the elevator and position yourself as far away from the other passengers as possible. If the elevator is crowded, do not take up more than your fair share of space no matter what you might be carrying. Hold your packages close to your body. Pull your wheeled briefcase as close to you as possible. Do not allow your child to touch anything or anybody, or move away from you for any reason.

6. Anyone who farts or who has a lighted cigarette in an elevator is fair game for murder. Nobody will tell on you. Everybody will help. You might even get a medal. If not, you should.

7. Once inside the elevator, do not reach across people to push a button. If your button is not already glowing, ask someone near the buttons to push it for you. Be sure to say please, and thank them nicely when they do it. Do not use a tone of voice that suggests that you’ve seen too many old movies about buildings that employ an actual elevator man.

8. If you stink, take the stairs. I’m not kidding.

9. ESPECIALLY do not violate #’s 2 and 3.

10 If you violate #’s 2 and 3, you are an idiot. “Dummies” books are beyond your intellect. You suck. You’re probably ugly. Your mother dresses you funny. You smell bad. Nobody likes you. Your spouse is changing the locks as we speak. Your children tell their friends that you are the boarder, and that their real parent  lives in Paris and films documentaries.

There. Now you know one way to tell smart people from stupid people, and nice people from rude people. It’s a pretty good indicator.

Elevator etiquette is a kind of social media, you know. When you or your representative behave like a tool in the elevator, I consider that to be an indication of how you conduct your business and treat people in general. And if I see you doing any of the above things, then no, thank you very much;  I’m no longer interested in doing business with you. Rude and stupid outside the office = rude and stupid inside the office.

“Let me sum up,” as Inigo Montoya might say.

BEHAVE YOURSELF.

Rude, crude people used to be the exception, and everybody else pointed and laughed at them. Sadly, rude crude people are now the norm, and sometimes I think they’re competing with each other for the rudest crudest simpletonian  numbskull award.

There would be a lot of ties.  Someone would probably turn it into a reality show.

1.  I have never used an ATM machine.  I have a feeling it would be the beginning of a bad personal habit.

2.  I still have never watched a single Survivor-type show.  Still not interested.

3.  Ditto for Oprah, and even less interested.

4.  The Christmas wreath is probably still on the front door; we never use the front door, so I really couldn’t tell you for sure.  If you stop by, and the wreath is still there, please lift it down and lean it against the porch wall.  I’ll no doubt find it when I hide the Easter eggs.

5.  I’d like to tell you all that I still haven’t ever peeked at the answers in the back of a crossword puzzle book, but the fact is, I did.  Last week.  So much for that claim to fame.  Only once, though.

6.  I still haven’t outgrown my fascination with and liking for Spencer Gifts.

7.  I still enjoy the electronics section of a store more than the clothing section.

8.  I’m sorry, but I still snort when teachers get all excited while they tell me about fascinating new and innovative theories or techniques for student engagement that are nothing but recycled and renamed old stuff that’s being marketed and sold as something that will definitely work even though it failed miserably the first few rounds.  On second thought, I’m not really sorry.  I’m just kind of amused and judgmental.

9.  I still haven’t gotten tired of reading and re-reading the Harry Potter books. Every time I re-read a beloved book, I discover something new.  I know most of them by heart now.  I usually try to memorize literature I love; then I’m never without it.  If you are a teacher who doesn’t believe in memorizing, there’s nothing much you could have to say that would make any impression on me because you’re a lazy idiot please go sit somewhere else because you smell really, really bad.

10. I’ve never had a root canal, and I hope I haven’t cursed myself by putting that in writing.

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.

Since I stand firmly with Albert Einstein’s “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” this Saturday’s theme is “imagination.”

Take the word apart.  Do you see it?  IMAGE.  People with imagination can take their whims, dreams, and fancies and turn them into images.  I know that there are people who have no imagination.  I used to pity them, and I still do to some extent, but really, such people are an awful inconvenience, and are responsible for a lot of injustice, and these days, when I consider unimaginative people, I’m mostly just disgusted.

Unimaginative people are the ones who tell a daydreaming child to stop wasting time, thus interrupting the cure for cancer and rocket fuel made of sewage.

I know people who wouldn’t care if they never learned another new thing. I pity them, because when learning stops, stagnation begins. Those stinky little ponds all over southern Indiana, covered with scum and mosquitoes? They stopped moving, and now they are dead and dead things stink. When people stop learning, they might as well be buried and get it over with, for they are as good as dead. I consider a person who is content to allow his/her head to be stuffed full of other people’s opinions as good as dead, also. Echoes have no imagination.

Thinking can be hard. Some people just aren’t willing to put forth the effort. Besides, thinking sometimes makes us question our choices, values, and beliefs. Can’t have that. Many so-called “religions” encourage people to stifle their imaginations. I find this horrific beyond words. Then again, genuinely imaginative, creative, and intelligent people aren’t easy to stifle. Sheep are easy to boss around, but imaginative people aren’t so easily led. Even as a small child, I assumed a lot of churchy people were dumb as a sheep, because so many of them accepted whatever the preacher or rule book said, without a single comment, question, or raised eyebrow.

Harsh? Sure. But it’s how I roll. One of the many things I despise about most of our public schools is the fact that they pretty much beat the curiosity and imagination out of our children. Often, children are punished for wanting to know MORE and refusing to stop once ONE answer or solution is reached. Of course, as Professor Umbridge says, the important thing about school is taking tests, and tests are concerned only with predetermined answers, not curiosity. “Next year, Billy,” a teacher might promise. But when next year comes, Billy soon learns that the new year is just like the old year: day after day of sitting and waiting for other kids to catch up, with never anything for the kids who already know, and detention or worse for the child who dared experiment with his lunch or the ink in his pen or the clay or a poem or story or the paints in the art room. Sigh.

Curiosity. Imagination. Dreams. Let’s encourage them in our children, for the curious thinkers and scientists and writers and dreamers are the hope of the universe.

As for unimaginative and uncurious adults. . . . I should be a lot sorrier for them than I am, but it’s their own fault. Life is full of choices, and there’s more than one kind of Easy Street.

1.  Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.  — Albert Einstein

2. The key to life is imagination. If you don’t have that, no mater what you have, it’s meaningless. If you do have imagination… you can make feast of straw. — Jane Stanton Hitchcock

3. A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

4. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. — Edgar Allan Poe

5. Trust that little voice in your head that says “Wouldn’t it be interesting if…” And then do it. — Duane Michals,

6. Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. — George Scialabba

7. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. — Albert Einstein

8. Anyone who can be replaced by a machine deserves to be. — Dennis Gunton

9. I remembered a story of how Bach was approached by a young admirer one day and asked, “But Papa Bach, how do you manage to think of all these new tunes?” “My dear fellow,” Bach is said to have answered, according to my version, “I have no need to think of them. I have the greatest difficulty not to step on them when I get out of bed in the morning and start moving around my room.” — Laurens Van der Post

10. Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. — Albert Szent-Györgyi

11. I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. — Ursula K. Le Guin

12. If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking. — George S. Patton

13. So you see, imagination needs moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. — Brenda Ueland

14. Most technological achievements were preceded by people writing and imagining them. I’m rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books. — Arthur C. Clarke

15. He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet. — Joseph Joubert

16. As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. — Ursula K. Le Guin

17. We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry. — Maria Mitchell

18. One of the virtues of the very young is that you don’t let facts get in the way of your imagination. — Sam Levinson

19. The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.– Henry Ward Beecher

20. When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microspically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.– Cynthia Heimel

21. There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. — Gilbert Keith Chesterton

22. It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. — Henry Thoreau

23. I like nonsense — it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope… and that enables you to laugh at all of life’s realities. — Dr. Seuss

24. If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. — Rachel Carson

25. Anyone who thinks the sky is the limit, has limited imagination. — Unknown

26. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. — Albert Einstein

27. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself. — Alexander Graham Bell

28. Reality can be beaten with enough imagination. — Unknown

29. Let your mind alone, and see what happens. — Virgil Thomson

30. Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. — Pablo Picasso

31. Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. — John Dewey

32. It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. –Alec Bourne

33. Reporting facts is the refuge of those who have no imagination. -–Marquis de Vauvenargues

34. No course of life is so weak and foolish as that which is carried out according to rules and discipline. -–Montaigne

35. Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is? -–Frank Scully

36. Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. -–G.K. Chesterton

37. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. -–Albert Einstein

38. What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible. -–Theodore Roethke

39. There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts being broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream – whatever that dream might be. -– Pearl S. Buck

40. Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations. -– Ralph Charell

41. I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren’t a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future. -– David Copperfield

42. In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities. -–Janos Arany

43. Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them. -–Josie Bisset

44. Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. -–Gloria Steinem

45. Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. -– Harriet Tubman

46. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails Explore. Dream. Discover. -– Mark Twain

47. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. — Einstein

48. Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly. — Arnold Edinborough

49. I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. — Eleanor Roosevelt

50. Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. — Aldous Huxley

Imagination should be encouraged, not discouraged.  Everything in the universe is fodder for the imagination, and any teacher who doesn’t know this, and doesn’t try like mad to make sure he/she encourages dreaming in all students, is a. . . well, you know.  Paging Auntie Em.  Of course, there are, sadly, always people who aren’t interested and whose life goal seems to be to prevent everyone else from dreaming and reaping gold from any lesson.  More sadly still, our schools often cater to this lowest common denominator instead of showering the imaginative and eager learners with opportunities.  sigh.

“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings” has become “Every time a bell rings, a child has to force himself/herself NOT to think about yet another subject that should rightly be fascinating but which has been edited and censored and otherwise beaten down to fit inside that little box lest it inspire someone to greatness.” (Whilst trying to ignore and dodge the antics, bullying, disruptions, hands, tantrums, etc, of the uninspired kid in the next seat over. . . .) (and likewise trying not to draw attention to himself lest he be told to take Butch and Woim out in the hall to help them with their spelling.)

Because we can’t have any individual greatness, you know; it’s not fair to the OTHER students who wouldn’t recognize greatness if it bit them on the ass and called them by name.

I might dare to remind whoever crosses my path – and aren’t y’all LUCKY – that, in the words of Madeleine L’Engle (see, you’re getting your famous quotation after all – “Like” and “equal” are not the same thing!!!!!

I might also dare to remind you that the entire universe is a big game of “Six Degrees of Separation” and that those who don’t know enough to make any connections are losing.

The answer isn’t really “Kevin Bacon,” you know.

The answer is “42.”  And if you don’t know why, be afraid.  Be very afraid.