Every kid in my generation and before knew all the words to all the verses of most ‘standard American songs.’  We had songs for every holiday, every season, every celebration known to mankind, yes, even the minority ones. We knew dozens of patriotic songs. Funny songs. Indiana songs.

Even more importantly, we knew the major themes from hundreds of classical selections, because they were taught to us beginning in kindergarten, with age-appropriate lyrics. To this day, my generation can hum great classical music.

I think my generation, and the half-generation after me, were the last to benefit from this fantastic program. Shortly afterwards, it was deemed a waste of valuable class time, and it was done away with.

In my grandparents’ generation and before, music was so important in the schools that if the orchestra lacked a particular instrument or chair, a professional was hired to fill it. If you read “A Girl of the Limberlost,” you will see examples of such things. (you really should read that book, but before you do, you have to read “Freckles.” It comes first. Both are by Gene Stratton Porter, and are absolutely wonderful. WONDERFUL.)

I still have my music textbooks from grade school. They are full of sweet little songs, most of which use the melodies of famous classical compositions. As children we didn’t know that, of course, but as we got older and found out what we actually KNEW, we were astounded and felt so cool. The love of those melodies had been instilled in us, and it would never leave us. And it made us seek out the actual compositions themselves, that we might hear it all.

And in the back of each of those books is the synopsis of an entire opera.

What do kids learn in music class nowadays? People like my sister do a fantastic job, considering the limitations put upon them, and the ridiculous even-larger-than-regular-classes student population thrust upon them all at once, but many schools have done away with music altogether, because they need the time for ISTEP review. In most schools, the students wouldn’t recognize a treble clef if it hit them on the head. And Beethoven is a big dog.  In far too many cases, music class is the opportunity to dump all the kids at once so the REAL teachers can have a break.

I used to quiz my middle school students about songs. Few knew many that weren’t on MTV. Why don’t kids these days know anything about real music? Because they aren’t taught anything about it. And since the schools dropped the ball, others picked it up and ran with it, and our seven-year-olds are wearing thongs and crop tops and running around the playground singing about sex. It’s sadder than we can even comprehend.

Oh, I don’t knock their music. I like a lot of it. It’s just sad that they have nothing in addition to it. They have no firm musical foundation, so they really can’t say “this is good because. . . . ” or “this is terrible because. . . . .”

And when they hear a song, they don’t associate it with a person, or a place, or an occurence, or where they were or what they were doing. They associate it with a video. Their musical memories revolve around seeing a celebrity lip-synch.

Kids who are never without earbuds are losing out, too.  Music – or anything else – that never ends, isn’t appreciated because hey, it never ends!  Adults on the job with earbuds buzzing while customers try to talk with them are helping bring us all down, too.  Music for most of these people is defined as “singing/playing done by somebody else, not me.”  Is it good music?  They’ll never know.

No wonder so many things just plain ‘suck.’ They suck, because they’re bad and there’s no background or knowledge about why they suck.

Personally, I believe that messing with music programs in schools sucks, and I think it affects people’s lives forever, and I CAN tell you why. And I just did.

I am not an A-list blogger/social network updater.

I’ve always been more than just a little bit quirky and nerdy, and I still am. I don’t care. I’ve never been cool. Not then, not now. I don’t care. (much)

In my Reader/friend list/etc. are people whose writing I read regularly. Are they A-listers? I don’t know. I don’t care, either. They are people I like, and even love, with blogs/updates/etc. I find interesting.

Would I delete any of them, and replace them with A-list people, so there would be nothing but the cool kids in my Reader/Facebook/Twitter/etc.? No. Why would I do that? I don’t blog to be cool. (good thing, huh.) I blog because “it’s” in me and “it” wants to get out. My blog is like a friend. It’s THERE for me. And since I went all WordPress, it really IS always there for me. I also blog for businesses.  I go all watchdog on their comments, too, but I only delete the spams, robots, and obvious sales pitches.

The people in my Reader are friends.  They listen. I listen. They help. I help. We laugh and we cry and we are THERE for each other.   I include all my business blogs in the same Reader – you might be surprised at the connections to be made that way.

What, she mixes business and pleasure?  She does indeed.  Much of the time, too.

She considers her clients to be a kind of friend?  She does that, too.

The Blogosphere is full of friends, seen and unseen, business and pleasure.  Both kinds are real. I consider them all to be real life friends.

Sometimes we pick our friends and sometimes they pick us. (insert crack about picking nose here) This holds true wherever we go. The internet is a place to go. There are lovely people there. There are also some awful people here.  You know, just like in real life.  That’s because the Blogosphere IS real life.

Delete an active blog from my Reader?  Delete someone who comments sincerely?  Delete a real person, someone who isn’t a robot, and who updates/comments in real time?  Why would I do that?  Why would I pare down a list for my personal convenience at the expense of possibly hurting someone’s feelings?

Nobody can ever have too many friends. And I’m still discovering treasures out there. Why would I stop mining for gold just because I found some already? In fact, if anyone is reading this and you know I don’t know you yet, tell me. I’m happy to meet you, and of COURSE you can sit with us.

Sometimes I read about a blogger going through his/her Reader/Twitter/Facebook/etc. and weeding out anyone who isn’t considered ‘popular’ by other bloggers, or who isn’t, apparently, useful enough. Some bloggers only want to hang out with the A-group. I can only assume they were like that in high school, too, and haven’t grown out of it yet, still, in real life. And I find this attitude sad, and even. . . . sick.  Okay, the word I’m actually thinking of is “pompous.”

I am not an A-list blogger. I’m often one of the first to be cut. That’s fine. Populate your feeds with well-known A-table people and see how many comments you get – that aren’t strictly business – from them. See how much advice and support you get. See how they will get to know you personally, and want to hang out with you. And when you comment on some of those A-list blogs. . . . oh, but wait a minute. Some of those blogs don’t ALLOW comments.

Don’t you get it? REAL bloggers welcome comments, and not just from people they know. Not from spammers or morons, but from real people who take notice and care. Many of those A-list blogs aren’t even real blogs any more; they’re just webpages with articles and self-promotion and speaking engagements.

Preaching to the choir is fine if you really don’t want to learn anything new from someone who isn’t already IN the choir.

But that’s okay. You’ve a right to please yourself; we all do. So delete everybody who isn’t ‘somebody.’ And yes, I know, that would be me. Go ahead.

That’s not how I do this, but we are all different. Sometimes, discovering just HOW different, in certain ways, is more than just a little bit disillusioning.

Sometimes it’s a LOT of disillusioning.

Do we EVER get to leave high school, I mean completely? Why is this nonsense still going on, and why is it still bothering me?

But it is. And it does. I wish I could say it didn’t, but it does. It even, kinda, you know, hurts.

But that’s okay. I understand. I’ll just take my plate lunch and go sit at another table.

You sit there and wait for the cheerleaders and the jocks and the student council president and the homecoming queen and people who can do something for you, and while you’re waiting for them, the rest of us will be sitting over HERE. And we will be having way more fun than you.

What do I know. I’m not cool.

But I know what the “social” in “social media” means.  And it doesn’t mean excluding people.  Well, unless they’re proven sociopaths, axe murderers, compulsive liars, dirty rotten scoundrels (although some of those guys are kinda fun), simpering morons, people who get in the “20 items or fewer” with a mounded cartful, or sissy sparkly vampires.  (brooding vampires welcome.)

Move over, B-table friends.  It’s my deal.  Double-bid, no-trump, high-low euchre, coming right up.  Pass the SweeTarts.  And yes, we’re all really listening.

I’m not talking about people who start World Wars or draw blood. I’m talking about people who get in the 20 items line with a mounded cartful. I’m talking about people who cut the line or save places for people thus enabling them to cut the line. I’m talking about people who park in the handicapped spot without a plate or hangar. I’m talking about people who let their kids open packages and play with toys that aren’t theirs and then leave them at the checkout.  I’m talking about people who send their kids to the toy department to sit on the floor, open things, and play, while Mommy shops.  I’m talking about people who eat and drink in a store, or, worse, let their kids eat and drink in a store, leaving a sticky, crumbly trail that would have led Hansel and Gretel right straight back home.  I’m talking about people who bring dinner in crackly bags to the theater, and hold conversations through the movie.  I’m talking about people who talk loudly on cell phones in public places.  I’m talking about litterbugs, and tailgaters, and adults who have temper tantrums pretty much anywhere.  I’m talking about people who scream at the little teenage checkout girl because she can’t take their expired coupons, or really for any reason.  (Do they really  believe it’s her problem, or is she just handy and an easy target?)

(I saw that last one just yesterday.  A lady woman melted down at the cash register because the cashier couldn’t take ALL of her coupons for one purchase.  She totally showed the entire store what kind of person she was, screaming “It’s not fair!  It’s not fair!  and banging the counter with her fist. On the bright side, the manager opened up another register since that one was, um, busy trying to handle the tantrum-throwing adult woman who, since she was a proven idiot, I don’t mind saying that she was also immensely obese, ugly, and her mother had dressed her funny.)  (I do not think such thoughts about nice people.)

I am all for cutting small children slack, but adults?  When it comes to public behavior?  No.  I tend to be meaner than a shithouse snake when it comes to passing judgment on adults who behave like a Willy Wonka golden ticket winner in public places.

Am I unreasonable?  I don’t think so.  Public places merit cooperation among those who choose to go there, and that means using our public manners, which should be extremely good, even extraordinary, manners.  I have VERY little tolerance for adults who make the choice to misbehave in public.  And by “very little” what I really mean is “none.”  I despise adults who don’t act politely in public.

You know. . . . jerks.  Bad people.  Idiots.  Morons.  Nasty people who ruin experiences for nice people.  Entitled people who feel they’re somehow above the rules.  Adults who believe they’re exceptions, and should be able to do whatever they want.  Grown men and women who demand more than their fair share of, well, anything.

Am I perhaps a little bit TOO mean towards such people?

No, actually, I don’t think I’m mean enough.

And if you want to argue with me about this issue, I might as well add this:  I would totally shop exclusively at any store that had the guts and gumption to approach these people and require them to do “it” right, whichever “it” the stupid person was violating, and escort them out if they refuse.  And I would really, REALLY enjoy it if the store called the police and pressed charges against these people when they refused to behave.

P.S.  I hope they start with the people who feel their business is so important that they’ve got the right to go through the 20 items line with that mounded cartful.  I really, really despise those people.  I’d hate to have their nerve in a tooth.

P.P.S.  I’m not really a mean person.  I’m just sick and tired of society putting up with mean, selfish, childish adults in public.  The more we put up with them, the meaner and more entitled they’ll get.

I maintain that nice people should trump mean people.  Everywhere.  In everything.

Bring it on.  Tell us why you’re the exception.

You know.  Those people, places, events, and stories that EVERYBODY knows?

Or, rather, these days, knew. . . .

The universe is incomprehensible only to those who don’t have any imagination, and imagination is available only to those with the ability to make connections.

I’ll go a step further, so get your dukes ready to put up.

After a certain age, the ability to make connections is dependent on one’s personal choices.

Small children are prisoners in their homes, and must rely on their parents, or other adults, for their surroundings and what they’re exposed to.  Good parents, of course, make sure their children are surrounded by fairy tales, nursery rhymes, stories of all kinds, poetry, plays, lively discussion that requires knowledge and invites participation, encouragement, sharing, generosity, etc.  Poor parents set their kids in front of the TV and go about their business.

It is only by exposure to the universe that we can hope to make sense of it, and discover that sense is the least of it.

The more we know, the more we CAN know.  This requires vocabulary.

The more words we know, the more connections we can make.  The more connections we can make, the more we can understand.  The more we can understand, the more we know.  The more we know, the more we want to know.  It’s a cycle, a not-vicious circle of wonder and wit and whimsy and understanding and the wanting to understand more and more and more.

Sadly, all some people want to know is when Jerry Springer is on tonight, what’s for dinner, and who won the game.  Their children’s questions are answered with variations of “How would I know?” and “Don’t bother me; I’m exhausted.” and “Ain’t that what you go to school for?”  And worse.

We are facing a planet run by people who know nothing that isn’t literal.  They are very good (or not) at bubbling in answers, making their mark heavy and dark, but who have no idea where the planets got their names, or why William Tell shot an apple off his son’s head, or what the words “homogenized” and “pasteurized” mean on the milk carton.  Heck, tons of “educated” people couldn’t even pronounce “homogenized” or “pasteurized.”  Or read them.  Or know that the words on the outsides of our food cartons, bottles, etc, indicate what’s inside.

Or that Humpty Dumpty was far more than an egg.  Or even that he was an egg at all.

Our nursing homes (well, not mine!) will be chosen by people who speak only one language (you know, the proper one. . . .), can’t read music, don’t know the point of origin of anything, give up at once if something is difficult, don’t have anything whatsoever memorized (except the TV Guide listings), will tip the coat-check girl more than they’re willing to pay the babysitter, and think Jeopardy is boring.  The fate of the planet will soon be in the hands of people who will have to Google every simple thing because they don’t have the skills or schema to hold anything much in their heads.  They know what kind of bedroom furniture Brittney or Angelina or Lindsay have, but they couldn’t name a single living scientist.  Music consists of four chords and a lot of near-rhymes.   They know jokes about Helen Keller but they don’t know who she really was.  Or even THAT she really was.  They can’t write cursive, or read it.  And they’ve got thumbs like Popeye’s from texting 24/7 instead of paying attention to the world.  Many of them wouldn’t know who Popeye is.  Or that those big constantly tapping thumbs are “opposable.”  Or what that even means.  Of the world of inferentials, they know nothing.

This current trend of schools not requiring memorization, homework, or the actual earning of merits has got to end.  There are already far too many stupid people in the world; we don’t need any with a diploma in their hands.  A person who doesn’t earn it doesn’t deserve it.

A diploma is only for students who have proven knowledge.  A diploma is not for showing up, self-esteem, or keeping friends together.  An employer has the right to assume that a diploma represents actual earned merit, and that every holder of a diploma is literate enough to not only survive in this world but also to help others survive.  I have no problem whatsoever with holding students in a particular level until they themselves, with no outside help, prove “master enough” to earn the right to move up a notch.  Promotion is not a right; it’s the consequence for earned proof of literacy.

By not requiring that our students earn as much knowledge as possible, and by not requiring that students prove it, we are ensuring that our planet will be flushing itself down the toilet of repeated history, misunderstandings and lack of understanding, and the extolling of ignorance as the norm, instead of the shameful and easily remedied thing that it actually is.

Bring it on, youngsters.  If you have the schema to do it.

P.S.  I am not afraid of the word “stupid.”  It is NOT the same thing as “ignorant.”  We are all ignorant in many areas, but we are only stupid if we refuse to try when we have the chance.  And yes, there are an awful lot of stupid people out there.

P.P.S.  If you are not a careful reader and try to accuse me of being insensitive to special needs students, please see the above paragraph.

I worry about the future for different reasons than most people’s reasons.  I worry about the future because present generations aren’t learning about the past.

Seriously.  Our students don’t seem to have anything to make connections to, these days.  They believe ridiculous things on Facebook updates.  They don’t associate Lincoln with the Civil War.  They think the Disney versions of fairy tales are the original versions.  They don’t know that the Little Mermaid died.  They don’t know any nursery rhymes.  They can’t finish a line of poetry.  They don’t know why Paul Revere rode through the streets.  They don’t understand the difference between a comparison and a contrast.  They are uncertain about antonyms and synonyms.  Most of them have never used a thesaurus.  Some of them have never heard of a thesaurus, and when they hear the word, they think it’s a dinosaur.  Most students think a dictionary is good only for a definition, and if they don’t know how to spell a word, they can’t find it.

I worry about a future wherein the so-called “educated” population has nothing filed away in their heads, but rely on Google to find out the simplest things.  I worry about a future that has me picturing, in my head, surgeons googling the whereabouts of the spleen with the patient on the table.  Already, we have a population that doesn’t know how to do math without a calculator.

TV shows make stupid people seem like the norm, and ignorance seem like the ideal.  Our schools are emphasizing conformity and punishing creativity.  Physical ability is trophied even while much of the population’s physical ability is atrophied.  Academic success is pretty much ignored lest some kid’s self-esteem suffer because he/she can’t do “it” as well.

Excellent work that, a generation ago, would have been put up on the wall so all could see and benefit and honor it, is now hastily shunted away because not everybody can do that well.  Kids who can’t do that well now no longer have examples of what things could be like if they worked harder, etc.  Bright, fast kids are advised to slow down, and ignorant teachers “reward” them by giving them more of the same or, even worse, relegating them to the hallway where they spend the day tutoring slow kids.

I worry about the future because people know nothing about the past these days.  I worry about the future because people are spending the present letting other people think for them.

What kind of future is in store for our children if they are not taught about the past, and encouraged to do things more than one way, and encouraged to apply and connect this with that, and that with the other?

Education is about connections.  If our students have nothing in their heads, lives, or experiences, what sense can they make about anything?  How can things be relevant if there is no relativity?

I’ve had students who couldn’t follow the directions on a box of brownie mix.  Oh, they could read the directions, but they weren’t sure about teaspoons, tablespoons, and measuring cups.  Imagine.

Speaking of “imagine,”  I’ve had students who had a hard time imagining anything because imagination requires connections, too.  Image-ing is possible only with prior knowledge – schema.  How can we create the “magic” part of “i-mage-ing” unless we know as much as possible about as many things as possible?

The more schema we can bring to the table, the more connections we’re able to make.  The more connections we make, the more we can understand.  The more we understand, the more we learn.  The more we learn, the more we know.  The more we know, the better able we are to cope and improve the universe.  Not to even mention those  sofa Jeopardy wins.

As for those teachers who advocate “no memorizing, no studying, no homework, no proving knowledge or mastery, and almost total dependence on electronics,” I have only this to say.

Bullshit.  You’re all full of bullshit.

And this from Mamacita, who advocates tech so thoroughly and enthusiastically that my students who don’t use the social networking that they were told to use are left out of the announcement loop altogether.

P.S.  Dear Students:  Midterms are this week.  If you skived off class and didn’t check Twitter, Facebook, Google +, or email, you’ve got a big surprise coming.

And if you aren’t able to make connections, it won’t do you much good to show up, anyway.

I’m tired of my ankles turning because of the nuts. I’m tired of mowing over the nuts and flinging them towards someone else’s yard.

Everywhere I turn, it’s nuts, nuts, nuts.

I can’t even walk without stepping on nuts and tripping.

I’m reminded of a fall drive we once took, when the kids were small. We drove past a farm, and as usual slowed down so the kids could see the animals. In this case, pigs. Huge pigs. Huge male pigs. Huge male pigs who could hardly walk. And why, you might ask, couldn’t the huge male pigs walk around in their pen?

Same reason nobody can walk around in this yard. They kept stepping on their darn nuts.

The kids still talk about that trip. Well, not the TRIP, per se, but the sights. That one, in particular.  In fact, the kids still quote me.  I guess it IS pretty funny, what I said, but the truth was, I was flabbergasted by the sight of those huge nuts being stepped on by those huge sharp hoofs.  I’d tell you what I said, but I’m afraid you might not respect me any more if you knew.  Besides, one of my kids will probably tell you all in the comments anyway.

We used to have the same problem with balls, but that, like this, was purely seasonal.

Bring it on, Google.

1.  I still haven’t ever used an ATM machine.  Someone told me you had to put money in there to get money out.  Well, that lets me out of that one.

2.  Oprah’s off the air now, so my claim of “I’ve never watched Oprah” will stand unchallenged forever.

3.  I’m still not tired of reading and re-reading the Harry Potter books.  I find something new every time.

4.  Still not bored with listening to Jim Dale’s sexy voice reading Harry Potter – unabridged – out loud to me as I grade papers.

5.  I still won’t admit that an abridged version of any book  is anything remotely positive.  I never will – because abridgements are the devil.  Yes, THAT devil.

6.  I still can’t conceive of a teacher NOT embracing tech being of much good; refusing to keep up with the world brings students down, when a teacher’s job is to help students soar.

7.  I’m still not completely moved out of this house into the other house.  I’m living in a house with one chair, a table, a few appliances, and a bed.  Everything else is in the new house.  We’re waiting for our mover to come down and save us from our obvious insanity.  Oh, is that politically incorrect?  If the shoe fits. . . .

8.  I still haven’t stopped believing that most euphemisms are stupid.

9.  I have not yet given up the absurd notion that nobody deserves anything he/she hasn’t earned.

10.  I haven’t changed my mind about public behavior, ie decent adults do not melt down in public, period, and people of any age who won’t/can’t behave properly in public have no right to spoil an occasion for anyone else.  Wanna fight?

Here’s Number Eleven.  Consider it a bonus.

11.  I firmly believe that if you are using someone else’s money, no matter how or why you got it, you should be prepared and willing to jump through a few hoops for it.  After all, it isn’t really yours because you didn’t earn it.  You want my money?  Cut my grass.  That the last sentence there is a near-rhyme for “kiss my ass” is a mere coincidence.

Being broke sucks.  Being broke and watching someone else buying ice cream and steak with my tax dollars sucks even harder.

I should stop going to the grocery store on weekends.

I do have a few questions for these people and for those piss poor teachers who enable them, however.  Here we go:

How can you understand the present and make sure the future is viable if you don’t know anything about the past?  Education is all about connections!

How can you understand people, things, times, and everything else if you don’t read?  Whether you’re holding an actual book in your hands and turning the paper pages with a moistened finger, or holding an actual book in your hands and turning the on-screen pages with a swipe of a (hopefully) dry finger, people who read know more and understand more and have more schema to bring to the table and are therefore more able to make connections between and among all kinds of diverse things which makes them smarter and more capable of surviving when the bomb drops and we’re all living in caves and fending off radiation burns, keloid scars, and the “grasshoppers” among us who never saw it coming, didn’t believe it if they DID see it coming, and figured they’d just mooch off the rest of us if it did come.  Nonreaders have only one world in which to live, and how sad is that?  It’s all about the connections!

What kind of person am I?  I am apparently a mean, selfish git who thinks people need to bone up* on everything they can get their hands on so they will be at least somewhat prepared even for the unthinkable, or for a long airplane trip, or a debate. Or Jeopardy.  Or to justify their existence. . . . .

Because, you know, there may come a time – and our lights here have been flickering on and off in this storm for an hour or so, just tonight – when we don’t HAVE access to Google, and those who don’t believe in memorizing or learning facts or making connections, etc, will find themselves clueless in a world that requires actual knowledge, not just some kind of simple willful ignorance that honestly believes a keyboard and a monitor will answer any questions they might have as they skip through life empty-headed.

These people claim that imagination and creativity will take the place of knowledge, but they don’t understand that imagination and creativity, without knowledge, have nothing to work with.  Wings are best when there are also roots to count on, and vice versa.  One without the other is pretty bland, boring, and sad.  And useless.

I’m a computer fanatic/geek/nerd myself, you know.  I am also imaginative, whimsical, and flighty to the point of absurdity.  But I have also accumulated, and continue to accumulate, enough schema that I can apply it to life in general and understand that to be one-sided, or even merely two-sided, isn’t enough.  In order to get the most out of life, we need to be multi-faceted.  To be otherwise is to render oneself pretty much useless, boring, outdated, and, not to mince any more words, pathetic.

L.M. Montgomery, who is one of my favorite authors, summed it up beautifully in A Tangled Web:

“Why,Mother? What can you say against him?”

“There’s nothing in him,” said Mrs Howard feebly. She thought it rather a poor reason, not realizing that she was actually uttering the most serious indictment in the world.

==

There is so much wonder and whimsy out there,  and so many awesome things waiting to be found out by us, and everybody can have a shot at them.  Why do so many people choose not to even try?  And what good are such people, anyway?

The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car… a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little.  – Ben Sweetland

==

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. – Eden Philpotts

==

*  Heh, she said “bone.”

Your kid is raised. Stop raising him. If he’s still an immature weenie, let life hand him/her some consequences. It’s about time somebody did.

Love, Professor MeanJane

P.S. Your kid is nineteen years old and still can’t remember to bring a pencil to school. And no, he can’t borrow mine.  There are no soul-sucking “community school supplies” at this level.   If he wants a grade on a test, he can go down to the bookstore and invest in a two-dollar collegiate-licensed pencil. Yes, they are too expensive and yes, it’s ridiculous. At Target he can get a whole package for a dollar, but then he’d have to remember to bring one to class.

You are not allowing your kid to grow up, and he doesn’t have what it takes to do so himself. This is your fault. Back off. Let him struggle and fail, and then perhaps he will struggle and succeed. No, this is NOT being cruel. Cruelty is keeping your kid a kid too long, and doing all the work for him. Step back and don’t give in when he comes crying to you about how hard life is.

This is one of many reasons why I am a firm believer in mixed-age classes. At this level, I’ll have students from 17 to 80 in one room, and each has something invaluable to give to the other. I think every kid needs at least one adult who is not responsible for raising him/her, and I think every adult needs to be around kids for whom they are not responsible for raising.

Something else that’s wonderful?   We don’t really have many discipline problems at this level, and if we do, the student is escorted out of the building immediately. As such students should be at ALL levels, so our nice hardworking kids might be able to climb higher and see farther and accomplish much more, without being constantly albatrossed by discipline problems that are allowed to get worse each year by spineless administrators and parents who can’t see beyond their own child.

Remember Helen Keller, who had to be removed from her doting parents’ home in order to be educated properly, because her parents were so sorry for her that they gave in to her every whim and turned her into a smelly obnoxious beast who demanded her own way and got it in every situation. Poor little Helen, let her have it; she’s been denied so much! Annie Sullivan, however, knew better. Why can’t modern parents and administrators see it?

(Helen Keller has been in the top five of my top ten “most admired people” list since I was a small child. )

I am a firm believer in playing my best with the hand I’m dealt, but that only works when there are 52 cards to be dealt. Add “just a few more,” and the rules are changed, and it becomes a different game.

Life is good. Dig it.

And when life isn’t good, dig it anyway. If you keep digging, you’ll strike gold eventually.

Chaperone for free. That was me.

At this dance, some of the boys came up to the principal and told her that one of the toilets in the boy’s bathroom was stopped up and when it was flushed, it turned into Mt. Vesuvius.

The principal turned to me and told me to go in there and fix it.

You see, our janitor was a man of principle and did not do toilets. Or vomit. We used to wonder what he did with all that time he saved by not doing his job, but there was a tv in the janitor’s workroom that was always blaring so we assumed he was watching educational videos about plumbing and stuff.  We knew he must be in there because his other pasttime whilst on the job was shooting baskets in the gym, and that darn pesky dance had usurped the gym.

I knocked on the restroom door, got no answer, opened it a crack and called out a warning, and walked in.

The offending toilet was the one on the end, and when I took a good look I instantly realized it was stopped up and overflowing like Mt. Vesuvius. Oh wait, that was what the boys had already told us. Well, they were right.

I sent the boys to ask for a plunger, but they couldn’t find the janitor. We figured he was watching the tv in the janitor’s workroom down on the elementary floor so nobody could find him and make him do his job so the noise wouldn’t bother anybody at the dance, but nobody would answer the door when we knocked, at either workroom.

Back to me.

The principal now tells me that if I don’t get that toilet unclogged soon, it will flood the hall and we’ll have to send the kids home early from the dance, which was not possible as they were all dependent on their parents for rides, and all the parents were all at Wendy’s, celebrating three hours of freedom, and wouldn’t take kindly to cutting it short because some kid (not theirs) laid a loaf in the can.

I was told to unclog that toilet in whatever way I could.

Cut to the next scene, where Mamacita is kneeling on the sticky floor beside a toilet in a junior high boy’s bathroom, with her hand stuck in the hole up to her elbow, wiggling her fingers to help disperse the, uh, cloggage. My audience was large and ever-growing. Several boys told me it was the coolest thing they’d ever seen. Yes, I like to impress my students with bathroom humor.

Listen, I wouldn’t do that in my OWN bathroom, but I had to do it in a nasty junior high boy’s restroom during a dance. I will never be able to hear “Sk8r Boi” without thinking of that moment.

I got ‘er done. I flushed. Mt. Vesuvius was gone.

I stood at the sink and washed my arm over and over and over.  Then I mopped up the bathroom floor and the hallway with a mop made of a wad of paper towels on the end of my arm.

Nothing could happen now to make this night worse, I took comfort in thinking.

On the way home, a tire came off the truck and rolled down the hill.

Hark! Do I hear music in the distance?

“He was a sk8er boi she said see ya later boi. He wasn’t good enough for her. . . .”

The tow truck would have gotten there sooner had it not been for all the ice on the roads.

When I got home I stood in the shower for about three hours. I haven’t bitten my fingernails since that night.

I kind of expected the principal to, you know, THANK me for doing that, but I suppose “it took you long enough” will have to suffice.